B In English this letter is a bilabial plosive, which isn't as interesting
as a bilabial implosive.
BABY (Remarque:Dockweiler) A Ford auto acquired by the Futurians about the
time the Ivory Tower was established, and disposed of late in 1939;
apparently it was owned by them communally. Notable for its minuteness
(Dockweiler had to put his head out the window when driving) it made umpteen
trips to move the stuff from Futurian House.
BACOVER is applied to the back cover of magazines, not books. In the proz
they're full of Carnu ads or plugs for the Linguaphone Institute --
and sometimes ads for magic, trusses, canopeners and gas-saving gadgets -- but
in fanzines are often decorated with cartoons, poems, and Eavesdroppings. In
its current incarnation this practice seems to have been begun by Art Rapp,
who added to SPACEWARP's bacovers poems addressed to the postmen who delivered
that illustrious mag.
BALCONY INSURGENTS A bunch of hecklers at the NYCon II, ex their exclusion
from the balcony during the banquet with its speeches and
the location from which they later jeered the business session. Included
Tucker, Raeburn, J&dYoung, Dick Eney, Ron Ellik, Ted White, Larry Stark, and
Richalex Kirs, most of whom wrote conreports later in which the banquet-
exclusion act was denounced as wicked barbarous and against ghod.
BALLARD CHRONICLES (Lee Jacobs) Tales of SAPS in parody-pulpstyle, featuring
Wrai Ballard as the Resourceful Hero and other SAPS in
characteristic supporting roles. First chronicle was a Spillaneish "Wrai
Ballard, Private Eye", while the second featured "Six-Gun Ballard, the
Musquite Kid". SAPS got a kick out of them while they lasted, and adopted
nicknames from them with glee ("sweet unspoiled Miss Nanshare", "Dude Jawn
Davis", etc). It's all a part of SAPS' private joke-world.
BALLARD CODE FOR FAN FEUDS Lee Hoffman reprinted, while the Bradley-Laney
censorship fracas was going on, a condensation of
The Code of Honor, a set of genuine old-Southern rules of duelling.
Wrai Ballard revised this for fan use, laying down such complicated rules that
it was practically impossible to offend anyone under the Ballard Code.
WALLY BALLOO (Bob&Ray) Dave Ish explains: "Wally Balloo is a representation
of the typical Seventh Fandom member. Wally edits a fine fan
magazine [this was not a typical characteristiic] smokes a pipe, writes
fannish articles and fiction -- some good, some bad -- dabbles a bit in
artwork, reads MAD [and] an occasional prozine, and generally fills the bill
for the average Seventh Fandomists... Wally Balloo is a composite of all
Seventh Fandom big-wigs so you'll never know just which seventh fandomite is
responsible for which Balloo article. If there ever was a focal point of
Seventh Fandom, Wally Balloo is it." (SOL IX).
BAQUOTE A quote on the bacover, nacherly. Eavesdroppings.
BARBARIAN INVASION With the increases in the number of prozines which occur
intermittently -- just before and a few years after World War II, and just
after the Korean War hostilities -- a flood of new fans enter
fandom and cause a revival of interest in the proz. The activity of the
Triumvirs in the Second Transition brought in the first of these rushes; many
of its elements, like Harry Warner jr, remained and became actifans. This was
the Barbarian Invasion; the later ones are rarely so called.
BARRACKS-BAG PRESS Art Rapp's mimeo, because it can be and has been broken
down to be carried in that container. In fact, Art was
doing just that at the time of the Greenlease kidnapping, and had horrid
visions of trying to explain to the police that what he had in that bulgy bag
was actually a mimeograph and not ransom money.
BASIC STFANTASY LIBRARY is something over which much bibliophilic debate has
been expended. It is usually thought of as something
to which you could point and explain to an outsider "-that's what science-
fiction and fantasy is like"-. The obvious question here is whether an
historic or introductory survey of the field is more desirable; the latter
wouldn't explain where we came from, yet the former would require the neophyte
to wade thru several volumes of appalling crud at the very beginning. A
questionnaire to several leading fannish bibliophiles produces the following
set of suggestions for a nuclear library of science-fiction and fantasy:
Historically important background: Science-Fantasy:
Poe: Collected Works DeCamp: Lest Darkness Fall
Verne: From the Earth to the Moon ACClarke: The City and the Stars
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea EFRussell: Sinister Barrier
Haggard: King Solomon's Mines Aldous Huxley: Brave New World
She George Orwell: 1984
Burroughs: Warlord of Mars trilogy S Fowler Wright: The World Below
Gernsback: Ralph 124C41+ L Ron Hubbard: Final Blackout
Wells: Seven Famous Novels Ted Sturgeon: More Than Human
John Taine: The Gold Tooth
Science-Fiction: Stapledon: Last and First Men
Doyle: The Lost World The Starmaker
EESmith: Spacehounds of IPC
JWCampbell: The Mightiest Machine Fantasy:
Stanley Weinbaum: A Martian Odyssey Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland
AE vanVogt: Slan Through the Looking Glass
George O Smith: Venus Equilateral Talbot Mundy: The Nine Unknown
Healy & McComas: Adventures in Merritt: The Ship of Ishtar
Time & space Cabell: Jurgen
Asimov: I, Robot Machen: Tales of Horror and the
The Foundation trilogy Supernatural
Heinlein: The Man Who Sold The Moon Lovecraft: The Outsider & Others
ACClarke: Prelude to Space Collier: Fancies and Goodnights
Bester: The Demolished Man Graves: Hercules, My Shipmate
Clement: Mission of Gravity Howard: the Conan Saga
Herbert: The Dragon in the Sea DeCamp & Pratt: Incomplete Enchanter
Pratt: The Blue Star
Non-fiction: Lieber: Conjure Wife
The Books of Charles Fort Tolkein: The Lord of the Rings
DeCamp: Science Fiction Handbook CASmith: Out of Space & Time
damon knight: In Search of Wonder MRJames: Collected Stories
Also useful would be a few checklists of proz and books, like Dan Day's or
Bleiler's, even tho all published checklists are overpriced to the point of
felony. Have fun with your studies or recruiting or whatever you're up to.
THE BAT (Tucker) Nickname tacked onto Riva Smiley, prominent Detroit fan, at
the NOLaCon. She had insisted on playing in Tucker poker games
despite the fact that her presence was not desired; the name first appeared in
SF NEWSLETTER shortly after the fans got home from New Orleans. As a poker
player, incidentally, she's pretty good.
BATCHEON A spry beast ("quick like a batcheon") of obscure taxonomy, reported
by Royal H. Drummond from Seattle and rarely by other fans at
conclaves and conventions. It is often afflicted, If that's the word, with
Blossings.
BAT-EARED MONSTER Burbee's term for Rotsler drawings like the one on the
right. [Not shown]
BENJAMIN BATHURST (Fort:Piper) On the morning of 25 November 1809, Benjamin
Bathurst, a British diplomatic agent in Austria, was having
his carriage harnessed up; "he walked around the horses" to the other side --
out of the line of sight of a few witnesses -- and was never seen again. This
happening is now (since H. Beam Piper used it in the story of quoted title) a
Fortean event practically on a par with the Marie Celeste in renown, and
indeed is almost a classic example of a Fortean happening: a well-
authenticated inexplicable occurrence whose superficial explanation
(kidnapping by French agents) breaks down on the fact that there is no
evidence any such abduction ever was carried out.
BATTLE CREEK PLAN See Interregnum.
BAWDY BRIGADE (Jacobs) The feminine members of SAPS, on account of their
contempt for the sensitivities of males in matters of language.
Especially males like Post Office Inspectors.
BAY AREA The San Francisco Bay area, like Washington DC, has supported
various fan clubs with no mutual connections.
Just before the Korean War the Golden Gate Futurian Society was in
existence; it consisted, first, of Kepner, Mel Brown, Bill Knapheide, Donald
Moore, D Bruce Berry and others, a motley crew. This was a science fiction
club pure and simple; in '51-'52 all but Knapheide disappeared and the ACC
group took it over. "We couldn't run a really good stf-centered club",
confesses Carr, but they didn't really want to; they wanted a faaanish one.
Eventually the club got so very fannish that the meetings were set up as one-
shot sessions only, but this brought on the folding of the club; since one-
shot sessions could be held any old time anyway, a club organization was
unnecessary.
In the late 40s and early 50s the Elves, Gnomes, and Little Men's
Chowder, Science Fiction, and Marching Society flourished here. (In the comic
strip "Barnaby", Mr O'Malley [the fairy godfather] belonged to the EG&LMC&M
Society.) It attracted people like the Coles, Tony Boucher, DB Moore, Thomas
Quinn, Poul and Karen Anderson, and Lloyd Eaton. At various times they
produced the fanzine Rhodomagnetic Digest (which was probably more famous than
all the GGFS publications put together), an award for pros called the
Invisible Little Man [it was a pedestal with nothing on it, but two hollow
footprints on top] and an annual convention, the SFCon. Clashes arising from
this last caused it to fade from the scene after 1954.
In recent times it has been the publishing center of "Carl Brandon",
Terry Carr, Dave Rike, Ron Ellik, Pete Graham and others, and the site of the
Tower to the Moon Built of Beer Cans.
BBB (1) Big-Bosomed Babe; the typical cover girl of the Infernal Triangle.
Or sometimes (2) Birch Bark Bible, the Holy Writings of the Rosconians.
BEACON The celebration of Irish Fandom during Bea Mahaffey's visit in
Ireland before the Coroncon.
BEANIE BRIGADE The segment of fandom that acts, at cons, like all the fugg-
headed teenagers that ever lived, thereby lending those
gatherings some of their disenchantment. Distinguished by its costume
(theoretically including a zapgun and helicopter beanie, hence the name) and
its preference for collecting a mundane audience in preparation for its feats.
It was first pilloried by Bob Bloch, who commented that it did fandom harm to
publicize the screwball-adolescent fringe, and pointed to the Cinvention
photos of "an army of goons wearing beanies, false beards, and Buck Rogers
blasters". Actually, he may have been referring to an eminent and mannerly
Fan of Distinction, Art Rapp, who wore a large fake beard and George Young's
helicopter beanie. The large MSFS delegation Rapp led could quite easily have
been confused with an army, says DeVore.
BEARDS Worn by the most extreme members of the Beanie Brigade - that is,
false beards; the real articles are the pride of some of the
most distinguished and dignified stnists like Ted Sturgeon, Ken Bulmer, Vin¢
Clarke and Andy Young.
BEARDMUTTERING The thing over on the right is heredeepdowninthegrave
a beardmuttering; we will let underthesodandloam
you analyze the characteristics of damon underthetreesandflowers
knight's invention. underthecloudsandsky
iswhereiam
BEATLEY'S The popular Ohio resort hotel on gee,iwonderifimdead
Indian Lake; scene of the MidWestCons - damon knight
till things got too 7th-Fandomlike for the
Beatleys to stand. Randy Garrett is credited with the byname, "Beastley's on
the Bayou".
BEDSHEET A prozine size; 9x12. At various times Amazing, Wonder, Fantastic
Adventures, ASF and Unknown Worlds attempted this size. The two
latter, at least, were cut down by wartime paper shortage, and possibly by the
keening of collectors who found these dimensions accident-prone.
B(H)EER No less important to fannish than mundane drinking, this useful
beverage is even given divine honors by the sect of Beeros and
worshipped as either Beer or Bheer. (The latter substance is also used in
celebrating certain mysteries of the Ghuist religion.) Roscoe approves of beer.
True Beeros, however, believe that "Beer is the Only True Ghod", advancing in
evidence the fact that given enough beer one wants nothing more. But scoffers
point out that with money one can buy beer.
BEERFANDOM No, not fans who drink beer. Art Rapp founded and Detroiters
continued this group of connoisseurs of the labels on bheer bottles.
The goal of the beerfan is to illustrate an APAzine with beer labels provided by
his personal consumption during the period of publication; APAs require all
copies of a magazine submitted to them to be identical, which adds a touch of
business to the pleasure. Rapp has presented drawings of odd or local brand
labels as a beerfannish activity.
BELFAST TRIANGLE The fans of Northern Ireland back when Walt Willis, Bob
Shaw, and James White were the only ones.
BEM (Alger) Initialese for that stock stfnal character, the Bug Eyed
Monster, Symbolic of the "middle period" [starting about 1937] and juvenile
type of magazine stf, which stirs up the emotions more than the intellect,
performs simple transmutations of known and unknown, and makes few concessions to
plausibility. Coined indirectly in the August 1939 TWS, when Martin Alger
parodied the alphabet organizations of the Staple War by announcing the formation
of the Society For Prevention Of Bug Eyed Monsters On The Covers Of Science
Fiction Publications and later, January '41, had a letter published which first
refers to the cover-critturs as BEMs. It became the first piece of strictly fan
slang to get into a mundane dictionary when Funk & Wagnalls included this
valuable word, defining it as "various abhorrent monsters, such as are found in
science-fiction".
EARLE K BERGEY Distinguished drawer (not "artist") of BBBs for the covers of
the Standard Twins in the 40s. With the new decade he ventured
into art and produced some admirable covers, but the strain of doing without his
Infernal Triangle apparently did the poor man in. Parenthetically, Bergey was
somewhat unfairly identified with the guy-gal-goon (aka fem-bem-bum or bem-bum-
beauty) trinity, for actually he only continued the tradition founded by his
predecessor at Standard, HW Brown. The Bergey Beauty (noted for not needing a
spacesuit tho out in the void with her well-clad boyfriend) was conspicuous by
reason of her skin-tight clothing and gravity-defying, er, charms, a tribute no
less to the imagination than the idealism of their creator. Actual purpose of
this costume was to boost sales of the Standard Twins, tho some ribald fans
claimed that the BEM-hero combat ever imminent in the Infernal Triangle cover
provided the reason; the battlers were being shown more of what they were
fighting for.
BERKELEY BHOYS Roughly the group that put out FANAC and its companion mags;
Terry Carr, Ron Ellik, "Carl Brandon", Dave Rike, Pete Graham.
BFS/BFL The British Fantasy Society and, later, - Library. The SFA, former
head organization in Great Britain, suspended activities for the
duration when World War II began, but there continued to be considerable activity
in British fandom, and neofans entered who had never heard of the SFA. "When
it seemed that the star of fantasy was on the wane, a champion arose in Mike
Rosenblum of Leeds, who formed the British Fantasy Society" as the BFL's
introductory leaflet violetly expressed it. The BFS established a library of
books and proz, managed the circulation of chain letters in specialized
fields, other chains for circulating prozines, and even cooperated in issuing
some fanzines. By such means wartime, ah, difficulties to fanac were
surmounted. The termination of hostilities found the actual work of the
society being done by only four individuals, two of whom soon gafiated to
leave Ron Holmes and Nigel Lindsay as the Last Fans in England. They wound
the Society up -- or, more correctly, combined its library and chain letters
into the British Fantasy Library, "perhaps the last struggling effort of
organized Fantasy Activity in England; or the first brick of a new structure".
Happily, it was the latter; Ken Slater began publishing Operation Fantast in
September of 1947; the SFS was founded at the Whitcon in May 1948, and BFL
became perceptibly moribund in July 1948, when Ron Holmes was forced into
gafia by personal affairs. Another BFS was formed in October 1948 with four
subdivisions (London, Northern, Midlands, Southern) and a plan for a regularly
appearing OO, British Fantasy News. But this attempted revival came to
nothing, the SFS and Operation Fantast having gotten into the field first.
BIAPAN A member of two APAs; a fanzine appearing in two APAs.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Part of completism is the desire to have a complete list of all
fantasy that has ever been produced in any form, despite the
extreme difficulty of defining fantasy exactly. Much valuable spadework has
been done, in listings of fantasy stories in mundane magazines, fantasy in the
films, scientificomics, indexes to the proz, etc, but none of these has been
complete even in its own restricted field, and the master project remains for
the future. Worth noticing here are the Swisher-Evans-Pavlat fanzine
checklist; Evans' work with the Munsey files; the checklists and indexes of
Don Day and Everett Bleiler; and some work on the off-base fringes of the pulp
field by Bill Austin. The task of compiling fantasy books alone is such a big
job that proposals have been made to make it a cooperative enterprise of all
interested bibliophiles in fandom. Tony Boucher in July 1944 called for a
centralization of fantasy bibliographic work, to be run by a chief
bibliographer "who would live surrounded by card-indexes". Other fans would
specialize and submit their stuff to the central office, and the product would
eventually be published as The Great Bibliography.
GUS BICKERSTAFF (Vin› Clarke) "Not to know Bickerstaff is tantamount to
being unaware of the number of beans required to make five",
says Paul Enever plonkingly. "Everyone at the White Horse knows Bickerstaff.
Is he not the gentleman due to buy a round whenever no one else is willing?
It is Bickerstaff who botches the interior illos, who puts the psoriasis
adverts alongside the feature story title, who axes all the most interesting
shorts from the BREs. For years Bickerstaff has been responsible for the
regular nonappearance of our favorite zines. Bickerstaff beats us to that
priceless copy of a mint V1N1 Amz offered in all the obscurest second-hand
bookshops -- and beats us only by the shortest of heads. Bickerstaff waylays
the postman and extracts the urgent letter our correspondent assures us he
posted. Bickerstaff is the patron saint of strikeovers and obliterine.
Bickerstaff is omniscient and omnipresent."
BIG POND, the Atlantic Ocean, hence
BIG POND FUND, the movement to bring Ted Carnell to an American convention --
originally the '47 PhilCon I, tho he actually didn't make it
till the CinVention. Milt Rothman, PhilCon chairman, was the fund chairman
too, tho Ackerman (who had kicked off the notion in the October '46 Shaggy)
collected the geld. The idea was revived in effect in Shelby Vick's WAW with
the Crew campaign.
BIG THREE The most important stfsy pros. Amazing Stories, Astounding Stories
and Wonder Stories up to the early 40s; so called because for years
they were the only prozines there were except for short-lived things like
Flash Gordon, Miracle Science and Fantasy Stories, and Fanciful Tales. (Not
counting Weird Tales, which wasn't science fiction.) From that time to about
1944 Astounding, FFM, and Unknown; after that till 1950, Astounding, FFM/FN,
and the Standard Twins; thereafter and until the present Astounding, Galaxy
and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science-Fiction.
BIG HEARTED HOWARD Howard DeVore, of Detroit. Don't let the name fool you.
BIOGRAPHIES of pros have been popular since the very first fanzine. In
Second Fandom, biographies of fans became popular, and who's whos
of fandom appeared; a little later came autoanalyses. The biographies may
give date and place of birth and physical characteristics, but for the most
part are given over to the fan's entrance into and career in fandom, and his
taste in proz, fanzines, fans, etc, to the virtual exclusion of information
about his schooling, family background, jobs, ktp, which would be useful in
understanding the person.
BIRDBATH (Ellison) A catchphrase and symbol of Seventh Fandom, used as a
motto or to stand in place of any convenient part of speech. Its
symbolism should be obvious to anybody familiar with Freud, being the lingam
combined with the yoni. In 1952-53 Harlan Ellison took a bright red birdbath
to Beatley's for the MidWestCons there; Birdbath Press was a random
publishing-house name used, apparently only by Ellison, while the Bb was being
plugged as 7th Fandom's symbol.
BIS The British Interplanetary Society, founded in 1933 by PE Cleator and Les
Johnson of Liverpool. Partly because of a British law hampering actual
rocket-fuel experimentation (the Munitions Act of 1875 [!!!] and partly
because more of its leadership came from among the stfnists the BIS, unlike
the ARS, kept its eye set on the conquest of space, attacking such problems as
the oxygen supply, crew and personal equipment, suitable vision equipment and
landing gear, and matters of full-scale design. Their plans were given
considerable publicity in Great Britain just before World War II and it was
reported that critics were unable to demolish them. After a wartime
suspension the BIS has been revived with over 2500 members at last report
(1956). It has taken a lead in such projects as the foundation of the
International Astronautical Federation.
BISCUIT FACTORY A feature of the early days of the Manchester group was a
tour of a biscuit [cookie] factory, something much satirized
by the British funloving element.
BITCHER KNIFE Don't provoke Nancy Share to use hers on you.
BLACK Sometimes attributed to the FooFooists as a sacred color, by analogy
with the Ghuists' purple.
BLANK THOUGHT (Tucker) A short sentence which makes the strongest, if not
the most lucid, impression when presented standing alone.
There are three types. One is a passage taken out of its imaginary context,
as, "There he was on the sidewalk, selling flags". Another is the statement
meaningful in itself, often a piece of propaganda; exempla gratia "Be not
FooFooled nor Ghuguiled; Roscoe Alone is Great". Finally, there is the
utterly nonsensical bit of whimsy, like "I did not set fire to my tent!"
BLASTER A weapon of carefully unspecified nature whose name sounds more
scientific than the term ("raygun") it displaced in usage as the
standard stfnal sidearm. As with the raygun, effect and range depend solely
on the author's requirements.
BLESHINGS The word "blesh" appears in Ted Sturgeon's Baby Is Three,
being a portmanteau word combining blend with mesh --
or bleshing them, if you prefer. It survives as a closing occasionally used
in letters, probably by confusion with Blossings.
BLITZKRIEG The expression probably arose spontaneously, since the first
Blitzkriege took place in the same year that the Wehrmacht was
conducting minor counterparts in Europe. A Blitzkrieg is an extraordinary
exertion by some fen to overcome the failure of others to do their duty.
The Flushing Blitzkrieg was conducted by Milton A Rothman, acting
president of FAPA during the Interregnum. In February 1940 Rothman,
accompanied by Elmer Perdue and Cy Kornbluth, called on Taurasi, who had the
funds and Secretary-Treasurer's records from the preceding year. After a bit
of idle chitchat, Rothman says, Taurasi cracked first and volunteered the
stuff, which Milt receipted for and carried away with inward exultation.
The Philadelphia Blitzkrieg took place in July 1940. Philadelphians had
had the responsibility of getting out the June mailing but lacked interest
enough to do so. So, Speer having secured the Panzerkampfwagen, the
Washington Vigilante Three (Speer, Perdue, and Rothman) drove to the Big Slum
and looked up Bob Madle. OE Agnew, fergawdsake, was at a church institute on
the outskirts, but the four went after him and got permission for Washington
to put out the mailing and to get the material from the Agnew home. This was
done the next day, and the mailing issued soon afterward.
Perdue, who has the curious record of being in on all the FAPA Blitzes,
became a victim in the summer of 1947, when Burbee and Laney were forced to
capture the six-week-overdue mailing list from his hands and get it out. They
ran for office on a program of getting the mailings out on time with such
effect that no blitzkriege have been necessary from that day to this.
A minor flap in November 1955 deserves mention under this heading. OE-
elect Lee Jacobs resigned just before time to get the mailing out, but an
emergency committee of LA FAPA members Wilson Cox Burbee Miller and Ellik took
over and got the mailing out on time, then co-opted Ellik to fill Jacobs'
office with no disturbance to the rest of the membership.
In other organizations, something in the nature of a blitzkrieg was the
EEEvans revolution in the 1942 N3F. The N3F had entered an interregnum thru
failure to hold an election; Tripoli drafted a list of candidates
extralegally, circulated it, and got enough votes to establish a new
administration.
SAPS had a combined blitzkrieg and palace revolution at the beginning of
1955, when OE Nan Gerding withdrew and turned her post over to Walter A
Coslet. Coslet promptly issued a new set of rules (SAPS' OE has the power to
regulate the organization by fiat) so stringent that a rebellion led by Karen
Anderson threw him out; Karen seized the throne but held an election, to
legitimize things, in the next mailing.
ROBERT BLOCH The name of a vile pro. "Bloch is the Only True Ghod" was the
gospel initiated by Vernon McCain, who received the Revelation
in 1955 but, Bloch reports, was singularly lax in sacrificing any virgins.
"Bloch is Superb" is the motto of Blochists; its popularity reached horrid
heights when Dick Ellington had a rubber-stamp made with this phrase and Jack
Harness had a set of pencils blazoned with the slogan. (To date no
authenticated instances of tattooing have been uncovered.) This traces back
to a letter in which Walt Willis was supposed to have suggested making up a
rubber stamp with that legend, an obvious timesaver when commenting on any
fanzine with Bloch material in it. But Dean Grennell, checking his back
files, finds that in the original instance Willis' words were "Bloch was
brilliant. (Will you makes me a rubber stamp for this?)" All fandom could be
plunged into warr [divided into two camps, the Superbists and the
Brilliantinees] over a thing like this.
In the mythology of congoing, Bloch Korshak Esbach and Evans were an
inseparable fannish poker group; this idea was invented and popularized by Bob
Tucker in 1952.
BLOG (Liverpool Fandom) This versatile substance was discovered to fandom
-- at least, the word was -- by LiSFS, who had it stand sponsor to
their tapera, "The March of Slime". At First Kettering, the Liverpudlians,
with the bartender's cooperation, hung up a "Drink Blog" sign, without a Blog
to be drunk ("preceded by an advertising campaign with 10,000 quote-cards").
The nonexistent drink caught on; people (mundane ones) walking in from the
street inquired and at first were fobbed off ("all gone, and the next shipment
not expected in until tomorrow") tho later the barmen made up a mixture of
cider and rum to sell. Blasphemy! Meanwhile, back at the convention, Peter
Hamilton had made up the fannish Blog; a dreadful stuff (as our sketch shows),
[not shown] pale grey with Black Specks in suspension. It was brewed up of eggflip and
brandy, with bits of Tio Maria, Beecham's Powder, aspirin, benedictine, Alka-
Seltzer, black currant juice, a touch of mustard, and other things your
Larousse hardly dares imagine. Finally the word came to be used for all the
indefinable concoctions of alcohol and other things that circulate at
conventions. It could be used equally for Joy Clarke's rhubarb wine, Jack
Harness' homogenized apple pulp, or somebody's port-and-Pepsicola; there are
no specific ingredients.
BLOODY COLONIALS Us and the Canadians.
BLOODY PROVINCIALS are fans outside London, especially in the North.
BLOSSINGS Small black animals with far too many legs which infest the fur of
Batcheons. But Blossings contain egoboo; hence the fannish
expression of good will, "Blossings on thee Lulu man."
BLOWUP (Padgett: Michifen) (1) the Atomic war which will either destroy
outright our present civilization, or cause social changes so sudden
and violent that such destruction results. (2) The incident (13 November
1949) when Eugene Seger set off a bomb, made by Fred Reich, on Art Rapp's lawn
in Saginaw after an MSFS meeting. (He was cheered on by the other members,
but made the goat for the ensuing events.) The blast blew in a couple of
windows and brought police, firemen, and unwelcome notoriety. Rapp announced
his resignation from the club in MICHIFAN for 14 November 1949, and
what with one thing and another Michigan fandom, like civilization in (1), was
never the same again. (3) The civil war in Shangri-LA described under LASFS
was also given the name of Blowup, because of its shattering effect.
BLUE Properly, the color of Karen Anderson's fannish ghod, Phthalo. But Rick
Sneary declares it to pertain to his ghod: "for is not Obliterine
a lovely Foo-blue?"
BLUE AURAED FAN (Michifen) is way out, maaaan. Don Hazen, an occultist --
a screwball, that is, not an eye doctor -- claimed to see
auras on fen when he was visiting the Michigan crew. He saw one over Norman
Kossuth and Norm agreed. They decided it was blue.
BLUEPRINT Reproduction by a sort of simplified photography, without the fine
detail or graduations of shade. Blueprint paper is exposed to
light with material on a translucent sheet placed over it like a negative; the
light turns it blue in all areas not shaded. A bath in water then destroys
the paper's ability to change any further. It isn't easy, but some handsome
pieces of fan art have been produced thus.
BNF Big Name Fan. One of importance and influence in fandom; well-known and
with a solid reputation. Fans who last long enough or are active enough
eventually find that their names are known to other fen all over the country.
The status is usually achieved by participating in fannish affairs for a long
time, or publishing a top fanzine, producing quality writing and/or
illustration, or in any number of ways which keep one's name before the fans
in a responsible manner. The term must be earned; it cannot be appropriated
or purchased (Acts 8:18-21), nor conferred on yourself or your friends. When
newer fans gasp in awe on seeing you, you are a BNF. If they just gasp period
you're making progress.
BOARD The Advisory Board of the N3F, and of other proposed organizations, was
the most powerful unit in the administration, passing on nearly all
actions and suggestions. Members voted for five candidates, the one with the
highest vote becoming chairman. In theory -- official lactivity often keeping
this purely theoretical -- the chairman sent out carboncopied bulletins,
received comments and votes from the other board members, and then issued a
new bulletin summarizing these and adding new matters. It has been suggested
in some organizations that the board elect all the other officers.
BOHEMIAN A sophisticate who does not regard social conventions. To give
evidence of their revolt, Bohemians wear long hair and/or beards,
disreputably comfortable clothes, and congregate in dim dives drinking wine or
smoking exotic cigarettes; there they discuss Freud, Ginsberg, Kerouac, and
Social Consciousness. A set of Bohemian conventions arises ("...all the non-
conformists are doing it!") Various species of genus Bohemian comprise Hep,
Beat, Bop and other monosyllabic fauna. However, there is also a more genuine
disregard of inefficient customs which permits fans to dispense with the
formalities of etiquette when they merely waste time, to give out with quite
frank autoanalyses, and to utter directly such statements as, "He's just had
an emotional experience; that's why he acts that way". Various New York fans
like the Futurians and Fanarchists have given fandom its most obvious
Bohemians, tho the West Coast is well represented.
BOOK OF GHU An occasional misnomer for the Gholy Ghible, the sacred
scriptures of the Ghuist faith.
BOOKS remain books, fandom having failed to establish any nickname for
them tho hc and pb (distinguishing hardcovered and paperbacked
books) are established adjectival modifiers. Fantasy in books antedated
specialized magazine stf, and remains generally of a higher quality -- partly
due to a higher intellectual level among book readers, and partly due to the
fact that books can carry material so hot that it would ruin, by boycotts, any
periodical publishing it. Of course, many stories from the prozines have been
published in book form with changes and additions, but even here most of the
sheer crud is weeded away. Most of it, we repeat.
BOOSTER ADS give financial support on a smaller scale than angelling.
Ordinarily you just said "Congratulations to blank fanzine on its
umpteenth anniversary from Joe Fann", in a sticker-sized space, and the profit
went to help get out a big anniversary issue, or to defray the cost of some
lithoing. Later, variety was introduced into the ads, as by saying "Joe Fann
loves Tucker's wife" or Gertie Carr or whomever he wanted to love. And in
some cases -- especially for official convention program booklets -- display-
sized space may be paid for, for greetings from some angelfan or prozine.
BOPTALK If you dig bopster and all that jazz you won't come on so square,
man. Zorch, slith, and other more or less meaningful words creep
into fannish speech from jazz buffs' slang. Blame Jacobs, Cox, Raeburn, and
the other cool cats, mostly.
MORGAN BOTTS One of the leading figures of the fan world in the last half of
the Twentieth Century, and later a BNF of post-Blowup fandom,
according to the way he tells it in 2000 AD. Central character in an
immensely popular fan fiction series by Art Rapp. The Morgan Botts
Foundation, however, is a Detroitfan chatter and bheer group.
BRACKETS Perhaps nowhere have fans shown more varied ingenuity than in
simulating brackets with only the resources of the typer keyboard.
Some, 'tis true, draw them in afterwards [like Swisher] but most fans use the
keys, which is more convenient. Tucker and others employ double parentheses
a half space apart ((apart)), while Speer sometimes uses -(Gregg shorthand
parentheses)-. Youd's /brackets with underlining/ made with the virgule
have been the most popular, tho the underlining is frequently dispensed with
-- or mutated; Mirta Forsto used tildes for underlining. /These/ are similar
~~~~~~
to Youd's. Eney and some others use the -/crossed slant-bar/-. The purpose
of brackets is to distinguish ordinary parentheses by the writer from
editorial comments such as [nuts! -ed] inserted in the body of a letter
or article. Ray Bradbury tried an unsuccessful mutation in simply making his
comments ALL-CAP.
[LATER: HTML proved refractory when trying to duplicate mechanical typescript here.]
RAY BRADBURY One of the more distinguished fans-turned-pro, had made a
reasonably good name for himself in fanzine work before
America's entry into World War II, tho his neoish characteristics were not
loveable. But, crashing the pros, he began to turn out fantasy and science-
fantasy which, tho in a quasi-mystical style not representative of the best
modern SF, gained much praise and popularity in the late 40s and early 50s
either in spite of or because of its close resemblance to modern "arty"
writing. (During this period of Fifth Fandom we were undergoing all sorts of
soulsearching about stf not being Literature, and welcomed a Real Artistic
Writer.) From this output derived Bradburyism as a descriptive of the
gentleman's attitude toward the world; it's merely another department of that
Anti-Materialist cult which keens over the grave of home handicrafts and
proclaims the Evil of dirty old mechanistic science's trampling on Higher
Spiritual Values.
BRAIN TRUST (Speer) A group chiefly marked by its discussions, in FAPA, of
all manner of weighty questions. Its members represented most
strongly the forces of Third Fandom, and as a party -- tho never so recognized
-- came into control in the Interregnum. Its members included such illuminati
as Speer, Rothman, Warner, Stanley, the Ashleys, Perdue, DB Thompson, Lynn
Bridges, and Chan Davis. A number of them had relevant specialties -- Rothman
in physics, Speer in American cultural history, etc -- but at the same time
all had a catholicity of interests and did not hesitate to question
authorities in any field. They established a tendency toward heavy discussion
in the mailing comment sections of FAPAzines which is honored to this day;
FAPAtes who maintain this tradition conspicuously are often still referred to
as brain-trusters.
CARL JOSHUA BRANDON The name of a reputed Berkeley fan for several years; a
Bay Area fandom hoax up until the SoLACon, and after that
a sort of house name for Berkeley Fandom. Carl's first name appeared in a
letter, February 1953, but he did not really become an actifan till the middle
of 1956. From that time up to the revelation of the hoax during the SoLACon
he was one of the most popular writers in fandom. (His specialty, rather
appropriately, was parody.) About 75% of Brandon was the work of Terry Carr,
with Rike, Graham, Ellik and Stewart seconding him or using the name
independently from time to time. A mythos gradually was built up; Carl was a
Negro, a Moldy Fig [traditionalist jazz fan] in musical tastes, ktp. In 1958,
Carl even established a false identity for himself (!!) as "Norman Sanfield
Harris" a sercon-fuggheaded type. And when the gaff was blown Carl was well
ahead in the voting race for FAPA OE, after having been drafted to serve as OA
of the Cult.
Comparison with the Joan Carr and John A Bristol hoaxes gives Carl
Brandon honors for the most successful hoax of all fan history; neither of the
others successfully ran for office in a national/international fan group;
Bristol, tho living in fanhabited territory, was not notably active; JoCa, tho
hyperactive as a writer and publisher, "lived" in the Middle East (with the
British forces there). Brandonhaus [he used the addresses of inactive local
fans] was located in a very hotbed of actifandom and specialized in crifanac,
yet the hoax remained unrevealed for over two years.
There actually was a Carl Brandon at one time; a small black cat owned by
Pete Graham. He died, and Pete got another cat named Josh Brandon.
BRAVE NEW WORLD (Huxley) A cacotopia; a utopia in which the pictured culture
is an undesirable one.
BRE During and just after World War II, when shipping space couldn't be
wasted on prozines, American magazines sometimes published British
Reprint Editions in the Isles. They were on cheaper and lighter paper, and
always managed to leave out the best stories from the original editions. Some
are still published, apparently for reasons connected with mundane
restrictions on exchange and so forth... in fact, the BRE of SF Adventures is
still being published (1959) even tho the US original has folded.
JOHN A BRISTOL A permutation of the name of John Bristol Speer, with "speir"
translated to its Scottish meaning "ask". Tho suggested while
Speer was in Oklahoma City, the hoax was not undertaken till the fall of '38
when he moved from one address in Washington DC to another, and gave the new
address as Bristol's, keeping the former one himself and having the Post
Office readdress mail coming to him. By giving Bristol a full background of
life, easing him in gradually and taking great care to have him speak like a
neofan and use a style of writing and grammar quite different from his own,
Speer got him generally accepted as a new fan, who presently met Speer and
associated with him. Wollheim, who knew from old time that Speer's middle
name was Bristol, thought it was his father's before him and communicated his
suspicions to the other Futurians -- despite which Lowndes says he was
inclined to believe his correspondent Bristol was not Speer. Rothman was Told
All when he moved to Washington, and the mask was finally dropped at the NYCon
I. (An article, however, had to call attention to this; Speer wore a "John
Bristol" nametag, but those who knew him didn't look at it and those who'd
never seen him before took the thing at its face value.) "Bristol"
occasionally received mail for years after the exposure, and is still
sometimes used as a pename -- most notably on the original Fancyclopedia.
BROAD MENTAL HORIZONS Something fans have, along with cosmic concepts, a
sensitive fannish face, and sometimes slan tendrils or
a third eye. One with any or all of these attributes is undoubtlessly star-
begotten. Margaret St Clair credited us with this characteristic in an
article in a '48 Writers' Digest.
BSAW Hal Shapiro formed the Bachelors' Stf Association of the World,
"Fandom's only fun organization", in 1951. (It recruited about 85
members before merging with TLMA in the summer of 1952.) The membership,
despite the name, included femmes and married men. Shapiro issued a bulletin
or two and wrote many propagandistic articles about the club for various
fanzines, but never revealed a plan or a purpose, tho he said the club was
"-something for which fandom has long had a need"-. At one time he privately
stated that BSAW was a genial hoax on fan organizations in general.
BSFA British Science-Fiction Association, a newly-formed organization (Easter
1958) meant to organize and recruit in British fandom. It put on a
successful con at Birmingham in 1959. An official organ, fairly regular, and
a number of valuable activities are planned, but little data is yet to hand.
BUILT LIKE A GORILLA Femmefans are supposed to prefer this sort of physique,
rare among sedentary types like us. Wrai Ballard is
rumored to possess the qualifications, as Art Widner did of old, and Willis
points out that Tucker has at least one: his knuckles brush the ground when he
walks...
BURLESQUES A broad form of satire. In fandom, they are usually based on some
famous series of stories in proz or fanzines, or concern
characters and situations typically found in hack stf: BEMs, PSDs, Great
Scientists, muscular supermen, etc. Or they may be "fannish translations" of
mundane stories/conventions. Typical of the former class are "The Frolic
Apace", by Edward Elmer Campbell, in which the characters make long scientific
explanations to each other and end by confessing that they don't know how it
works; and "Legion of Legions", in which the hero's iron fortitude
supplies the missing magnetic element for the cackle-cackle machine that saves
the earth. In the latter group are things like the Ballard Chronicles and "My
Fair Femmefan", in which Eliza Doolittle is rescued from N3F membership and
taught to be a trufan.
BURNED OUT Sort of a synonym for gafia, brought on when a fan takes on more
obligations than he can handle and withdraws from fandom, his
enthusiasm boiled dry.
Updated January 8, 1999. If you have a comment or question about these Web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.