"My advice to you," he said, "you cringing neofan without the courage of any Seventh fan-ed, is to sit down at that new typer of yours, drink a glass of whiskey, beat on your breast a few times, and write the first 2000 words that come into your head about the things you dislike most in sf and fandom."
This is typical Willis cunning. He knows perfectly well that my Dad runs the local Temperance Guild, and he deliberately omits to mention which breast I should beat..... still, if that's the way 'Harps' get written, I'm quite willing to have a go. I shall beat both breasts, but if I finish up as an Alcoholic Fanonymous, remember it was Willis who made a fannish martyr out of me.
I don't really know that I can write 2000 words about my Black List. Apart from the Rev. Calvin Thomas Beck, Ed Wood, Eva Firestone, Derek Pickles, Brian Burgess, John Russell Fearn, Howard Browne, Ray Palmer, Ken BeAle, Kay Tarrant, Dr. E.E. Smith Ph.D., Bert Campbell, Dave Cohen, Howard Frobisher, Alan Henderson, G.M. Carr, Mrs. Nellie Sollieback, Richard Shaver, Micheal Spillane, Philip Duerr, (who owes me half a crown), Mr and Mrs Rog Phillips, Mr. Ziff, Mr. Davis, Vivian van Damm, Bill Venable, E.E. Evans, The Medway Mob, The Manchester Group, Capt. Slater, (when he's writing fanzine reviews), John Gunn, and the whole of Seventh Fandom en bloc, masse and in toto, ---- apart from these I think I like almost everybody else except Willis and James White.
....But I prefer I.Q.
Naturally, with even a small list like this I can't spend much time on each personality. Besides, the laws about libel and slander are far stricter in the U.K. than they are in the States.
RAP is one of my betest noires, and it's a sort of fannish custom to crucify him before getting down to the hoi-polloi. The Shaver Mystery is the usual reason -- and I see no point in getting all original and thinking up anything else. At a distance he seems quite a nice guy, but every time you pick up his zine, there he is yaking away about deros again. Sometimes I even think that he actually believes in them. The last time I read OTHER WORLDS he was carrying on about how 'he even goes to the Caves' in search of plots. He 'listens for Voices.' From RAP's usual style, I would have thought the boudoir was more of his stamping ground.
The logical thing to do here would be dismember Lemuria and Dick Shaver. The hell with it, --- I'd much rather write about somebody who's going to read my stuff afterwards. There's always a chance of goading them into Writing A Letter To The Editor.
I think Beck is on the subscription list. If not, perhaps we can send him an uncomplimentary copy. Once upon a time he used to try to impress us by calling himself The Rev Calvin Thomas Beck, but either he's been unfrocked and cast out into the wilderness, or else he's got all democratic enough to drop the handle. He writes a mediocre column for ASFO. His news is usually history, his forecasts are all..... well, incorrect. At present he's trying to peddle his brand of Xtianity to fandom, and organise an anti-Catholic crusade.
Next.
F.C. Davis once offered some valuable advice to Eva Firestone. In the letter column of "Incinerations" he said, "Eva, don't be so goddam sincere." Unfortunately, she ignored him.
Burgess..... is, I think, part of my fate. He is also a serious constructive fan, and wears a cloth cap to show that he belongs to the proletariat. He reads Good Books and political autobiographies in the intervals between prozines, and he sold me a SLANT 1 at the Boncon. Burgess is even lower than a professional bookseller. Trusting fool that I am, I believed him when he said it was a Mint Copy. I paid him 9d,--- the full cover price --- and didn't bother to examine the magazine. After all the excitementhad died down, and Bea had fled to France, I look through the mag before filing it away in my collection. There, halfway down Page 5, was the biggest, dirtiest, damn thumbprint I've yet seen. BURGESS, YOU TOLD ME THAT WAS A MINT COPY.
That's not the only reason you're on the list, though. You remember when we held the first BRE type smokefilled room in 146, (and nyaaaaaaah to the Northern Rustics who boast that their room was smokier than ours),? It was a nice sociable little crowd, and everyone was on their best behavior because Bea, Rita Krohne, and Jesse Floyd were there, and we all wanted to give them a good impression of Anglofandom. Burgess, why couldn't you make whoopee quietly with that thimblefull of sherry and water that you were sipping? Haven't you any decent fundamental instincts? Whatever possessed you to start talking about science-fiction of all things, when everyone else was happily telling dirty jokes or quietly discussing sex.
Vivian Van Damm is really only a fringe fan. He is a producer at the Windmill Theatre near Piccadilly Circus. This is a nonstop revue and burlesque house whose motto is, "We Never Closed". This refers to the way they kept open right through the blitz, when every other theatre in London closed down. One of these days the Hays Office of the theatrical world is going to push Vivian's motto right down his throat.
The piece de resistance of the current show is a scene with a fantasy bias, in which a beautiful nude virgin, (or so it says in the programme), is sacrificed to Ghueor some other pagan god. Naturally, as a Fan, I was interested in all this. It's the sort of newsy item I could use in a column somewhere. I'm not a regular patron of girlie-shows, --- especially when the admission ticket costs 14/-, ---but I thought this would be really regular fanning in just the same way as stencil cutting is, so I went.
It's a very small place. There are only about 200 seats downstairs, and the whole lot are all at the same price. The clientelle is exclusively male, and completely uninterested in conjurors, trick-cyclists or anything else except the dancing-girls. Everyone seems to suffer from astigmatism, and the management have barred telescopes and binoculars. Consequently, all of the customers are determined that they will sit in the first two rows or die in the attempt. The performances are continuous from noon to midnight, and are punctuated a glorious informal game of Musical Chairs. Climbing over the seats is strictly forbidden by another house-rule. The usual procedure is to take any seat, no matter how far back it is, just as long as it's on the aisle. Then, when somebody ahead of you leaves his seat, you quit yours and rush to take his. If you're a slow-poke, and somebody beats you to it, you find that somebody even farther back has taken your original seat, and you get stuck in the centre, and have to start all over again. Also, the other customers and even the resident comedian, are liable to make crude remarks about your state of health.
(You may ask what all this has to do with SF. That would be a very pertinent question, and one that I would rather not answer. I can only suggest that if you are really more interested in science fiction than in girlie shows, you ask Willis for your ninepence back, and take Operation Fantast or some other high-class fanzine in the future.)
I got the third row in 20 minutes, polished my glasses and settled down to watch the show. It was all unfannish stuff, -- just dancing, and living statues, but I stayed awake because I didn't want to miss the sacrifice thing.
It was a swindle.
This blonde girl was spread-eagled on the alter in front of a volcano whilst a gang of wenches wearing G-strings and great big smiles danced a Polynesian fertility rite. The High Priest was in the centre of them doing a sort of sword dance with an Army surplus machete. After about five minutes of this stuff, the orchestra hotted it up, and the Priest bloke started waving his chopper over the blonde. This was really something, --- she looked as scared as a Bergey cover girl, and you could see that any minute now he was going to chop her open right down the middle. He began spinning around as if he was the late H.G. Wells finding out about Astron Del Martia, and throwing the blade in the air. He always managed to catch it just before it went in the girl's tummy, but it was pretty exciting. The orchestra cut out except for a long low rumble on the drums -- all the other girls fell down, the priest grabbed hold of the machete and very slowly raised it above his head. He gets right up on his toes and then, just as the dissection should get started, Vivian Van Damm brings down the curtain. I tell you, I was never so disappointed in all my life. Damn you too Van Damm.
I tell you, Varley is a man to be feared.
Lots of the other people on my list aren't worth talking about. It just isn't worth re-hashing Spillane or complaining about the way Doc Smith's heroines remain so irritatingly chaste throughout the whole eight volumes. But briefly, Mrs. Sollieback seemed patronising, G.M. Carr likes McCarthy. Frobisher is mercenary, and Ken Slater called "Hyphen" a frothy fanzine. John Gunn had the nerve to publish an Anglofandom directory that didn't even mention me. Dave Cohen associates with Vargo Statten, and Philip Duerr never paid me for a prozine that I let him have on tick. Seventh Fandom look rediculously self-conscious in their first long trousers, and Bill Venable plagiarizes from Stephen Leacock. (Don't worry Bill, --- I disliked the original "What I know about the Cow" too.)
Willis is an egoboo maniac with delusions about putting "Hyphen" on a monthly schedule. He spends most of his time nattering about how unenthusiastic I am and if you dare criticise him, he accuses you of race prejudice. Is it my fault he's a dirty Orangeman? Occasionally he seems almost tolerable, but I have always found that the most attractive thing about him is Madeleine. In fact, Tucker, Keasler, Vin¢, and I, are starting a Madeleine Willis Fan Club. I'm afraid membership will be restricted, -- Bloch will definitely be barred. After all, --- Gentlemen prefer blondes. Walter Alexander is the exception that proves the rule.
I think that must be around 2000 words, -- the unmentionables will probably keep until next issue. If they don't,..... well, I can always review fanzines.
Before I finish though, I want to make one thing perfectly clear. I don't want you to come fawning around me, and buying me beers, just because your name isn't on the list. That is just an incomplete list. Perhaps you're one of the fuggheaded nonentities whose names escape me for the moment. Possibly I shall publish a supplement sometime...... providing I can find a publisher.
Anyone like to secede with me to found Eighth Fandom?
(data entered by Judy Bemis)
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