V - This being published in 1944, you have already heard plenty of this letter.
vampire - A man-thing who keeps alive indefinitely by sucking blood from victims; Dracula is the classic example. In the case of Dracula, the vampire human was able to change to bat or werewolf form. The vampire is identifiable by having the forefinger longer than the middle finger and by not being visible in a mirror; he can prowl only between sundown and sunup, othertime must rest in his native soil. He is killable by a wooden stake being driven thru the heart.
Vermyn Slinko - A pename giving the dirt on Philly guys in publications emanating thence. Identity has yet to be discovered. The most likely guess is Jack Agnew.
vers libre - Literature which calls itself poetry, but follows none of the rules concerning regular rhythm, alliteration, rime, or assonance. There is a certain rhythmic quality to it, such as is also found in musical prose, and it usually employs more figurative language than does prose, but the main reason for calling it poetry is that it is written in lines. Some writers put such emphasis on the appearance on the page that they write poems like this:
Wail
saxaphoneswaft
u (vapour cloud miasma ) p
(seek the absent minded star)
cling the lingering last the ling
ering
fallsweep rush
and heark the tendril
sigh.
--Lowndes
veterans - Properly, a fan who was a fan before the great barbarian invasion of late 1938 and 1939.
vice director - We refuse to guess what the duties of this officer are.
vice-president - Fan organizations have done their best to make the v-p something more than the guy who sits around waiting for the president to die.
In the FAPA, this officer was responsible for recruiting before the ranks became filled; he now is the "judiciary" of the Association. The first, and almost only, dispute between members arising under the old constitution was over the question of a Manuscript Bureau. Wollheim casting aspersions at Moskowitz while offering to appoint him to an FAPA Ms Bureau, Moskowitz in a private letter to W demanded an end to "slanderous" attacks on him and asked guaranteed cooperation of the members on the Bureau. Wollheim forwarded this with a rebuttal to the Vice-President, Dan McPhail, and requested a decision. McPhail thot about it for two days, without asking Moskowitz whether he had anything further to say or consulting anyone else, and rendered a verdict favorable to Wollheim, whose case was undoubtedly stronger. The defect here that Wollheim appealed the case and asked for what could only be an opinion with no direct effect. If Moskowitz (who didn't even know his argument was being forwarded to the v-p) had taken it to the court and asked some definite action, such as an order directing that all members cooperate with the Ms Bureau, and that derogatory material by W against SaM be excluded from the mailings, (which were not within the v-p's power), then an opinion supporting the decision made mite have been in order; as it was, the decision settled nothing. After the Interregnum, with a hazier clause to work under, the vice-presidents took to giving advisory opinions on how they would interpret the Constitution, whether or not there were members arguing both sides. The FAPA vice-president is also ex officio chairman of the Laureate Committee.
The v-p of NFFF was to have charge of the "archives", the permanent official records etc, of the Federation, which in the case of the FAPA had been passed on separately from each officer to his successor, with little accounting and frequent loss.
In other organizations, the v-p is often made head of some standing committee. The Triumvirs' New Fandom Constitution was to have several v-p's, each head of a different committee.
J Harry Vincent - Pename of James V Taurasi.
fan visits - Fans living in the same city do not correspond with each other much, but supplement meetings of local organizations with visits back and forth, foning ahead of time if they're well-bred. Visits between fans in different localities, tho they occurred from the beginning, accelerated greatly about the beginning of 1939. When it is a trip especially directed to one place, arrangements are made by mail, wire, or longdistance fone, and when there is a local in the place visited, the leaders make efforts to gather the comrades to meet the incomers. Fans simply off on a trip, like the Futurian Ambassadors, fans returning from gatherings like the Widneriders, and those passing thru inhabited towns in the course of some non-stf trip, just trust to luck to find the fans home and unoccupied when they happen to pass thru. Great hospitality is usually shown visiting fans, even when (returning from a fan gathering pretty broke) it's obvious that their primary reason for stopping is free food and bunks, and arrive in the middle of the nite. Occasional abuse of the hospitality of the brotherhood to the great inconvenience of the visitee, notably by the custodian of the Cosmic Concept, has led to recognition of a few restrictions on this; certainly more than an overnite stay calls for advance warning. A special type of fan visit is the Blitzkreig. The visit in person accomplishes some ends impossible by other means -- getting personally acquainted, seeing each other's collections and equipment, glimming the family background, etc.
vitons - (Russell) - In Sinister Barrier, the extra-terrestrial beings who, in line with Fortean beliefs, really own and control the Earth; visible in their dying state as ball lightning.
Vodoso - Nickname of Virgil Douglas Smith, son of Morojo and artist for Madge.
Vom - Voice of Madge. The pet name became the one generally used; full name is Voice of the Imagi-Nation.
Vomaidens - Vom took to publishing fans' drawings of nudes, sometimes with fantastic background to excuse their appearing in a fantasy fan magazine. Ackerman, however, justified it on broader grounds: that fanzines should publish whatever fans want, and especially something like this that couldn't be published in general magazines because of silly rules. The VoMaidens are criticized mainly for lack of artistic merit; only a minority disapproved for reasons of morality.
Vomb - "Dear Jack: # I am surprized at ya. However -- when anything is sort of -- well you know -- then it's vombic. Hence VOMBUS one who is vombic; Vombii plural of vombus. The Vombists are those belonging to the Society for the advancement of Vombii. And I don't know where in th'hell you picked up 'vombish' # yrs, # Jack Gillespie".
Another Futurian explained it this way: 'If that chair you're sitting in turned into a stack of Bar-O at 15¢ for two cans, that would be Vombish.'
However, Ol' Doc Lowndes gave the real lowdown in Spaceways. "The vombis is an entity of intelligence fully equal, if not superior, to that of man, of a composition as yet quite unknown though some have made guesses, and possessing the ability to change form at will. So excellent a likeness can the vombis assume to any object or living thing, that, except in cases of active malignancy [the vombii are not by nature malignant], it cannot be detected. One might scoff at this, and say, by virtue of this statement, the very typewriter on which I compose this article may be a vombis ... for all I know, this typewriter is a vombis; my only reason for doubting it is, that in all the years I have known it, it has never acted contrary to the mechanical nature of typewriters." He goes on to cite cases in which vombii have taken the form of trees, rocks, swords, and even the water of a swimming pool. There is "a suggestion that the vombi are superhuman entities, well aware of man's existence, who are using men merely as a means of amusement or experimentation. It is they who have been the sources of all man's legends and fairy tales, and they are what men have described as demons, ghouls, werewolves, vampires, elementals, and wizards." Demoniac possession and the evocation of familiars are also mentioned; "Further things that the 'Song of Yste' [one of the sources of his data, the Necronomicon being another] mentions are too soul-shattering to describe here." In other words, the vombii are mighty medicine.
Lowndes supplied a brief glossary of vombic terms, as follows: vombic - weird and sinister, pertaining to the vombis, unpredictable. # vomb - to impart a shuddery feeling, to fill with nameless dread, to arouse terrifying suspicions, to make one feel as if one were in direct contact with a vombis # vombitate - to go around in doing weird sinister things # vombitation - the act of vombitating, actions without apparent human motives # vombulation - a vombic manner without action # vombulate - to put on a vombic attitude, without actual doing anything vombic # vombification - the act of vombing, or vombifying; "vombify" being much more commonly used than "vomb" # vombosia - an indescrible malady, seemingly without cause, and having vombic effects upon the victim # vombitoria - a vombic collection or repertoire # vombitude - the degree to which any person, place, or thing is vombic # vombosis - an examination into, or evaluation of the vombitude of any vombitoria, evombification # evomb or evombify - to determine the vombitude of anything described as "vombic", to hold a vombosis # evombulate - to give a vombic meaning to anything heretofore not considered as vombic # devombulate - to divest of vombic meaning # prevombic - referring to a conception of horror; a strangeness; before the vogue of vombicism # vombique - precious, a term of contempt for would-be vombicism, puerile attempts at horror, etc. # vombitor - a devotee of vombicism # le vombiteur - (for those who prefer the French; see vombitor).
Later Lowndes traced the root back to "waahhmb", a Cro-Magnon sound indicating a sinister and incomprehensible emotion of fear or dread, which they associated with the Fortean rulers of the planet when they gained some slite awareness of them. A Roman scholar made up the Latin form, "vombis" (vombis, vombitis, vonbiti, vombitem, vombite; vombi, vombitorum, vombitibus, vombis, vombitibus; verb: vombo, vombere, vombivi, vombitus). In the same article, the word "vombicism" was defined as the study and following, serious or whimsical or both, of things vombic.
Vulcan Publications - Publishing house of Tucker and Sully Roberds before and after they belonged to Cosmic. In 1943, without connection with Tucker, Innman and some other young fen took the name.
Data entry by Judy Bemis