T H E    R A V A G E S    O F    T I M E    b y    t h e    e d i t o r

Three years ago I was a seasoned fan, interested but tempered by time and slip sheets and the Insurgent Element to the point where I could take fandom or leave it. I cold point with pride to six Masques and several Wild Hairs and one-shots. There were some three or four dozen fanzines upon which I had placed my bare-breasted, bat-winged mark. I was a Big Name Fan. People kept asking me for covers or drawings or fillers and I would put their letter carefully in some obscure spot whilst I savored this feeling of adulation and power. Eventually I lost their request and eventually I lost even the kick of seeing something of mine published, which is a sure sign of something.

But it was okay, because I replaced fandom with sex and Art and Higher Calls.

In the last three years I've had a lower-case checkered career. I quit the dear old ranch of my ancestors and became an aircraft worker. After a few weeks I decided that was for the birds and gained enough confidence in myself as a business man and a wire sculptor to rely on that as my sole source of income. And that's what I've been doing for lo! these two years or more. I don't make much money – only about 50-60 dollars a week but I only work about two weeks a month, when I want and at something I like very much.

I also started a very contemporary, very arty gallery shop. But it failed when one of my partners had to quit. Then, besides women, I have become increasingly interested in making modern jewelry, in print making, in painting, in set designs, in photography, in writing poetry, and, of course, ever more in wire sculpture. I hope to be able soon to include in the mailing a booklet of mine on my work which will help you visualize what in the hell I'm talking about.

So after three years of preparation here is Masque number seven. I'm at Burbee's home, drinking his fine home brew, and he is so very kindly helping me to seemble this Frankenstein. And I don't feel much like apologising to the many writers and artists who have so long awaited publication. The only thing I can say is that it will seem like fresh work to the writers themselves. You should see Burb sitting there reading the first partially assembled copy and laughing like hell and saying, "Did I write this wonderful stuff?"

And you know what? I don't regret one moment I didn't devote to science-fiction.

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"We have a friend who has shelves and shelves of stf but he's very intelligent."

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10 Lines or Less by Burbee

So I found, at work, a large-size stapler that I could borrow for the weekend, long enough to staple Willie's oversize Masque. I wrote him about it, so here he is and we are getting out the mag at long last. One of his chief complaints had been that an ordinary stapler couldn't handle the mag. Just before I came over here I tried my little boy Johnnie's stapler, an Arrow 25049.. It went through the 72 pp quite easily. Staples not quite crimped but a well-placed hammer blow could take care of that.

How about that?

Page scans provided by Tom Veal

Data entry by Judy Bemis

Updated November 8, 2007. If you have a comment about these web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.