On Saturday, August 5, 1950, we held a one-shot session at my house. This session was designed to produce some ... not all ... pages for this monster Warp. Eleven pages were produced. Mostly I think we produced reams of fangab and a spool of wire.
All the invited came except Laney, who had illness in the family. He did call up, though, and talk to all present. This cost him 90¢ in toll charges, or, as the phone company coyly terms it, "message units."
First to arrive was Rick Sneary. I'd heard from everybody beforehand except the Sage of South Gate (site of the Convention in 1958). I got to wondering about this all-out fan, so I looked up his number in the phone directory and to my amazement found that I could dial the Sage's number! South Gate, you must know, is 'way 'way out there on the edge and is never spoken of in metropolitan circles, but still it can be dialed from Los Angeles. Rick's mother answered and said the Sage had entrusted his fannish self to the public transportation system and she didn't know where he'd gone. Evidently the name of Burbee is tabu in the Sneary household, though I could not say why and I forgot to ask Rick.
As I hung up from this fruitless call, a resounding clanking of metal against wood came up the stairs and I thought perhaps some robot had gone astray but it was merely Sneary's sword striking things as it swung from his hip. Sneary, as you all know, habitually carries a sword around with him. He says it makes him more polite.
Shortly afterward, Gordon Dewey came, accompanied by his IBM electric typer, and for a time we just sat there and jabbered about fascinating things. Sneary examined all parts of my electrically operated mimeograph like he was imprinting its structure on his mind so he could go home and duplicate it some evening. He declared he was fascinated by machinery, but this I hold to be a primitive trait. for my mimeo has moving parts. I did not ask him if he were mechanically inclined because he'd have leaped at the chance to say no, he was Rick Sneary.
Bye and by Rotsler came along and a more bemused eye never fell on my sensitive fannish face than the eye of that professional artist. He made stencils and laughed with the rest of us but you could see that his mind was across the world searching for some indefinable something. Shucks, we had a whole house full of indefinable somethings; why did he look across the world?
Why did you, Rotsler?
Later, typers began thrumming and conversation slowed down, and for a while only esoteric cries of anguish or joy rose from the gathering, depending on whether a wrong key was struck or some wonderful remark passed somebody's lips.
I just wandered around being hospitable, I guess. This is my excuse for not turning anything out at the session. I started several articles, but never could finish any. They would not jell.
I remember one article I did part of. It was to have been called "Sneary and Burbee Face to Face" or something equally baroque. It seems that Sneary and I, often at loggerheads in the fan press, are oldtime correspondents. I am the oldest correspondent Sneary has. He does not prize me on this account, however. Also, I was the first fan to publish a Sneary letter in a fanzine (1944). Sneary does not look at me starry-eyed because of it. Why not?
Anyhow this article was to have commented, perhaps wittily, on the fact that Sneary and I have seen each other but 3 times in all these years! Once in 1946 we met at the LASFS and played a game of weird chess. Then in 1948 I saw him in a bookstore on South Vermont but didn't recognize him. This incident should have rocked fandom back on its heels but nobody paid any attention to it.
Then, this 3rd meeting. It was obvious that this meeting of two hardened old fans (one of whom is Director of Young Fandom!) should have been of fannish consequence. You would think an article like that would write itself. You would think I could bang out a page on the subject with the speed of an antelope. The punchline was to have been: "Don't you think we're seeing too much of each other?"
After a time Rotsler spoke. He said something about going out but coming back. At least that was the gist of it. He was talking pure owl so I didn't catch all of it. He came back and spoke fan again and everything went on as before. Then Isabelle served up food and we stoked the fannish furnaces.
I turned on my wire-recorder and got some key-clacking that was the one-shot being written. Actually, it was Dewey's IBM electric typer going. This is the typer on which L. Ron Hubbard wrote Typewriter in the Sky (for which reason Ackerman is trying to buy it for the Foundation). Dewey was going like crazy on it just as though he had gotten inspired and was evolving a new science on the stencil.
After a time we all sat in a well-placed circle and began to toss words. We talked of space-suits, houses of ill-fame, space suits, flies with wings off, the decline of fandom, and the Outlanders. Before long we realized that Sneary, one of the four charter members of the Outlanders, didn't know what the Outlanders had been organized for. First thing we knew we were baiting Sneary and for this reason the wire now bears the title "Sneary at Bay" and is a cherished possession of mine. "Sneary at Bay" as it is listed on fan curiosa checklists, will not be sent to anybody as I said it would last Warp. I could ask for a bond of $10 from those who wish to borrow it, and since no fan ever had $10 all at one time, this wire will stay safe with me.
At a very reasonable hour the session ended. A few days later Sneary sent me his part of the round-robin editorial and along with it an article titled "An Outlander Visits the Insurgents". It was high-class Sneary stuff but he refused me permission to publish it. I insisted, so he said OK, and he would rewrite it but he warned me that the rewrite would "be more vitriolic." It does not appear here, but I will publish it in my FAPAzine Burblings, very probably. You non-FAPA members can have a copy by dropping me a card requesting one. I can assure you that his version of the session is vastly different from mine. This is because Sneary and I are two separate people.
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FAPA If you like to write for and/or publish fanzines, maybe you ought to join the Fantasy Amateur Press Association. Four mailings a year. Dues very reasonable and quality and quantity of mailings quite acceptable. Get details from Harry Warner Jr., 303 Bryan Place, Hagerstown, Maryland.
Text versions and page scans Judy Bemis
Data entry by Judy Bemis
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