I've been trying to think of any Apa L business that I've left unfinished, that should be concluded this week, or never. Offhand, I can't recall any.
I considered translating another chapter of Battlefield, by Clark Carrados, that crummy Spanish s-f paperback; but I couldn't really get interested in it. It's one of the worst books I've ever read, and its idiotic protagonist turns me completely off. And I don't think any of you are interested in reading it, anyway.
It's too early to start advertising the next LASFS Directory, or to campaign for my choices for procedural executive committee for July-Dec. 1968. (I may back Chuck Crayne for procedural Director; aside from that, I haven't been thinking about candidates yet.) The OzCon NEWSLETTER in this Dist'n should be self-explanatory. Well, I might as well mention the upcoming bookstore crawl, and the Gilbert-&-Sullivan expedition up to Berkeley on Easter weekend that people are talking about. How about next Saturday for the bookstore crawl -- that's April 6th? Otherwise, we'll have to put it off for nearly a month.
That's all that I can think of in the way of unfinished business. I gather that a few diehards are going to try putting something out next week called Apa L, vol. 2, but if so, I won't be represented in it. Apa L may deserve to be revived in another few years, as SHAGGY is being revived now, but at the moment, it's dead.
| - o0o - | - o0o - | - o0o - |
Strangely enough, one of the people who will be most sorry about Apa L's demise is 6-year-old Chris, who lives next door. Not that he knows anything about Apa L, but he thinks the LASFS Rex is neat, and every Wednesday evening, when I go out to my garage to run off RR, he's there to see if he can help. He's becoming quite an expert slip-sheeter. When he tires of slip-sheeting, he goes through Bĵo's rock collection, looking for diamonds. He'll be disappointed that I won't be using the mimeo every week any more.
Chris' latest fannish discovery is jet-pak bags. I arrived home Monday evening to find that he'd found two used jet-paks in my garbage can. My back yard was liberally strewn with jet-pak padding, so that the mockingbirds who're noisily nesting nearby will have something nice and soft with which to line their houses. They may actually be using it; it's almost completely disappeared from the grass in the last couple of days. Chris is very thoughtful. (And it's hard to get mad at him since he's trying to be helpful.)
Criss Stevens -- A very nice cover. It's too bad your art developed in Apa L so late; I hope we'll continue to see it in other fanzines. I love your electric cape cartoon. ## If the cover to Out of the Silent Planet that you mean has a sort of human-faced otter on it, I know the one you mean; but I don't know who drew it. Earle Bergey was doing some pb covers about that time, but it doesn't look like any of his work. Paperback-cover art is an almost unknown facet of the s-f art field. Aside from Ace and Pyramid who give credit and employ artists whose work we're familiar with through the prozines, the paperback publishers use artists whose work ranges from bad to excellent, but whose names are unknown to us. It wasn't until late last year, after all the Ballantine editions of Tolkien and two of their three Eddison books had been published, that I learned that the name of the cover artist was Barbara Remington. If you happened to like the covers of the Eddison books, would you have known who to credit? How about the covers to Pangborn's Davy, or Wyndham's Chocky, both of which I like very much; who did them? Half-illegible signatures of Factor and Schulz... We know what happens to Ace's covers (they keep them), but I wonder what happens to the covers that other publishers use?
Bruce Pelz -- The older actives locally are so gafia in the publishing line that if they won't contribute to SHAGGY, I doubt that they'll contribute to anybody. I hope that SHAGGY will start them writing again, and once they've started, they may get active enough to begin contributing further afield. It'd be nice to see the LASFS corresponding nationally again, but I don't expect this to happen soon, if at all. ## I'm currently wearing a McCarthy button, though I may change my mind. Since I'm a Republican, I wish the Republicans would nominate someone I like well enough to vote for, at least once. It won't be Nixon, though. Actually, I am looking forward to supporting one Republican; Kuchel. But that's not on the presidential level. I might've voted for Rockefeller, and I might vote for Kennedy; but not Johnson or Nixon. I dunno. Let's all write in Gene Roddenberry. ## To tell the truth, I don't expect to actually buy anything on the bookstore crawl, either. I expect to enjoy the day in the company and the outing alone. I tour Hollywood every two weeks, if not more often, but I don't even go in over half the bookshops, because I know that they won't have anything I want at prices I'm willing to pay. But for the other half-dozen or so stores and newsstands, it's worth the trip -- and I expect we'll have fun browsing in the clip joints, too, if only briefly. Come prepared more for an enjoyable social outing than for a bibliographic expedition. ## I'd be interested in joining in your Thrift Shop Hunting, for the same reason. I don't expect to find a carton of junk to bring home, but I do expect to have fun looking, in pleasurable company. ## "Swenson, Dispatcher" was by R. DeWitt Miller, and was in GALAXY, April, 1956, I find by looking through the big green LASFS bookcase right next to me. It's a hilarious story, and totally unlike anything else that Miller ever wrote. It's in the next-to-last Dikty anthology; the 1956 volume. The other story Lee mentioned, about the alien kindergarten, was another jewel by an author who never turned out anything else but crud; "Environment", by Chester Geier, who was/is a hack for Ray Palmer, otherwise. "Environment" was reprinted in Conklin's The Omnibus of Science Fiction, which I also discover by looking through the LASFS bookcase. Gee, it'll be nice when we finally get our clubhouse, and all of the club library can be set up in one place again, so that everybody can do research on what & where their favorite stories were. ## Bruce, could you bring to the LASFS from the UCLA Library the volume of Dunsany's plans that has "King Argimenes and the Unknown Warrior" in it? I think it's called Five Plays.
