¡Rábanos Radiactivos! #2166

Written by Fred Patten, and intended for Apa L, 2166^th Distribution, LASFS Meeting No. 3614, November 16, 2006.
Golden State Colonial Convalescent Hospital, 10830 Oxnard Street, North Hollywood, California 91606-5098.
Telephone: hospital(818) 763-8247; personal (818) 506-3159 * eMail:fredpatten@earthlink.net

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Last Wednesday, the 8th, my sister Sherrill took me for my second visit to the UCRiverside Library's Special Collections Department where the Eaton Collection of S-f, Fantasy & Horror is located. Melissa Conway was unfortunately out with the flu, but I spent the afternoon being interviewed by the library's new archivist, Charles Wilson, and working with library assistant Eric Milenkiewicz in identifying two boxes filled with "mystery items" from my collection. They turned out to be a hodgepodge of everything from (to mention just the highlights) the Virgil Finlay playing cards that were the first Worldcon souvenir merchandise (from the 1953 Worldcon), the type cuts to print the 1971 Worldcon's souvenir envelopes by Alicia Austin and Tim Kirk, my Noreascon IV membership badge, to my 1972 Graphic Story Bookshop business card (designed by George Barr), to lots of American and Japanese anime-related merchandise (a T-shirt promoting the American DVD release of the Captain Herlock TV cartoons, and a cap for the Gall Force video release; 3 boxes of Japanese Jet Mars crayolas; several die-cast Japanese giant robot toys illegal in the U.S. because they launch their spring-loaded flying fists [small swallowable parts]), to lots of movie- and comic-book promotional pins & s-f book advertising which could have been picked up at any of numerous s-f, comic-book or anime conventions. I have no idea how these got all jumbled together. We divided them into five categories: s-f fandom, comic-book fandom, Furry fandom, American/general animation fandom, and anime/manga fandom. Some librarians asked about giving a presentation on the Eaton Collection at Loscon 33. I promised to recommend them to the Loscon's Programming Committee, but warned them that it might be too late since the program should have been fully planned by now.

On Thursday Michael Burlake brought me to the LASFS meeting, which was dominated by the Board of Directors elections. I was disappointed to be told that the LASFS Library had lost the November 2006 issue of Locus before I could read it. I may ask to borrow it from some LASFan who subscribes to Locus if the Library cannot find its lost copy.

I had expected to stay in the hospital on Friday, but my room turned out to be scheduled for an all-day full cleaning. This meant that I would have to spend all day in the dining room being bored. So I e.mailed Sherry, and fortunately she was able to bring me to her apartment so I could spend the day in "my study" instead, working on my computer there. I got the news of Jack Williamson's and Jack Palance's deaths almost simultaneously.

On Saturday afternoon, Sherry brought me to Freehafer Hall for the November Cinema Anime meeting. The program was mostly the usual episodes of half-hour anime TV programs, in Japanese with English subtitles. We added the first episode of Gun Sword, a post-apocalyptic Mad Max rip-off with a giant-sword-wielding loner hero, Van, who looks like an exaggerated Solomon Kane. I predict that next year's anime conventions will be full of Van cosplayers causing traffic jams in crowded halls with their giant swords and oversized Puritan hats. Brett Achorn also showed a preview for Reborn!, a brand-new anime fantasy-comedy (started in October) featuring a super-deformed (ultra-cute) Mafia boss. The mind boggles.

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ˇZANAHORIAS ELECTRóNICAS!

-- Comments on Last Week's Distribution:

I Yowl Persistently - (Gold) ASIFA-Hollywood has changed its Annie Awards judging procedures several times. The last time I was a judge, in 2004, the category committee that I was on met separately at the Nickelodeon TV building in the afternoon. If ASIFA goes back to separate committee meetings at different locations scattered throughout the day instead of a single all-day meeting, I might be able to participate in my wheelchair. ## Your cited opinion by Russians of Gypsies &/or all peoples with "dark eyes" as "hav[ing] sway over others - they have more e.s.p." reminds me of The Motor Pirate, G. Sidney Paternoster's racist novel (Chatto & Windus, 1903) about the despicable masked bandit who roars around the nation's (Britain's) highways at the incredible speed of forty miles an hour, gripping a pistol in each fist, stopping only to rob and molest hapless pedestrians and travelers in horse-drawn carriages, forcing white women to disrobe and dance nude in the roadways. The authorities are powerless to catch him because he is in a motorcar, and women cannot refuse him because he turns out when unmasked at the climax to be of a race that has irresistible mental dominance over Anglo-Saxon women but, alas, no morals. I thought it was hysterically funny, although I suppose I should be offended by the implication that white women are so weak-willed as to be unable to resist the mental domination of other races, and white men are so indolent that it takes the manly hero over 200 pages to tear himself away from dining, playing cards and smoking at his club all evening and sleeping most of the day (until awakened by his man in the afternoon to dress for the next evening) to catch the villain. Members of the villain's race, of course (which include several LASFen), have other reasons to be offended.

A Collection of Comments Too Ludicrous To Make - (Cantor) It seems to me to be splitting really fine hairs to distinguish between service to the LASFS and service to fandom. One of my goals for creating a new award, besides diverting LASFen from turning the Forry Award into an award for fan service instead of professional s-f service, is to preserve & promote the memory of Michael Mason. I feel that Bruce Pelz is well-enough known throughout fandom that he needs no award named after him. I do not dispute that Bruce did more for fandom than Michael did, but my goal is more to promote Michael's memory, and to preserve the Forry Award from change, than just to start a new award named for the better-known LASFan.

De Jueves #1504 - (Moffatt) My memories of Sniffles' & Mary Jane's adventures are very dim, but I think they ranged from visiting with field mice in nearby woods to visiting Santa Claus' workshop at the North Pole. None of the adventures seemed to take any time; Mary Jane was always back to human size and home for dinner before her parents noticed she was missing. Probably the author (the Warner Bros. comic book's editor Chase Craig is credited with creating the series and writing all the stories for at least the first few years) was more interested in producing a fairy-tale ambience for young children than in working out the magic technology in detail.

Godzilla Verses #113 - (DeChancie) The LASFS Library has (or had, unless they are now packed away) long runs if not a complete set of Imagination and Imaginative Tales, so you should be able to sample the works of Dwight V. Swain and Charles F. Myers for yourself and decide whether they wrote "real" s-f & fantasy or not. Some cover-featured Swain novellas pictured on the French website that Lee Gold found are "The Weapon from Eternity" (Imagination, September 1952), "Planet of Dread" (Feb. 1954), "Bring Back My Brain!" (April 1957), "Battle Out of Time" (Aug. 1957), and "Terror Station" (Imaginative Tales, Sept. 1955). Myers specialized in wacky fantasy like "Toffee Haunts a Ghost" (Imaginative Tales, Nov. 1954); he was considered a poor man's Thorne Smith. ## "Verne focused on extraordinary events in the mundane world." Yes; I will never again be able to see a man dressed in a tuxedo without imagining him pledging his undying love to an oyster, thanks to Verne's burlesque of the theory of evolution. (The man was an evolved rat; the oyster was his devolved rattess fiancée. Verne's comedies left a bit to be desired.)

Oh, All Right!!! - (Lembke) Thanks for telling me where my old holographic will is, and for confirming that the LASFS knows where to find it. My sister and I both agree that I should replace it with a new and professional-lawyer-approved will, which Sherry will arrange in the next month or so, since trying to do so through any LASFan with legal experience is just not getting done.