¡Rábanos Radiactivos! ... es no. 2232

Written by Fred Patten, and intended for Apa L, 2232^nd Distribution, LASFS Meeting No. 3680, February 21, 2008.
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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I was brought to last week's LASFS meeting by my sister Sherrill, as usual. This was the week of voting for the Chairperson of Loscon 36 in 2009. Lots of chocolates were given out as bribes. The meeting was on a "program lite" agenda to concentrate on the presentations, but they kept being postponed because only three of the four bidders were present; Heide Nichols was trapped on public transportation coming from Anaheim (it took over five hours). We had time for most of a regular meeting, after all. Jerry Pournelle objected strenuously to our continuation of the 1938 15-episode The Secret of Treasure Island, because it was BORING! even if it was by L. Ron Hubbard. Also Larry, the handsome hero, was a doofus. There was general approval to replace the serial with something else without sitting through it to the bitter end. Nichols finally arrived, and she & the other three bidders (Marcia Minsky, Arlene Satin, & Greg Bilan) made their pitches to & answered questions from the audience. I was afraid that the several postponements to give Nichols time to arrive would mean that I would have to return to the hospital before the voting, but I just had time to cast my ballot before Sherry wheeled me out. I got the results - Marcia Minsky won - by e.mail from Vanessa Van Wagner the next day.

On Saturday Sherry brought me to her apartment to sort through the piles of books & magazines she transferred there from my hospital room when we were told the floor would have to be torn up for repairs. One of my books had been ruined by a nurse spilling water on it, so I agreed that my books should be kept in my study in Sherry's apartment as soon as I was immediately through with them, instead of building a new library at the hospital. I found that the bookshelves in my study are filling fast; I may have to donate some more books to the Eaton Collection sooner than I had hoped to. In the evening we had a chili dinner from Chili John's, and watched a DVD of The Triplets of Belleville. I had seen it before and liked it (I still crack up over the villains' stretch Citroëns*); Sherry thought that it did not make any sense. But Sherry had bought a CD of music from High Noon. I remembered liking the movie very much when it came out in 1952 and it is one of the few movies from that long ago from which I still remember the theme song; but I had not remembered that it had a whole CD's worth of music. It does not. The theme song was so popular in 1952 that dozens of versions of it were made, and the CD has 25 variations of "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'" by different singers, instrumental versions, for foreign language releases, etc. A collection of all the different versions sounds like the sort of thing that is a good idea in theory, but that you don't want to listen to unless you really, really, really like the song.

*But I love the 30-second British TV commercial for the new Citroën C4, which transforms into a giant robot and does a break dance. See it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLmE4lby_fI

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ˇZANAHORIAS ELECTRóNICAS!

-- Comments on Last Week's Distribution:

Cover - (Jackson) Is Daniel Saur trying to twist his neck into a Möbius strip?

Fish Out of Water #262 - (Helgesen) The Los Angeles Public Library has a 1980 reprint of H. Allen Smith's The Compleat Practical Joker available. I remember reading it in junior high school, so I must have read the first edition.

How Does One Get Off A Non-Stop Flight? - (Cantor) I dimly remember reading the answer to this; it may have been in The Compleat Practical Joker. I should reread it to see. If it was not in The Compleat Practical Joker, I do not know where it may have been. I always wondered if there was more to that story; I would think that an airline would be able to sue a passenger for expenses for forcing a plane to make an emergency landing under false pretenses, if not to bring criminal charges. ## I might grow coral reefs? Yarst! ## My sister Sherry still gets the Sunday New York Times to do its crossword puzzle. While she was living in NYC, she used to send me clippings from the New York Post about American history. I was fascinated to learn such history from the Post as that Chester Alan Arthur turned down renomination for a second term, William McKinley was a Democrat, and that Hawaii went directly from an independent kingdom to an American territory (it was an independent republic for six years inbetween). I wondered if there is any connection between the Post and the people who make the programming for The History Channel, which is a little more accurate but not much.

Godzilla Verses #178 - (DeChancie) When did you go to school? The seven Narnia novels were published from 1950 through 1956. I must have read them during junior high and high school, but I do not remember whether from the school libraries or from the public library. ## No, Felix the Cat did not have white gloves. He had black paws. So did Disney's imitative Julius the Cat in his mid-'20s "Alice" cartoons. However, Disney's Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit (1927-'28) wore three-fingered white gloves, a year before Mickey Mouse. Max Fleischer's Koko the Clown had three-fingered white gloves, even though he was human and was rotoscoped from a human, back in 1916. Koko's partner, Bimbo the pup had three-fingered white gloves, too. I suppose Fleischer started the tradition.

De Jueves #1570 - (Moffatts) I not only read Cat Pay the Devil in hardback, I reviewed it. See my reviews in Anthro #13, September-October 2007. Also the next in the series, Cat Deck the Halls; see Anthro #15, January-February 2008. Murphy's Joe Grey series is the only one that I consider to be "genuine" cat detective mysteries, because the cats really do detection instead of just watching the human amateur detectives while kibitzing to other pets and the reader. ## I remember being accused of recklessly bankrupting the apa ROWRBRAZZLE's treasury around 1991 because I insisted on printing a full-color cover by Taral Wayne. It might have if the color covers had cost $5 each (we needed sixty copies), which was the regular price at the time, but I had arranged for a discount of "only" $1 per copy and covered most of that with donations from several members. ROWRBRAZZLE has had many full-color covers since then, increasingly cheaper.

I Heckle Zarzuelas* -- (Gold) Postage is going up to 42¢? I am feeling mighty old; it was only 3¢ through most of my teens. I am glad that I am not mailing out fanzines any more. ## I hope that we never have to bother John Hertz to act as my attorney-in-fact. ## What is your opinion of the new Republic of Kosovo national flag? Flags with golden outline maps of their nations are rare because the outline maps are too difficult to make easily and to show on both sides of the flag. The first flag of Bangladesh also had a golden outline map of the country; it was dropped in less than a year. Admittedly Bangladesh has one of the most complex national silhouettes in the world. The map on the flag of Cyprus has lasted, but Cypriot flags are notoriously not standardized either as to the island's outline or the color, which is supposed to be copper (from the country's name) but is usually gold; and is not used in the part of the country that is the de facto Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus anyway.