#2235

Written by Fred Patten, and intended for Apa L, 2235^th Distribution, LASFS Meeting No. 3683, March 13, 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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My sister Sherrill brought me to last Thursday's LASFS meeting. CLJII began a new serial, G Men Never Forget, which seems to be one of the few things that Clayton Moore starred in besides the Lone Ranger series. I gave my early 1960s file of fanzine illos and stories/poems to Marty Cantor. Some of them I am sure that I published as apazine covers, but I was in so many apas in the 1960s that, now that I am bedridden and no longer able to check my past publications, I no longer remember which. I also gave a shopping bag full of old anime kipple to Rob Powell to deliver to Chaz Baden for Anime L.A. donations. The highlight of the meeting was Tadao Tomomatsu's hilarious account of the release of Heroes in Japan, and his relations' reaction to his appearance in it. "Tadao can speak Japanese! We never knew!" Marcia Minsky ruled the discussion of two topics as not appropriate at LASFS meetings. I figured out one of them on my own; I could filibuster for hours about my personal medical condition if I wanted to, but is anyone besides me really interested in all the technical medical details? (And I come to the LASFS to forget about health problems for a couple of hours, not to wallow in others' aches & pains.)

On Friday, Sherry brought me to her apartment for a meeting with Glen Wooten, who was up from San Diego for a weekend social gathering of the Dorsai Irregulars in Marina del Rey. We discussed the state of my Donation Fund which he is maintaining, and gave him boxes of assorted stuff like early 1950s bubblegum card sets (complete, I think, although he will doublecheck that) of automobiles and airplanes, and about two dozen of the original Disney cels from The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, and Winnie the Pooh (without backgrounds) that used to be sold at Disneyland for $5 each, which Wooten will try to sell for me on eBay. He said that there is enough in my Donation Fund to cover my attending the three-day CaliFur 4 in Irvine in mid-May, and he will make the arrangements for my hotel room and a medical caregiver for me. I am very glad to get that confirmed.

This Tuesday, Lee Gold surprised me by forwarding to me an article from the online edition of that day's Everett, Washington Daily Herald; "Sandbox accident claims Everett boy's life", by reporter Jackson Holtz. It was about an elementary school boy who had asked his friends to bury him headfirst in the sand like the anime TV character Naruto. I had been interviewed by Holtz just the day before as an expert on anime, and I did not know that his article would be published this quickly. Thanks, Lee.

Most of the article, besides giving the facts of the fifth-grader's death, is about the rarity of deaths caused by sand suffocation, which are usually the result of children digging tunnels which collapse and bury them. The pertinent part of the article is:

"On Saturday, Codey and his friends apparently were playing a game based on "Naruto."

The show is a popular comic book and television series, said Fred Patten, who has written several books about anime, a Japanese style of animation featured in "Naruto."

"It can roughly be compared with the Superman comic books and TV series in America," he said.

"Naruto" came to the U.S. in 2005 and runs on the Cartoon Network, Patten said.

"The series is based on the more fantastic folk tales about ninja in Japan -- that they could become invisible, run at superhuman speeds, disguise themselves instantly as anything, survive the most deadly traps," he said. "In this case, a favorite fictional ninja trick is that they can bury themselves in the sand or ground and wait for their victim to walk by, then instantly spring out of the ground to attack."

In the series, Naruto, an orphaned boy with special powers, battles his nemesis, Gaara, said Larry Houston, a cartoon director and writer who draws inspiration from Anime.

"Gaara has a sand demon locked inside of him. He can basically manipulate sand," Houston said.

On the TV show, Naruto's youth and powers help him escape, Houston said."

The remainder of the article warns against ignoring children who want to act out superhero and other fantastic stunts that they see in comic books or on TV.

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ˇZANAHORIAS ELECTRóNICAS!

-- Comments on Last Week's Distribution:

Cover - (Schirmeister) This reminds me of our back yard fig tree when I was a child, which seemed to be always splatting the ground with overripe figs. They were swarming with bees, wasps, butterflies, and several varieties of flies that made cleaning them up impossible.

Vanamonde #771 - (Hertz) I missed the announcement that Lee Gilliland was in L.A. to scout a venue for a Man from U.N.C.L.E. convention. I loved the TV series and had all the novels and magazines, even the Girl from U.N.C.L.E. magazines written by Michael Avallone (fanaticism beyond the bounds of good taste); and I have often told of how it was the Man from U.N.C.L.E. exhibit at the 1970 Westercon that led me to discover Japanese manga and import it from Japan. Mark Evanier, whose weblog I have cited here before, says that he was also a devoted fan during his youth, but he recently discovered that someone must have refilmed the whole series and lowered the quality by 75% or more because he can't believe how shoddy it looks today: the cheap sets, the crowd scenes with only three or four people because they couldn't afford any more extras, the incredibly obvious way Napoleon and Illya did stupid things to get into danger, etc. ## I have no idea how official or binding the L.A. Times' contest to design a new L.A. County seal may have been. The subject was controversial at the time the challenge to the old County seal was raised - many thought it was ridiculous to require the removal of the goddess Pomona as a symbol of L.A.'s agricultural past (the original seal was designed by L. A. County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who lived in Pomona, Calif.) on the grounds that it was illegal for the County to promote Roman religion - so the Times may well have invited readers to submit their ideas of what the new seal should look like. Roz Gibson has a very sardonic sense of humor.

I Am Old Enough To Remember When The Dead Sea Was Merely Sick - (Cantor) Your comment reminds me of the panel in Masamune Shirow's first Ghost in the Shell comic book that showed the police with guns drawn completely surrounding the villains, with a "Kids, don't try this at home!" footnote explaining that real police would never get into a position that would guarantee getting hit in each other's crossfire. I forget how they handled that shot in the anime movie. ## There was one LASFS meeting in Harlan Ellison's home, when he was living in a cave that had been the former home of a Yogi (or something like that - it should be in the LASFS minutes of the early 1960s). ## Apa L and LASFAPA were both started at the LASFS if not by the LASFS, so arguably without the LASFS they would not have existed.

I Killfile Cthulhu - (Gold) Thanks for all of the work that you and Barry are doing to improve the LASFS' website. ## I already gave all my old fanzine art to Marty Cantor. Maybe he will share it with you. ## Norman Spinrad used to attend meetings/is a LASFS member? Should we add him to the list of LASFS members who were prominent authors?

De Jueves #1573 - (Moffatts) I had all the Narnian Chronicles in their first Puffin paperback editions. I looked at that one-volume edition in a bookstore when it came out in 1998 and found it almost too heavy to hold in one hand. Also, I object to having The Magician's Nephew as the first in the series. It gives away all the mysteries in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. ## There were six Pogo plastic figurines in boxes of Oxydol cleanser. Since I had even less use for cleanser than for breakfast cereal, I disliked having to buy them and throw the cleanser out just to get the Pogo characters. A quick scan of Pogo Internet sites shows the Oxydol figurines offered for sale at about $20 - $25 each.