¡Rábanos Radiactivos! ... es no. 2242

Written by Fred Patten, and intended for Apa L, 2242^nd Distribution, LASFS Meeting No. 3690, May 1, 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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Last Thursday my sister Sherrill took me to the LASFS meeting. I brought Azumi 2 to loan George van Wagner for his Asian Cult Cinema screening. Warren Johnson was back with more cheese, this week a "double Gloucester" cheese, very similar to cheddar but a bit drier; quite good. It was another very short meeting, not even any deaths to report, and it was over before 9:00 p.m. The deferred program was deferred once again.

Voting for the 2007 Ursa Major Awards closed on April 20^th, and the directors of the Anthropomorphic Literature & Arts Association have been tallying the votes over the past week. There are reportedly computer programs that can tally the votes automatically (all the ballots were cast online this year), but we do not have any of them so we had to add the votes manually. I failed at it this year because of my physical limitations of being bedridden & half paralyzed; I kept losing track of the totals. Fortunately other directors completed the tallying and their results matched.

We got 201 ballots this year; a new total. 145 were from the U.S.; a dozen or more each from Australia and the U.K.; a half dozen or more each from Canada and Germany; and one or two each from countries as diverse as Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, Laos, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Russia, Spain, and Sweden. I was not aware there were any Laotian Furry fans, but apparently there is at least one.

We (meaning mainly Rod O'Riley) are now making up the trophies and preparing the audio-visual PowerPoint presentation to be made at Morphicon 2008 in Columbus, Ohio in a couple of weeks. Morphicon is on the same weekend as CaliFur IV out here in Irvine, so we are hoping to arrange a telephone hookup so those Southern California ALAA directors who cannot get to Columbus (O'Riley, Kay Shapero, & me) can at least speak at the presentation. More on this later.

I might mention that of the eleven Best Novel and Best Short Fiction nominees, five are set in the future &/or outer space, four have traditional epic fantasy settings, one is an urban fantasy (Native American animal gods in the modern world), and one just features funny/talking animals. All feature talking animals, whether bioengineered or pure fantasy. I feel this is enough to qualify Furry fiction as s-f/fantasy in the traditional broad sense.

My hospital has approved my going to CaliFur IV for three days, barring any unexpected decline in my health. So I am now making definite plans to attend. Glen Wooten in San Diego is booking my hotel room and arranging for a medical caregiver, thanks to the generous donations fans have made on my behalf. CaliFur IV is May 16 - 18 at the Hyatt Regency in Irvine hotel, if you are free that weekend and want to see a lot of Fursuiters parading around. See http://www.califur.com/ for details.

By the way, Glen is still collecting old cell phones or PDAs that are no longer being used, to cash in for the Fred Patten Cell Phone Drive. He will be collecting them at the CaliFur Art Show. If any LASFen have old cell phones or PDAs to donate on my behalf, give them to me at the LASFS during the next couple of weeks and I will bring them to Glen at CaliFur in mid-May.

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ˇZANAHORIAS ELECTRóNICAS!

-- Comments on Last Week's Distribution:

Cover - (Cantor) You can get our covers from Worth1000.com from now on, as far as I am concerned.

Wonderlust - (Frame-Gray) I lived in Culver City for over thirty years, and the city is full of historical landmarks saying that real estate developer Harry Culver founded it in 1913 and named it after himself. Also Culver Boulevard and the Culver Hotel. He worked hard to get the movie industry to settle there, which is why the city motto is "The Heart of Screenland" and the city seal shows moviemaking equipment. The Roll 'n Rye Deli, near my old apartment where I ate often, had a floor to ceiling enlargement of a 1920s publicity photo of Harry Culver with patent-leather hair in his polo outfit. ## I, too, have been collecting cell phones (or rather Glen Wooten has been collecting them for me) to help pay my expenses for my wheelchair and to conventions since my stroke. See the above; also the Fred Patten Donation Fund page on the Fred Patten News section on Kay Shapero's website; also Glen Wooten's description on the CaliFur IV website: Do you have an old cell phone or PDA that you're not using? Then turn it in to me at the art show! Why? So I can use it for the Fred Patten Cell Phone Drive - all the information you'd need would be here.

De Jueves #1580 - (Moffatts) I missed the announcement of Dian Crayne's "Murder at the WorldCon" story. Where has it been published? It sounds like a lot of other murder mysteries set at s-f conventions, which probably more fans have read about than have actually read. Was Mack Reynolds' The Case of the Little Green Men (1951) the first? Anthony Boucher's Rocket to the Morgue was earlier, but is not set at a s-f convention. ## I will look forward to that information about the Left Coast Crime in 2010, although you can probably give it to Sherry directly at a LASFS meeting. I would rather attend a mystery fan convention than a filk singing convention.

Vanamonde #778 - (Hertz) There are certainly many Furry fans who only go to Furry conventions and do not consider them to be a part of s-f fandom. I feel they are as narrow-minded in their own way as Marty Cantor is in his; like the five blind men who each felt a part of the elephant and refused to recognize its totality.

Godzilla Verses #188 - (DeChancie) In retrospect, I wonder if I would have been turned onto science fiction if Robert Heinlein's early novels had not been as adventurous as they are. ## "Fursuits" seems to be a neologism created by the Fursuit wearers and adopted by all Furry fandom. Wikipedia in its article on Fursuits attributes it to Robert King in 1993. There are now books on how to make and care for Fursuits.