Written by Fred Patten, and published on the LASFS Rex Rotary, June 9, 1965. Intended for Apa L, Thirty-Fourth Distribution, LASFS Meeting no. 1452, June 10, 1965. Address: 1825 Greenfield Avenue, Los Angeles, California, 90025. Phone GRanite 3-6321.

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Those of you who keep track of publishing house numbers will note that Salamander Press has just risen into the three-digit category with this fanzine. This transition occurs at a particularly appropriate time, too; it was exactly four years ago tonight that my first fanzine, FOOFARAW #1, rolled off the old Gestetner at the bygone Fan Hillton. FOOFARAW is still appearing in N'APA; the next issue, which should be finished next week for the June mailing of that quarterly apa, will be #16. Four years in N'APA and less than one in Apa L, and I've already published over twice as many Apa L zines as N'APAzines. Last year at about this time -- June 13, 1964 to be exact -- the press run of Salamander Press was only up to $44. If I continue to contribute to every mailing of every apa I'm in, next year at this time should see a Salamander Press number better than #175. (52 Apa L, 12 K-a, 4 N'APA, 4 SAPS, 4 OMPA, at least one Cultzine, and who knows -- I may be in FAPA by then.) Those in the Big Publishing House Race had better look to their press runs; I'm forging steadily ahead. (You don't have to worry, Bruce; nobody's going to challenge IncNeb for the throne.)

Our motto: 'Ware Dave Hulan!

I shall never cease to be amazed at all the different manners in which education is simplified for children. I have just seen an illustrated history of the Presidents of the United States up to the present time (Cleveland's second administration), told in words of one syllable for one readers. How do you define our nation's Chief Executive in words of one syllable? Easy. Pres, i, and dent. "Words of one syllable" here means words broken down into their component syllables, and the result is a sight to behold. I will say, though, that except for this one "educational" liberty, the book is straightforwardly presented; the vocabulary is somewhat simplified, but there's none of these limitations to "125 basic words" and the like that so many beginning readers are faced with today. They weren't afraid to give kids Big Words back then, even if they were broken down into small pieces.

I've just discovered a little newsstand downtown that sells the Mexican reprint edition of F&SF, not to be confused with MINOTAUR, the Argentinean reprint ed. that occasionally gets general distribution in L.A. This one is called CIENCIA Y FANTASÍA, a 128-page monthly official reprint edition, published by Ed. Novaro -- the same publisher that reprints all the super-hero comic books. These are not current issues, but #9-14, dated July-December 1957. They are in mint condition, however, and cost only 10¢ apiece, so you might consider it worth 60¢ to pick up the six issues as curios. Contents include Una Puerta Hacia el Verano, by Robert Heinlein, plus various short stories by Asimov, Leiber, Sturgeon, Sheckley, etc. The translations are by somebody named Emilio F. Ávila, and while I haven't taken more than a cursory glance at the stories, I hope he's done a better job with them than he has with the authors. They've got such names as José Philip Farmer, and Gordon Dickson comes out variously as Sickson or Dicckson (they also spell it right upon occasion). At only a dime each, it's worth having a couple around.

Incidentally, "bug-eyed monster" comes out as "el monstruo con los ojos de sabandija", which re-translates as "the monster with the eyes of a small reptile". That's what's known as losing something in translation.

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-- BEING COMMENTS ON LAST WEEK'S DISTRIBUTION

Tom Gilbert -- So you finally, definitively, indisputably, incontrovertibly missed a Distribution! That's a relief; now we can stop arguing as to whether your first postmailed zine should be counted as giving you an Unbroken Run or not. As Bruce technically missed a couple of Distributions because of turning in less than 35 copies, that leaves only two contributors left with Unbroken Runs since the First Distribution: Len Bailes and myself. I'm halfway tempted to deliberately miss a Distribution just so the record for the longest unbroken run of contributions will go to Len, an Outsider. But of course I probably won't. I'll be looking forward to school letting out, so we can expect more of the old 6 and 8-page CARCASILLAs, with justified right-hand margins.

Len Bailes -- The amount of time & work put into Apa L is frightening. But, as I think most of us have discovered, no other apa is so rewarding, not even FAPA with its 500-page mailings. There may not be as many good, big fanzines with their individual long, well-thought-out articles, but how many of them do you get anyplace today? If Apa L isn't likely to produce a WHO KILLED SCIENCE FICTION? or a POT POURRI, it more than makes up for it in its closer contact of its contributors. Even if we no longer produce 100+ page Dist'ns, I think Apa L will continue to be my favorite apa. ## How do things stand on your possible move out here to UCLA?

Felice Rolfe -- Glad to see you back again. Any reason why you & Ed can't both contribute to the same issue? ## I'd be moderately interested in seeing Die Fledermaus and Patience; that is, if there's a car going up from Los Angeles, I'd probably come along. I'd want to know a bit more about dates, etc., first.

Mike Klassen -- Multiman's already a comic-book super-villain, and I think we can do without the others equally well. Whatever happened to Capt. Anarchy, who was in that IWW fanzine the Berkeley fan-Wobblies were putting out a couple of years back? ## Tlaloc is por supuesto also the source of Supercharro's magic powers. ¡Rábanos Radiactivos! ## Sorry; the beasties in Tunnel in the Sky were stobor, not stobcler. Try again.

Terry Romine -- Double spacing is a rather contemptuous way of filling a page. Page 2 looks a lot better. ## The phrase, "Vast Emptyness, vegetation and ruin" conjures up a contradictory illusion to me. "Vast emptyness" means a barren desert; blank empty, open wastes of hot sand or glaring snow; or a wide, clear sea or sky. "Vegetation and ruin" means a deserted city taken over by the jungle, as in the ancient Mayan and Cambodian lost civilizations; a still scene, without motion, but not an empty one. One crowded, rather,, with many forms of plant life, and crumbling old stone buildings to be half-seen among the green foliage; and possibly butterflies, small lizards, and monkeys occasionally darting by. I think I know what you mean, but I don't think that "vast emptyness" is the right term to describe it. Desolation?

Trimbles & Hulans -- My apologies again for leaving John's name out of the Table of Contents. I guess I just wasn't looking when I typed it up. ## This looks like a real fun one-shot in the old sense. The Hulan-EdCo one-shots are great fun to read, but they always seem too witty, too organized, to be really spontaneous one-shot productions. But there's no doubt about yours. Very good. ## But, Katya, are you sure a green onion is the right thing to attract the menfolks? ## Sure, I remember good ol' Smilin' Ed McConnell, and Froggy the Gremlin, and Squeeky the Mouse, and Midnight the Cat, and the whole gang. I used to get up every Saturday at 9 to listen to them and Jump-Jump the elf ("My name is Jump-Jump, jolly little Jump-Jump; work is always pla-ay; ..."). On one occasion I even went down to the radio station and got in the audience for a broadcast. I recall being very disappointed that the fellow who was the voice for Froggy wasn't in costume; I recall thinking, "If every department store can have a Santa in costume, why can't Froggy be in costume?" Come to think of it, I may still have one or two of those Smilin' Ed comic books that the Buster Brown shoe stores (the show's sponsor) gave out; I'll have to check my comic collection. Does anybody know if the show's still going? I know that after Smilin' Ed died, Andy Devine took it over for awhile, but I'd already stopped listening to it by then. Does anybody know if Buster Brown shoe stores are still giving away those comics? ## And this seems somehow like a good place to mention the 2nd Annual West Coast Oz Convention, on Sat., June 26, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., 1105 North College Ave. in Claremont, $2.00 reservation to Mrs. George Hurst, 1939 Orchard Lane, La Canada. I don't know what this year's Con will be like, but last year's was a delightful affair, with many rare & colorful Baum items, original Denslow & Neill artwork from the Oz books, all sorts of Oz toys, Oz movies (including Baum's own 1914 "Scarecrow of Oz", which was excellent), a good luncheon, and many other attractions. If this year's is even half as good, it'll still be worth attending. Now if only Manny Weltman will stay away...

Bruce Pelz -- By all means, let's see your overrun of that other Bĵo strip. ## The Nuisance Family Tree is appreciated, but a little more plot-action would be even better. Why not alternate Family Tree parts with installments of another Impossible Five story?

Dwain Kaiser -- How about getting Lynn Pederson's cover ready for Apa L #40? That's six weeks off; plenty of time to work on it. ## At the prices old comics are going for, I'll stick to getting the new ones. I've been getting a double set of THE X-MEN since it started appearing a year or so ago, and a couple of weeks ago I asked the Collector's Book Store how much they'd charge for a mint set of the ten issues out so far? $6.00. Now if I can just sell my second set for that much...

Ted White -- Maybe we ought to start a poll in Apa L of "SF Classics We'd Most Like To See Reprinted", and you can take the ones that're recommended the most and suggest them to Terry Carr and Larry Shaw. Some time back I wrote Shaw a letter complementing him for Lancer's selection of classics (after they'd gotten rid of whoever was reprinting all the Asimov books), and giving him a list of books I wanted to see. As I recall, they were Bok's The Blue Flamingo, Williamson's The Reign of Wizardry, Hubbard's "Old Doc Methuselah" series, and De Camp and Pratt's The Land of Unreason. Since then, word came through that all of Bok's effects had been lost after his death, including presumably the complete manuscript version of The Blue Flamingo; and Lancer did bring out The Reign of Wizardry -- so soon after I wrote, in fact, that it must've already been in the works. So if you could talk up Doc Methuselah and Land of Unreason with people, maybe we can get them in cheap, handy paperback editions. And I wonder if The Blue Flamingo had been lost after all, because at either the ChiCon or the DisCon (I forget which offhand), I was talking with Lloyd Eshbach, and he said that Fantasy Press had been going to publish the book when it went out of business, and he still had the manuscript at that time. So if he hadn't returned it to Bok before Bok's death, possibly it wasn't lost in the looting of Bok's apartment. It's something worth checking into, if anybody is interested in publishing the book. At ChiCon, I asked Edmond Hamilton if he'd consider rewriting The Valley of Creation for publication along with his other books Torquil was putting in hard covers, and he said no, because fantasy just wasn't selling. And just about a year later, it appeared as a paperback from Lancer. So I still have hopes for Flamingo, if it can be found.