Written by Fred Patten, and published on the LASFS Rex Rotary, September 1, 1965 Intended for Apa L, Forty-Sixth Distribution, LASFS Meeting no. 1464, September 2, 1965. Address: 1825 Greenfield Avenue, Los Angeles, Calif., 90025. Phone: GRanite 3-6321. San Diego in 1966! Salamander Press #120. ******************************************************************* Last weekend's Carrousel-hop Picnic was quite pleasant. Actually it wasn't the carrousels themselves that impressed me so much as it was the opportunity of seeing three sections of the city with which I'm not overly familiar. It's been years since I visited the Griffith Park Carrousel, and I've never been to the Lincoln Park area of Los Angeles or to the Santa Monica Pier before. I don't really think I've been missing too much, but it's always nice to increase your familiarity with your home city. I also discovered two new (to me) second-hand bookstores on my way to the carrousels; I always consider time spent browsing in a bookstore as time well spent, even if I don't find anything I'm interested in. The Picnic was supposed to start at 1:00 p.m. at the Griffith Park carrousel. I got lost looking for it, it'd been so long since I'd last been to that area of the Park. I arrived about 20 minutes late, but things were just getting started; the only people present so far were the Pelzes, Len Moffatt & June Konigsberg, Neal Reynolds, and assorted kids. Also a bee that kept trying to get into everybody's soft drinks and jelly sandwiches; we finally let her crawl into an empty pop bottle and covered it up. Later arrivals included Fred Hollander & Hilda Hoffman, Jack Harness, the Ellerns & Owen Hannifen, Mike Klassen, Don Simpson & Lyn Stier, the Johnstones, and Ed Baker and his dog, Apache. (Did I miss anybody?) After finishing lunch and riding on the carrousel 3 or 4 times each (while Ted and Bruce took pictures), we moved over to Lincoln Park for more of the same. Finally, about 5:30, we made our last stop at the Santa Monica Pier carrousel, then finished up the day with a party at the Pelzes' new apartment; a combination housewarming party and birthday party for Dian. Somehow, by the time things were all through, we'd lost Len & June, and Neal; and gained Hank Stine. It was a full day.

Of the three carrousels (& environs), I liked the one at Lincoln Park the best. The one at Griffith Park is probably maintained the best, but I don't like my carrousels to be too freshly kept-up and new looking. Also, the Griffith Park area is pretty crowded. The Lincoln Park area has the slightly dingy aura (I do not mean absolutely filthy) that the well-broken-in carrousel should have -- though I admit it could stand a little more upkeep than it's been getting; about half the horses had their tails missing. The Lincoln Park carrousel also adjoins a snack stand that serves you twice as much for your money; I got a malt for 30¢ that I couldn't have gotten for 55¢ anyplace else in the city. The only thing I'd suggest changing about the carrousel (besides replacing the horses' tails) is Uncle Creepy who was running the thing; Bruce remarked that the length of the rides seemed to be proportional to how his ulcer seemed to be feeling at the moment. Not the ideal carrousel keeper, by any means. It was while we were at Lincoln Park that the note-swapping began, first between Don and Jack, then others. Somebody on the ground would write a note and hand it to somebody on the carrousel as he went past; the rider would then scrawl a hasty reply and hand it back the next time he went around. I presume Jack will be printing these here this week? At Santa Monica, the carrousel itself was kept up well enough, but the building it as in looked as though it should be torn down. It's in what bills itself as the world's only carrousel rooming house; the carrousel takes up the entire first floor, and above it are the apartments, with windows that look down "so the tenants can see all the happy people riding by", as the idiotically saccharine sign on the wall had it. the sign also went into glowing descriptions of how the tenants joyfully went to bed and got up each morning with the sound of carrousel music in their ears; I like an orchestrian as well as anybody else, but 24 hours a day of it? The carrousel was surrounded by old World War II vintage pinball-machine-type games; I'll bet half of 'em have been broken for that long, too.

Griffith Park and Lincoln Park charge 10¢ a ticket or 3 for 25¢; Santa Monica's price is 20¢ each, but you do get a longer and faster ride. The Lincoln Park carrousel is the only one of the three that has anything but horses; it also has a tiger, lion, goat, and giraffe, though unfortunately these are non-mobile, being in the outer ring for smaller children. There'll probably be another Carrousel-hop Picnic in two months or so to some more spectacular machines -- Bruce figures that if we get an early enough start, we should be able to cover Knott's Berry Farm and Balboa Park in San Diego in one day. Stay tuned if you're interested.

-- BEING COMMENTS ON LAST WEEK'S DISTRIBUTION

Creath Thorne -- It's been a long time since I've spent one of those rainy days indoors; we've had a pretty dry spell for the last ten years, it seems like -- it's been about that long since it's rained hard enough that I've been compelled to cancel any plans I had for going outside. My recollections are that during my childhood rainy-day scenes, instead of reading I usually cut toy models off the backs of cereal packages; that was a long time ago. By the way, The Drowned World is by Ballard, not Aldiss, though I don't blame you for getting them mixed up -- most of these new wave British authors all read alike to me, too. Brunner's my favorite.

Gregg Wolford -- Once I got a bundle of fanzines for a N'APA mailing with about $1.80 worth of uncancelled stamps on it. Unfortunately, I seldom have any use for $1 or 50¢ stamps. ## I'm gonna have to get to one of those Swap Meets. ## Well, Ted White mentioned You're All Alone first. I do think it's one of Fritz's best works, and I think he ought to try peddling it as a s-f paperback to Ballantine or somebody, where people can find it (and he can get money for it). I doubt that even many collectors know about The Sinful Ones (and yes, Ted, I would like a copy if you could scare me up one), and it's certainly unlikely that Fritz is still making any money out of it; whereas s-f paperbacks these days -- the good ones, anyhow -- tend to be reprinted every few years.

Bĵo Trimble -- Would it be possible to wrangle a piece of that rahadlakum? I'd like to see if it's really as good as "Kismet" makes it sound: "'Tis sweet with the meat of the lichee nut, Combined with the cumquat rind; The kind of confection to drive a man out of His Mesopotamian mind!" ## I hope that we can continue to get Apa L cover art and suchlike from Luise in the future. Now that Dan's no longer in a position to charge $6 a page for her cover art to finance his Diplomacy fanzine...

Lon Atkins -- Welcome, I guess. You really shouldn't be in here, because we've still got a shortage of Dist'ns to go around to all, and we've turned down several other out-of-towners who applied before you did because of this. Well, I guess we can give you the copy we usually give to Baker, or Johnstone, or Hannifen; none of whom hardly ever do anything for Apa L these days, anyhow. ## Don't forget to send a copy of THE APACHE to Harold Piser for his Index of fan apas.

Andy Porter -- A really bad movie can be well worth seeing, if you're with a lively enough audience. I recall some monster movie I saw at a kiddy matinee some years ago; the monster didn't come on until about ¾ through the movie, and about five minutes before that, some man -- presumably a father -- walked up and down the aisle calling, "Arthur, where are you? You come on home now, Arthur!", until the usher put him out, which got the audience in a jolly mood right there. Then as soon as the monster made its appearance, some wit hollered, "Hi, Arthur!", and the whole theater was off. I haven't been to a picture of this sort since -- 1962, I guess it was, when a group of fans went to see something that has as the second feature an Italian chariot opera called "The Mighty Ursus", staring the redoubtable Ed Fury! It was even worse than it sounds, and there were wisecracks coming from all over the theatre, not least from our group. (Hey, Bĵo, whatever did happen to "The Mighty Sciurus"?) Maybe we ought to get up a theatre party to go see another Italian import soon, just for the heck of it. Bruce & Dian? Bĵo? Jack? Phil? ## Well, Cislunar or Circumlunar Cosmology; when it was first thought up, neither Us or Them had anything that'd make it around the Moon yet. ## Gad; Bĵo should've had some of her ACTIFAN COMICS to sell at that ComiCon. Just for the heck of it, did you get that kid's name or address? Maybe I could sell him some of my CF fanzines.

Bill Blackbeard -- A very nice rundown on "Fifteen men on The Dead Man's Chest"! However, your (or rather Allison's) "final version" here isn't quite the same one that's sung by the Roger Wagner Chorale on their Sea Chanties recording. Your first stanza is all right, except for "a Dead Man's Chest" and "a bos'n's pike", instead of "the" in both cases. Your second stanza checks to about halfway down, then the recording veers off:

Your third verse is the same, except for "lips struck dumb" instead of "mouths"; your fourth verse -- about the plucky jade -- is omitted entirely; and the last verse is ok, with the minor exception of "fare-thee-well" in place of "fare-you-well". The song is listed on the record as "Traditional", I suppose you know. ## When do we get more Skye?

Fred Hollander -- As it happens, Luise did put on the "44" herself, on the cover to the 44rh Dist'n. And I put the numbers on the cover before that that looked "ever so much better". On the other hand, I also did the lettering on Ted White's cover for the 42nd Dist'n, which Ted didn't like. On the whole, I try to have the artists put on their own lettering and numbering, unless it's a standby cover to be used whenever things run short, in which case I'll fill in the appropriate number when the time comes. As things stand now, I have enough covers for the next month and a half; the covers for #47 and 48 are already run off, I have the stencils for #49 & 50 already cut, Jack has given me various stencils of his full-page art used in other fanzines to be rerun as Apa L covers, I've 50+ copies of overruns of other fanzine covers that just have to be overprinted Apa L to be used here, and there're several more Bĵo-Simpson collaborations in ink sketches that still have to be put on stencil.