Remembering Allan Asherman

Allan Asherman

By Steve Vertlieb: Allan Asherman has passed away. He was a revered writer, journalist, Star Trek scholar … and cherished friend. My brother Erwin and I first encountered Allan at Forry Ackerman’s original “Famous Monsters Convention” at Loew’s Midtown Manhattan Motor Inn in the heart of New York City in September 1965. Along with fellow fans, collectors and writers such as George Stover, Wes Shank, and Gary Svehla, Erwin and I, along with Allan, were introduced to the expansive world of organized “Fandom.”

Erwin and I visited Allan many times over the ensuing years at his parent’s apartment in Brooklyn, New York. It was Allan who introduced us to Buster Crabbe when we three journeyed as star struck teenagers to The Concord Hotel in the Catskills in 1969, and sat in rapturous awe before the hero who had enchanted our childhoods as Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Red Barry, and Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion.

I can remember a young gentleman in his early teens, so many years ago, joining us for an afternoon at Allan’s home. This young fan, Scott MacQueen, went on to become one of America’s greatest film scholars and preservationists.

In 1969, after having shared a joyous day with Buster Crabbe in upstate New York, courtesy of Allan, I returned the favor when he visited Erwin and I at our own parent’s home in Philadelphia. I had arranged for, perhaps, the very first “fan” interview with William Shatner at “The Playhouse in the Park” near Philly where Captain Kirk was co-starring with Jill Hayworth in a theater in the round production of There’s A Girl In My Soup. I happily gathered together my brother Erwin, and Allan, to join me when I interviewed Shatner for a British fanzine that I was writing for called L’Incroyable Cinema Magazine.

My published interview with Bill Shatner was later re-published in the third issue of The Monster Times, the world’s first and only bi-weekly Monster tabloid. Still later, it was published yet again within the pages of Allan’s definitive, original study of the Star Trek phenomenon, the famed Star Trek Compendium.

Allan and I were among the original stable of staff writers for The Monster Times in 1972, while Allan journeyed to planets and galaxies “Where No Man Had Gone Before” as a revered, legendary figure in the vast world of all things Star Trek.

Allan visited my home, and my parents, many times over the ensuing years and, when I married my then wife, Maria, visited us for a memorable weekend where I proudly gifted my dear friend with some treasured soundtrack albums by composers such as Miklos Rozsa and Bernard Herrmann.

As we grew older, our paths diverged. Allan married his sweetheart, Arlene Lo, and settled on Long Island. We met once more for a couples weekend with fellow fans Bill and Mary Burns, Bruce and Flo Newrock, Maria and I.

Every year during the holidays Allan would telephone me, or I would telephone him, and we’d catch up on each other’s lives.

In recent years our communications became fewer, and I always regretted not having just one more opportunity to meet with Allan, and talk endlessly into “the wee small hours of the morning.”

Despite the absence of regular telephone calls, however, I always cherished Allan’s friendship. Then, on the evening of September 23, 2023, I received a somber phone call from my brother Erwin in Los Angeles. He’d heard from Allan’s devoted wife, Arlene, that Allan had passed away suddenly at age seventy-six in a freak accident.

Allan Asherman and I were friends for very nearly sixty years. Despite the physical distance between us, I always cherished Allan, both as a dear friend, and as a brother. I remain numbed by his passing, and by his terrible loss from my life, yet shall forever hold dear my memories, recollections, conversations, associations, and friendship with this dear man.

My sense of loss and utter desolation, however, is palpable. May God Rest His Sweet Soul, sailing the galaxy eternally upon the gallant bridge of the “U.S.S. Enterprise.”

Until we meet amongst the stars once more, dear friend, I shall ever love and cherish both your memory and friendship.

Allan Asherman and Steve Vertlieb.

Michael D. Toman: A Reminiscence

Michael D. Toman

By William F. Wu: My longtime friend Michael D. Toman died at home of natural causes in the last week of August. I knew him for forty-nine years. He was extremely kind and generous, very well educated, as well as being a brilliant, modest, and considerate friend.

His tastes were wide: Classical literature and of course science fiction and fantasy from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley to the most recent editions of Analog, Asimov’s, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. In casual conversations, he might reference the ghost stories of M.R. James and the work of Tolstoy (with the opinion that Tolstoy was unfairly denied a Nobel Prize), then express a thought connecting them to a work by Robert A. Heinlein or Lewis Carroll or John Updike. In music, he was well versed, as a baby boomer would be, in classic rock, but he also loved opera and blues – a range of taste I find to be rare. He often – one approving neighbor said almost nightly – listened to classical music. Movie soundtracks were another favorite and he would sometimes describe instrumental moments he loved using musical terms I never learned. Soundtracks by Miklós Rósza and Elmer Bernstein were among his favorites. He told anecdotes about the improvisations of early bluesmen as easily as referencing a Beatles song.

Michael – he eschewed “Mike” many years ago and I’m writing “eschewed” because he would find it funny – “Gesundheit!” – grew up in Lansing, Michigan, and attended Michigan State University for his bachelor’s degree. While I was born and raised in the Kansas City area, I have multi-generational roots in Michigan. My mother and her mother grew up in Ann Arbor, Mich., and attended the University of Michigan, where my parents met. I attended that university, got my bachelor’s degree in 1973, and took a year off from school before starting grad school in 1974.

Michael attended the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop in 1973, which was also a for-credit class at Michigan State at that time. Among the people he met there was Alan Brennert, who became a lifelong friend.  Before starting my grad school classes at Michigan in the fall of 1974, I attended Clarion that summer. One day, as I was walking up the hall in a dormitory, I glanced into the open doorway of a room where various manuscripts were on a table, available to read. A stranger was standing in the room, looking over the manuscripts, and I wondered why someone outside the workshop was in there.

It was Michael, of course, and he had come from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, where he was studying for a master’s degree in library science, to visit that week’s instructor. After all these years, I don’t remember which instructor that was, though it was either Robin Scott Wilson the first week or Harlan Ellison the third week. He also came back to see Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm in the final two weeks. We first met in the instructor’s room one evening with some other attendees.

I was impressed. Michael had a short story, “Shards of Divinity,” in the anthology Science Fiction Emphasis #1, edited by David Gerrold. I had bought the anthology, which had just come out in April of that year, and remembered the story. Michael was the first published author in my generation I met after reading his work, being about a year-and-a-half older than I am. He was friendly and funny. When I told him I had read that story of his, and liked it, he was surprised and modest, and covered his reaction with a joke about “Trekkies.” I had been writing stories all my life, but I had just started taking a professional approach and submitting stories during the previous twelve months. He had accomplished what I was aiming for.

Michael and I became friends gradually over time. During the following school year, I went to my first sf con. I took a girlfriend to Kalamazoo, where Harlan Ellison was the guest of honor. I had enjoyed meeting Harlan – including his highly disapproving critique of a failed story I wrote to his assignment about “where lost things go” – and visited with Michael and Harlan at the con. At another con that year, a ConFusion in Ann Arbor, I crossed paths with Michael again. I took my current girlfriend and Michael observed that I was wearing the same shirt as the last time he had seen me, but adding with a kind of humor I would come to know well, “same shirt, different girl.” It was funny but I had some explaining to do.

Subsequently Michael received his master’s degree and began working as a librarian at Lansing Community College. I was in a combined master’s and doctoral degree program in American Culture. We continued to cross paths at nearby cons and also the Worldcon in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1976. Eventually we visited back and forth between Lansing and Ann Arbor, discovering many more common interests including the original King Kong movie and alternate history fiction – and he knew more about both subjects than I did. We corresponded more often than we saw each other. Back then, when a “long-distance call” cost extra money, we saved pennies by not using the phone.

When I applied, in 1977,  for affiliate membership in Science Fiction Writers of America on the basis of a story published in a British anthology, Michael was the membership chairman. I received a letter of acceptance from him in which the body was informative and professional in tone. In a P.S., he added a humorous personal note as one friend to another in a style that he would use in correspondence with just about everyone for the rest of his life.

By 1978, we decided to go to the 36th World Science Fiction Convention, also known as Iguanacon II, in Phoenix together and share a motel room. We found a place much cheaper than the high-priced Hyatt Regency convention hotel. This motel was in walking distance of the con and we met another motel guest who was a fan. She went by Mickey and said she had never met published writers before. We enjoyed visiting with her and were careful to explain that our careers were still limited. At that con, we met writer Ed Bryant, who was editing an anthology at the time (he had already rejected a story of mine). We also met writers Pat Murphy and Cherie Wilkerson, who had attended Clarion that summer. They also became longtime friends.

At this con, we also learned of more science fiction and fantasy writer friends of our age group living in the Los Angeles area. As always, in visiting with people at the con, Michael was modest about being a published writer and always enjoyed complimenting and encouraging other writers whether they were published or not. He liked sharing information when he could about new short story markets and sometimes comments he had received or heard about from various editors that might reveal leanings they might have. This, too, continued for the rest of his life.

I had a year to go in grad school, though I didn’t know exactly when I would finish – I was about to start my doctoral dissertation, which I completed just about twelve high-stress months later. After all this time in school, I had lost interest in becoming a college professor somewhere. I knew I only wanted to write, though how I’d make a living wasn’t clear. Michael took part in a strike at the library, where he had a stressful split shift every day of work. Over time after the strike, the woman in charge gradually reduced the number of working hours of every employee who had taken part in the strike and was successfully forcing them to find work elsewhere.

At this 1978 Worldcon, we complained and commiserated about our lot and meandered toward the idea of moving to Los Angeles together after I had my doctoral degree and when he was ready to escape the stress and uncertainty of his library job.

Also that year, Michael had a story published in an anthology in France. It appeared as “Contre-odyssée”in translation and was “Against the Odds” in the original English. He was always disappointed that he was never able to get it accepted in the U.S. Two years earlier, “Shards of Divinity” had appeared as “Quelques miettes de divin” in a French anthology. In 1978 I had another short story published in a British anthology that was a sequel to the one in which my first professional sale had appeared in 1977. In the U.S., our publishing histories were Michael’s “Shards of Divinity” and a short story of mine that had appeared in a regional magazine in 1974. That publication was not deemed sufficient as a credential for SFWA membership. Despite writing and submitting our work often to U.S. magazines and anthologies, we each had two stories in European publications that outnumbered our individual stories in the U.S. That was an irony we shared with considerable annoyance.

During these years, Michael became friends with fellow Michigan State alum Joan Hunter Holly. Her first sf novel was published in 1959. Joan was down-to-earth and always supportive of his writing efforts. She lived in Lansing and ultimately had thirteen novels published and a number of short stories. Michael had a particular liking for her novel The Flying Eyes, in which aliens first appear over Spartan Stadium at Michigan State. She was SFWA treasurer in the late ’70s and Michael worked with her in his role as membership chairman. Through her, he met longtime writer Lloyd Biggle and he introduced me to both of them. Joan was a heavy cigarette smoker and died at the age of fifty, in 1982, from lung cancer. This hit Michael very hard. He spoke of her at times for the rest of his life.

In 1978, George Scithers, the editor of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, as it was titled at the time, accepted a novelette of mine. This gave me the credential to become a full member of SFWA, for which I got another letter from Michael with another dose of humor. The story was published the following year. Though our progress was slow, we felt optimistic about the direction of our writing careers.

I finished the rough draft of my dissertation in August of 1979 and the prospect of leaving my grad school life behind was becoming real. On Labor Day weekend of 1979, Michael came to Ann Arbor with some fan friends from Michigan State and one of them drove us down to Louisville to NorthAmeriCon ’79, the second North American Science Fiction Convention because the Worldcon was in Brighton, England, that year. The trip was an experience common to all of us: science fiction writers and fans saving money by sharing gas and a room, including some of us sleeping on the floor in those days when our bodies were young. At that con, we met writer Tim Sullivan, who became a longtime friend, and writer and orchestral composer Somtow Sucharitkul. Tim and Somtow lived in Boca Raton, Florida.

At one point, I was talking to one of them in the dealers room when someone interrupted, wanting to introduce another individual who lived in Boca Raton. I drifted away and learned much later that the new arrival was Diana G. Gallagher, at that time an unpublished writer working on an sf novel. While I didn’t meet her at that time, we would eventually get married.

Michael and I reaffirmed our plan to leave the long Michigan winters behind for Southern California. Knowing a number of writers already in the L.A. area – including Alan Brennert — made it a much more inviting location than any place where neither of us knew anyone. I received my doctoral degree in December of 1979 and drove my old, bought-used, gas-guzzling, but large sedan to pick him up in East Lansing in June of 1980.

Michael always hated driving. He never was in an accident or received a traffic citation. Even so, he would take a bus, ask a friend, or walk if possible – anything but drive. He owned cars at several times in his life but still avoided driving if he could.  Because he never had an explanation (“I just don’t want to”), I had to accept this, as did all his friends. So for our long trip, I agreed to do most of the driving and he agreed to spell me occasionally. We crammed the big car full of our stuff and departed late in the day.

On the second day, we had an experience Michael loved describing. I had been driving for hours in an overcast but dry day as we went south in Indiana. He agreed to take over so I could rest. As soon as he got behind the wheel and returned to the Interstate, a downpour began. He was both annoyed and hilarious: “You see what happens when I drive? You see?” He was laughing and serious at the same time. “You drive for hours and it doesn’t rain. You see?” He had more to say as lightning and thunder added to the storm.

Even so, he was a good sport and drove through the downpour for about an hour. At that point, at his request, I took over again. In minutes, the rain stopped. Then the clouds parted and I was driving in sunshine. I can’t remember exactly what Michael said in this moment, but he went on for a while – again, funny and serious at the same time.

We knew even then that when we would tell the story, listeners would assume, even while enjoying the anecdote, that we were exaggerating – especially given that were professional storytellers. In fact, the experience was exactly as I described. The fact that people didn’t necessarily believe it in full added both to Michael’s enjoyment of recounting the events and also to his annoyance about it. He told the story off and on for many years.

After a few days with my parents in the K.C. area, we drove into the Colorado Rockies. By prior arrangement, we took part in a weeklong Milford workshop in Telluride. Milford had begun in the 1950s and set the workshop pattern that led to Clarion. George R.R. Martin attended; we knew him from cons in the Midwest when he lived in the Chicago area. P.C. Hodgell, a Clarion-mate and good friend of mine, took part. We met Connie Willis, who became a longtime friend, and Kevin M. O’Donnell, Jr., who also became a good friend.

At the end of the week, Michael and I continued on our way. At one point, still on a winding mountain road, I needed Michael to drive for a while. He griped even more this time, in part because the lenses in his glasses had come loose and were held in place by clear tape – which narrowed his field of vision. I took over again as soon as I could. We reached Grand Junction in the evening and got a motel room.

Ready to leave the intensity of Milford and stress of driving behind for a while, we went to see a movie at a local theater – which happened to be showing The Shining. We knew it was based on a Stephen King novel but not that it was set in the Rockies. Nor was watching it a great way to relieve stress. After it was over, we laughed at the irony. And finally found time to relax.

In the Los Angeles area, we first stayed with Jim and Valerie Ransom, friends Michael had known in Michigan. Their kindness and patience with us can never be repaid. I found a part-time job at the L.A. City Hall with the help of Garrett Hongo, an old friend from my grad school days in Ann Arbor, as Michael applied for library jobs. We also house-sat for another old friend of Michael’s, as well as for Cherie Wilkerson and later a cousin of mine when they went out of town on long trips. One month we house-sat for the parents of a former girlfriend of mine – in fact, the girlfriend about whom Michael had observed “Same shirt, different girl” six years before.

I also attended that year’s Worldcon, which was in Boston. Someone – almost certainly either Tim Sullivan or Somtow Sucharitkul — introduced me to Diana G. Gallagher. She and I started a correspondence and sometimes talked on the phone throughout the following six months.

In January of 1981 Michael and I moved to an apartment complex with some of the other writers we knew, sometimes including Theodore Sturgeon. Michael started working for Harlan Ellison full time – each weekday I drove us to Harlan’s house where Michael, in librarian mode, typed cards to catalog Harlan’s immense book collection. Meanwhile, having received interest in my doctoral dissertation by a publisher of scholarly work, I sat in the art-deco dining pavilion and revised my dissertation. We had known Harlan for some years, of course, but these months deepened our friendship with him. During this time, Harlan accepted a story by Michael titled, “Quarto,” for The Last Dangerous Visions.  It was a brilliant pastiche of work by Jorge Luis Borges but did not make the final cut for the upcoming edition as I write this in 2023.

That spring, I attended the first International Conference on the Fantastic in Boca Raton, Florida, in part because my friends Tim Sullivan and Somtow Sucharitkul would be there. I read a short story and presented a scholarly paper drawn from my dissertation. More importantly, I got better acquainted with Diana. As a result of this trip, a couple of months later, I moved in with her and her two kids in Boca Raton.

I was apologetic toward Michael for moving on and he assured me that pursuing a serious relationship with a woman made sense to him. About three months later, Michael got a well-paying job as a reference librarian at The Aerospace Corporation. I did not return to Southern California to live until 1987, though I visited several times. Michael and I continued to correspond and, with his new income, he often called while I was still counting pennies. These years were full of bonding experiences that anchored our long friendship in years to come.

Michael always took great pleasure in helping writer friends any way he could. Sometimes he would make sure someone knew about a potential market; many times he would write to libraries to recommend they buy certain books. He also wrote to strangers with compliments and suggestions. In a striking example, he made Alan Brennert aware of two short stories when Alan was on the staff of The Twilight Zone in the ’80s. One was “Dead Run” by Greg Bear and the other was my “Wong’s Lost and Found Emporium.” Both were adapted for The Twilight Zone. All his life, he found ways to promote fiction by friends and strangers.

In 1985, I came out to L.A. with a friend and, with Michael, we watched the weeklong filming of “my” Twilight Zone episode, written by Alan Brennert. That would not have happened without Michael.

At the same time, Michael’s writing grew less frequent. He continued to submit stories already written and a poem, “Seven Ways of Looking at Godzilla.” The latter remains unpublished and I’ve suspected science fiction editors might not have appreciated its literary side and that editors of literary work were put off by Godzilla. In that poem, there’s that surprisingly wide range of interest and knowledge again, similar to his interest in blues and opera mentioned earlier. He filled paper grocery sacks and file folders with story ideas in his tight scrawl.

In the ’80s and ’90s, he had short fiction published in Cold Shocks, edited by Tim Sullivan; Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine, edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch; Fantasy Tales; and Fantasy Macabre. Beginning in the early ’90s, he did not write fiction for roughly the last thirty years of his life. He often said, “It’s easier to manage other people’s careers than your own.” Even so, he always insisted that he wanted to write more.

In 1987 I moved with my wife Diana and stepdaughter Chelsea to a small town in the Antelope Valley called Lake Los Angeles. The lake has been dry for decades and it’s nowhere near Los Angeles, being in the high desert north of the San Gabriel Mountains. However, I could now drive to the near edge of the L.A. sprawl in about an hour. Starting in the fall of 1987, five of us who were already acquainted got together for sushi and plum wine roughly once a year until the recent pandemic. The other three are Alan Brennert, Michael Cassutt, and Robert Crais. Michael and I had met Bob Crais at Clarion in 1975 when we returned to visit Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm. Michael Toman could not bring himself to try sushi and ordered his own dinner, but for many years we all enjoyed Japanese plum wine. Alan dubbed us Brothers of the Plum. I have always enjoyed the get-togethers and Michael in particular benefited from the camaraderie as his own writing efforts were left behind. He became more self-conscious than ever about telling new acquaintances that he was a published writer of fiction, but we always reminded him that he was.

In 1995, Michael became a reference librarian for the South Pasadena Public Library. It was, at last, the work he truly wanted: Working up lists of books for the library to buy, helping members of the public find books they sought, and also suggesting books they might like but didn’t know about. Bringing readers and books together brought him special satisfaction.

In the 2000s, Michael made editors of The Best American Short Stories aware of Harlan Ellison’s story “The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore.” This became Harlan’s first appearance in this series from the literary world. Out of all the countless ways in which Michael helped other writers, he took special pride in this.

His devotion to helping also included keeping friends up to date on many sorts of news related to creative work through correspondence and eventually email. In time, he became especially fond of File770.

Related to these activities, he treasured being a generally unknown yet influential “force for good,” as he phrased it – and said he would like to be remembered as such. Here it is. Those of us who benefited from his kindness will always remember.

And, of course, the personal side of our friendship continued. When I remarried in 2007, Michael was best man at the wedding.

 Michael repeatedly gave me an intended compliment that revealed something about his long years of not writing fiction. He would say, “I really admire your discipline,” in writing my work. I always gave him the same answer, that I liked writing short stories and novels. It’s something I really want to do. I explained that I enjoyed writing and was not disciplining myself in the sense he meant. Granting that of course there have been days when I was not in the mood but had a deadline to meet, overall I enjoy the process of writing fiction – emphasis on “process.” Though he always enjoyed corresponding with people, often with cultural references and humorous observations, Michael reached the point where he truly did not enjoy writing fiction and could only have done so with the “discipline” of forcing himself to do so.

Sadly, that meant that no one will ever read the unwritten stories based on the many premises he scribbled down. Many combined unlikely concepts along the line of his story “Against the Odds,” in which an additional travail for Odysseus occurs when he finds himself in our time in the back of a bus. At his best, Michael was brilliant in pastiche and with creating premises he never developed.

Just as he never offered a reason for his aversion to driving, he never made an effort to discuss his writer’s block. He insisted he wanted to write short stories but did not write for so many years – in a reference he would recognize, his intention to write and his published stories were jam tomorrow and jam yesterday — but never jam today.

I think Michael’s greatest moment of writing gratification came in the 2000s when Harlan gave him permission to enter part of his story “Quarto” in a contest judged by John Updike. Michael had long enjoyed and admired Updike’s work and was thrilled when Updike awarded Michael’s entry first prize. Michael received it from Updike in person.

So now my friend of forty-nine years is gone.

Somewhere, there’s an alternate world where Michael D. Toman enjoys writing fiction and fully develops all his premises with great personal satisfaction. That’s a world where we could enjoy all the pastiches and mashups and other story concepts brought forth by his intellect and knowledge and sense of humor. And it’s a world where every writer he ever helped and befriended recognizes and applauds his accomplishments.

I hope the Michael D. Toman I knew has found his way there now.

John R. Douglas Dies

John R. Douglas

Editor John R. Douglas, who is being honored with a World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award this year, died August 3.

Douglas, an influential editor in the sff field for several decades, began his career at Berkley in 1978. He later worked at Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster, Avon Books and HarperCollins. He was responsible for acquiring and editing hundreds of sf and fantasy titles as well as mysteries, thrillers, other genre fiction and many kinds of non-fiction. He had been an editorial freelancer since 1999, continuing to work with words in many different ways.

Stephen R. Donaldson, David Hartwell, and John R. Douglas at World Fantasy Con 2000. Photo by Keith Stokes.

He also served as editor of the newzine SF Chronicle after it was sold by founder Andrew Porter.

John R. Douglas, born in Toronto, Canada in 1948, started reading sf when he was about 14. He went to his first convention in 1969 while he was in college — LunaCon in New York. A year later he met fellow fan, Ginjer Buchanan. In 1975 he moved to the United States and they married.

He was among the fans who co-founded the Ontario Science Fiction Club in 1966. The group later sponsored TorCon 2, the 1973 Worldcon; Douglas was the treasurer.

John is survived by Ginjer; they were married for 48 years.

John R. Douglas at Worldcon 76 in 2018. Photo taken as part of Fanac.org project. Sign shows he had been in fandom for 49 years at that time.

[Thanks to Steven H Silver for the story.]

Jerry Lapidus Remembered

[Editor’s Introduction: Fanzine fan Jerry Lapidus (1948-2023) died April 19 at home in Ormond Beach, Florida. Tim Marion and he were both members of the same amateur publishing association (apa) years ago, and Tim says the final version of this tribute will appear in another apa, FLAP.]

By Tim Marion: Jerry Lapidus began his fannish career in the late 1960s while still a student at Syracuse University.  There, he was part of a group of fans that included Lisa Tuttle, who became a fellow member of SLANAPA with him.  He published the most adventurously beautiful and graphic fanzine of its time, Tomorrow And…, which was probably the first place that ever published Dan Steffan art (who later became one of, if not the, best artists in SF fandom).  He was a multi-apan in the early 70s and a member of APA-45, FAPA, and The Cult, as well as a charter member of SLANAPA.  For all of these apas he did a “catch-all” apazine of personal material, as well as an individual mailing comments zine.

When Jerry went away to Amsterdam to study theatre, Bob Vardeman kindly typed up and reproduced his trip reports so that he did not miss a single monthly mailing of SLANAPA.  When he returned to the U.S. four months later, Jerry himself published a massive, 20pp zine of nothing but mailing comments to everyone.  Although pure text, it was a joy to look at and fun to read — again, 20pp of text; reproduced using blue mimeo ink on lime green paper.  (The blue text of this issue is inspired by Jerry’s catch-up apazine.)  I thought of Jerry as a “trublufan” for all of this.

Since it was blue ink that he used, us relatively unsophisticated Newport News fen, who mainly used ditto, were mystified, and assumed that he was using ditto to print on lime green paper.  So we tried it, with significantly inferior results.

Later, in the late 1970s, I was again in SLANAPA and got a kick out of using blue ink for text with my Rex Rotary M4 mimeo, and preferred lime green paper.  Along about this time I threw the Rex in the trunk of my car and decided to move from Newport News, Virginia, to New York City.  Jerry was one of the first people I contacted here. 

I recall going to The Cloisters (museum of medieval reliquaries) with him, his wife Anita, and Lisa Tuttle.  I wish I had thought to bring a camera.  Normally museums wear me out utterly, but I was fascinated by The Cloisters, as well as The Unicorn Tapestries which were on display.  Also glad to finally meet Jerry, as well as Lisa (who had dropped out of SLANAPA a few years before).  These were fun times, made only slightly vague now with the passage of (almost exactly) 45 years…

It would seem to me that in the Perfect World, Jerry would still be alive and publishing Tomorrow And… and once again electrifying fandom with his daring layouts and beautiful graphics.  That accomplishment is how I would like to remember Jerry.  I don’t care to remember the times that he was angry at me (I felt unfairly); no, I would rather remember that later he passed along his entire fanzine collection to me for what was really a pittance.  I got to read a lot of zines I had only ever heard of before, including his zines.  As pathetic as it must sound, this old fanzine fan actually had some of the best times of his life going through those boxes of fanzines.  Thank you, Jerry.

DisCon II 1974: Mike Wood, Jerry & Anita Lapidus, Mike Dobson, Unknown, George Beahm, Eddie Ferrell, Ned Brooks, Laurine White, Bob Roehm, Irvin Koch. Photo by George Beahm’s camera. Via Fana.org.

Remembering Tony Bennett (1926-2023)

By Steve Vertlieb: I learned this morning of the terrible news that the great Tony Bennett had passed away at age 96. He was a legendary artist and performer whose class, dignity, and style had no equal. In a world occupied by crass commercialism and juvenile imitation, Tony Bennett was quite simply a living legend, the final act and curtain call for a generation that has seen its last bow.

For my special anniversary gift to my precious Shelly in 2018, I purchased virtually the best seats in the house for the spectacular Tony Bennett concert at the venerable Academy of Music (“The Old Lady of Locust Street”) here in Philadelphia. We were seated Orchestra Center on the very first row. I could actually have touched the stage had I chosen to do so. Astonishingly, we might almost have reached out and shaken the hand of this living legend. Tony Bennett was 92 years young. I’d loved him for well over sixty years. However, due to his age, I honestly wasn’t sure of what to expect from a live performance. It was sheer magic, however. He was quite simply electrifying.

His voice was clear, strong, and amazingly powerful. He had no problem hitting the high notes. It was as if a half century had evaporated. He was obviously thrilled by the adoring crowd of literally thousands of fans and loving admirers, while transformed by their over powering affection. He sang his heart out. I’ve seen many concerts over the years. My favorite has always been Sinatra, Ella, and Basie at The Uris Theater in New York in the early seventies … but this night’s stunning performance by Tony Bennett was every bit as exciting and joyous. It was an electrifying evening of music and songs by literally the last of the great popular singers.

They’re all gone now … Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, Peggy Lee, Judy Garland, and Bing Crosby. Tony Bennett was the very last of the classic, legendary performers who proliferated concert halls and recording studios throughout the nineteen forties, fifties, and sixties. This was a truly remarkable appearance by the very last of his breed. Tony Bennett delivered an electrifying vocal performance that memorable night and he’d never sounded better. At the wondrous age of ninety-two years, he proved beyond a shadow of a doubt why he remained the magnificent persona that he was, and shall always be … a star.

God Rest Your Sweet Soul, Tony. You were the best of the best. Your music shall live for eternity. “You Left Your Heart” in perpetuity for all of us to listen to, cherish and to remember.

Remembering Jerry Goldsmith

By Steve Vertlieb: Celebrating the life, legacy, and fiery brilliance of composer Jerry Goldsmith, born February 10, 1929. Had he lived, he would have turned 94 years of age this year. His miraculous scores and recordings continue to brighten the cinematic universe with their astonishing, profoundly original themes and orchestrations, far eclipsing the less intricate scoring of most modern films and film composers in today’s minimalist culture. Less seems more in our current celluloid climate and musical universe.

Jerry Goldsmith was one of the last of a sadly dying breed of film composers who endowed their symphonic motion picture explorations with a deeply rich tapestry of sublime joy and thematic wonder. Along with his contemporaries, Elmer Bernstein, and John Williams, Goldsmith’s remarkable lyricism remains a profoundly significant influence upon the world of scoring music for the motion picture screen.

I was fortunate enough to have had a degree of personal interaction with this legendary composer briefly in 1980 when he telephoned me in response to an inquiry I’d made, first through his representation and then, later, with Jerry himself. Here’s a personal letter from the revered composer in response to an article I’d written about him for Cinemacabre Magazine forty-three years ago.

I’d telephoned Jerry at his home, and had left a message with his housekeeper, requesting some photos of him with which to illustrate a soon to be published article that I’d planned to write about his music and career. I never actually expected to receive a response, and was understandably stunned when he reached out to me the following morning. He telephoned me at home some twelve hours later, and was most gracious and cordial in our conversation, offering to ship out a package of stills once he’d received them back from his photographer.

I pinch myself to this day, recalling that I’d actually received an intimate telephone call from Jerry himself. When my telephone rang the next morning, I heard a richly refined voice at the other end of the line asking if he might speak with me. I nearly had a seizure when the caller identified himself as Jerry Goldsmith, and that he was returning my telephone call from the night before. It was a very different time, I guess, when one could actually participate in such intimate individual interaction with a composer on such a powerfully personal level.

He was very kind and most gracious during our telephone conversation and subsequent correspondence. Our brief association so many years ago remains a cherished memory, and certainly a highlight of my own life and experience. His letter, presented here once more, remains one of my most treasured possessions.

Jerry left us on July 21, 2004, at age 75. Remembering the incomparable Jerry Goldsmith on this melancholy anniversary of both his birth, and tender passing.

Ralph Lundsten (1936-2023): Cosmic Composer

Ralph Lundsten

By Ahrvid Engholm: I think the cosmic composer, friend of fandom, Ralph Lundsten was more appreciated abroad than in Sweden. For instance, folks of the national radio were sour when he hosted the popular “Summer” show and broke an unwritten rule by playing only his own songs… He never hid his talent under the bushel and that won’t go down well in the Jante Law land.*

Ralph Lundsten was born far up north, from which he acquired the calm, common sense and love of nature of the northerners. But deciding to move to Stockholm at young age 15, he also showed initiative and being enterprising.

The first time he heard a violin concert on radio, he said in an interview, he immediately bought musical note paper and began writing his own concert… His first electronic music was made with a tape recorder on which he recorded strange sounds and then cut and glued with small tape pieces. He helped creating the famous Electronic Music Studio (EMS) in Stockholm reflected in his debut on record, EMS Nr 1 (1966, see also “Elektron Musik Studion, Dokumentation 1-4”, 1966-1973). And he was early with building his own electronic instruments and synthesizers, being much of a pioneer. The better equipment he acquired the less “concrete and dissonant” his music became and he developed a style of a broad “sound carpet” of soft meditative thoughtfulness, often inspired by nature and love.

I first met Ralph when a local sf club was invited to make a much-appreciated visit to his magnificent home Villa Frankenburg around 1980, his pink “castle of wood” just east of Stockholm. It was a dump when he took over and he spent many years renovating it to a magnificent site of cosmic dreams and fantasy, which included his own advanced electronic Andromeda Studio. I remember between sipping tea we could try his Andromatic love synthesizer, which produced sounds as we touched each other. I know he loved science fiction. He had shelves of skiffy books and named albums after A. E. Van Vogt, Cordwainer Smith and others. We also had Ralph guesting at conventions a few times.

Art magazines and TV shows would make colorful reports from his cosmic castle. He often talked about space and liked to call himself an ambassador of Andromeda. If someone had a cosmic mind, it was Ralph Lundsten!

And he had his own fan club, Andromeda Fan Society, which every summer was invited to a big gathering at Ralph’s with music, ballet (he wrote many ballet pieces), cakes, and relaxation. Ralph Lundsten also entered the Guinness Book of Records as composer of history’s most played “jingle”. A piece of his “Out in the Wide World” was for decades played hundreds of times every hour as the intermission signal of Radio Sweden’s international broadcasts – a total of over 4 million times!

There is a lot of Ralph Lundsten’s music on e.g. Youtube. Just enter him into the search box.

I think I’ve cracked his secret: despite seeming so relaxed and easy going, when nobody watched — he was a workaholic! Over 100 records (in all different editions), 700 opuses, dozens of films (often experimental, some award winning), years creating his Frankenburg home, exhibitions, time for his fan club and much more — it all speaks for itself. This busy bee became 86 years young, beginning his trip to space July 5th.

And BTW, he was a reader of my fanzine. I note a LoC from him, April 2019, though only saying “Thanks!” it sufficient for a message from a galaxy far, far away…

* Law of Jante: “You’re not to think you are anything special” etc. 


More about Ralph Lundsten (in English):

RIP: Hans Sidén, Gothenburg Fandom Founder, Mingled With The Stars

Hans Sidén in the Sixties.

By Ahrvid Engholm: Maths Claesson hardly had time to get below 37C when we had more sad news: one of the founders of Swedish fandom, journalist Hans Sidén (1935-2023) went to the eternal Gafia on June 24, aged 87. Our historical trufandom slowly dies as the fen who created it kick the rocket-bucket one by one.

An 18-year-old Hans Sidén was one of the founders of our fifth oldest sf club, the only one still active, Gothenburg’s Club Cosmos launched in 1954. (#1 was Atom-Noak 1945, #2 Strate Organisation 1949, #3 was Futura 1950, #4 was club Meteor 1952).

He, Lars-Erik Helin and Gabriel Setterborg co-edited Sweden’s #2 fanzine Cosmos News (1954, #1 was Vår Rymd 1952). He wrote a lot about sf and fandom in the papers, a few books, and generally covered modern culture, especially rock music, movies, comics and popular literature.

Mr Sidén was there as it happened, as stated in his photo book The Boy With the Paisley Shirt (2021 in English with a vinyl single, available on Amazon):

Beatles, Stones, Who, Kinks, Hendrix, Dusty and Tages – the music explosion of the 60’s in Gothenburg seen through the lens of Hans Sidén’s camera. He sat so close to the band that he could’ve leaned forward and touched Lennon’s shoes when The Beatles played Cirkus in October 1963. He bantered with Rolling Stones in a hotel room, went to the discoteque with The Who and had dinner with The Troggs. He hitched a ride with Tages to Stockholm and with The Hep Stars to Borås, served Cat Stevens home made pizza, lent stacks of Tamla Motown and Stax singles to English DJ Clem Dalton and hung around every soundcheck when the stars came to town. Journalist, illustrator and author Hans Sidén had front row tickets to the music scene in Gothenburg, Sweden all through the sixties and happened to bring his cameras.

That beats touching Erik Andersson’s shoes when he filked or drinking tea as Steve Sem-Sandberg howled and owled!

A younger Hans Sidén poses with a prop from the film “This Island Earth”

I met Sidén a few times. A nice fellow how knew a lot about popular culture. Though he wasn’t too fanactive in older days, earlier he was often one of rather few to report from out conventions to outsiders. An example from Göteborgs Handels och Sjöfartstidning Sep 23 1967.

Science Fiction Meet

Around 40 sf aficionados from the whole Nordic area gathers this spring in Gothenburg for a convention. It’ll be the 12th convention of its kind and it’s arranged by the supporters of the field in Gothenburg, who call the event Götcon 1, as it’s the first time Gothenburg has this honour. Among the topics of the convention we note sf (science fiction) subjects in today’s culture, sf Vs fantasy (scientifically impossible fiction), information on foreign sf and fandom (sf fans). Films are shown and records are played, among them Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds. An award, Alvar, is also handed out. The adventures take place in the Björngårds Villa and visits of several famous friends of sf are expected.

Gabriel Setterborg here covers how Club Cosmos was founded, noting eg how the young Hans Sidén at that time already “subscribed to several American sf magazines”. Subscribing to foreign mags was rather advanced for a boy hardly out of high school. For one thing there was currency export restrictions.

Hans Sidén was a legend!

Remembering Gene London, the Beloved “Pied Piper” of Children’s Television in Philadelphia

Steve Vertlieb and Gene London.

By Steve Vertlieb: Remembering Gene London on what would have been his 92nd Birthday on June 9th…

Gene London was one of the most beloved children’s television hosts in Philadelphia broadcast history. Gene hosted Cartoon Corners, and The Gene London Show on WCAU TV, the owned and operated CBS affiliate for decades here in the City of Brotherly Love.

Born Eugene Norman Yulish on June 9, 1931, this sweet, gentle soul became an integral part of Philadelphia broadcast history, and a pioneer of children’s television, enriching young, impressionable lives and minds with his soft, endearing manner and tender persona. He was, perhaps, as cherished a television personality locally as Mister Rogers was nationally. Gene, however, was ours. He belonged to Philadelphia, and we adored him. Generations of children grew up in the light of his subtle wisdom and infinite compassion.

Early in 1981, Gene produced and hosted a four-week series at the prestigious Philadelphia Art Museum on The Parkway, exploring filmdom’s rich cultural history. Titled “Hollywood Screen Fantasies,” the series entertained a live audience on four successive Sunday mornings, and presented such Hollywood luminaries as Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz), and acclaimed puppeteer Bill Baird who operated Julie Andrews’ marionettes in The Sound of Music.

Steve and Gene.

One of Gene’s guests during that cherished series was myself. Gene invited me to appear with him in front of a live audience to discuss the making and production of the original King Kong. We appeared on stage together for an hour discussing the ins and outs of the classic 1933 fantasy classic, and the experience remains one of the happiest memories of my seventy-seven years.

Gene and I remained in touch, ever friends, for nearly forty years. He would periodically invite me to join him for some new live appearance or project. I last saw Gene at The Philadelphia Flower Show several years ago when he graced the halls of the large convention center with his gracious affection and remembrances.

Steve Verlieb, Gene London, and Shelly Bear.

Children of all ages stood in line for hours to say hello to the little boy who had helped to shape their hearts … for Gene was, in truth, a little boy himself. He could relate to his many thousands of children because he was, in his heart, a gentle innocent, a loving, inspired child. Gene never entirely grew up and it is for this reason that we were so blessed by his goodness.

Rest Well, Sweet Prince. You shall remain forever vital, alive, and beloved by all those whose lives you so wonderfully touched and enriched. Wishing you a joyous, loving, and wondrous Happy Birthday in your land of eternal dreams, and ethereal Cartoon Corners.

Rhymes with “Banter”

By John Hertz (reprinted from Vanamonde 1543):

      Many ways to think
      Arrive through what others tell.
      Restrain no freedoms,
      Tolerate discords, knowing
      Yet nutrition comes from them.

Marty Cantor (1935-2023) left our stage Saturday morning, April 29.  Advanced cancer, which for a while had been held back by treatment, finally overcame him.

He was active in fanzines.  His fanzine Holier Than Thou (with Robbie Bourget, then his wife) was a three-time Hugo finalist; his later No Award (I wrote to him “You are worthy of No Award and No Award is worthy of you”) too was applauded; he helped run Corflu IX (fanziners’ convention; corflu = mimeograph correction fluid, largely historical by Corflu I but once indispensable) and chaired Corflu XXXIV; he served three separate terms as Official Collator of APA-L (its sole officer; APA or apa = amateur press ass’n, in which contributors’ fanzines are collated and the whole then distributed to each); he helped found LASFAPA (L.A. Scientifiction Fans’ Apa, our old word scientifiction by then historical) and served as its Little Tin God (sole officer; accused of taking a high-handed attitude to the apa rules and behaving like a little tin god, he so changed his official title, LTG for short, then began the HTT fanzine; when Corflu XXII was called “Corflu Titanium” [Ti = 22] and people were given elemental nicknames, his was Tin); he (with Mike Gunderloy, Mike Glyer, Mark Sharpe) brought Shangri-L’Affaires into one of its bursts of life (clubzine of the L.A. Science Fantasy Society, begun in the 1940s, Retrospective Hugo finalist); he (with Glyer) published the 6th Edition of The Neo-Fan’s Guide; he edited and published Phil Castora’s memoir Who Knows What Ether Lurks in the Minds of Fen?; he edited De Profundis (a later LASFS clubzine; “LASFS” as if rhyming with a Spanish-English “màs fuss”).

He and Robbie were elected DUFF (Down Under Fan Fund) delegates to Aussiecon II the 43rd World Science Fiction Convention; each wrote a DUFF report, both published head-to-tail like Ace Books’ double titles; his was Duffbury Tales.  He was an agent for the successful Britain in ’87 bid to hold the 45th Worldcon.  He was given the Evans-Freehafer (LASFS’ service award).

From the mid 1950s through the early ’60s he was a folksinger and instrumentalist (also a poet published in the little magazines of that time), playing 6-string and 12-string guitar, gut-bucket, jug, washboard; he carried two guitars strapped to his motorcycle from coffee-house to coffee-house; Dave Van Ronk (1936-2002) taught him an open-C guitar tuning; he jammed with Jim Kweskin (1940-  ), David Lindley (1944-2023), the New Lost City Ramblers.

Later he managed a tobacco shop and then was the only full-time clerk at another, from which he managed to get leave for his DUFF trip five months into his employment.  During those years he was often seen with a pipe; so portrayed on the cover of Duffbury Tales.  Later than that he managed a U-Haul shop; later than that, his apartment building, hosting tabletop board games in the garage when COVID-19 precautions eased.  He and Robbie met at Chicon IV the 40th Worldcon, were married the next January; divorced after sixteen years; no children; managed to stay on good terms.

One of our more cynical – and self-deprecatory – sayings is The Golden Age of science fiction is 12.  Cantor found SF fandom at 40.  He joined the LASFS in May 1975.  His Evans-Freehafer Award came in 2016.

He hated snow.  One day Charles Curley driving along an L.A. freeway noticed the mountains could be seen clearly (they were sometimes obscured by smog) and were covered with snow.  Here in Los Angeles!  Practically on Cantor’s doorstep – aha!  So Curley recruited some friends and shovels and a tarpaulin and a pickup truck; drove into the mountains; loaded the tarp with snow; and in the still of the night drove to Cantor’s place and piled snow by the outdoor entrance.  Cantor was really touched that they cared enough about him to pull this stunt, but added “Don’t ever do that again.”

He didn’t forsake classical music.  In his school orchestra he had been Principal of Second Violins (an orchestra has two violin sections, Violin I and Violin II, with different parts), calling for both musical quality and leadership.  As an adult he loved Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (1878) and Praetorius’ Terpsichore (1612) – two very different works, in case you don’t know.

In print, including electronic media, he could be vigorous in his opinions.  He did not keep his mundane political views away from his fanac (our old word for fan activity); for example, in APA-L he waxed wroth upon such subjects with Karl Lembke, who also did much for the LASFS (chaired the Board of Directors twenty years, substantial donor, E-F Award 2010) and local conventions (often ran Hospitality, contributing his own cooking and brewing; chaired Loscon XXXII) but was as firmly on the Right as Cantor was on the Left.  Yet Cantor punctiliously enagaged in fanac with people whose views were far from his – e.g. Lembke.  It was a point of honor with him.

May his memory be for a blessing.