Adventure and a trip to Eastercon await the next Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund delegate. Chris Garcia and Steve Green promise! And since they’re the two most recent winners, they ought to know. Nominations are being accepted until October 4.
The full press release appears after the jump.
Randy Byers sends along even more reasons to attend Corflu Zed in Seattle, March 13-15:
The Eaton Collection, in the form of Rob Latham, will be attending Corflu as part of the outreach to fandom that has been written about recently in Earl Kemp’s eI and Chris Garcia’s Drink Tank. Chris and Rob will be on a panel at the convention to explain the Eaton Collection’s mission vis-a-vis science fiction, fanzines, and fandom. The Eaton Collection is also hosting a pizza party in the consuite on Saturday at 6 p.m.
We are organizing a couple of different tours for Friday. Jack William Bell is leading a tour of the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, which is pretty much a no-brainer attraction to any hardcore science fiction fan. For those who have already seen the museum we are also talking to the Seattle Architectural Foundation about arranging a guided walking tour of the University District (where the Hotel Deca is located) with a special focus on the imprint left by the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition of 1909, which exactly a century ago played a key part in Seattle’s development. Anybody who is interested in either of these tours should contact us at zed@corflu.org so we can get an idea of the headcount.
Byers also promises there are going to be some interesting characters at this year’s Corflu, including the rare and legendary Tobes Valois.
Meanwhile, you have until March 5 to e-mail in your FAAn Awards votes to Corflu.zed.faan@gmail.com.
The double-century issue of The Drink Tank (#200), its fourth annish, is more than historic — it’s a hoot-and-a-half. Chris Garcia and a whole slate of interesting fans have packed it with laughs.
When Chris invited Cheryl Morgan to contribute, the word annish seems to have been garbled in transmission. But who could have done a better job than Cheryl of envisioning traditional Amish fanac?
A fanzine produced by science fictional Amish, therefore, would be composed on an Apple Mac, or a Dell running Windows XP (which, incidentally, is still on sale in the future because Microsoft still haven’t got the bugs out of Vista, or whatever they are calling the latest release).
Cheryl shows that being a fine writer can take you far. Beth Zuckerman proves that fine writing combined with advance preparation goes even farther toward ensuring your convention experiences will yield great fanzine material. No conreport of mine can ever hope to achieve anything like her account of Arisia 2009:
I did have to seek out a t-shirt vendor, because while my 51-lb suitcase was fully equipped with rocketship pajamas, the ostentatiously unnecessary coin bra, an entire No. 6 costume with eyebrow makeup, a veritable mountain of lingerie, and a generous supply of little rubber things, somehow I entirely failed to bring anything to wear during the day before the parties started.
Pro wrestling is one of Chris Garcia’s passions. In this issue, his friend Bobby Toland has a lot to say about professional wrestler Kurt Angle’s need to learn humility, and how those lessons might be imparted. One of the hallmarks of good fanwriting is its ability to make fascinating a subject that ordinarily would be of little interest, which is my default response to pro wrestling. Toland held my attention from start to finish.
I also admired the trivia quiz “Fantastic Fours” by Frank Wu and Brianna Spacekat Wu. I answered more than half of them wrong, but everyone reading this review should be able to name the foursome composed of Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo.
Christian McGuire spends most of his time as one of the leading conrunners of the age, but thanks to Chris Garcia he hasn’t been completely lost to the world of fanwriting. Plenty of people will want to read all about McGuire’s adventures at Further Confusion 2009 once I mention that one of the lines in the report is: “A prurient Pink Panther holding up the tail of the Tiger before him offered Andy the choice to play jump rope with the tail. All I can say is that Andy can Double-Dutch with me any day.”
Leigh Ann Hildebrand is yet another friend of Chris’s with a great sense of humor. This is not even the funniest line in her list of “Five Things I’m No Longer Allowed To Do in the Fanzine Lounge”:
4. Not allowed to offer impromptu origami classes using materials at hand, even with the justification that it’s a form of performance art expressing my thoughtful critique of the phrase “core fandom.”
Every issue of The Drink Tank is highlighted by a combination of original art and assorted graphics liberated from the internet. An example of the latter, my favorite in issue #200, is the wry parody of RIAA’s anti-piracy ads showing a woman in a pre-WWI hairdo manipulating two Edison phonographs under the caption “Home Cylinder Duplication Is Killing the Music Industry.”
It doesn’t seem that long ago Chris was gushing poetically about what it might be like to produce his hundredth ish, at the time something only a select few active faneds like Arnie Katz, Knarley Welch and Mike Glyer could claim. Within five seconds after mentioning this in File 770, I immediately heard from myriads of offended fans who’d been left off the list, the most impressive being Mark and Evelyn Leeper who wondered what was the big deal, since their MT Void has published fifteen “one-hundredth” issues.
But the point is that it’s my turn to live vicariously through Chris’s experience. At the rate I’m producing issues there’s a good chance I will have to wait until 2028 or so to have a 200th issue experience of my very own. Great work Chris!
Sometimes it takes reading a good conreport to convince a fan that he had a terrific time at the con after all. Chris Garcia’s Loscon report in SF/SF 78 has done that for me. Thank goodness I held my opinion til Chris worked his magic on this experience of ours:
I walked over to my second panel of the day, What Makes a Good Fanzine, and there were two total audience members: Robert Kennedy and another fellow whose name I forget. It was very much like the Fanzine panel we’d had earlier, and we had the exact same panel again: me, Hertz, Glyer and Milt. It’s something that got to me again. I’ve been to well-attended Fanzine panels, but none of the ones at LocCon got much attention. It happens.
The participants enjoyed themselves, which justifies running the program item, right? Just like that Roman chef who toned down the bill of fare one night when there were no guests and was criticized, “Don’t you realize? Tonight, Lucullus dines alone!”
LosCon fanzine panels always draw an audience of two. When they used to be scheduled on Sunday morning at 10 a.m., Marty Cantor and I would blame the timeslot, when everyone was still asleep after a night of partying. The explanation when the panel is placed in prime time on Saturday afternoon, as it was this year, is well, ah… I’ll have to get back to you about that.
The SF/SF staff has loaded the rest of issue 78 with equally compelling reading, not the least of it this note about SMOFcon:
Kevin [Standlee] reviewed SMOFcon in Columbus, Ohio as having about 100 attendees and a lack of new programming and that next year’s SMOFcon will be in Austin, TX.
Now find File 770 #154 at eFanzines.com.
A cover collaboration by Brianna Spacekat Wu with Frank Wu adorns the issue. The news inside is complemented by Taral’s article about La Dolce Vita of being a fanartist. My Denvention 3 report is matched with Chris Garcia’s autobiographical explanation about “How to Present a Hugo.” John Hertz’ Westercon Notebook covering the con in Las Vegas, is followed with con reports by Martin Morse Wooster, James Bacon and Francis Hamit, and the collected Adventures in Speerology from Patricia Rogers.
Chris Garcia alerts the media that a new issue of Journey Planet has appeared, his collaborative effort with James Bacon and Claire Brialey.
I’ve been looking forward to the issue because Diana contributed an article. But they certainly didn’t do her any favor in the way they presented her material. Diana’s article was dropped in between long series of questionnaires answered by femmefans. Several other contributions suffered the same fate. The effect is to make the authors of the articles look like they didn’t get the memo.
“Rembrandt Laughing” just sold for $4.5 million to someone who correctly guessed that it was by the artist himself. An auction house valued it at only $3,078 last October when it was believed to have been painted by one of Rembrandt’s students or an imitator. Chris Garcia and Rembrandt van Rijn – twins separated by three centuries.
Jim Caughran, announcing the latest additions to the online Fancyclopedia, sends links to Jean Weber’s updates of the articles about Fan Funds, GUFF and DUFF.
Weber’s list of a fund winner’s duties includes:
Fund winners become administrators of the fund until the next winner returns from a trip. Fund winners are expected to publish a trip report.
Well, I always do expect them to write a report, and some funds enjoy a good track record when it comes to that. A surprising number of TAFF winners have not felt obligated in that way. Fortunately, there is Chris Garcia’s good example to point out (donation required for access to the full online report; individual chapters have been published in several recent fanzines that are freely available on http://www.eFanzines.com).
The new issue of SFSF boasts a fabulous five-page section of Chris Garcia’s TAFF report.
Chris Garcia is back in the country, hard at work laying out his TAFF Report. He thinks it will run 75 pages, and you can lock in your right to read it online by sending a donation to Garcia@computerhistory.org. A foretaste of things to come appears in the latest issue of The Drink Tank. Peter Sullivan also weighs in about his favorite panels at the British Eastercon.
