Tag Archives: Dave Kyle

Happy Birthday Dave Kyle

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Dave Kyle

Dave Kyle

The legendary Dave Kyle is 95 today. History has been kind to him for the same reason as Churchill – because he has written it (mostly for Mimosa.)  

One cannot fail to be impressed by the realization that a fanpolitician who has been in as much mischief as Dave nevertheless was made a Knight of The Order of Saint Fantony, won the Big Heart Award, and became Worldcon fan guest of honor (1983).

What mischief is that? Here are a few examples —

He attended the 1936 meeting of New York and Philly fans which decided to dub itself the first science fiction convention in advance of the Leeds event announced for 1937.

He wrote the “Yellow Pamphlet” that helped inspire the “The Great Exclusion Act of 1939” but, unlike his fellow Futurians, was not kicked out of the First Worldcon. As Joe Siclari explains —

Some bitter feuding between the Moskowitz-led convention leadership and the New York Futurian group led by Donald A. Wollheim, who had originally been tasked with running the convention. This erupted in an argument at the convention which led to the first great “Exclusion Act.” Wollheim, Fred Pohl, John Michel, Robert W. Lowndes, Cyril Kornbluth, and Jack Gillespie were ejected from the convention for distributing a brochure titled: A Warning. The booklet had been published by Kyle. He told me he stashed the copies behind a radiator where Michel found them. Michel and the other Futurians were giving it out when Moskowitz and Sykora found out about it and banned them from the convention. Meanwhile, Kyle was inside, blissfully attending the proceedings.

Arthur C. Clarke received Hugo Award from chairman Dave Kyle at the 1956 Worldcon, NyCon II.

Arthur C. Clarke receives Hugo Award from chairman Dave Kyle at the 1956 Worldcon, NyCon II.

In 1956 when Kyle got to chair a Worldcon he enhanced his legend by awarding Hugos made with Oldsmobile hood ornaments, and having banquet speech freeloaders run off with the ever-after famous message “Dave Kyle says you can’t sit here.”

At about the same time he also got involved as a director of WSFS Inc. In the falling-out among its founders Kyle sued some of the others for damage to his reputation.

Yet time does heal all wounds. Three decades later Dave’s reputation was greater than it had ever been – to the degree that in 1985 Starlog Magazine listed him among the 100 Most Important People in Science Fiction/Fantasy alongside Heinlein, Tolkien, Shatner and Nimoy.

Well, there’s greatness and then there’s greatness…

The Oldsmobile Hugo

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Arthur C. Clarke received Hugo Award from chairman Dave Kyle at the 1956 Worldcon, NyCon II.

Arthur C. Clarke receives Hugo Award from chairman Dave Kyle at the 1956 Worldcon, NyCon II.

It might have been the greatest April Fool’s joke in the history of science fiction had the 1956 Hugo Awards been given on this date. They weren’t, but there’s no more appropriate day for the story of Dave Kyle’s Hugos.

When the Hugo Award was revived in 1955 (having skipped a year) the Cleveland Worldcon committee hoped Jack McKnight, who machined the originals in 1953, would make their rockets, too. Time passed and their letters brought no replies. Finally, Nick Falasca asked, couldn’t they simply use Oldsmobile “Rocket 88″ model hood ornaments?

They ordered one from the local Olds dealer. Unfortunately, the rocket had a hollow underside. It wouldn’t look right standing perpendicular to the base, the way every Bonestell fan envisioned a rocket ready to launch. The committee discarded the hood ornament idea. Ben Jason asked the Hoffman Bronze Co. prepare a pattern rocket from his design. Yet Jason must have had an unfulfilled longing for the Rocket 88 logo because his 1955 Hugos still looked like a larger, 3-dimensional version of Oldsmobile’s emblem.

Attending Clevention’s awards banquet was Dave Kyle, chair of the next year’s Worldcon. Dave must have thought the Rocket 88 logo was nifty, too. And never mind Bonestell — Dave knew how to take care of the objection to hollow hood ornaments.

1956NyConSo NyCon II produced the1956 Hugos by affixing Oldsmobile rockets to a decorative wooden backing. The L-shaped base displayed the rocket standing upright while concealing its hollow underside.

I’m confident Arthur C. Clarke in the photo above is smiling with pleasure about the award he’s just won. But if he was laughing about Dave Kyle’s audacity at handing him a Hugo made from car parts who could blame him?  

(To see how Hugos are made today, read Peter Weston’s article at the official Hugo Awards website.)

Rooms With A View

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The Haggard Room.

Chicon 7 will recreate as an exhibit the Haggard-themed room from the home of GoH Jane Frank and her husband, Howard.

The Franks’ admiration for H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines, She and his other lost world stories inspired them to design a room in their house to showcase specifically commissioned art based on Haggard’s work. Decorated in Victorian-era furnishings, the Haggard Room displays thematic art by Michael Whelan, Don Maitz, and Bob Eggleton, Gary Ruddell, Donato Giancola, Ian Miller, Jeffrey Catherine Jones, Richard Bober, and Steve Hickman.

Chicon’s exhibit will be the most opulent room recreation ever presented by a Worldcon, a real peek into how “the other half lives” when you consider what has gone before.

Anticipation, the 2009 Worldcon in Montreal, used large graphic photos to reproduce the apartment of its Fan GoH Taral Wayne, the visuals as intricately detailed as a Taral fanzine cover because of all the collections on display.

Entry to Taral's apartment at Anticipation.

Collections on display in Taral's apartment at 2009 Worldcon.

Previously, Chicon 2000 decorated its Fan Lounge to resemble the living room of a typical Chicago fan in the ‘80s, furnished with an ill-assorted bunch of old couches, lamps and end tables. One couch was occupied by two crash-test dummies dressed as Neil Rest and Phyllis Eisenstein – bearded “Neil” wearing sandals, jeans and a Windycon 7 t-shirt, and “Phyllis,” attired in black, a goth ahead of her time. Poor-fan’s bookcases made of boards and cinder blocks lined the perimeter of the room.

Roger Sims and Dave Kyle with “Neil” and “Phyllis” in the Chicon 2000 Fan Lounge.

These room recreations make innovative use of the exhibit space and have all been fun. I wonder if there been any others than the ones I remember?

Update 07/27/2012: Corrected identification of Chicon 2000 Fan Lounge crash-test dummy to Neil, per comment.

Ruth Kyle (1930-2011)

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Ruth Kyle

Ruth Kyle died January 5 after a brief illness. She had turned 81 only the day before.

She met her future husband, noted fan Dave Kyle, at a convention in 1955. The next year she served as Secretary of the Worldcon in New York, which Dave chaired, and the year after that they married, trufannishly honeymooning at the 1957 Worldcon in England, traveling there with 53 friends and in-laws on a specially chartered flight.

A memorial service will be held in the spring. In lieu of flowers, contributions in her name can be made to Trinity Church, 8 Maple Street, Potsdam NY 13676-1181.

Ruth and Dave’s nephew, Dave Knechel, posted a short reminiscence here.

Dave Kyle told about the first time he met Ruth in “Sex in Fandom”, published in Mimosa 10:

Ruth Kyle, my wife, entered fandom as Ruth Landis, a minister’s daughter from New Jersey. Months before the 1955 Clevention, she read about the worldcon in Astounding Science Fiction. A genuine sf enthusiast, she decided she wanted to meet those who were bringing her such enjoyment. Knowing no one and not being familiar in any way with fandom, Ruth showed up alone at the Manger Hotel in Cleveland. I became aware of her presence when Ken Bulmer and his wife Pamela alerted me….

She was very attractive and I considered myself lucky. (Bless Ken and Pam!) For one brief moment I left Ruth unattended while I crossed the lobby to speak to a new arrival. “Excuse me, Ruth. Be right back.” My back was turned, the unexpected took place, and Isaac Asimov torpedoed me. He touches upon this in his autobiography. What happened next was a simple case of TDOM (The Dirty Old Man), the Good Doctor, spiriting off this pretty young thing for himself. He saw her, grabbed her arm, wondered what she was doing all alone and, commanding, “C’mon!” started to rush her toward the elevator. “We’re going to a party!” “I’m with someone,” she protested feebly. “Who?” he asked. “Dave Kyle,” she said. “Fine! Dave’s going to the party, too.” And without further discussion, whisked her away. I returned. She was gone. Obviously, I had struck out….

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

Life in Fandom, Vintage 1951

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While I’m impressed that Google can search Life magazine’s photo archive, it’s had no practical impact on my blogging – my posts don’t call for pictures of Dwight Eisenhower, Rita Hayworth and Jackie Kennedy. And when Google Books made 1800 complete issues of Life available online September 23, I supposed bloggers would attach the most significance to Google’s first having secured permission of the copyright holder. Not so!

Bill Higgins (I hear) was the first to discover within this massive collection something of unique fanhistorical interest. He triggered an internet stampede by posting the Google Books link to Winthrop Sargeant’s article in the May 21, 1951 issue of Life – “Through the Interstellar Looking Glass” – an astonishingly well-informed narrative about science fiction fandom. Such accuracy and sensitivity to fannish nuance remains beyond the capability of today’s journalists, so the achievement is all the more remarkable having come at a time when fans identified themselves with propeller beanies. (*)

Sargeant not only got the facts right, he also had remarkable sympathy for fandom’s received wisdom on many points, such as:

…the modern science fiction fan tends to be a little suspicious of any contemporary STF writer who, like Ray Bradbury, gives moral ideas and human problems precedence over invention and discovery.

James V. Taurasi, Forrest J Ackerman and various Detroit fans were Sargeant’s sources, according to A Wealth of Fable. These sources even arranged to have Life magazine put the slug on assorted science fictional embarrassments like the Shaver Mystery. (Richard Shaver is little remembered now, but back in the day when Bob Stewart invented a dartboard with pictures of annoying pros taped to it, players got 10 points for Ellison and 7 for Shaver.)

You can find good links to the article at Ansible or The Crotchety Old Fan.  

The visual pièce de résistance is the two-page spread devoted to a panoramic photo of pros and fans at a Hydra Club banquet. Curiously, no one in the photo is identified in the caption. I’d sure like to know what names go with all these faces.

The Hydra Club was a group of New York writers — Frederik Pohl was one of the nine heads who founded it. Dave Kyle says in “The Legendary Hydra Club” (Mimosa 25) that the banquet photo Life published was taken at the Hydras’ New York Science Fiction Conference of July 1-3, 1950. Hydras organized it and invited ESFA members to participate, too.

The photo may include any or all of the Hydra members named in Kyle’s article: Judy Merrill, Sam Merwin, Jerry Bixby, Isaac Asimov, Harrison Smith (Publisher of The Saturday Review of Literature), Bea Mahaffey, Walter Bradbury (Doubleday), Groff Conklin, Frederick Fell, Robert Arthur, Dr. Tom Gardner, Dr. David H. Keller, Will F. Jenkins (Murray Leinster), and Phil Klass.

Sargeant’s article would have been just the beginning of respectable mass media attention to fandom had things happened according to plan. The 1952 Worldcon in Chicago drew representatives from Look, Life and Time. Unfortunately, as Warner writes in A Wealth of Fable, when the representatives of the Luce magazines found Look photographers taking pictures of a ballet which University of Chicago students had worked up, they walked out in a huff. All three magazines turned up their noses and published nothing about the con.

(*) Mind you, John Hertz and I are quite fond of ours. However, we’d be silly to think wearing them confers upon us any authority with reporters.