Esther and Lester Cole at the 1954 Worldcon. Photo by Wally Weber.
By Rich Lynch: It was back on Christmas day that
an email from an old friend arrived which provided some sad news. Esther Cole let me know that: “You probably
know that Les died in late September. He
had been very sick for a long time. Still,
he hung on, and was 93 when I kissed him goodbye, the night before he died.”
I actually hadn’t known, and apparently neither had anybody else
in science fiction fandom. Esther had
not sent an obit to the local newspaper and Ventura is far enough off the
beaten track, at least for most fans, that I may have been the first person to
learn of Les’s passing. We had been
friends for a long time.
It was back in 1991 that I first
became acquainted with Lester and Esther Cole.
I was doing some research for a new edition of Harry Warner, Jr.’s book A Wealth of Fable, an informal history
of 1950s science fiction fandom, and had contacted them to gather additional
information about the 1954 World Science Fiction Convention, which was held in
San Francisco that year. (Les had been
co-chair and Esther the treasurer.) It
was two years later, at the 1993 Worldcon (also in San Francisco), that Nicki
and I got to meet them – they had attended to participate in several discussion
panels about fandom from that fabulous decade of the 1950s. I was moderator for the panel about the
`54 Worldcon and I remember that it was highly informative and also really
entertaining, so much so that I am hoping that an audio recording will someday
surface.
Nicki and I became friends with
the Coles at the 1993 Worldcon, and following the convention we persuaded them
to contribute essays to our fanzine Mimosa. Esther’s appeared in the 16th
issue, in December 1994, and described the half century that she and Lester had
been science fiction fans. It was
titled, appropriately, “I Married a Science Fiction” and evoked a comment from
another fanzine publisher that this was the kind of article he would want to
build an issue around. But it was Les’
article, which appeared in the 18th issue in May 1995, which
was of even greater historical interest because it provided an inside story
about the time, in February 1952, when the Little Men’s science fiction club of
Berkeley, California (of which he was President) had staked a claim for a tract
of land on the moon. It resulted in
mainstream news coverage around the world.
And now he’s gone. Nicki
and I had visited the Coles several times at their home in Ventura in the years
since that 1993 Worldcon, the last time in the summer of 2018 on our way up the
California coast to Worldcon 76 in San Jose.
Les had just returned from a short stay in the hospital and was not
feeling well, so we spent most of our time talking to Esther. We departed fearing that we may not see Les
again, and maybe not Esther either since we don’t get out that way very
often. But when I told her gently that I
this might be the last time we’d ever cross paths, she just smiled and told me:
“We won’t let it be.”
I’m sorry that I won’t be seeing Les again, and I’m missing him. But as for Esther, I’m going to try very much
to make sure she is right.
By
John Hertz: Encouraged
by John Coker, I went to visit Es Cole. I found her in good
spirits. She’s 95.
She
introduced me to her two dogs, fed ice cream to me and apple slices to them,
and showed me a life-size reproduction of the Rosetta Stone text, Bob Bloch’s
note about her cheesecake in his introduction to Les’ “Tripod” in the August
1957 Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction with the
Barry Waldman cover, and Les’ library.
Some
of the shelves you see here are empty
now. The books about the American Civil War, and about Minoans, have
gone to a good home.
While
I was there she took a phone call. I was eating ice cream, but I
heard her tell someone, firmly but not harshly, “Don’t say he passed
away. My husband died.”
She
and he co-chaired the 12th World Science Fiction Convention.
Seeing A Wealth of Fable on another shelf, and
turning to the photo of her and Les, I said “That’s how I knew who you were.”
Churchill’s
memoir The Second World War,
in hard covers, was on another shelf. I said I’d read it through
four times. She said “That was my war. I was a riveter.”
She’s
still riveting – I mean the participial adjective. If she sees
that she’ll probably deny it.
By John L. Coker III: Lester Hines Cole (1926–2019), the long-time beloved husband of Esther Cole, was
a Bay Area SF fan who co-chaired SFCon, the 1954 Worldcon held in San Francisco
that had John W. Campbell, Jr. as its guest of honor. SFCon activities included a chamber opera
based on a Ray Bradbury short story (narrated by Anthony Boucher), and the restoration
of the tradition of a masquerade ball.
Les was married to Esther Cole, who joined him in many of his fannish
activities.
Cole, who died in late September, was a member of the Elves,
Gnomes and Little Men’s Science Fiction and Chowder Society (at one time
serving as its president). The Society
was founded in 1948; meetings and other club activities were always centered in
and around Berkeley, CA. In the early
days, the club published thepopular
fanzine Rhodomagnetic Digest.
Cole published the fanzine Orgasm
(aka The Big O) in 1951, along with
his wife and Clarence Jacobs. Les had
about fifty genre short stories, articles, and letters published, most of which
appeared in Amazing, Astounding,
F&SF, Venture, and Startling. He also wrote several genre novels, including
an alternate history in 2012, Spithead,
in which the two World Wars never happened.
He sometimes used the pen names of Roy Carroll, Les Collins, T. M.
Mathieu, T. H. Mathieu, and Colin Sturgis.
The last was used when Les collaborated with Melvin Sturgis.
An associate member of First Fandom, Les was inducted — along
with his wife — into the First Fandom Hall of Fame in 2017. A photo of Les (with wife Es) appeared in A Wealth of Fable (SCIFI Press, 1992)
written by SF fan Harry Warner, Jr.
He was a historian; a scholarly gentleman with many interests and great capacities who was a life-long student and a mentor; a true animal lover; someone who had one foot firmly planted in the past with the other striding boldly into the future.
Les is survived by his wife and their two sons, Dana and Lance.
(Prepared by Jon D. Swartz)
Es and Les Cole. Photo by Tove Marling
Remembering
Les Cole
By Es Cole: Les was a treasure trove of SF experiences and interactions with the great fans and writers during the glory years. He chaired the Elves, Gnomes and Little Men’s SF and Chowder Society and helped produce the 1954 Worldcon. He also captured his bride of 70 years by reading to her The Black Flame (by Stanley Weinbaum), who wore a gown of Alexandrites, rare gemstones that cost more than 15,?000 dollars a carat.
I accepted Les’ marriage proposal on condition the engagement ring
be an Alexandrite. Les, that sneaky,
funny, intellectual, got me the ring, but the Alexandrite was an artificial
stone.
My SF relationship with Les
started when we first met. I had been
assigned to run the switchboard of the men’s dorm, and Les walked into that
area, wearing a new hat. He was a wiseass
sophomore, age 18; I was a sophisticated, 20-year-old freshman. This was at Cal, Berkeley. Les spent about two hours hanging about, and
I learned from him about “dry labbing.” First thing Les taught me was how to cheat in
my chem class. Thus, I began my college career. And it worked. Plus I got a boyfriend. And the rest is history — a history of
almost 80 years.
We made our first convention appearance in New Orleans, where Bob
Bloch started a rumor that Es and Les were 15-year-old twin brothers, and we’ve
been gender confused ever since.
No. 1 son, Dana, attended the Worldcon in Chicago at age 4 1/2
months. Both sons – Dana and Lance –
attended the Worldcon in San Francisco in 1954.
Les and Es Cole, Gary Nelson, Tom Quinn and a few other people
produced SFCon 1954. We started out with
almost bare pockets. First, we turned the 2-day event into a 3-day
weekend; we upped the registration from $1 to $2. Fans screamed at the outrageous increase. Our most important accomplishment, which is
still followed today: we voted to have world conventions produced in a
different city each year, moving westward.
Prior to that, conventions had primarily been on the eastern side of the
U.S. We restored the masquerade
ball. Bob Bloch was a judge. Willy Ley’s wife, a professional ballet
dancer, wore a black, filmy, flowing gown with glowing stars. She was “deep space”.
We arranged for a wonderful museum in San Francisco to display
some original sf art, including Chesley Bonestell originals. Additional entertainment included a chamber
opera based on a Bradbury short story narrated by Anthony Boucher.
When
Les was president of the Little Men, he, and several other people, hatched an
idea to involve the United Nations to claim to have authority over ownership of
the Moon.
The
idea for the Moon Claim, originated, with the owner of the bookstore where The
Little Men held their meetings.
The
people who executed the Moon Claim were pros or near pros. Les wrote about the geology of the area of the
moon; a graduate student in astronomy was able to outline the area of the moon
being claimed; Les’ father was studying law, so he was able to write a proper
claim. They picked a date to local papers,
describing the attempt to claim a portion of the Moon, by filing such a claim
with the Legal Department of the United Nations. And yes, it worked. Press releases went out, written with a slant
that would appeal to each Bay Area newspaper. The response was far greater than we expected.
The local Berkeley paper tore up their
original front page for that day and ran the Moon Claim story. Les received a phone call in his place of work
from a reporter from England, calling from New York. The reporter was
interested in the ramifications of such a claim.
Les,
as president of the Little Men had the responsibility of fielding the phone
calls, hoping for a legal way to determine the ownership of part of the moon.
Les authored about 50 SF short stories, published in F&SF, Amazing, Startling; an
article in Astounding; and 6
novels. His letters to sf magazines were
published regularly from when he was about 13.
After we married in 1947 he added my name – thus was born Les and Es, or
Es and Les.
Books
by Les Cole: The Sea Kings, Lion at Sea, The Sea People (a prehistoric arch-aeological adventure trilogy,
also available in Greek); Baker’s Dozenth
(a spy novel set against the American Civil War); Spithead (an alternative universe spy/adventure novel where WWI and
WWII never happened because the British Navy sailed out of Spithead, England
and intervened).
Judith Merrill played a big part.
Long distance by mail and phone she helped Les hone his writing skills,
gave advice about character development, dialog. Les passed on this help to other aspiring
writers, an important obligation.
Les was never boring. I
don’t think he could be boring; he knew too much, his sense of humor never
stopped. His use of language was always
interesting, thoughtful, and unique. And
he could write; short stories, science fiction, historical novels.
He
was younger than I, and insisted that I had to marry a younger man because
women live longer than men. He was right
about so many things. Smart and funny,
and knew so much. He was never
boring.
He
is still in our house. In every corner:
his books, his photographs, his little notes tucked into books. We made each other laugh. He taught me stuff and I may have taught him
a few things, too.
(1) CHECK-IN. The 1954 Worldcon chair Les Cole and Esther Cole, who live in the vicinity of the Ventura, CA fires answered Rich Lynch’s query about how they are doing —
Thanks for asking. Les and I and doggies are OK. Fire went passed us. The air is heavy, so we stay indoors. Much of southern California is rough.
(2) HERBERT MAY BE HONORED BY HOMETOWN. Metro Parks Tacoma Public Information Manager Michael Thompson says a recommendation to name a local peninsula “Dune Peninsula at Point Defiance Park” and its loop trail “Frank Herbert Trail” probably will go to the Park Board for a vote in January. The proposal has been working its way through the system for some time. The News Tribune has an update: “‘Dune’ author Frank Herbert finally set to get his due in his hometown of Tacoma”:
While the Metro Parks Board will have the final say on the matter — and it’s the elected body’s prerogative to deviate or tweak — it’s clear that the public has spoken, and Metro Parks’ staff has attempted to listen. During a public outreach effort earlier this year, more than 500 possible names were submitted via an online survey. The majority of responses referenced Herbert or “Dune.”
“This name provides a simple, evocative identifier that highlights the uniqueness of the peninsula remediation and new park features,” according to the staff recommendation. “On a literary level, it honors the name of the book series by Frank Herbert, a famous Tacoma author, which was inspired by the environmental history of Tacoma’s Asarco copper smelter site, directly adjacent to the peninsula.”
If you go to the base of Point Defiance in Tacoma and look east, you’ll see a finger of earth jutting into Puget Sound.
It formed as toxic slag spilled from a copper smelter during the city’s industrial heyday.
For years, it was a foreboding sliver of black, glassy material. Today, workers and machines roam the peninsula as they transform it into a grassy park with Puget Sound views.
Tacoma Metro Parks Commissioner Erik Hanberg has a space-age term for what’s going on there. He calls it “terraforming.”
Greg Hullender responded by writing an apology-cum-rebuttal in collaboration with Eric Wong and altering the offensive reviews. Despite this, he has paid a high price for his faux pas. Locus decided that he was unfit to recommend stories to readers and removed him from its reading list jury, making the following announcement on Twitter.
Thank you to those who brought their concerns about RSR to our attention. Greg Hullender will not be involved in the Locus Recommended Reading List. We support our wonderfully complex and diverse SF community, and hope for continued positive dialogue on these issues.
The reference to positive dialogue seems out-of-place. The Rocket Stack Rumpus marks a breakdown in communications all around, from a reviewer missing the point of the stories he was covering, to authors misreading his reviews in turn. Meanwhile, the issue of Rocket Stack Rank’s provincial approach to stories set against non-Western cultural backdrops–as flagged up by Rose Lemberg in this Twitter thread–ended up being lost alongside Hullender’s misunderstanding of non-binary SF, which is perhaps a secondary issue.
There may well be positive dialogue to come out of the controversy, but at the present moment, there is little of it to be seen.
Canada is one step closer to the accidental legalization of cannibalism after the House of Commons passed a typo-ridden Bill C-45, formerly known as The Cannabis Act.
“I think no one wanted to be the one to point out the error,” MP Sara Anderson said. “We all thought someone else would do it, and then they called the vote, and here we are, all voting to legalize cannibalism.”
(5) RADICAL CHANGE. If this catches on, Twitter will get awfully quiet.
Anyway….I've come out with a new policy of not tweeting about something until I actually know wtf I'm talking about so I don't accidentally spread misinformation. I'm sorry I did that earlier today.
— Hank Green is Dreaming of a White Christmas (@hankgreen) December 8, 2017
Anders’s unique humor provides a uniting theme. Only some of the stories are explicitly comic, but all benefit from her linguistic wit and her quirky but generous characterization. Her stories seem to say with affection, “People. We’re weird. What can you do?” She’s particularly good at tailoring prose to her characters, revealing their lives through their diction. Characters go to “one of those mom-and-pop Portuguese places” and “the kinda-sorta gay bar.”
(7) MCDUFFIE AWARD OPEN. The 4th Annual Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics is taking entries until December 31.
Please attach a link or a 15mb .PDF file of the work to be considered. When submitting work, we strongly suggest sending the first issue of a series. If submitting anything other than the first issue, a one-page synopsis of what came before must accompany the submission. Also, we suggest sending the first 25-30 pages or first chapter of a graphic novel. We cannot guarantee anything more will be considered. If one is available, please also attach a .JPG photo of the entrant to the email. Please do not include any further attachments.
The award’s three new selection committee members are Jennifer de Guzman, Jamal Igle and Mikki Kendall, who join Mark D. Bright, Joan Hilty, Heidi MacDonald, Kevin Rubio, Gail Simone, and Will J. Watkins.
(8) ELIGIBILITY POSTS. Cat Rambo is doing her annual award eligibility post round-up, this year including editors, publishers, and magazines: “2017 Award-Eligible Work Blog Posts & Roundups for F&SF”. Right now there are about 20 entries on the list. She will be doing daily updates.
Next classes are Saturday, December 9 – 9:30-11:30 AM or Wednesday, February 7, 2018, 4-6 PM. (Each class is a separate session.)
Poetry requires intense linguistic control. Every word matters. Whether you’re a poet who wants to create fantastical verses, or a prose writer who wants to learn the finely tuned narrative power that poetry can teach, you’ll find something in this class.
(10) WRITER’S LIFE. A short interview with Ursula K. Le Guin at Shelf Awareness:
Who do you write your blog for? Do you ever read the comments, and if so, what do you learn from them, if anything?
I write them for anybody who wants to read them. (Writers live in hope.)
Yes, sure, I read all the comments. They’re mostly good-natured, and some are thoughtful and enlightening.
You say that dystopian literature is yang-driven, and its opposite–utopian literature–is also yang-driven. Is there a literature that presents a realistically complex vision of a world in balance? Or is that just fantasy?
Of course it’s just fantasy. That’s why I write fantasy…
So why did this book hit me so hard in an unhappy place? Because it was so smart and funny and beautifully written and involved connected stories about a favorite city and magic, which are three of my favorite things. And because it had a chapter that was one of the best short stories about addiction that I’ve read, and that left me thinking about it in a way that will probably shape at least one future story.
And yet. And yet. And yet. Women were either powerful and unfuckable for one reason or another or else fell into the category marked “women the protagonist sleeps with”, who usually didn’t even get a name. Moments of homophobic rape humor, marked by a repeated insistence on the sanctity of the hero’s anus, and a scene in which he embraces being thought gay in order to save himself from a terrible fate, ha ha, isn’t that amusing. And I’m like…jesus, there is so much to love about this book but it’s like the author reaches out and slaps me away once a chapter or so.
(12) TODAY IN HISTORY
December 8, 1991 – Hook premieres in Hollywood.
(13) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
Born December 8, 1950 – Rick Baker, the Monster Maker
(14) COMICS SECTION.
John King Tarpinian saw that First Contact isn’t going too well in Close To Home.
(15) END OF THE MAZE. Maze Runner: The Death Cure comes to theaters January 26.
In the epic finale to the Maze Runner saga, Thomas leads his group of escaped Gladers on their final and most dangerous mission yet. To save their friends, they must break into the legendary Last City, a WCKD-controlled labyrinth that may turn out to be the deadliest maze of all. Anyone who makes it out alive will get answers to the questions the Gladers have been asking since they first arrived in the maze.
(16) CONTRARIAN. Go figure. While Patreon was in flames yesterday, Jon Del Arroz climbed aboard — “Jon Del Arroz Patreon Launch!”.
“We were very surprised at how precisely concordant the imaged damage was with the crescent shape of the eclipse itself,” noted Dr. Avnish Deobhakta, a retina surgeon at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai in New York, in an email to NPR.
He says this was the most severely injured patient they saw after the eclipse. All in all, 22 people came to their urgent care clinic with concerns about possible eclipse-related damage, and most of them complained of blurred vision. Of those, only three showed some degree of abnormality in the retina. Two of them had only mild changes, however, and their symptoms have gone away.
The young woman described in this case report, at last check, still has not recovered normal vision.
Once thought of as solitary creatures, scientists discover ‘underwater city’ full of octopuses living side by side
A couple of assumptions are often made about octopuses. First, that they are smart. There is truth in that: octopus behaviour such as tool use, predation techniques and puzzle-solving suggest a higher level of intelligence than other invertebrates. Everyone has watched an octopus unscrewing a jar.
Second, they have a reputation for being solitary. So solitary in fact that an official collective noun for octopuses doesn’t even exist (though ‘tangle’ has been suggested).
This may have to change, however. Over the last decade, scientists have discovered that octopuses aren’t always lone beasts. In fact, octopuses engage in rich, fascinating and unusual behaviours when they interact with each other.
(20) PATREON SURVIVOR, IF POSSIBLE. Cat Rambo is weathering the storm by asking readers how to add more value to her Patreon campaign (and also whether or not to bail from it): https://www.patreon.com/catrambo
Cat She says, “I’ve lost about 15% of my income from there so far, but I’m a very minor player. however if there is something the F&SF is not seeing from me but desperately yearns for, now’s the time to weigh in: “Patreon Changes”.
(21) FRONT PAGE NEWS. I have added to the File 770 sidebar a link to John Hertz’ review of The Glass Bead Game (Hesse), which has found a permanent online home.
(22) KRYPTON. SyFy has put out a teaser trailer for its series about Superman’s homeworld. ScienceFiction.comsums it up:
The series is set two generations before the destruction of the Man of Steel’s home planet. ‘Krypton’ follows Superman’s grandfather (Cameron Cuffe), whose House of El was ostracized and shamed, as he fights to redeem his family’s honor and save his world from chaos. The Seg-El name is both a nod to Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel and a reference to John Byrne’s 1980s miniseries, ‘The World of Krypton.’ Cameron Cuffe is set to play Seg-El alongside with Georgina Campbell as Lyta Zod.
(23) THE DARK SIDE. Charles Payseur turns his attention to dark fantasy and horror in “Quick Sips – The Dark #31”.
December brings a pair of stories to The Dark Magazine that focus sharply on observation and theater. In both, women drawn into roles where they are closely watched by men, and in both these experiences are further framed in terms of a sort of voyeurism. In one, a woman is filed, in the other, a woman is part of a play. Both feature stages and bring the reader in as spectators and in some ways as participants. We are the eyes that act as camera and as audience.
Comic book cover art is awesome. They use a variety of styles, but have you ever seen comic book covers that are made from balloons? These awesome balloon sculptures as comic book covers were created by Phileas Flash. They take days to make and the pieces themselves fit into a 10 foot by 10-foot space. Then photoshop is used to add the letters which are also balloons. I love all of the detail that he gets with this unusual medium.
After Cooper’s initial meeting with Bowie in the late Sixties, they later forged a friendship. Once, they even had dinner together with Fahrenheit 451 author Ray Bradbury. “It was really interesting, because these guys were in outer space somewhere,” he says. “They were talking about quantum physics, and I’m going, ‘So … what kind of car are you driving?'” Cooper laughs.
(26) CAMERON PROJECT.Alita: Battle Angel Official Trailer.
From filmmakers James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez. Alita Battle Angel is in theaters July 20, 2018. Cast: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley, Keean Johnson.
[Thanks to JJ, Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, John King Tarpinian, Cat Rambo, Greg Hullender, David K.M. Klaus, Carl Slaughter, Martin Morse Wooster, Rich Lynch, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Darren Garrison.]
Can someone own land on the Moon? That was the question before the house at the Luna Philosophie on August 20. Luna Philosophie is the “salon and discussion” hosted by NASA’s CoLab at every full moon in San Francisco. Steve Durst from the Board of Directors of the International Lunar Observatory Association and Dr. William Marshal of NASA Ames each took a crack at the answer. Surprisingly, they both got it wrong! Neither seemed to know that two science fiction clubs already claimed the Moon. (See their video.)
It’s quite appropriate that the meeting happened across the bay from Berkeley, historic home of the Bay Area Elves’, Gnomes’ and Little Men’s Science Fiction, Chowder, and Marching Society. It was the Little Men who, in 1951, filed a claim for mining rights to 2,250 sq. mi. of the Moon. Their claim was widely reported in the media – even by Time magazine. Les Cole told the whole story in Mimosa 18:
Incidentally, filing a claim on the moon was old hat; the Bureau of Mines had hundreds of claims on file. But the Little Men’s claim was different in two ways: we would file before the U.N. — anyone of any sense could see that the U.S. Bureau of Mines had no jurisdiction on the moon — and we would file for a very small piece, not all of the moon; we weren’t greedy…
And then came The Letter. Don [Fabuns] and I worked on that one at some length. It was to be sent to the head of the U.N. Legal Department, and in it, we offered to cede back 85% of the mineral rights, all of any radioactives found (this was 1951, remember, and the romance with them had not yet fizzled), and perpetual U.N. rights to a presence in the triangular area. All the U.N. had to do was recognize our claim.
According to Les, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon his wife, Es, wanted to bill NASA $0.90/hour for parking.
Unfortunately, the governments of the world bigfooted all over the Little Men’s claim in January 1967 when they signed the Outer Space Treaty declaring that the Moon belongs to all mankind.
Science fiction fandom did not take this lying down. At a December 1970 meeting of the New England Science Fiction Association, “[Tony Lewis] showed the moon map from the Nov 1970 issue of Sky and Telescope. Hugo Gernsback crater was identified, as were Wiener, Ley, Verne, Wells, etc. As a result of this increase in cultural knowledge it was [moved, seconded and passed] that the Moon be designated NESFA’s Moon and that the Aerospace Cadets protect it.” NESFAn Harry Stubbs, then a Lt. Col. in the Air Force, was named commander of the Aerospace Cadets, holding the title “Lord of the Wings.” Later, Alan Frisbie and Paula Lieberman were also enrolled as Cadets.
NESFA has kept a close eye on its property ever since. When there was a total eclipse of the Moon in July 1982, Tony Lewis wrote a letter protesting the unauthorized use of NESFA’s Moon. The club voted him responsibility for preventing the occurrence of any further unauthorized eclipses. In 1984, Chip Hitchcock reported that Walt Disney’s movie Splash abused NESFA’s Moon by having it wax in the wrong direction. Members voted Chip the job of writing their letter of complaint to Disney Studios’ publicity agency, Craig Miller’s “Con-Artists.”
NESFA even managed to turn Moon ownership into a money-raising tool. They created NESFA Realty Trust bonds to finance the purchase of their clubhouse in 1985.
Inexplicably, NESFA never seems to have objected to the practice of selling land on the moon. And they might want to issue a warning to all the entrepreneurs working on spacecraft to send to the Moon who plan to take ownership of the patch they land on, among them Luna Philosophie speaker Steven Durst himself:
[Durst is] linked to one of the Google Lunar [X Prize] competitors, Odyssey Moon, and he said during the talk that he hopes to scratch out his initials on one of the legs of a lunar rover and “claim his acre.”
NESFA has kept a close eye on its property ever since. When there was a total eclipse of the Moon in July 1982, Tony Lewis wrote a letter protesting the unauthorized use of NESFA’s Moon. The club voted him responsibility for preventing the occurrence of any further unauthorized eclipses. In 1984, Chip Hitchcock reported that Walt Disney’s movie Splash abused NESFA’s Moon by having it wax in the wrong direction. Members voted Chip the job of writing their letter of complaint to Disney Studios’ publicity agency, Craig Miller’s “Con-Artists.”