DAVID B. WILLIAMS GLOATS IN SECRET
714 Dale Street, Normal, Illinois May 16, 1962

Dear Crygang -

I don't think Campbell gave an editorial damn whether the Dean Drive worked or not. I don't see why everyone thinks he did. All that I could ever make of his articles and editorials was that no one had taken the trouble to look into it, and that this state of affairs bothered him to a great extent. In fact, someplace I remember that he said right out loud that it wasn't important whether the Drive worked or not, but that it should have been investigated just to make sure. Oh, sure, he would have liked to have the Drive work (wouldn't we all!) but all he was really doing was riding his social criticism horse all along. Yes? No?

Bull Fighting: Betty Kujawa notes that "...kids these days are getting unconcerned enough for the pain and sufferings of others..." Could the rash of sick-sick jokes be an indication too? Things like "Yes, Mrs. Lincoln, but was the play any good?" are all the rage at school these days. I don't know if I approve or not of bull fighting as such, but if the odds were a little more even it would be much better. Like if the matador would leave the cape behind and face the bull front on with his sword, alone, period. Secretly, I gloat whenever I read that such-and-such famous matador has gotten an unfinished powder horn in the gut.

ELINOR BUSBY, GIRL ANTHROPE
2852 14th West, Seattle 99, Washington

Dear Wally,

Tom Purdom: So you want to argue politics with me because I'm a conservative who knows some history--argh! I hate political arguments, and frankly, I don't know all that much history. Tell your history major coworker that there's one subject worse to take than history if you want to make a good living (or any kind of living): anthropology. I was an anthropology major. I don't know all that much anthropology, either. --Why don't you come to the World's Fair, Tom? If you can fly out free, it would be extravagant not to come. But don't come during the last of June and first of July, or during the last of August and first of September. Because then we will be respectively at Westercon and Chicon.

Dick Schultz: I think the reason why there are so few Negro fans (and no Negro fanzine fans, so far as I know) is that for the more intellectual and literate Negroes, being a Negro is in itself a Way of Life.

Scotty Tapscott: Well, I'm not surprised at all to hear that bullfighting has decayed a great deal since 1951 (which was the year I was interested in it) since in 1951 I was told that it was in a process of decay. Too bad. In 1951 the toreros were beginning to go in more for showy bullfight--lots of flamboyant work with the cape--and less and less to go in over the horns with the sword. And Carlos Arruza, the finest bullfighter since Manolete, didn't improve the scene much with his 'el telefono'. Oh well. Whatever bullfighting may be now, it was great in its day.

Dick Kuczek: Porcon in '64? Why don't you try for '67 instead--you could probably get it in '67 without much trouble.

Rich Brown: No, I didn't miss the point of "Star Dwellers". The point you miss is this, Rich. It is no more commendable to assume, for the purposes of a story, that they are Against Us. Even in real life it's not necessarily commendable to assume that the aliens are for us. It's only in a Walt Disney movie that Wishing Will Make It So.

Betty Kujawa (& Buck Coulson): One thing that impressed me about bullfights was the look of the crowd afterwards: everyone relaxed, relieved, happy, smiling. And I remember how I felt afterwards--more abundantly alive, more charitable, warmer. Bullfighting is, for the audience, a sort of mass catharsis. It's important to remember that many of us are basically animals, as well as humans. We have aggressive feelings that we have no real use for in daily life, and too often we have no way of getting rid of them. So we get arthritis and migraine, and we live miserably and die young. Some sort of catharsis for aggression would improve a lot of people's health and dispositions.

DICK LUPOFF SENDS XERO BY FSCS
210 E 73 St., NY 21, NY 5/10/62

Dear CRYgang,

I'm sorry you got socked for the extra postage on that copy of CRY 159 you sent Pat and me at our old address. When we moved in December it was only across the street. We got our favorite elevator man at 215 to promise to accept all mail that came for us and just hand it to his pal the elevator man here at 210 and save all the rigamarole of postal officialdom. CoA notices in Axe and Fanac (and Xero), we figured, plus the line "NOTE NEW NUMBER" next to the return address on all outgoing letters, should inform everybody of the move sooner or later.

But once in a while a relief elevator operator takes the mail at 215, and if there happens to be anything for us, it gets turned back to General Day (or his authorized representative). It's this %@¢#*?& change in the postal regs that went in early this year. No more forwarding fanzines. So far we've got back two copies of Xero 8, each with the recipient's new address marked on the envelope. You know what these wind up costing us? A 15¢ stamp and a nickel envelope to mail it in the first place, 15¢ return postage, a new envelope and another 15¢ stamp to remail to the new address...a total cost of 55¢ to get a copy to a reader who --maybe-- paid 35¢ for the magazine.

(I trust, by the way, that you have your copy of Xero 8? Locs have been slow starting thish. I get coldrobblies when I think that the POD just might have misplaced the whole main mailing of 125 copies.)

Anyway, Xero has only two issues to go, so I guess we'll keep our present policies on circulation, but if we intended to continue the zine indefinitely, Pat and I just might institute a two-price policy. So much for hand-delivered copies, so much for postal copies.

Or else we could contract with Ron Ellik to be our full-time Special Courier. When he was in New York a year or so ago we gave him drugged rootbeer to drink and when he was sleeping it off we stuffed his luggage full of all the copies of Xero for LArea fen. Transcontinental jet delivery by Flying Squirrel Courier Service! Then, last month, he stopped en route to England on his TAFF trip, and we stuck him with all the copies of Xero 8 for Britfen to distribute at the Easter Convention. Transoceanic jet delivery by Flying Squirrel Courier Service!

As Ron left our apartment for the airport and Yurp, I gave him a warm and hearty handshake, wished him a pleasant trip, and, possibly with an unconscious but meaningful glance at the stack of Xeros in the corner, some 20 of which go to California, invited him to stop off again on his way back.

"Gee, I'd love to, Dick," Ron said, "but I'm flying home by a polar flight. Right over the top. No stops between England and the West Coast."

Say, CRYgang, do you know if he really came home that way?

MISHA JOINS THE PLAYERS
Box 283, 73ADIV, Tyndall AFB, Florida 13 May 62

Dear Anonymous Wailers,
Oh, the joys of having a Full Life! Along about last September, rich brown and I got involved with the Panama City Players, and next thing we knew, they were making an actor out of rich -- he had the part of Sgt Eddie Remick in 'Roman Candle' and stole the show! Well, we started in on 'See How They Run,' and at the same time, John Sweet, who was the stage manager for 'Roman Candle,' and who is also a former Broadway star dancer, got several of us interested in dancing. At the moment, I'm tied up in a dance production for the Cancer Society, produced by the Sweets, and a musical melodrama called, 'Love Rides the Rails, or Will the Mail-train Run Tonight?', which will be presented the 4th and 6th of July. This means double rehearsals on Tuesdays and Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays are taken up, Saturdays and Sundays are for the most part given over to building scenery and learning lines. If I find a spare moment, I write letters, boozing it up and chasing skirts late on weekends, and, in those moments when I think about it, I give a few hours to the Air Farce.

Rather enjoyed the Berry story, but the plot was the same old joke that's been told many times before - but if Fred Brown can do it, I guess Berry can, too. I did appreciate the satire on Modern Art he presented.

Iffim Blupsby's story left me cold - he should have capitalised 'Count,' in the phrase, 'my uncle, the Count.'

Poor Dirce Archer! She's really having a time of this ballot thing. Ignore it Dirce; the wine of sour grapes evaporates when exposed to the light.

Tapscott: the only sporting bullfight I've heard of in years was the one where Maas Oyama, the Okinowan Karate master, faced a bull and killed it with his bare hands. I think, though, I'd rather have some character satisfy his lust for sadism watching a man kill a bull than I would he experiment on a six-year-old girl.

I was never disappointed in history - except in the teaching of American history; I had good teachers on the subject, but AH teachers are so bloody pious, they won't ever tell the real reasons for the Civil War, and I was threatened with expulsion from a /Y/a/n/k/e/e/ Northern school several years ago for trying to bring up the point. Equally, I'm tired of the northerners screaming about racial prejudice in the South when I've seen so much of it in the north - it's not public, but it's a deep undercurrent of hatred, and if aware, you can find it - more in the small towns, I think, than the big cities.

Ah, Betty Kujawa, alas, 'twas not I. I tried to get hold of ShelVy to find out who it was, but I couldn't reach him as of this writing. If he was a tall slim blond type who was with rich brown at the time, his name is Dave Estes.

I have a friend going to ND; he is a non-fan, but a very brilliant fellow, a wonderful wit, and an excellent folk singer and flamenco guitar-player. His name is Robert (Bob) Schneider and he resides at 720 N. St. Louis Blvd. If you get the chance, look him up sometime.

By the way, my fannish and writer friends usually call me Misha.

PS TO BUZ: You remarked about being in the Aleutians. My stepfather, Ed Maham, was with the Seabees on Attu. You didn't by any chance make his acquaintance, did you? He was an electrician's mate second class with B Co. ((Nope. I put in my Aleutian time on Amchitka, east and south of Attu about 300 miles, with Kiska in between. But I suspect we could match stories about that crazy mixed-up Aleutian weather. --FMB))

PHILLIP A. HARRELL PRESENTS HIS (hic) CASE
2632 Vincent Avenue, Norfolk 9, Virginia May 10,'62

WALLY WEBBER YOU UNMITIGATED CAD YOU!

Ladies, and Gentlemen of the CotR jury I present my case to you to indite and persecute one mean nasty ol' wally webber. Teach you to cut my letter like that. You gave me only one dinky sentence, and that one you even cut. Not only that. You tried to put me in bad with a first love of mine, one I devoted T*W*O whole pages to and who gives me goosly pimples every time I vote for her for TAFF and who I simply adore as she's so WUNDERFULS *sigh* who else is as magnificent as to defend me from the frumious Wally Webber. You should have seen the letter I sent Wally that he didn't publish (the lazy lout) I lead a mrytered life....

As for Nominations for TAFF may I make a suggestion. *M*E*! How about that?

Roy Tackett: Well, you know how these things are when you get started making one of these masterpieces you just get carried away....come to think of it so does the person who drinks it...

Chee, reading the minutes this time almost makes me feel I was there with so many Phil's mentioned. Not only that, the Stumphouse almost sounds like the GEX ptomaine tavern. I remember saying one day, "I'm glad I only ordered a coke," after the others found bits of rotten vegetable in their salad, "it's the one thing they can't mess up." Then I looked down and found in it the gum one of the help had been chewing. Everybody had a nice laugh but me. Then the Girl across the table started talking about the time she boiled a cat for her science exhibit at school. Such a lovely way to spend your lunch 1/2hour. About that time one of the guys broke a tooth on his donut and we all retired to the diverse directions we were heading, and he went to the nurse's office. That'll teach him to order GEX donuts.

I can hardly wait till I catch Ted Sturgeon's reaction to my sequel to his book which I'll call. "Some Of Your Bud", and twill be all about Fandom.

Ghood Ghrief, that one was almost too much for me so on that one I'll close, and go galumphing off as I go whiffling thru the tulgy wood. Well, we all gotta go sometime.

GARY DEINDORFER FINALLY MAKES COTR
121 Boudinot St., Trenton 8, New Jersey 9 May 1962

Dear Wallopin' Winsome Wally W.,
That is a CRYhack sort of opening, not at all typical of my kind of letter salutation, but I have decided to write a CRY sort of letter of comment--i.e., one most likely to see print in CRY, all frivolous-as-hell and such--and this opening would seem to be in form. I am determined to make the CRY letter column this time. I have typed this letter, because I was told by a certain Fan In the Know that you don't print handwritten letters; and I am mailing this letter out only three hours after receiving CRY in the mail, since this same Fan In the Know told me that you don't print the letters which arrive later on in the month. I am even sending this damned thing airmail. And, as you will note, I am not and will not be saying a single thing of any import, since everybody is aware of the fact that CRY letters never say anything of any import. Even I know this; the Fan in the Know didn't have to tell me that. No indeed.

Along about here I might register a complaint. Namely, why do you put people's names in your good old WAHF section even if they have written with no more to say than, "Enclosed is a quarter for your next CRY."? Huh, whyfor you do this? To the Casual Reader (most fans, like) it is not obvious that these fans have only sent you some insignificant little message like the one I quoted. To the Casual Reader, it seems that these fans must have written big fat letters which were so lousy they were even crowded out of the CRY letter column. I have had more than one fan say to me of late (two, in fact), "Haw, can't make the CRY letter column even, eh? I am always seeing your name in the WAHF." It does no good for me to explain in desperation that my name always appears in the WAHF only because I have written no more than crummy little messages of the "enclosed is a quarter" type. They don't believe me. As a result, I go through my fannish life marked as, "That fellow who can't even make the CRY letter section." Oh, the deadly shame of it all. [If you'd send more than a lousy quarter at a time, your name wouldn't show up in the WAHF column so often. --www]

And now to comment on CRY 160, I suppose. First off, bighod, there is the cover. You have had quite a comely string of covers fronting the past few CRYs. I don't know whether or not it's significant that they've all been by ATom. Hell, I guess it's not significant, since I suppose significance would damn near ruin CRY.

I was looking at a Sunday Afternoon Television Show last weekend. The jowly, concerned announcer came out and introduced a -"Quentin Pumbly"- (it was a name very like that, whatever it was), age fourteen, of Cedar Vale Junior High School of Science & Arts, who "will show you his wonderful hexa-hexa-flexagon." The camera settled on this small, wizened boy with huge glasses and a suit that was too small. Quentin told the thrilling story of how he had come to construct the thing and how one was supposed to be able to turn all the similarly marked sides out and all. He talked on and on, in his lisping tones, all the time twisting and turning and pulling at his hexa-hexa-flexagon. After roughly fifteen minutes of this, it was obvious that the moderator realized his show was dragging, so he said, "Well, thank you, Quentin. We'll come back to you at the end of the show to see how you've made out with your hexa-hexa-flexigon." Quentin didn't acknowledge this; he was lost in the intricacies of his hexa-hexa-flexigon. The tragic part of the whole show was that when it came time for it to end, the moderator forgot to ask Quentin how he was making out. I can visualize Quentin now, days after the show, still sitting in that studio flexing his hexa-hexa-flexigon.

I can't say that I was particularly titillated by Berry's "Art Form." The punch-line struck me as being sort of wan, and the fannish element of the story seemed quite superfluous. I have not been too impressed by the past two or three Berry shorts in CRY. They strike me as having been dashed off with little or no thought. Berry can do much better.

Buz's comments on the Davis Analog article are interesting, as well as being reminiscent of the style of John W. Ghod Himself. I wonder if this stylistic similarity was intended. Anyway, Buz makes some very good points. And it would be interesting if Davis' "Fourth Law" could be applied. Buz's explanation of the principle sounds plausible, though I would have to see the math -- the complete math -- involved before I could be sure. Perhaps I'll actually go out and buy a copy of the May Analog.

I would be interested in Toskey's opinion of Davis' article.

DICK KUZCEK CELEBRATES
2808 S.E. 154, Portland 36, Oregon May 4, 1962

Dear Wall-eyed and other CRYers,
'Tis a time to celebrate, Weber. I have been a reader of CRY for a whole year now. Rejoice, if not for the fact that I've read CRY for a year, then for the fact that I plan to read it for another year.

Cover: Excellent Atom as usual. Only thing that bothered me was the three birds in the background, that had just crossed the Planet/Moon. What were the streaks that they were leaving behind them?

Art Form: Not as good as Berry is capable of. Why don't you guys give him a rest once in a while? He must be running out of ideas.

Cheering Section: An excellent article.

With K.B. and a Deancycle: A very good article. I read the article in Analog and found it very interesting.

Well, Wally, I must leave you now and get back to work on AMPO, fandom's newest fanzine. The publication date is June 10, 1962. If anybody would like to send in sobs, contributions, letters of comment, there is still time. One thing, though, if you send checks, make them out to me, not AMPO. Buz, you seem surprised that one could send locs to a fanzine that hasn't published its first issue yet. Well; we don't expect specific comments. General comments will do.

STEVE TOLLIVER, THE OFFICIAL MEMBER REPORTS
FROM: Steve Tolliver
337 W. Riggin
Monterey Park
California
Official Member

TO: The Nameless Ones
Address Unknown
Seattle

C/O: Wally Weber
Address Even More Unknown
Honorable Secretary/Treasurer

C/O: Gordon Eklund
14612 - 18th S W
Seattle 66, Washington
Official Office Unknown But Believed In

SUBJECT: The Membership Report
I. The membership has grown (I have gained five pounds) and is thriving in the hostile (i.e. not cold nor foggy nor etc.) climate of Southern California; known to all as Los Angeles.

II. Special Report to Tosk... I have not married, so there is at least one girl left for you.

III. Special Report to Wally... I have not married, so there is at least one girl left for you to worry about.

IV. Special Report to Buz... since the rains drove me out of Seattle into dryer climates the said drier climates have experienced over twenty inches of rainfall.

V. Due to insufferable bad luck I am still in the little game known as fandom... thus I am hoping to see many of you at the coming Westercon... at least Wally.

In compliance with
and according to
the rules set forth
by myself as the
Official Member
of the
Nameless Ones
I do submit
this report for
your perusal,
refusal, and
files.

Steve Tolliver
MEMBR; OFCIAL

WE HAVE ALSO HEARD FROM Department:
LLOYD DOUGLAS BROYLES, RT 6, Box 453P, Waco, Texas is accepting advance orders at $1 per copy for the next issue of WWISFF, and he wants everyone who hasn't answered his questionnaire to hurry up and do that. BERNDT RUTHSTROM, Brahegatan 8, Stockholm 0, Sweden needs all the information he can get about all the fanzines ever published (including apa-zines and club zines). He is compiling a catalogue. HAL LYNCH reports (May 1, 1962) his new address: 220 W. 24th St., New York 11, New York. CHRIS MILLER offers bargain printing rates for CRY letterhack cards, and sends us lots of money for CRYs to be sent to his new address, 101 Maney Hill Rd., Sutton, Coldfield, Warwickshire, England. JOCK ROOT raves over the cover and promises to "gush appropriately" when he finds the time. BRUCE ROBBINS sends sticky money and wants to know why there isn't more STF in fanzines. LARRY McCOMBS sends a dittoed letter-substitute to prove he's alive but busy. TOM ARMISTEAD, Quarters 3202, Carswell AFB, Ft. Worth, Texas, plugs the Bantering And Raving Fan's association (BARF), an apa for fans who haven't any kind of duplicator. (Fans with duplicators can get in, but they don't get to pay as much dues.) DICK LUPOFF, C. V. De VET, FRED CAMPER, MISS PHYLLIS BRODSKY, and cowardly GORDON EKLUND send scads of money, which I have to run off and spend now.

------Wally W. Weber

from: CRY
Box 92
507 Third Avenue
Seattle 4, Washington

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