Wilkie Conner

Konner's Korner

There are so many fine people in fandom, one sometimes wishes he had the wherewithal to meet them all. You join a club, such as the TLMA or N3F and you get letters, wonderful letters from a few of them. You go to a convention and you meet more. They are old; they are young, weak, strong, wise and foolish. But they all have one thing in common. They have a deep-rooted love of good fiction. Because of this one sameness they automatically become your brothers. Will Rogers once astounded the world with the simple statement that he never met a man he didn't like. I don't intend to astound anyone but I would like to paraphrase Will's statement: "I never met a fan I didn't like." I've had some hellacious arguments with some of them. But I've liked them all ... each and every one. A man might be a downright heel, but give him his favorite mag and he becomes a right guy in any language. That's one of the reasons I'm for fandom. That's why I'm definitely interested in expanding fandom. There is entirely too much greed and evil in the world. Greed and evil beget wars. War destroys all that men hold dear. War takes young, innocent manhood and creates killers and hoodlums and criminals; it completely undermines the morals of a nation. Fandom -- any sort of fandom -- is one answer to the way to a better world. If you can get people to liking people ... to be brothers ... then you automatically erase a desire to be enemies. This isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. If you were a photographic fan, would you quarrel with another photographer --- except over matters of technique perhaps, which would merely be friendly argument --- or would you welcome him as a brother? If you were a stamp collector, would you cuss out another collector? See what I'm driving at? If you give people something in common with one another, they find so much more to interest them, they just don't have any room left to hate!

Now you couldn't make everyone in the world a stf fan, anymore than you could make everyone in the world a photographer or stamp collector. But enough people, working together, could unite the entire world into lines of thinking that would make evil a thing to be avoided. Brotherly love is an old line, but stfdom is a living example that it will work. If the peoples of the world would forget about petty politics, prejudices and discrimination; if they laid aside greed and hate, then the world would enjoy a peace that in all its history it has never known. Fandom, with its high ideals, its large quota of people who are above the average in intelligence, is the logical starting place for a brotherly love campaign. We in fandom get lots of fun arguing, but it is friendly arguing. And I have yet to hear of a couple of feuding fans who didn't actually like each other underneath.

Of course this brotherly love idea isn't new. It was started 2 thousand years ago in Palestine by a carpenter with a keen understanding of humans and what makes then tick. However, the church, in its well-meaning, befuddling way over the centuries has twisted and fouled up the Master's teachings in such a way that it has replaced the rule of love with a fear. Which is the reason why the church has failed in its efforts to make the world a decent place to live in. Christ taught people to love one another. The church has taught people to fear death anda burning hereafter. Obviously this approach has failed. We still have hate and fear and greed and war. Science fiction fandom, with its good fellowship, its loyal followers, is showing the way to a real brotherly love ... the way to real peace and happiness in the world. That is why I think the good fellowship we fans enjoy will spread and will become a part of the accepted life of the world, just as religion* has spread and become a part of everyone's life. That's why I think fan clubs, fanzines, and fanactivity in general deserves respect and encouragement from every fan in every home! What do you think?

* Don't get me wrong. I am not being irreligious. I do not claim that stf will replace religion ...only that it will aid its cause.

Lynn Hickman has bought a vari-typer to use in publishing the various projects of the Confederate Magazine Publishing Company. At present these publications consist of TLMA, the OO of the country's fastest growing fan club, and the Little Corpuscle, which aids and abets TLMA. You can get them both, plus a membership of a year's duration in The Little Monsters of America, if you enclose a photograph of George Washington, printed on silk-interwoven paper, in green ink ((?)), bearing the great seal of the United States of America and something referred to as a buck, in an envelope along with your name and address and 100,000 words on why you want to join TLMA, and you will become a member. Of course, you may leave out the 100000 words if you remember the $$ ... and the name and address. There are no (as yet) Little Monsters Anonymous. Why don't you join Lee Hoffman, Basil Wells, Rog Phillips, and other well-known names and become a Little Monster? The address is 408 West Bell Street, Statesville, N.C.

A scinece fiction fan publication is no place to record the cute sayings of children. Except of course, when the children are exceptional. That is, with a rating of genius or better. I pried my almost-five-year-old daughter away from her AEC assignment long enough for a bright saying. She was dressing and her mother said, "I simply must buy Elaine some more petticoats." "Huh," snorted the daughter, "I don't like old petticoats ... I like slips!" "They are the same thing," My wife said. "They're not either; petticoats don't have any lace on them."

LONGHAMMER'S HAMMERINGS: Betty doesn't believe that the H-Bomb will wreck the world. Income taxes will beat it to it.

Of course you can get an autographed

THE CITY

by Wilson Tucker

Data entry by Judy Bemis

Updated June 17, 2001. If you have a comment about these web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.