The best laid plans of mice and fen ...
(It isn't Eney's fault)
It was in 1944 that Jack Speer, in his facet of fandom's answer to Oswald Spengler, wrote the Fancyclopedia and Ackerman & company published it. The Fancyc, as the name indicates, was a real encyclopedia of fandom; a work covering the 15 years of fannish existence in 100 mimeographed pages.
In 1953 neofan Richard Eney mentioned casually (in the course of describing life as a faan in the Army) that he carried in the pocket of his lab jacket a notebook in which he was collecting subjects for a revised Fancyclopedia.
Linking these two events was the most tenuous of connections: I knew that Elder Ghod Speer had published a Fancyclopedia (Lee Hoffman had mentioned it), and I'd read Fanspeak. That was the foundation on which I planned to construct a NEW Fancyclopedia ...
Happily the basis wasn't rickety for long. It was in the November 1953 FAPA mailing that the article described in the second paragraph appeared, and in comments on it Walt Willis mentioned that he and Redd Boggs were also thinking of doing some work on a new Fancyclopedia. And that's what started the project I'm about to tell you of.
I'd had to make a move from Texas to Japan before I got WEW's commentzine, but that wasn't a significant obstacle. (Have you said your prayers for the International Postal Union today?) Walt, Redd and I formed a Triple Entente about May of 1954; namely, to work together to produce what we -- without any formal agreement -- seem to have mentally titled the Fancyclopedia II.
With almost neofannish energy we had a rough plan for the preliminaries working; we circulated to each of the other lists of all the subjects we could think of, for each of us to collate and make a stab at defining. (I remember my list needed much pruning because I'd sent too many pro-type subjects as opposed to fan-type ones.) Presently there were five or six pages listing some of the things we thought should be included; in Minneapolis, Belfast, and the wilds of central Hokkaido diligent faaans began to set down their understanding of things fanatic ...
The intended second step would have been for us to exchange, not subjects, but definitions with each other for mutual criticism and correction. I remember that I'd collected about half a foot of filing cards filled with mucho material -- Japanese pens have wonderfully fine points; I bet I could've written the Lord's Prayer on the head of a penny as William Rotsler had suggested if an opportunity had arisen.
But collecting papers is one of the things that should not be planned on while in the Army. Toward the fall of 1954 the US Army was preparing to withdraw from Hokkaido, and the 8165th USAB, included. In the course of preparing to move in the Army manner -- "having a throw-away party", it's called -- I had to write out my definitions-thus-far and send them to Redd Boggs, then get rid of my indexed cards and file box. Sure enough, a week later we moved.
Three blocks down the street from our barracks to quarters in the hospital itself.
I wasted a bit of time cussing out the army for this; shortly later I did have to move, and for a week was shuttling all over the Northern and of the Japanese Empire, winding up in the boondocks of upper Honshu. It took about a month to get back in touch ...
Planning and work went on intermittently for the next six months at all three fannish hotbeds, and I think we were beginning to consider starting the definition-swapping phase of our work when, 15 June 1955, Redd laid a bomb:
-"Frankly,"- he wrote Walt and myself, -"to do the Fancyclopedia II as I think it ought to be done has been far beyond my present powers. Lack of time is a factor, but mingling with it is the matter of my philosophy as regards Fancyc ... to do the job successfully would involve a tremendous amount of digging into old fanzine files. I've done some of this (digging) ..."-
-"Trouble is, while I'm involved in Fancyc, I hate to dispose of any fanzines. Meantime my storage space gets more cramped day by day, and ... we may move this summer or autumn. ((He did -- RE)) If we do, I will have to get rid of a huge truckload of mags; no choice about it. When (my collection) goes, I will be deprived of my ability to research for Fancyclopedia as I desire to.-"
-"Therefore, I have decided that the best thing for me to do is to withdraw from the project ... "-
Walt and I were a bit stunned by this development; aside from leaning on Redd as the keystone of the project, the man with more knowledge of archean Fandom than both of us put together, we fairly required somebody in the States with a permanent home on account of the difficulties of storage and mailing. Most of our information from others would be American in origin; having one foreign-addressed editor and one highly transient American address meant a deadly cramp in our style.
Actually, "deadly" wasn't the word we applied then; Redd's enforced withdrawal just put off the starting-date for our fresh plan till I could get back to the States.
For this was the scheme that was worked out to get the information Redd could no longer supply:
Walt and I planned to pre-publish bits of the planned Fancyclopedia II as appendices to our respective fanzines; in this section ("Work in Progress: Fancyclopedia II") we'd put disputed or incomplete definitions, and send it round -- as a special variant edition -- to the most likely BNFs currently active. Expectations: that they'd correct/enlarge on our work, thus producing, if slowly, the definitive information we wanted.
We've been preparing for this phase of the Fancyclopedia II project all this spring and summer of 1956. (That, believe it or not, is the real reason I got my dittograph ((Down, Derry!)) and that li'l card-size printing press.)
Meanwhile, in the 344th Chorp Dimension, They gathered their forces to strike. Just a few weeks ago I received this word from Walt -- who, in cooperation with Madeleine, had had an infant earlier in the year:
"I'm afraid I won't be as much help as I'd like to be. You can call on me for anything in the way of information and I'll give it gladly if I have it to hand, but I'm afraid actual work is out for me for a good while yet ..."
I think this pretty well paralyzes the second Fancyclopedia for the time being. I'm going to continue working on it, but you can guess the likelihood of my getting it done while going to college full time and working some of the spare.
And as for the present this is what the Fancyclopedia II project has: a couple of feet of file cards, sixty-odd pages of notes and comments on subjects fannish not yet reduced to file form, and a mort of disappointed anticipations ...
But damn, it would have been great if we could have swung it!
--Richard Eney
October 1956
Data entry by Judy Bemis
Hard copy provided by Geri Sullivan
Data entry by Judy Bemis
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