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THE CRAZIEST DREAM. I had a very strange dream the other night, and this was the dream: A rich uncle she didn't even know she had died back in Ohio, and left Dorothy Coslet a wealthy company that ran a system of fruit stands in the middle west. Dorothy's late uncle was a sloppy bookkeeper and there was no way to tell how extensive the fruit stand system had become since the will was made out years ago.
So, driving back from Ohio where they had met the executors of the estate, the Coslets decided to see just how far the string of fruit stands extended. They found the first stand on a busy highway intersection outside Norwalk, Ohio, and the second near Gibsonburg. The third was at Holland, and the fourth was over the Indiana line at Steubenville. They marked each as they sped along in their Crosley. The fruit stand trail into Chicago, and out of it, across the states of Wisconsin and Minnesota, and into North Dakota.
"Maybe the system extends clear to Helena," conjectured Coswal as they whizzed along in their Crosley. They were now in western North Dakota. "But, Great Towner! Look at the gas gauge. We're almost out of gas. Where are we? What does that sign say up ahead?"
Dorothy Coslet peered through the dust. "A-a-gh! I don't believe we'll need anymore gas, Walter. Do you know what that sign says?"
"Sure, I can read. It says 'Little Bog Horn.' But why don't we need any more gas?"
"I've got a feeling our quest is at an end," said Dorothy.
Walter looked quizzical.
So she explained.
BIG CONTEST! Everyone who figures out the point of the above story, and sends to Sky Hook the correct punchline -- namely, what Dorothy said to Coswal -- together with a statement in 25 words or more on the subject, "What I Liked About Sky Hook #9," will receive a genuine certificate bestowing upon that person a charter membership in the Faps-Have-More-Fun-Than-People Club. Act today!
ANNIVERSARY. This issue, and particularly the front cover thereof, commemorates three significant events which celebrate anniversaries at this time. They are: Astounding's twentieth birthday; Sky Hook's second birthday; and FAPA's 50th mailing. Although this issue is being put together too late to appear in a postmailing to that 50th mailing, the golden hue of the cover symbolizes that golden anniversary mailing.
The cover itself is a special one. It is an approximation of the cover on Sky Hook #1, and it names various stories from Astounding's 20 years -- with, I might add, emphasis on the Clayton era, since the first SkHk cover imperishably enshrined many of aSF's later yarns thereon.
This is also the biggest, and perhaps the best, of Sky Hook's 9 numbers, as befits an ann-ish.
THE CURSE OF HUMAN EVENTS. Thank god man is a fairly recent newcomer on the planet and not a species with a background as timeless as the Arisians'! And thank god man didn't bother to keep records and write histories, fight significant wars, and formulate influential systems of philosophy or economics as soon as he appeared on Earth!
That's what I always think when I pick up a history book and dip into it here and there. For, despite the brief span of history -- a mere 3000 years or so -- man has done so much that there is always something in the most elementary history book that I haven't heard about before. I have studied history now and then, and I have found it interesting enough to read as recreation when I am not studying it. But there's so much about history of which I don't know a damned thing!
People like Kenneth Gray, the MFS's eminent historian, always amaze me with their comprehensive knowledge of things historical. For me, any attempt to view history comprehensively results in a mental chaos -- history becomes a kaleidoscope of dates, wars, movements, with a confused pattern glimpsed but never comprehended in the overall picture. Each new fact I learn blurs the picture even more than before. To a man of virtu, this is very frustrating.
I have finally come to the conclusion that I, at least, am no Toynbee or Kenny Gray, who can view history in one vast continuous roll, or scroll. If I'm going to be able to enjoy history to the full I'm going to have to choose one period or one phase of history and become an expert on that.
The question is, what part or what phase of history should I become an expert on? American history is too familiar in its broad outlines to lure me to concentrate on it exclusively. Egyptian history? No, nothing much happened in Egypt for 3000 years (Kenny will dispute this, I am afraid, but that's the way Egyptian history impresses me!). Greek history? The best idea so far.
But I think the period that appeals to me most strongly is the Renaissance. Especially the part of it some historians call the High Renaissance -- what a blazing and resplendent phrase!
The difficulty is, even the High Renaissance is a mighty big slice of history to become a real expert in without devoting a lifetime to studying it. Perhaps I could specialize in one phase of it -- the history of humanism in the High Renaissance. But this is still a peculiarly turgid bite to swallow with savoir-faire.
Probably I'll end up experting on something like the history of Biblical Humanism in Cologne from 1437 to 1475.
I should be able to become an expert on that segment of history within the next 20 years. In 1970, just ask me any question at all about Gansfort or Pupper!
MILTON J. CROSSEYED. There's a radio announcer on a local station who, in handling a program of opera music the other day, spoke first of that great opus, "La Triviata," and then mentioned the "courtesian" in Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffman."
EXPANDING UNIVERSE. Although, being a fan, I'd like to buy every book issued in the science fiction and fantasy field, I am not able to do so, and I usually end up by purchasing only those books that reprint especial favorites of mine -- The Man Who Sold the Moon -- or those that contain stories that I don't have in my magazine files -- Triplanetary. But there are other books I like to buy, too. Non-fantasy books.
My non-fantasy library is easily increasing at a faster rate than my fantasy library (exclusive of magazines), despite the fact that what I spend for non-fantasy is less than what I spend on fantasy. The reason is that many of the non-fantasy books I buy are inexpensive reprints, often paperbacks. Most bibliophiles buy pocket books only for completism's sake, but I not only feel unconcerned about the lack of snitzy binding, I definitely welcome the paperback to my shelves. Since my bookshelves are crowded, I like a book that takes up little room -- and costs a paltry sum in the bargain.
I buy books to read, and save only those books which I want to read again some day. Of course, I have my own ideas on what books are worth reading and keeping. When I got out of the army I decided the time was ripe to begin to accumulate a personal library, and at that time I made out a list of books I wanted to buy. That list, of course, has been modified since then, but quite a portion of the original list has been bought. The thing that surprises me was that it was possible to buy so much of it very inexpensively.
Take some of the authors I had on my original list. Thomas Wolfe, for instance. All of his novels are available in inexpensive editions, and "The Story of a Novel" appears in a paperback. Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa and Seven Gothic Tales appear in the Modern Library, and I picked up Winters Tales for 35¢ on a remainder counter. Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, and Connecticut Yankee are in Pocket Book editions, and there is a Twain omnibus available, surely a bargain at $2.95, that contains these and other Twain classics under one cover, but it is a heavy book and not built for relaxed reading.
Of course, I like some of the classics, too. The Play s of Oscar Wilde; The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini; Walden; A Christmas Carol; The Return of the Native; Emerson's Essay s (I have two collections of these -- one purchased mostly to obtain the essay "Self-Reliance," not in the other book); Rebecca -- or I guess that that's not a classic.
Then, too, I've got a pretty comprehensive collection of books by such writers as Ernest Haycox, Luke Short, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Frank Gruber --
But this is enough about my library for now!
Page scans provided by Judy Bemis
Updated June 19, 2001. If you have a comment about these web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.