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I came home from my US trip to find that half of you good people didn't know I'd been away, and the rest had written anyway. I'm sorry I haven't replied to your letter or acknowledged your subscription or appeared in answer to your writ, or whatever it was, but for the last six months I've either been getting ready to go over to America, been over in America, or been getting over America. And believe me it's a hard place to get over. People keep asking me what I thought of it. Well, that's a good quest ion: I wish someone would hurry up and tell me a good answer. There were some things I liked a lot. Malted milk, the Okefenokee Swamp, orange juice, the Gulf of Mexico, hamburgers, the Rocky Mountains, pastrami, the Grand Canyon, fried chicken, the New Yo rk skyline-subtle nuances like that in the American scene which the less perceptive tourist might pass unnoticed. And of course Americans. The place is full of them. Why, do you realise there are more Americans in America than there are in Britain? (Nicer ones, too.) One especially nice thing about Americans is that they understand English, a feat which the English themselves have never been able to master yet in my experience of them.
And to the other question that people ask, yes, I would like to live there, just as soon as I can find a small university town in the Rocky Mountains just outside New York with the climate of Florida. I am now inclined to believe, however, that there m ay be some difficulty about this. I don't want to jump to any hasty conclusions about the place after a mere 8000 miles of travelling about in it, but towards the end I was really coming to suspect that it's a lot bigger than it looks in the atlas. You dr ive for two whole days at 60 mph, and on the third find yourself still in the same state-that of bewilderment. The place has got out of hand and something should be done about it. If the United Nations won't take action America should contract out of it.
The only other really damning thing I noticed about the country is that they have a chain of grocery stores called the 'Piggly Wiggly'. There are a few other faults-you can't smoke anywhere...the Statue of Liberty offers you a light as you go in, becau se it may be your last chance...and they look under the bed every night for the Politburo-but nothing else with the stark horror of that 'Piggly Wiggly'. The people are just like people everywhere else, except that they're not terrified of American foreig n policy, which is to say they're pretty nice. What really did impress me was the American small town, which seemed to me the nearest thing to the ideal place to live in that has appeared so far on this planet. Pleasant houses, tree-lined streets, young p eople in summer clothes, and warm evenings filled with the crepitation of crickets and of neon signs-symbolically indistinguishable in sound.
WHICH PALMER EDITORIAL D'YA READ?
"We are going to steal every good author in the field by hook or crook." (Other Worlds Feb. 53, p. 4)
"This editor isn't the type of pirate, or the type of imitator, or the type of competitor who keeps eyeing the writer who has already developed his talent." ( Other Worlds Feb. 53, p. 156)
AN ARTISTIC TRAIT? "Bah! Issue liquor! I'll have Karby bring you something easier on the pallet."
-ASF, Feb. '50, p. 23.
MIGHTY LIKE A ROSICRUCIAN
Slant will never be just the same without an attack on L. Ron Hubbard, but it looks as if the last one was only too well founded; far be it for me to kick a man when he's not only down but out of his mind.
But maybe English readers haven't heard about EXCALIBUR? Well, it seems that during the war Elron died. Awakening in the Hereafter, he found himself surrounded by all the knowledge of the Universe. He had been browsing in this stuff for a mere ten minu tes when he felt the call of the Flesh and was drawn back to the operating theatre. where he had just given the doctor quite a turn. He left again as soon as he decently could and typed out carefully all he could remember of the Eternal Wisdom he had acqu ired. This was EXCALIBUR. He hauled it round various publishing houses, but none of them could take it. In fact, their Readers kept committing suicide, their minds giving way under the impact of these transcendental ideas. On the last occasion, according to Elron, he was present in the publishing office when the Reader entered, laid the MS on the desk, and left the room again by way of the window. Since the window was on the 40th Floor neither the Reader nor Elron ever recovered from this experience. Kind ly Ol' Hubbard decided that the World was Not Ready for EXCALIBUR and confined himself to publishing a teensy-weensy little bit of it, which he called Dianetics. Lately, however, Elron has become disenchanted with humanity on account of the vile attacks o n him by unsympathetic people like sheriffs, reporters, judges, and the Bureau of Internal Revenue. He has given us up, and he's just jolly well going to let us have EXCALIBUR. So, NOW, if you'll just send him a measly $1000 and sign a waiver for damages when you jump out of the window, you can have a specially typed copy of EXCALIBUR---now reposing in a sealed vault---for your vewy vewy own. The NEW YORKER called this the Biggest Little Book Bargain of the Month.
Data entry and page scans provided by Judy Bemis
Updated September 26, 2003. If you have a comment about these web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.