P Another well-behaved letter except when people tie it up with h. Such
important words as phantasy and sulpha were once so spelled.
PALMERISM Nobody would have thought that the publisher of the first fanzine
-- a pillar of stfnic virtue, Converted to the True Way by buying
the Gernsback Amazing off the newsstand in 1926 -- would have turned mortally
ill Amazing into the harlot of scientifiction with his editorial emphasis on
sexed-up thud-and-blunder and tolerance for sloppy writing, but Raymond A
Palmer did just that, and snapped his fingers at the fans who screamed bloody
murder. In 1938 Ziff-Davis took over decrepit Amazing, in hopes of converting
it as Wonder had been converted to Thrilling Wonder. RAP, called to do the
dirty work, justified his BEMs, sexy wenches, and puerile humor on the ground
that they sold -- "-brought Amazing up to the peak of sales"-, he said. It was
not a circulation-grabbing gimmick, but developed into the fixed policy of
Amazing and sister mag Fantastic Adventures for the next ten years; this
moron-pandering is the essence of Palmerism, but the word was formed more in
resentment of RAP's giving space and friendly mention or even warm welcome to
crackpottery like the Young Rosicrucians, the Shaver Mystery, and various
mystical and occult forms of Cosmic Wisdom. The Shaver hoax was the last
straw; Paul bacovers, ERB serials, Willy Ley articles, and some good stories
like Weinbaum's The New Adam had been redeeming features, but that
Palmer demanded Shaverism be accepted as truth was too much. Ackerman, who
had been sniping at RAP for years, declared feud and others reacted as
described under "Shaver".
After leaving Amazing Palmer went overboard for occultism along the
Shaver/Fort line in his own group of prozines, Fate, Other Worlds, and
Imagination; all reached pretty revolting depths of puerility and credulism.
PAPA The Pornographic Amateur Press Association, intermittently suggested as
a medium for publishers of bawdy material. It is generally represented
as sending its mailings by Railway Express to get around Postal regulations
about sending obscene matter thru the mails [there's a law against obscenity
in Expressed matter, too, but apparently Railway Express has no right to open
packages], charging dues of $5 per mailing, etc. More your Sam: Johnson
knoweth not, tho people have at times referred to the anthology of bawdy
poetry collected by one of our Midwest fans as being, or being culled from,
PAPA mailings. The thing in at least one form was a hoax perpetrated by 7th
Fandom, led by Norm Browne in DAMN!; a series of burlesque reviews of
imaginary mailings were the total results.
PAR Pay After Reading. A system instituted in Norm Brown's VANATIONS #1,
under which you pay what you think the issue is worth, taking into
consideration reading pleasure, appreciation for the contribution of the
editorial staff, possibility of improvement in future issues, and like that.
"Anything under 10¢ I consider an insult and anything over 25¢ hurts my
conscience", said Browne. Other fanzines used the system afterward; its big
advantage is that the fan publisher doesn't have to keep books, but it didn't
pay publishing costs any better than other methods. Something vaguely similar
was tried by Gernsback when in 1936 he tried to sell Wonder Stories direct to
the fans by mail. But the number of postage-paid blanks returned
"conclusively revealed the apathetic attitude of SF readers."
PARTIES After the June 1938 FAPA campaign, Speer made preparations to launch
a formal political party with the Phillies, Queensies, and other
allies, to be called the Constitutional party, and formed by a dozen people
signing a joint declaration. The idea was scrapped when the Wollheimists,
their opponents, dropped out. In 1939 the Progressive Party was formed by
McPhail, with Taurasi and Marconette, on a platform opposing fan feuds and
denouncing alien isms. They were embarrassed when the Futurians, the obvious
target of the platform, applied for admission, on the ground that they
approved substantially of the party's aims; McPhail dissolved and re-formed it
without the Futurians. In 1941 the Futurians had a go at this, forming a
Constitutionalist party of their own; it opposed some moves of Rothman's in
violation of the constitution and a proposal to raise the annual dues to 75¢
[!!] which had been erroneously declared passed after a special election (too
few members had voted for the election to be valid). Both the Progressives
and Constitutionalists put up slates but failed to elect them. In 1944 Laney,
Tucker, and Ashley formed the Freedom party, as described under Order of
Dagon, which elected its candidates but lost its reason for existence when the
Futurians withdrew from FAPA to form Vanguard.
More effective in winning elections were unofficial combinations like the
Wollheimists -- against whom, note, all parties except the one formed by them
were openly or tacitly directed -- the Order of Dagon during its brief life,
and the FAPA Brain Trust, which supplied nearly all the officials for the N3F
and FAPA between the Interregnums and Operation Futurian.
PATRIOTISM People as inclined to cynicism, semantic alertness, and anti-
emotionalism as fans are do not offer fertile soil for the cruder
features of nationalistic loyalty. When war came, fans displayed a
willingness to fight for certain aspects of the "American way of life" but
dealt roughly with flag-waving super-patriots who appeared among them.
PENAME To give variety where the same writer has several pieces in one issue
of a fanzine, to conceal the author's identity, or just because he
likes the sound of the name, pen names may be used; the former purpose is a
mere borrowing from the proz, which follow it as a policy. Much ink was shed
over the question whether they should be used freely, such counter-arguments
being presented as: the reader has the right to know who's writing a piece;
new fans are likely to get mistaken ideas of the size of fandom (or some
sections of it, like the Futurians who used umpteen penames of the Conway
family); that it hampers club officials in determining activity credits; ktp.
But still they come. Some have been deep mysteries, and much speculation
preceded their identification; others have seemed to be separate new fans, but
turn out to be hoaxes. Something special is the "house name", a device of the
proz under which hack-written stuff is tagged with a name belonging to the mag
rather'n the author, like "Alexander Blade" in the Ziff-Davis pulps. Here,
too, we may note that fans have sometimes used interconnected penames, as Lynn
Hickman's "Plato Jones" which provoked DAG to take the byline "Socrates Smith"
and Mary Wilson, "Pancho Picasso".
PET NAMES Besides the names given fans' autos and miscellaneous property like
cameras and typers, many fanzines have been given affectionate
nicknames, which Speer says help give the contents "personality". These are
usually corruptions of a syllable or two from the original name, or
Demolishisms: for instance, SaL, LeZ, Apé, FA, "-", Warp, Ret, Oops,
Mopsy, Celsy, Q; namely Sweetness and Light, LeZombie, Aporetta, The Fantasy
Amateur (OO of FAPA), Hyphen, Spacewarp, Retribution, Oopsla, Matters of
Opinion, Excelsior, and Quandry.
PETITION Originally a signed paper addressed to some official, praying that
certain action be taken. In fandom, however, petitions are anything
but humble supplications. For ensample, there was the one signed by many
attendees of the Newark Convention, reprimanding Sykora for misuse of his
chairmanship of the Con. A little later, following the June 1938 FAPA
elections, Speer got signatures from more than half the members to a Petition
of Reprimand demanding no repetition of the Wollheimists' tactics in that
election.
PHILCO Philadelphia Conference; one of the annual gatherings held, usually in
November, in Philadelphia under the sponsorship of the PSFS. The
title was adopted in 1939 when "convention" had come to mean something larger
than the former Eastern SF gatherings, but the annual PhilCos (the longest
con-series in fandom) are numbered serially counting the First and Third
Easterns as 1 and 2.
PHILOSOPHY Speculative inquiry which investigates matters not yet within the
realms of science or art. Four chief questions are dealt with:
The nature of reality (is the Universe more like an idea in someone's mind, or
like a machine, or the commonsense view; are all natural laws reducible to a
single principle; does god exist; what is the difference between being and not
being; is the future course of events determined; usw?) Gaining knowledge of
reality (are our senses dependable; can we be absolutely certain of anything;
what are the rules of logic; how can we find the referent; ktp?) The nature
of the good (are there absolute values; what is the relation between
individual and general welfare; is happiness the only test of good; should one
accept things as they are or try to change them; etc?) The nature of the
beautiful (are there essences which are captured by the artist; should art
have any relation to morality; should the artist create only for his own
taste; what is the essential difference between prose and poetry; and so on?)
It should be evident that the first two groups of questions (metaphysics
and epistemology) concern principles very important in discussion of fantasy;
and that the latter two (ethics and aesthetics) are subjects that fans have
talked about a great deal ever since the First Transition.
The worth of philosophy lies not in giving dogmatic answers to these
questions, but in mapping out the answers that have been given, and showing
the assumptions and implications of the various theories.
PHOTOGRAPHY There were some paste-in photos in the old Fourteen Leaflet, and
a page of half-tones in an issue of Fantasy magazine, but
photographs were little seen till 1939 when LeZombie, Speer, and others began
publishing them. Photos were most often of fans and fan activities, but also
included tabletop fantastic scenes, shots off the screen of fantasy movies,
and whatever else might be of interest. By the 50s expanding size of mailing
lists had made actual use of tipped-in photos impractical, but long before
this Ackerman's Assorted Services lithographing, and Tucker's discovery of a
half-tone mimeo process, had opened up new possibilities.
PILLAR POLL Pillar of SAPS was Bob Briggs' term for those essential to the
society's success. The annual Pillar Poll now chooses these by
acclamation, with the top fan becoming titular President of SAPS.
PLANET STORIES A middle-period prozine (1939-52) notable for
bangbangshootemup yarns, voluptuous cover-babes and all like
that, in case references have puzzled you.
PLANE TRIP When the 1957 Convention was given to London, Dave Kyle organized
a group trip to the con by American fans, chartering a plane for
the purpose. He described himself as "President, London Trip Fund of the WSFS
Inc" when it appeared that airlines would not accept an individual's charter
for a speculative group of travellers.
Other members of the WSFS (chiefly the Dietzes and Raybin) holding that
this made the society itself liable, tried to set up a committee, including
themselves with Kyle, which would have official standing to deal with the
London Trip Fund. (Previously they had met with Dave unofficially, as
advisors.) The London Con-committee authorized this, tho Kyle continued to
handle all business arrangements, such as the one that made necessary a switch
of airlines from Pan-American to KLM when PA couldn't guarantee a return
flight.
Trouble really began in April, when Ted Carnell of London, who'd written
Ruth Landis -- who was acting as Kyle's secretary -- for a list of those
passengers who paid either entirely or in part for the trip and got no reply,
asked the other committee members to see her in person. The Dietzes called on
her and by persistence persuaded her to supply a partial list of names, an
action which Kyle resented, calling it an "infamous inquisition". Later
George Nims Raybin suggested that he -- Raybin -- be listed as co-signer at
the Chemical Corn [how stfnic!] Exchange Bank, where the London Trip funds
were deposited, "in case of emergency". (Dave lives in Potsdam, outside New
York City.) Personality clashes between the two factions also seem to have
played a part in creating bad feeling before the trip.
After the trip resentment mounted over the number of nonfans on the plane
and over the action of some plane-trippers in leaving the con hotel early,
sticking the committee with the balance of their guaranteed room-booking; a
certain amount of ill-feeling rose when Dave and Ruth Kyle (nee Landis -- they
took the trip as a honeymoon) were given the sum ($5 from each passenger,
deposited to secure the flight) originally supposed to be refunded to the
trip-makers; and it was alleged that this ill-feeling was at the bottom of the
lawsuit that eventually broke up the WSFS Inc.
PLANOGRAPH Just a sneaky name for a variety of litho.
PLOY A guileful maneuver. Its present popularity stems from Stephen Potter's
Gamesmanship, but the word is legitimate Scots dialect for
employ, from Latin in plico. Also, the name of a fanzine published by TAFF
delegate Ron Bennett; the ploy here was that the first issue was PLOY #2.
POCTSARCD An Irish crittur very like a postcard, except that where you write
on one side of a postcard and address the other, you address one
side of a poctsarcd and write on the other. It originated as a typo (in a
letter from Leeh to Walt Willis), like other such useful expressions as silp
and filk song. There are variants like pitcuer poctsarcds, too.
POETRY Fantasy poetry of course dates from the earliest times. Science-
fiction has not seemed such a good subject for poetic flights, but
efforts have been made by fans (some worthy) and among famous poets
scientistic pieces are found -- notably in Tennyson and Kipling -- tho some
with stfnal themes are actually anti-science.
In fandom and the proz we have: ballads, usually of rather simple appeal;
a couple of epics; such semi-narrative and descriptive poems as "Passing of
the Planets"; store of poetry expressing personal feeling with no connection
with fantasy save that fantasy fans have written it or Red Moon, Martian
Lover, first space flight, ktp, are substituted for mundane themes; dadaistic
and metaphysical stuff; jingles like daffy poetics; and a great many parodies
of various types of poems and songs.
All the familiar verse forms are used. Lowndes and others have written
many sonnets (and Lovecraft's Fungi from Yuggoth are favorites), vers
libre is popular with our Bohemians, Speer has plugged the Anglo-Saxon
measure. Standard stanza division is usual in poems of more than filler size;
there has been comparatively little blank verse.
All-poetry booklets appear with reasonable frequency. FAPA has a poetry
laureate, and a short-lived SF Poets' Guild was organized by Pohl in 1938.
POGO A handsome young opossum, inhabiting the Okefenokee swamp and various
comic strips, not to mention the Simon and Schuster books. This Pogo,
you understand, is the one created by Walt Kelly, no relation to the Pogo
which was the fan-name of Mary Corrine Gray about 1942-45 and figured in LASFS
affairs. The earliest full reference to him in the fan press which your
editors have been able to track down was in Betsy and Ed Curtis' THE CRICKET,
June '49, which quoted Kelly on the masthead ("You plays cricket, drinks tea,
and lifs the pinky when you holds the cup...") and remarked inside on the
editors' large collection of Pogo strips and other work by Kelly, such as his
political cartoons from the New York Star. (The Curtises later got a place in
the strip, as "Uncle Regular Curtis", the mail-carrying duck.) The Insurgents
had a passing mention in a WILD HAIR (Feb '49) advertising for stuff for
Burbee's collection, but not till the rise of Lee Hoffman Fandom in 1950-51
was Pogo-addiction epidemic in fandom. Thelma Kelly defended the craze:
"Pogo is not merely a comic book; it is a periodic lesson in manners and
relationships and carries into our lives a soft and living humor not based on
pratfalls and disparagement." The fad passed toward the end of 1954 and
nothing has quite replaced it; when selbstsogenannt 7th Fandom was
rampant, part of their reaction was against Pogo, impelling A BAS to remark:
"Perhaps Mad Comics have replaced Pogo among the Birdbaths because they are
pretty obvious even to the meagre mind, whereas Pogo requires a modicum of
intelligence and perspicacity". But your d'Alembert suspects Kelly's descent
into political moralizing to have done most of the dirty work.
Pogoisms, or Swamptalk, are the things critturs say in the Okefenokee;
quotes like these are much favored by fans for interlineations: "A atom bomb
can put everythin' all over nowhere -- nothin' to sweep up!" "Don't get drug
down by life -- it ain't nohow permanent." Some able dialect-
specialist should try to classify it; the difference from standard Dixie and
Negro dialect is perceptible, tho not marked.
POINT SYSTEM OF RATING (Youd:Warner) Because the impressionistic comments on
a story, article or department (swell, OK, lousy, it
stinks) are likely to vary greatly in meaning in different critics and not
tell the editor much, Youd asked Fantast's readers to rate each piece with a
number from one to ten, ten being best. The number indicates quality, not
rank as compared to others in the same issue; every piece in an issue might
receive the same rating if they all seemed equally good -- or punk. Such
ratings appear easy to average up to get the consensus of opinion on an item
or an entire issue (in the latter case pieces may be weighted according to
length, so a three-page article will have more effect on the result than a
one-pager). But the system has a flaw in the fact that different readers may
attach different significance to the same number; one may use 7 for the
general run of acceptably good material while another uses 5. Harry Warner jr
tried to get the same system applied to Spaceways and published a letter
explaining what each number meant to one reader, which he asked all to
observe.
The point system has been tampered with, some readers and editors
preferring to use any number from one to one hundred, in the delusion that
ratings could be that fine; and some applying money values.
POLICE STATE ANARCHY That's what the world needs worse than a good 5¢ cigar.
POLITICAL FANTASY (Marconette) A story whose primary object is to illustrate
some sociological opinion, which it does usually by
imagining events in the modern world which we know couldn't have happened
because if they had we'd have read about them in the newspapers -- like van
Loon's story of the invasion of America by the Nazis in 1940, or Warner
Brothers' "Mission to Moscow". Such stories may take place in the future,
like Wells' The Life and Death of a Dictator. Such stories are fantasy
not so much because they involve superscience or the supernatural, but because
they must be placed in an imaginary country, or in the future, or in some
present subjunctively alternate to our own, in order that the author may
manipulate characters and incidents freely. Stories like Things to
Come, which merely have sociological overtones, probably would not be
called political fantasy. The term is not really a good one as a parallel to
SF, weird, and pure fantasy, because it frequently overlaps with true science
fiction, etc, and there are similar stories, commedia of manners on the grand
scale, whimsical bits, and stories simply speculating "if", which are not
sociologically motivated.
POLITICS Fandom has remained remarkably free of political discussion within
the frame of the US party system, considering how widely its
members' views diverge on all other topics. Senator McCarthy's corsair cruise
inspired a few articles con, but his defenders were too few and feeble to
provoke a real feud; the fan press is not a good medium for political
propaganda anyway. On the other hand, some intense differences of opinion
have been manifested in the infrapolitical realm of social problems and their
cause and cure, but for that we refer you to other sections. Discussions of
these subjects were called "politics" in such old-time slogans as "Boost
Science Fiction Not Politics" but they're really sociological.
POLLS The first fan poll was Speer's IPO (Oklahoma Institute of Private
Opinion; title a takeoff on Gallup), hektoed postcards circulated with
The SF Fan for a couple of years around 1938. While this was still running,
the fanzine Novae Terrae put out a questionnaire with each issue, called Panel
of Critics, which contained some questions on the magazine and some personal
and other general questions. Afterward LeZombie and others from time to time
took polls, but Art Widner's Poll Cat made the things famous in fandom.
Widner had previously run polls in several major fanzines, but in the
Poll Cat he set out to test the thesis that fans are a separate and distinct
type (slans or whatever you want to call them). Looking for unusual averages
in fans, Widner found several characteristics that looked significant, such as
longevity of grandparents, larger hat size, and greater height, but some
criticism by Harry Warner cast doubt on their validity.
Poll-questions are usually of three types: opinions on top fans and pros,
authors, artists or editors; best-remembered fantascene, etc; opinions on
religion, politics, ktp; and personal data like age, national extraction, and
introvert characteristics. Another type of poll is that which is taken
(usually on a loose poll sheet folded in with the fanzine) in determining
reader reaction to material in the issue. Results are given in the following
issue. Sometimes other questions are asked, such as "What story in aSF during
the past 12 months would you like to see a sequel to?" or "Do you think it is
a proud and lonely thing to be a fan?"
The gremlins of polls are several. Worst is the jerk who receives a
postcard to answer on and doesn't do anything about it; these usually run
around 50% of the total coverage. Another offender is the guy who won't give
a straight answer to the question, but thinks the card is better used for wise
cracks, which are appreciated not. And there is the problem of getting a
representative sample of fans. The Poll Cat did best at this when his
requests and reports were appearing in many different subscription fanzines,
but even he had trouble with a lot of fans from a given locality ganging up
and sending in votes for the leading fan in their puddle as being top fan of
the world, etc. Other polls have had even worse luck in this regard. Even if
the fanzine they are circulated with cuts a good cross-section of fandom, the
replies are likely to be weighted toward the writers, etc, appearing in that
fanzine, because it is in the replier's mind when he answers, and the colossal
fanzine which appeared a month ago, and convention and club activities, are
more dimly remembered. There is also a tendency to vote the polltaker higher
among the top fans than would be done on somebody else's poll, which led
Widner modestly to leave himself entirely out in reporting results.
PONG The surname given such Tuckerish pen-names as John W Pong jr, Horatio
Alger Pong, Lord Ponge-Ponge [a bit of an oddball] usw, altho according
to some who should know the first name rather'n the last is the family name
among Chinese, so that if these characters are related to the famous Hoy Ping
Pong they should all be Hoys. Hoy Ping Pong himself, "the Chinese Buck
Rogers", originally had a personality all his own, but eventually just became
a pename for Bob Tucker writing humorous articles.
POO (1) It's mightier than the Yobber. (2) A hairy phallic symbol man,
representing Andy Young and his Electric Beard.
POSTMAILING (Speer) For reasons of timeliness, rush to satisfy activity
credits, or philoprogenitive rationalization, fans sometimes
don't want to wait till the next regular mailing of an APA to distribute their
fanzine to the membership. It may then be distributed as individual mailed
copies, the distributor bearing the cost and the responsibility of seeing to
it that all members get a copy. OMPA and FAPA allow normal credit when this
is done; SAPS doesn't.
Despite some objections, publications sent out as postmailings are
considered part of the preceding official mailing for purposes of tabulation.
A few fans have declared their zines "premailings" to a forthcoming mailing,
but tho the original meaning of "postmailing" allowed this, FAPA at least no
longer recognizes anything as a "pre-mailing"; implication being that "post"
has come to mean method and not time of distribution.
POTRZEBIE ("poTREBZyeh") Word popularized by Mad Comics, in which it is used
for any convenient part of speech and some that wouldn't occur to
the unimaginative. It's actually a Polish word which in negative construction
has the sense of "desire"; non-potrzebie, for instance, means unwanted.
PREDICTED ISSUE OF ASF In the November 1948 Brass Tacks Richard Hoen wrote in
reviewing the November 1949 issue, which he
praised. It had, he claimed, featured material by Heinlein, vanVogt, delRey,
Sturgeon, deCamp, Willy Ley, RS Richardson... He was slightly struck with
erstaunt when a reporter from TIME called on him a year later and asked
whether he'd written a letter to aSF. Not till thus nudged did it dawn on him
that the November aSF had material by Heinlein, vanVogt, delRey, Sturgeon,
deCamp... JWC had hinted at something special for the November ish, and Sam
Moskowitz covered himself with glory by deducing just what it was going to be.
For the benefit of ambitious readers JWC remarked that others need not try; it
was fun once, but once was enough.
PRESIDENT The guy who's responsible for an organization. If activity slumps,
blame the president. If things go wrong, he must fix them,
provided volunteer vigilantes don't beat him to it. The constitution of FAPA
specifically gives the president all necessary powers to deal with situations
not otherwise covered by the constitution; especially to prevent another
interregnum. While few functions are specifically delegated to a president,
he has considerable influence on an organization, by his power to appoint
officials, by recommendations made in line with his responsibility, and by
speaking for the organization to fandom as a whole or to the general public.
PRINTING Such fanzines as are printed are more often than not hand-set; a
certain number of periodical ones -- notably Bill Danner's
STEFANTASY -- use this unquestionably prestigious means of reproduction, but
nowadays it's more commonly found in small items of one-shot type either as a
novelty or for items of more than common interest. Rubber stamp sets are
usually excluded from the term "printing".
PROJECT: EAST MEETS WEST A moneyraising campaign to finance the trip of
Japanese fan Tetsu Yano from LA to the PhilCon II.
Tetsu arrived in the USA on May 14, 1953, and was guest of the Ackermans
during his stay. Ack and the con committee also footed most of the bill for
the trip.
PROJECT FAN CLUB An activity started by Orville K Mosher late in 1951. The
original aim of the group, which had the assistance of
Shelby Vick, Nan Gerding, Dick Clarkson, and others, was to collect and
publish information about how to form a fanclub. Mosher circulated a number
of questionnaires to various fanclubs. The group collected information about
most of the existing fan clubs, local, national, and international, and
published a list (which you are advised to obtain iff'n you want more
information than we can give you about clubs). PFc also helped round up
material for the auction at the ManCon of 1952, and helped other clubs, it's
said, in other ways.
PRO Professional. Commercially pub- Behold the Pro in all his glory!
lished fantasy magazines and the He's dreaming up a new stf story
people who write or draw for them. Art Which writ, he'll send off to NY
Rapp wants to eliminate confusion by For some rich publisher to buy.
the practice, which we follow in this After the sale, I rather fear,
volume, of using "pros" for people and He'll turn his profits into bheer,
"proz" for publications. Whether spe- Proving his appetites the same
cialist booksellers should be included As theirs from whom the money came.
or not is disputed; "No," says Bob Bloch,
"they are filthy hucksters", but "Yes," says Big Hearted Howard Devare, "and
be sure you spell my name right". Joy Clarke informs that Anglofans include
booksellers with other pros.
Bob Tucker observes sourly: "These people are often called 'filthy pros'
and 'dirty old pros' [or 'vile pros -- because that's what they write']
because they are supposedly rich, and because it is whispered that they will
stoop to any trick to do wrong to the innocent fan. The majority of them are
as much fans as anyone; many are older fen who turned to writing for fun and
profit [including Bob himself]. They are both despised as parasites and
fawned on as minor tin ghods. And those fans who are loudest in censure are
often just those who try hardest to sell fiction and thus become pros."
Joy Clarke explains that the dividing line in Anglofandom is not marked
because many British pro-authors have emerged from the fan groups, British
fandom is sufficiently close-knit for everybody to know the pros and pro-fans
before they turned pro, and it's therefore hard to consider Ted Tubb, Ken
Bulmer, Arthur Clarke, Sam Youd and the like as anything but fans selling to
the prozines.
In practice most of the fan-pro prejudice Tucker remarks is turned
against those their own sections of stfdom admit to be obnoxious -- 7th Fandom
and the other Beanie Brigadiers and the less scrupulous or more conceited
professionals. Sometimes seen is "prodom" for the field of professional
scientifictionists; the word is a mere analogy with "fandom", since the pros
are not so selfconscious, vocal, or organized.
Prozines for pros to appear in have multiplied from the old days of the
Big Three to peaks in 1940, 1951-2, and 1956-8. In an IPO Poll taken near its
inception, the flood of new proz was disapproved 18:5, so there mustn't have
been much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth when the growth-curve
turned downwards. (Reasons for such ups & downs much debated.) The 1951-2
peak, and following slump, were also regarded with a good deal of equanimity,
but the depression of 1958-9 was intense enough to create audible alarm and
despondency over the future of the field and, therewith, fandom's prospects
for recruiting. Disapproval of new proz is mainly because, with some
exceptions, they print even trashier material than the older ones, and fans
aren't interested in reading it themselves and certainly don't want other
people to read it and sneer at stf.
Quite a few long-time fans have at times completely given up reading the
proz thru disgust, or preoccupation with fan and other activities. The course
of fan history has varied from close to slight connection with the proz, and
the wish has often been expressed that we could get along without using them
as a recruiting medium. This is principally a fanationalistic manifestation,
however; the average stfnist eats up good stfantasy, has an exaggerated idea
of its literary merit, and will leap to defend it against detractors.
PROXYBOO LTD The fabulous (very) organization, operated by Walt Willis, which
features fan activity by proxy. For a small fee any fan's
crifanac is taken over and performed by Proxyboo's highly trained experts.
There is a similar organization, Vernon McCain Inc, which does the same type
of work and handles the activity for both fans and pros with the initials RB.
PROXYCLAVE The third Disclave; a conclave conducted along the same lines,
with pros sending in talks to be read by club members.
PSD Pretty Scientist's Daughter, symbol of stock characters in hackish stf.
PSEUDO-CAMPBELL (Boggs) It is hard to say whether aesthetic or
fanationalistic considerations moved Redd Boggs to denounce
this sort of fan editor. The pseudo-Campbell is a wittold who spreads his
subzine's price on the cover, decorates the thing with blurbs on the contents,
tries to strike a balance between articles and fiction, and otherwise sets
himself to produce a fanzine which is simply an imitation of a prozine, rather
than a proper specimen of an amateur publication. Fanzines, after all,
are intended for a rather small and well-defined group, not an anonymous mass;
imitation of the proz (except satirically) violates artistic integrity
aesthetically and from the fanationalistic point of view merely gives us an
attempt at something the prozines do far better, and with four-color covers to
boot.
PSEUDOSCIENCE "Scientific" explanations which actually clash with accepted
scientific beliefs and findings, but by glossing-over are made
to pass for plausibility in the, uh, minds of Palmer's readers, Scientologists
and other children. The use of the word to describe science-fiction in
general is fiercely fought by lovers of the literature.
PSEUICIDE also called pseudocide and some unprintable things.
Early in 1941 Earl Singleton's room-mate made known that ES had
committed suicide. Singleton had become a leading figure since the ChiCon,
and the news was a great shock. Many poems and issues of fanzines were
dedicated to him, and considerable debate about the ethics of suicide took
place. It was whispered in some places that a girl had been involved, and the
Futurians never did stop wondering why he did it.
Several months later, various fans began to notice phoney things about
the circumstances; for instance, Earl's parents had come up from Texas and
taken away his remains within a day of his death. Widner, who was on the
scene, investigated, and the word spread that it was a hoax. After that
researchers turned their attention to finding out who'd been in on it from the
beginning, chief curiosity centering around Trudy Kuslan.
That fall Singleton, who was reported to be working for the government in
Washington, visited Warner in Hagerstown, giving as his name the name of a
Washington room-mate, and subscribed to SPACEWAYS. Warner mentioned the visit
and his suspicions to Speer, and Juffus tracked the zombie to its lair. No
other fen saw Singleton after the pseuicide, tho Widner received an engagement
announcement, and it has never been learned just why he pulled the hoax.
PSFS The Philadelphia SF Society, founded by Rothman as a chapter of the SFL
in 1934. Other members have been fans like Ossie Train, Bob Madle,
Baltadonis, Agnew, Rusty Hevelin, ktp, or pros like George O Smith, Sol Levin,
deCamp, Ley, Alex Phillips and others. The PSFS has been a branch of the SFL,
ISA, and Science Fictioneers, and sponsored two worldcons ('47 and '53) in
addition to annual PhilCos. In the war years the club became almost dormant,
but even when most of its members were in the armed forces a PSFS News would
drop into the mailbox at unexpected times. Ossie Train seems to have done
most to keep it going during, and revive it after, this period.
PSI The things they study in the field of parapsychology; telepathy, ESP,
precognition, telekinetics, and allied mental phenomena. Some call it
psychophysics.
PSYCHOANALYSES Therapeutic treatment for upset mental conditions. But the
word was misused by Speer and Rothman for expositions of their
own psychologies, of the sort later called autoanalyses. Indeed, it has a
vague applicability here; "talking it out" actually does have value in
reducing tension and getting perspective on oneself, as confessors and
suchlike amateur healers have long known.
The Futurians say that various of their number have visited professional
psychiatrists at times and caused the psychiatrists to seek long vacations.
PUBLICITY The principal avenue for fandom to be presented to the general
public has been the stf prozines. Because of the necessity for
keeping new recruits coming in, fandom has been eager to get publicity, but
gagged at most of the mundane notices such as the infamous TIME writeup of the
1939 convention, or the Toronto newspapers' reports of the Torcon, which make
us out to be a lot of kids avidly interested in that crazy Buck Rogers stuff.
Notices have been secured in various local papers when conventions were being
held, and a few mentions of local club meetings have appeared in minor
journals -- almost invariably with some inaccuracies. Posters have been put
in windows announcing conventions; banners strung around the hall and fans
parading down the street in costume have attracted notice of passers-by, tho
many feel that such things only serve to confirm the misimpression given by
Time-style writeups. One of the duties consistently allotted to general fan
organizations when they've been planned is handling of public relations.
PUBLISHING Because many fanzines print anything they receive, and alteration
of the writer's wording is frowned upon, the "editor" of fanzines
sometimes has little function aside from publishing. In some cases, too, fans
with mimeos do part of the mechanical work for those less favored. And in
cooperatives like the LASFS the ed may even have other fans cutting stencil
for him. In such cases, the work of the mere "editor" approaches vanishing
point, so it is customary, in fandom, to give credit to whoever does the dirty
work by speaking of "publishers" as well as, or instead of, "editors" of fmz.
PUBLISHING GIANTS (Burbee:Berkeley) Carr, Ellik, and to a degree Graham and
Rike, from the vast fanzine output of the Berkeley Bhoys in
the late 50s. The phrase was popularized by FANAC, which used it as a
gagline; later it was applied to other large-volume publishers like the CRY
crowd, Ted White, etc.
PUBLISHING HOUSE In fandom, a person or group with a distinctive name
followed by "Publications", "Press", or some explicit or
tacit equivalent. Frequently it designates the publications of only one
person; occasionally of a group of friends; and sometimes of diverse persons
scattered over the country. In the latter case it may or may not indicate
that the members assist each other and confer on policy and practices.
Publishing house names in fandom not noted elsewhere in this work include
such as Choctaw Publications; Green Jester Publications; Operation Crifanac;
the Moonrakers; Rose & Hawk Press; dyktawo pubs; Vulcan Publications;
Neoteric- Redlance Publications; je m'en fiche publications; Operation
Voldesfan; Hashish House; Weltschmertz Publications; and Starflame
Publications. Hiding behind these designations are Dan McPhail; Harold
Gottliffe of the Leeds SFL; Dick Eney; Shroyer, Mooney, Hodgkins, Kuttner,
Barnes, and Yerke; Bill Rotsler; Ackerman before and just after being drafted
in World War II; Bob Tucker and Sully Roberds; Bob Stein and Redd Boggs; Jean
Young; Karen Anderson; the Berkeley Bhoys; Bill Evans; and Gregg Calkins. But
this barely scratches the surface of the mass awaiting tabulation.
PUN A type of wit to which fans are much addicted, despite denunciations of
them as the lowest form of humor. (Dean Grennell has ably defended them,
pointing out that repetition-humor like gaglines deserves to be considered
lowest.) Shakespeare used the things with effect and fans with the proper
mental outlook (awareness of multiple-meanings and homonyms, and a sort of
whimsy which its possessors like to consider mental agility) delight in their
creation and utterance; the verbal orientation and wide vocabulary most fans
pride themselves on obviously predispose to this type of cleverness. When
double-inversion can be implied they aren't at all bad, tho often farfetched
puns are published or spoken deliberately to draw moans of anguish from the
audience.
That's a purpose in pun-warfare such as the Paper Moon and Horse of
Another Color battles begun by Dean Grennell; he challenged Bob Bloch with a
parody of the stave of a pop song which goes: "It's only a paper moon /
Sailing over a cardboard sea..." DAG substituted "Berber moon / Sailing over
a Moslem sea...", Bloch replied with "pauper moon / Sailing over a bankruptcy"
and the war was on. Other fans joined in later. Gags in the forms of puns on
"That's a horse of another color" were exchanged in correspondence between DAG
and Dick Eney, who mentioned them to their correspondents. Several dozen fen
(it appeared at the time) were drawn into the fray, which seemed at the point
of obsessing a large fraction of actifandom in early 1955 and reached horrid
heights when Sir Winston Churchill joined in in the course of a political
speech. Eventually Eney published three solid pages of the things in SAPS and
FAPA and peace was restored, tho another exchange took place when the
principal criminals met in person at the Eastercon.
PURIST (1) A duck that insists on observing all the old rules of grammar --
word-use, spelling, syntax, punctuation, capitalization, ktp. (2) One
who specializes in the fanac connected with one specific type of stf or
fantasy, which heesh often considers "true" stf/fsy.
PURPLE The noble color of the hekto has long been a symbol of Ghu, says Bill
Evans, and the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual
grace, such as it is, of his devotees are the purple badges of honor on their
hands. Royal Purple is the color of one faction of the Fooists but the hue is
generally understood to appertain solely to Ghuism. Ghu's hands are purple,
as also are the souls of his worshippers -- whether the latter is due to the
former is uncertain. Says Wollheim: "Once acknowledge Ghughuism, and you will
be saved, even tho you spend the rest of your life... putting up all sorts of
anti-ghods. For your soul knows, and nothing, I repeat, NOTHING your
fallible brain may do thereafter, can erase the purple tinge of truth from
your soul... at the very sight of Ghughuism, no matter how unfavorably
portrayed, the soul cries out in recognition and leaps to embrace and be
embraced by Ghughu. Purple is the soul of all those you contact about
Ghughuism. Purple-souled Morojo, purple-souled Pogo..." Speer comments that
the FooFooist remedy for all this is to remove the soul in case it becomes
troublesome, tho those who may carry purple-soiled souls around with them, he
reports, do not find that these hinder them in any way from being foo-blue
FooFooists, and despising and spitting on Ghughuism and all its advocacy,
"which certainly marks them as different from the depraved creatures who wear
Ghughuist titles".
Rothman adds: "Since this manuscript has been read by Wollheim, the Ghu,
and Rothman, Archbishop of Philadelphia, and the Blessing of Ghu put upon it,
all those who read this in future will have their souls dyed purple, and will
be immune to the depraved propaganda written above by fOO-ball Speer."
The source of this quaint theological aberration probably lies in the
general use of the hekto in fan publishing at the time the Ghuist cult arose.
Eney, as Archbishop of Washington for Roscoe, has expressed the feeling that
anyone who has ever used a hekto has -- whatever his public pronouncements --
seen the essential falsity of the Ghuist religion. But eminent Rosconian
theologians have held that Ghuists will be saved despite invincible ignorance.
So, for that matter, will Fooists. Come to think of it, so will Rosconians.
Updated January 8, 1999. If you have a comment or question about these Web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.