(illo: Steve Stiles: Fan looking up at number 37 "Gosh Wow,Oh Boy,Oh Boy!")
by Bob Tucker
Thirty-seventh fandom rose, prospered, and fell the other day. It lasted, in
all, about ten hours.
Thirty-seventh fandom was the inspired brainchild of Joseph G. ( for
Gnu) Fann, second son of Elihu and Martha Fann of Box Elder, Idaho.
The historical period lasted about ten hours, in all, because the mail was
delivered to the Fann home at eleven in the morning and a foreign
telephone call was received at nine that night. The interval was fraught
with significance. The telephone call also came collect.
By way of background information, know the following: Elihu and
Martha Fann were respected citizens of Box Elder, Idaho, and pillars of the
community. Elihu was editor and publisher of the town newspaper, the
Box Elder Bugle, and his weekly thundering editorials and fearless news
columns kept the townspeople in an uproar. He was also the Elder, the only
Elder, of the Box Elder Presbyterian Church. His wife Martha was the
church organist. In years gone by she had attempted to be the soloist for
the Wednesday night and Sunday morning sessions, but a minister ( one of
the many, many ministers who had come and gone to the church) dissuaded
her from that notion. The minister had pointed out that it wasn' t seemly for
a female soloist to sing hymns basso.
Because his father was an editor and publisher, and because his father
had given him a mimeo and a vast amount of stencils and paper no longer
needed by the church, young Joseph Gnu Fann yearned to be a fanzine
publisher. The mimeograph and the supplies became his when the church
moved into the New Age and purchased the equipment for something called
Desk Top Publishing. The church realized only later that they also had to
purchase a desk.
Young Joseph was entranced with his new-found wealth. He counted the
reams of paper and found that he had enough for a year' s run, provided
only that he kept the page count under twelve and the circulation under one
hundred. He counted the stencils and found that he could meet that goal.
He examined the stylus and felt confident that he knew how to use it. He
studied the broken lettering guide and concocted ways and means of coping
with the missing letters. He would publish a fanzine and it would be called
the Box ELdEr Bug because the lower-case l and e were missing, but his
father would be proud of him nonetheless. The only object he could not
account for in the mass of treasure from the church was one discolored
sticky quarter.
Joseph Gnu Fann had discovered fandom a year earlier when he
received a shipment of very old magazines called Thrilling Wonder Stories
from an antiquarian huckster in Ohio named Rusty Hevelin. Shortly there-
after, in one of those strange coincidences common to fiction, he found a
well-worn copy of a book called All Our Yesterdays written by a historian
known as Harry Warner, Jr. , which was on sale at the Presbyterian Church
booksale. It cost him twenty-five cents and was well worth the price, but he
never afterward found anyone who would admit owning and donating the
volume to the booksale. From another fan in California, a Mr. Bruce Pelz,
he purchased for only ten dollars a copy of the Neo-Fan' s Guide to Science
Fiction Fandom. Thus armed, Joseph became a fan. Or, as the fanzine
implied, a faaan.
The only other information you need to know about the Fann family of
Box Elder, Idaho are historical footnotes that really do not figure into our
story. Remember that Joseph was the second son. His older brother, Claude,
And then Chuck looked me straight in the eye and asked,
' Have you ever had a big one? '
came to a bad end. Claude crossed the border into Montana one day and
stole a passel of horses. He was caught and hanged, of course, thereby
putting the lie to the long-cherished belief that the eldest child in the family
was the most likely to become a fan. Fans do not steal, it is said. The
youngest member of the family was Helen, a female. She ran away from
home at an early age and went to Boise to become a dirty pro. The family
spoke of her only in whispers and quasi-quotes.
Joseph realized he needed a fannish nickname if he wished to become
as famous as Ctein, or Teddy Bear, or Big Forry. He chose Gnu to substitute
for his middle name because he really didn' t want fandom to know that he
was named for a distant uncle, Grego Banshuck Fann, now condemned to
jail in Sunrise Trail, Florida, for kiting checks. Grego did not fit a fannish
image and fans do not kite checks, it is said.
And that is about all you need to know of the background information
on Joseph Gnu Fann. Any more would confuse you.
The mailman arrived at the Fann home at eleven in the morning. There
were several pieces of junk mail, a few bills for his parents, a letter from
Ed McMahon announcing that his father had won ten million dollars, and a
fanzine for Joseph. The young fan threw everything else aside. The fanzine
was printed on bright green paper and was called Folly, it was published by
three fans who called themselves Katz Kunkel Worley, and it appeared to be
a focal point of fandom. Young Joseph was enthralled. Reading through it
slowly without moving his lips, he found himself thrilled and inspired by an
article on page six entitled " The Endless Fun of Numbered Fandoms. " At
once, the article reminded him of all he had previously read about that
fascinating subject and recalled to mind the elder ghods who had treated
the subject with the respect it surely deserved: Speer, Silverberg, Ellison,
Grennell, Willis.
It had been said that First Fandom arose around 1930 when the first
fans of Brooklyn crawled out of the slime and extended slannish tendrils
to one another across the ooze of the Hudson River. Perhaps it was the
East River, or the Hydra Canal. The waters of Manhattan were not clearly
understood in Idaho because those distant foreigners tended to speak in
tongues, and exclude one another. Since then, since 1930, according to
various historians and would-be historians, eight other fandoms had come
into flower and had fallen as first one famous fan and then another
gafiated, or one famous fanzine and then another had ceased publication.
A numbered fandom appeared to rise and fall according to the appearance
and disappearance of an individual, a fanzine, or a newsstand magazine.
Joseph Gnu Fann was confused. The article in this new fanzine Folly
seemed to suggest that Ninth Fandom had ended in 1974, the very year of
his birth, and the Ninth Transition immediately followed. The article ended
with a hint: the hint that fandom at large was breathlessly awaiting the
Tenth Coming with the anticipation of a Deep Baptist. Joseph was shaken.
It was not lost on him that Ninth Fandom ended during the year of his
birth, and that fandom was awaiting . . . Something.
Juseph Gnu Fann was electrified, and saw his duty to fandom.
Seizing a pencil he began scribbling on the margins of Folly in the
same manner that his elders made comment hooks on their apazines. Some-
one had written a telephone number on the margin of page three but he
dismissed that, thinking that Katz Kunkel Worley had used the page in an
absent-minded moment. Joseph' s scribbles were numbers, many series of
numbers, representing the events of fandom as he understood them thru his
limited researches. After all, Mr. Hevelin hadn' t sent him everything he
wished to know. He labored for an hour or two.
After a long period of tortured labor he made an astounding discovery.
An astonishing discovery. Today --today was the beginning of thirty-
seventh fandom! It was a croggling concept but it could not be denied: the
beginning of thirty-seventh fandom was the very day Folly arrived in the
family mailbox along with an announcement from Ed McMahon that his
father had won ten million dollars. Future historians would need to debate
the significance.
That fellow, Arnie Katz, would be very proud of him. Using the Katz
figures and justifications he, Joseph Gnu Fann, had produced documentation
that today was thirty-seventh fandom.
It was a splendid moment to be a fan.
Or rather, it would be as soon as Joseph published the first issue of
the Box ELdEr Bug on his donated duper and carefully explained to his
readership why he could not use the lower-case l and e on his lettering
guide. He would tell his readers that he was carrying on the good fight in
The Tradition of Ephless Elmer. Instant fame would likely be his and future
historians like Mr. Warner would carefully note that thirty-seventh fandom
began with his very first issue, a new focal point of fanzine fandom. All
he really needed now was someone well-known to write his lead story or
article, someone whose very name would impel readers to open the issue
with trembling fingers, after plucking out the staple, and peruse the story
with bated breath.
But who? Who did he know? Young Joseph was in a quandry. It really
wouldn' t do to ask that Mr. Katz to write the lead story because he had
already written one on numbered fandoms, and he would not want to repeat
himself now. But yet, it was fitting that his lead be about numbered
fandoms because this was the beginning of the thirty-seventh. Who?
Joseph Gnu Fann had a moment of brilliant inspiration. It rekindled his
sense of wonder and caused him to speculate that he might be a slan after
all. Dashing into the next room for the telephone book, he returned to his
chair and leafed thru the pages at the beginning to find the area code tables
and the map of the United States. He compared the area codes to the tele-
phone number written in the margin on page three of Folly. The result was
a startling story in itself. The code 301 served all of Maryland and
fandom' s premier historian, Mr. Harry Warner, Jr. , lived in Hagerstown,
Maryland. Could this be Mr. Warner' s number? Could Katz Kunkel Worley
have scribbled Mr. Warner' s number on the margin of his copy in an idle
moment? A passing chance? Perhaps Katz Kunkel Worley had been hand-
feeding their duper, or cranking the handle on their way to Twonk' s Disease
at the very moment someone jotted down the number and placed the call.
Joseph Gnu Fann recognized his moment in the sevagram.
It was but the work of a moment to duplicate that earlier call. Young
Joseph dialed the number and waited breathlessly.
An answering machine replied. The answering machine told him in
brusque tones that he had reached the residence of Harry the Hermit but
that Harry could not come to the phone just now because he was watching a
baseball game. The message between the lines seemed to imply that anyone
who would interrupt a baseball game was either a fakefan or a prevert. The
machine instructed the caller to leave his name, number, and subject matter
at the sound of a dropped loc. Joseph did as he was told and retired once
again to his chair, contemplating his near brush with destiny. He stared at
the stack of virgin stencils, at the many reams of paper piled atop his
Nintendo collection, and at the excommunicated mimeo even now awaiting
his sweating palm on the crank.
In his mind, he reviewed everything that he had done and said.
Following the machine' s instructions he had recited his name, his telephone
number, his city and state, and had then told the machine that he was in
possession of his very first copy of Folly. He said that he was ready and
waiting to produce his first issue of the Box ELdEr Bug but that he needed
a lead story by a recognized name. He said that the story should be about
numbered fandoms and thirty-seventh fandom in particular because of what
Mr. Katz had written, coupled, of course, with his own researches that
afternoon. He said that he would hold the presses until the ballgame was
over, or until Mr. Warner could get his story into the mail the first thing
tomorrow morning. He advised that he could not pay for the material
because he was a fan, but that he would be pleased to send two free copies
of the issue.
So, who was Twonk anyway?
And why did they name a disease after him?
All well and good. All seemed correct and the fannish thing to do. Mean-
while, he could begin his editorial to go on page two. He would explain to
his readers the reason for the delay; he really had to wait for Mr. Warner' s
ballgame to end.
Joseph Gnu Fann was not a baseball fan. He did not watch the games
on the telly or listen on the radio. He had no way of knowing that Mr.
Warner' s team lost the match. Lost deeply.
* * * * * * * *
The telephone in the Fann family parlor rang at about nine o' clock in
the evening. Elihu Fann answered the phone because the head of the family
always did that. He was first startled to learn from the operator that it was
a foreign call: she told him that the call was coming from Maryland, and he
was of the firm opinion that any land beyond Idaho state lines was foreign
land. He was next startled and thunderstruck to learn that the call was
coming in collect. With but one notable exception he had never before
received a collect call from anywhere. That only other call had been from
the Boise police department, informing him that his daughter Helen had
been arrested for shoplifting a copy of Weird Tales and rolling a drunk in
the Greyhound bus station.
Elihu was nonplussed. In answer to the operator' s query he could only
repeat his home telephone number and then ask, witlessly, " What number
are you? "
The response was astronomical. Great thunderous peals of rolling
laughter came from the telephone, helpless hilarious bursts of laughter so
loud they may have poured
and boomed from a loud-
speaker. The guffaws echoed
about the room as Elihu held
the telephone away from his
hurting ears. Roiling
demoniacal laughter. When
he could bear it no longer he
put the telephone back into
the cradle and stared at his
wife. She could offer no
assistance. Elihu turned his
stare to his son with dawning
suspicion.
Thirty-seventh fandom
rose, prospered, and fell the
other day. It lasted, in all,
about ten hours.
Data entry by Judy Bemis
Hard copy provided by Geri Sullivan
Data entry by Judy Bemis
Updated November 20, 2002. If you have a comment about these web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.