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Spaceways, v. 4, issue 4, whole no. 27, April 1942
Page 18
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18 SPACEWAYS [handwritten number 9 in black ink on the left of title] [centered] EMERGENCY FLARE by HARRY WARNER, JR. [Illustration of lantern on right side of page. Image takes up 1/4 of a page, and text wraps around image on left side.] It's April 4, as this is dummied, and Beacon Light has not arrived. If it isn't here by the Sixth, Monday, there just won't be any Beacon Light this issue. The contents page is already stenciled, and would have to be done over if another article or story were added to this issue. By batting this col-umn out like this, I can use a dab of correction flu-id on the index stencil, and save the labor and cost of doing an entirely new one. Now the only worry is about whether you'll get too bored reading this. The unaccustomed luxury of three extra pages in which to editorialize, ramble, muse, and gossip comes in handy. For instance, I've wanted for some time to put into print the way I met Earl Singleton after his pseuicide. This account was originally planed for [underlined] Le Zombie, where it would be peculiarly appropriate; but terrible rumors have been floating about, concerning the way Bob Tucker is editing huge gobs out of everything he prints, and this is the sure means of getting every word of the story into print, uncut! It was a rather warm evening in late August, and I was sweating at my desk, stapling together the loose pages of the then current issue of [underlined] Horizons, my FAPA magazine. There was a knock at the door; someone answered, and a voice asked for me. I went to the door, or the voice with its body cam in--I don't recall--and the voice and body introduced himself as R.M. Brown, from Washington, D.C. He was one of those side-line fans; had attended some meetings of the PSFS while living in Philadelphia for a while, and had seen some fan magazines there. Driving around, he found himself near Hagerstown, remembered who lives there, and decided to stop for an hour or so. Now, in letters to two or three correspondents immediately after the truth of the pseuicide became known, I had speculated that Earl could have had some fun at my expense by visiting me under an assumed name and getting fandom's re-action to the great event. I had never met Earl, and had seen only one picture of him. That picture was my downfall. It evidently was a poor one. Mr. R.M. Brown didn't look much like the Earl Singleton of that picture. So we chatted for some time. I explained in full detail fandom, the FAPA, the Denvention, and such things. I [underlined] was faintly suspicious. I sent up a test balloon by dwelling at great length on the way Earl Singleton had hoaxed fandom, and told of Lieberscher's suggestion that a seance be held at some future conven-tion at which Singleton should be brought back to life, and explained in some detail [handwritten question mark written in black ink beside two lines of text, with the following lines underlined: "which fans had known all along and how others had learned."] Mr. Brown was quite interested and amused by the silly antics of Singleton, but displayed no suspicious reactions. (And in case anyone in the audience thinks the possibil-ity of my visitor's being Singleton dawned on me only weeks or months later; In practically all fan letters I wrote for the next week or ten days I mentioned my suspicions. I can refer you to any number of fans for verification of this.) We even went up to my bedroom and looked over my collection. Brown was in-terested in fanzines, and decided to buy a lot of back issues of [underlined] Spaceways. He did--a tremendous pile of them, the price of which half-financed the next issue--and I tossed in a copy of [underlined] Horizons as bonus. I showed him the last FAPA mail-ing, along with other fanzines, and he made his only detectable slip by lingering over the page in Speer's [underlined] Sustaining Program devoted to a discussion of Single-ton's views on Housman. But that could have been a coincidence, I knew. He said that he thought he might like to start a fanzine himself. "It [underlined] is pretty warm up here," I said. "No, I feel quite all right," he replied; "I just wanted to see what your reaction would be." "Well," I said, "far be it from me to discourage anyone, but it all seems so pointless that sometimes I...." "But what [underlined] does have a point in life?" he asked, thereby proving that great minds run
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18 SPACEWAYS [handwritten number 9 in black ink on the left of title] [centered] EMERGENCY FLARE by HARRY WARNER, JR. [Illustration of lantern on right side of page. Image takes up 1/4 of a page, and text wraps around image on left side.] It's April 4, as this is dummied, and Beacon Light has not arrived. If it isn't here by the Sixth, Monday, there just won't be any Beacon Light this issue. The contents page is already stenciled, and would have to be done over if another article or story were added to this issue. By batting this col-umn out like this, I can use a dab of correction flu-id on the index stencil, and save the labor and cost of doing an entirely new one. Now the only worry is about whether you'll get too bored reading this. The unaccustomed luxury of three extra pages in which to editorialize, ramble, muse, and gossip comes in handy. For instance, I've wanted for some time to put into print the way I met Earl Singleton after his pseuicide. This account was originally planed for [underlined] Le Zombie, where it would be peculiarly appropriate; but terrible rumors have been floating about, concerning the way Bob Tucker is editing huge gobs out of everything he prints, and this is the sure means of getting every word of the story into print, uncut! It was a rather warm evening in late August, and I was sweating at my desk, stapling together the loose pages of the then current issue of [underlined] Horizons, my FAPA magazine. There was a knock at the door; someone answered, and a voice asked for me. I went to the door, or the voice with its body cam in--I don't recall--and the voice and body introduced himself as R.M. Brown, from Washington, D.C. He was one of those side-line fans; had attended some meetings of the PSFS while living in Philadelphia for a while, and had seen some fan magazines there. Driving around, he found himself near Hagerstown, remembered who lives there, and decided to stop for an hour or so. Now, in letters to two or three correspondents immediately after the truth of the pseuicide became known, I had speculated that Earl could have had some fun at my expense by visiting me under an assumed name and getting fandom's re-action to the great event. I had never met Earl, and had seen only one picture of him. That picture was my downfall. It evidently was a poor one. Mr. R.M. Brown didn't look much like the Earl Singleton of that picture. So we chatted for some time. I explained in full detail fandom, the FAPA, the Denvention, and such things. I [underlined] was faintly suspicious. I sent up a test balloon by dwelling at great length on the way Earl Singleton had hoaxed fandom, and told of Lieberscher's suggestion that a seance be held at some future conven-tion at which Singleton should be brought back to life, and explained in some detail [handwritten question mark written in black ink beside two lines of text, with the following lines underlined: "which fans had known all along and how others had learned."] Mr. Brown was quite interested and amused by the silly antics of Singleton, but displayed no suspicious reactions. (And in case anyone in the audience thinks the possibil-ity of my visitor's being Singleton dawned on me only weeks or months later; In practically all fan letters I wrote for the next week or ten days I mentioned my suspicions. I can refer you to any number of fans for verification of this.) We even went up to my bedroom and looked over my collection. Brown was in-terested in fanzines, and decided to buy a lot of back issues of [underlined] Spaceways. He did--a tremendous pile of them, the price of which half-financed the next issue--and I tossed in a copy of [underlined] Horizons as bonus. I showed him the last FAPA mail-ing, along with other fanzines, and he made his only detectable slip by lingering over the page in Speer's [underlined] Sustaining Program devoted to a discussion of Single-ton's views on Housman. But that could have been a coincidence, I knew. He said that he thought he might like to start a fanzine himself. "It [underlined] is pretty warm up here," I said. "No, I feel quite all right," he replied; "I just wanted to see what your reaction would be." "Well," I said, "far be it from me to discourage anyone, but it all seems so pointless that sometimes I...." "But what [underlined] does have a point in life?" he asked, thereby proving that great minds run
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