DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Southern Star, v. 1, issue 4, December 1941

Transcribe
Translate

Southern Star, v. 1, issue 4, December 1941

Page 34

The Passenger List     SOUTHERN STAR     Page 34

were still standing, around, gun in hand, and the passage of time seemed to have added to their original pugnacity.
It was late in 1920 that he began to save every copy of the Argosy-Allstory Weekly. Monahan and Modest Stein were doing swelegant covers. Current serials were "The Buster", "The Treasures of Tantalus" "The Stray Man", "The Night Horseman", "The Mental Monster", etc.
In high school, shortly before the advent of the radio and the orthophonic phonograph, he had the experience of a lifetime. In Raleigh, N. C., he heard a concert by Paul Whiteman in person. It was the nearest he has ever been to heaven, or ever expects to be. Glorious music, the like of which he had never dreamed, swirled and eddied about his yead. He heard Henry Busse, with trumpet pointed toward the sky, play "San," and he damned near died with the joy of it. Anticlimactic were "Oh, Joseph!" and "Linger Awhile," but they too are engraved on his memory. Nowadays, late at night, when the little redhead thinks he is alseep, "Linger Awhile" spins through his consciousness like the music of the spheres, and he smiles into the dark, because he knows it was her love song as well as his.
So he collected phonograph records --- hundreds and hundreds of them. He's still at it. In September, '41, when he comes home completely spent with the labors of the day, he plays "Alexander the Swoose" or "The Booglie Wooglie Pitty;" and soon thereafter he is enabled to sit at the Underwood and turn out foolishness for Joe Gilbert's fan mag.
In high school he read Argosy's "Gun Gentlemen," "The Blind Spot," "Chessmen of Mars," "The Ju-Ju man," "The Gun Fanner," "The Shadowers," "Tuned Out," and many others. The mag had a grip on him, and it seemed years between Wednesdays.
Then came Davidson college. He undertook to do all of the things he had not been permitted to do before. He was fairly successful.
He met a youth named Duffy, who collected [[underline]]Weird Tales[[end underline]]; he also met a long, slim son-of-a-sea-cook named McQueen, who tried to reform him. Of the present whereabouts of the former gentleman, he has not the foggiest idea, and he often wishes he could say the same of the latter.
Since he had a pronounced disinclination toward work, he stayed in college longer than most; but at last he began to probe into the matter of what some persons call making a living, and he found, as he had expected, that none of the known methods were in any wise congruous to his temperament. Deciding definitely against being a wage slave, he set up his own factory and went into the manufacture of whimmydiddles for grinding smoke. Everything went smoothly until [[underline]]circa[[end underline]] '34, which ill-starred ear marked the inexplicable failure of the Model 6-A with the overhead drive.
Ping! The world exploded in his face, and he firmly believes that only Argosy's escape literature saved him from mental nihility. . . . Well, let him, can't you?
After he had been blissfully unemployed for some six months, during which period he wrote a poem on how gawdawfully unhappy you can be if you try, his father pulled a guy rope here and a bell cord there, and presto! he had another job, this time a district managership with the Cherubim Cheese Corporation. He still holds this connection, and if you ever held a connection, especially one involving cheese, you can well understand that he still needs his escape literature.
Not long ago a young man who looks like an off-weight Ben Webster tricked him into writing an endless series of articles concerning an infinite number of fantises. He bagan it with misgivings, and now that he is up to here in it, he is telling himself tht he told himself so. He is secretly hoping that the STAR will fold up, so that he can get into all those good murder mysteries taht are lying around unread.

Saving...

The Passenger List SOUTHERN STAR Page 34 were still standing, around, gun in hand, and the passage of time seemed to have added to their original pugnacity. It was late in 1920 that he began to save every copy of the Argosy-Allstory Weekly. Monahan and Modest Stein were doing swelegant covers. Current serials were "The Buster", "The Treasures of Tantalus" "The Stray Man", "The Night Horseman", "The Mental Monster", etc. In high school, shortly before the advent of the radio and the orthophonic phonograph, he had the experience of a lifetime. In Raleigh, N. C., he heard a concert by Paul Whiteman in person. It was the nearest he has ever been to heaven, or ever expects to be. Glorious music, the like of which he had never dreamed, swirled and eddied about his yead. He heard Henry Busse, with trumpet pointed toward the sky, play "San," and he damned near died with the joy of it. Anticlimactic were "Oh, Joseph!" and "Linger Awhile," but they too are engraved on his memory. Nowadays, late at night, when the little redhead thinks he is alseep, "Linger Awhile" spins through his consciousness like the music of the spheres, and he smiles into the dark, because he knows it was her love song as well as his. So he collected phonograph records --- hundreds and hundreds of them. He's still at it. In September, '41, when he comes home completely spent with the labors of the day, he plays "Alexander the Swoose" or "The Booglie Wooglie Pitty;" and soon thereafter he is enabled to sit at the Underwood and turn out foolishness for Joe Gilbert's fan mag. In high school he read Argosy's "Gun Gentlemen," "The Blind Spot," "Chessmen of Mars," "The Ju-Ju man," "The Gun Fanner," "The Shadowers," "Tuned Out," and many others. The mag had a grip on him, and it seemed years between Wednesdays. Then came Davidson college. He undertook to do all of the things he had not been permitted to do before. He was fairly successful. He met a youth named Duffy, who collected [[underline]]Weird Tales[[end underline]]; he also met a long, slim son-of-a-sea-cook named McQueen, who tried to reform him. Of the present whereabouts of the former gentleman, he has not the foggiest idea, and he often wishes he could say the same of the latter. Since he had a pronounced disinclination toward work, he stayed in college longer than most; but at last he began to probe into the matter of what some persons call making a living, and he found, as he had expected, that none of the known methods were in any wise congruous to his temperament. Deciding definitely against being a wage slave, he set up his own factory and went into the manufacture of whimmydiddles for grinding smoke. Everything went smoothly until [[underline]]circa[[end underline]] '34, which ill-starred ear marked the inexplicable failure of the Model 6-A with the overhead drive. Ping! The world exploded in his face, and he firmly believes that only Argosy's escape literature saved him from mental nihility. . . . Well, let him, can't you? After he had been blissfully unemployed for some six months, during which period he wrote a poem on how gawdawfully unhappy you can be if you try, his father pulled a guy rope here and a bell cord there, and presto! he had another job, this time a district managership with the Cherubim Cheese Corporation. He still holds this connection, and if you ever held a connection, especially one involving cheese, you can well understand that he still needs his escape literature. Not long ago a young man who looks like an off-weight Ben Webster tricked him into writing an endless series of articles concerning an infinite number of fantises. He bagan it with misgivings, and now that he is up to here in it, he is telling himself tht he told himself so. He is secretly hoping that the STAR will fold up, so that he can get into all those good murder mysteries taht are lying around unread.