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Fanzine Digest, v. 1, issue 1, April 1942
Page 4
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[Lytte? Sytte?] ye seconde VOM: FEBRUARY 1942 --from a letter by Joe Fortier-- Now it's happened. And I cannot say I'm sad. What has happened? Well, the predictable inevitable; the ghastly happening to a great fan (so self styled); the ungodly finish -- only maybe a little different. Once I thought that my fanmags were delayed for certain reasons, that something was going wrong, and that I would honestly try to get them out again. Now I know differently; o, perhaps I was sincere at the time, but no longer is that so. After all, does it really matter whenever I decided to publish something? Did I join fandom to be tied to it by duty? No, I joined fandom as a form of relaxing creation. I refuse to work my knuckles to the quick over a fanmag when I can do the same for payment at a good job. Moreover, I refuse to ruin my conception of fandom by doing anything that even faintly smells like work, and I can smell from from Chi to Frisco! Maybe this is a rare case of laziness, but---dammit---try it and see if it isn't far more enjoyable than meeting schedules, etc. Why does one publish a fanmag? To please himself is a safe answer, so why try to please anyone else? Why work to create a terrific fan club? Organized fans will be like a bunch of cattle with no place to go & only fan feuds to serve as a slaughter house. Nuts to world plans, great futures, rousing conferences, state-wide organizations; we loll in decadent ease and love it. Y'know, anyway that someone slaves and fools around with fandom--that day that one is a fool. No doubt about it. After all, failure is to realize that this grand old world around us offers great things to grasp and struggle for is catastrophic. And that failure can happen, just as anything can happen. I know, for I neglected the real world far too long for this world of untrue, unsympathetic fantastic fanaticism. What's the thrill of turning out a fanmag; a large mail; sending a hacked up article on some fan drunk; when compared to the thrill of the job you do, the pay you get, meeting friends, loving that girl---success in stable and wonderful reality, that is closer to tomorrow than that fantasy field? Never get me wrong.... When quitting stfandom, even for a strange semi-act8ivity, one experiences a dreadful loss, a desire to bawl his heart out into the night's dead ears, and an impassionately long moment of terrifying nostalgia. But that passes, though the memory lingers on. However, fandom gives each fan----each true fan, of which I count myself one at odd times---something different, a new outlook, a better visualization, and such. And, oddly, fandom can only be torn away from tearing away a new, a likable part of oneself. **** VOM: JANUARY 1942 -from a letter by Art Widner jr.- Prattle can be interesting but it is not satisfying. On such a diet of wind pudding and air sauce, thinking in fandom has become anemic from intellectual malnutrition. Proof of this is the surprisingly healthful state of English fandom, in spite of the adverse conditions that would likely put a stop to US fandom altogether. Compared to them, we are a bunch of old women in a sewing circle chatting pleasantly about the weather.
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[Lytte? Sytte?] ye seconde VOM: FEBRUARY 1942 --from a letter by Joe Fortier-- Now it's happened. And I cannot say I'm sad. What has happened? Well, the predictable inevitable; the ghastly happening to a great fan (so self styled); the ungodly finish -- only maybe a little different. Once I thought that my fanmags were delayed for certain reasons, that something was going wrong, and that I would honestly try to get them out again. Now I know differently; o, perhaps I was sincere at the time, but no longer is that so. After all, does it really matter whenever I decided to publish something? Did I join fandom to be tied to it by duty? No, I joined fandom as a form of relaxing creation. I refuse to work my knuckles to the quick over a fanmag when I can do the same for payment at a good job. Moreover, I refuse to ruin my conception of fandom by doing anything that even faintly smells like work, and I can smell from from Chi to Frisco! Maybe this is a rare case of laziness, but---dammit---try it and see if it isn't far more enjoyable than meeting schedules, etc. Why does one publish a fanmag? To please himself is a safe answer, so why try to please anyone else? Why work to create a terrific fan club? Organized fans will be like a bunch of cattle with no place to go & only fan feuds to serve as a slaughter house. Nuts to world plans, great futures, rousing conferences, state-wide organizations; we loll in decadent ease and love it. Y'know, anyway that someone slaves and fools around with fandom--that day that one is a fool. No doubt about it. After all, failure is to realize that this grand old world around us offers great things to grasp and struggle for is catastrophic. And that failure can happen, just as anything can happen. I know, for I neglected the real world far too long for this world of untrue, unsympathetic fantastic fanaticism. What's the thrill of turning out a fanmag; a large mail; sending a hacked up article on some fan drunk; when compared to the thrill of the job you do, the pay you get, meeting friends, loving that girl---success in stable and wonderful reality, that is closer to tomorrow than that fantasy field? Never get me wrong.... When quitting stfandom, even for a strange semi-act8ivity, one experiences a dreadful loss, a desire to bawl his heart out into the night's dead ears, and an impassionately long moment of terrifying nostalgia. But that passes, though the memory lingers on. However, fandom gives each fan----each true fan, of which I count myself one at odd times---something different, a new outlook, a better visualization, and such. And, oddly, fandom can only be torn away from tearing away a new, a likable part of oneself. **** VOM: JANUARY 1942 -from a letter by Art Widner jr.- Prattle can be interesting but it is not satisfying. On such a diet of wind pudding and air sauce, thinking in fandom has become anemic from intellectual malnutrition. Proof of this is the surprisingly healthful state of English fandom, in spite of the adverse conditions that would likely put a stop to US fandom altogether. Compared to them, we are a bunch of old women in a sewing circle chatting pleasantly about the weather.
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