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Spacewarp, v. 5, issue 2, whole no. 26, May 1949
Page 3
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Timber! An Aimless Array of Acidulous Anathema OUR ATTENTION was attracted the other day by an item in Taurasi's Fantasy Times, recounting the demise of Los Cuentos Fantasticos, Mexico's first stf prozine. Continued the item: "The money in publishing LCF was spent as follows: Paper - $425.00; Printing Shop - $650. 00; Translations - $150.00; Cuts, including cover - $125.00; Office, employee, and general expenses - $125.00" We wonder about one group of participants in all this. Well, perhaps LCF's publishers were big-hearted and sent 'em a free copy of the mag, at least. We refer, of course, to those forgotten men -- the authors of the stories. WITH THIS ISSUE, the WARP begins its second quarter-hundred of issues. A checkback shows that the first 25 SPACEWARPs total over 500 pages, which represents a hell of a lot of mimeocranking and hecto-pulling! Of the 25 cover paintings, 11 are by Bob Stein, 6 by r-tRapp, 2 by Ray Nelson, and one apiece by Bill Groover, Dave Balzer, George Young, Trev Nelson, Lester Fried, and Charles Henderson. TOGETHER WITH apparently everyone else in fandom, we received recently a copy of Doubt, the publication of the Fortean Society, and a sheaf of propaganda urging us to join that organization. While we are a devoted admirer of Fort's epochal books, we passed up this invitation with a yawn, after reading the mag. It is apparent that the members of the Fortean Society 1949 are not primarily interested in learning what part of current scientific hypothesis is true and what is false; their sole interest is in slinging abuse in the direction of anything scientific, preferrably if they can get hold of an ineptly-written newspaper account which they can tear to bits. Now, while it is highly desirable to keep researches reminded of the need for impartial observation of phenomena, I feel that the FS is going too far in its continual harping upon what it alleges to be a conspiracy of science to ignore what does not fit their theories. True, this was Fort's theme -- but Fort was not writing of the science of 1949, which in the past few years has seen enough of its basic props knocked from under it to accept the questioning of basic premises as not only permissible, but actually a highly valuable means of suggesting new lines of investigation. It seems to me that if Fort were still living, he'd get a big kick out of heaping ridicule upon a new form of fanaticism -- the monomanical devotion to Tiffany Thayer's idea of what Fort was driving at, as exemplified in the Fortean Society. I would suggest to any Fortean who for example, wants to ridicule physics, that before he do too much shooting-off of his mouth he do as Fort himself did, and study physics to see why the physicists accept certain facts as proved. If the Fortean is really sceptical enough, he'll probably refuse to accept the word of the textbooks, and insist upon performing all the classic experiments himself. Who knows; maybe he'll find some that don't work? At least, he'd be accomplishing more that way than by criticising orthodox science without knowing a thing about it. When the Fortean Society comes up with a proved theory of its own, or an explanation for supernatural "Fortean" phenomena of any sort, which is capable of empiracal verification, I'll reconsider my evaluation.
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Timber! An Aimless Array of Acidulous Anathema OUR ATTENTION was attracted the other day by an item in Taurasi's Fantasy Times, recounting the demise of Los Cuentos Fantasticos, Mexico's first stf prozine. Continued the item: "The money in publishing LCF was spent as follows: Paper - $425.00; Printing Shop - $650. 00; Translations - $150.00; Cuts, including cover - $125.00; Office, employee, and general expenses - $125.00" We wonder about one group of participants in all this. Well, perhaps LCF's publishers were big-hearted and sent 'em a free copy of the mag, at least. We refer, of course, to those forgotten men -- the authors of the stories. WITH THIS ISSUE, the WARP begins its second quarter-hundred of issues. A checkback shows that the first 25 SPACEWARPs total over 500 pages, which represents a hell of a lot of mimeocranking and hecto-pulling! Of the 25 cover paintings, 11 are by Bob Stein, 6 by r-tRapp, 2 by Ray Nelson, and one apiece by Bill Groover, Dave Balzer, George Young, Trev Nelson, Lester Fried, and Charles Henderson. TOGETHER WITH apparently everyone else in fandom, we received recently a copy of Doubt, the publication of the Fortean Society, and a sheaf of propaganda urging us to join that organization. While we are a devoted admirer of Fort's epochal books, we passed up this invitation with a yawn, after reading the mag. It is apparent that the members of the Fortean Society 1949 are not primarily interested in learning what part of current scientific hypothesis is true and what is false; their sole interest is in slinging abuse in the direction of anything scientific, preferrably if they can get hold of an ineptly-written newspaper account which they can tear to bits. Now, while it is highly desirable to keep researches reminded of the need for impartial observation of phenomena, I feel that the FS is going too far in its continual harping upon what it alleges to be a conspiracy of science to ignore what does not fit their theories. True, this was Fort's theme -- but Fort was not writing of the science of 1949, which in the past few years has seen enough of its basic props knocked from under it to accept the questioning of basic premises as not only permissible, but actually a highly valuable means of suggesting new lines of investigation. It seems to me that if Fort were still living, he'd get a big kick out of heaping ridicule upon a new form of fanaticism -- the monomanical devotion to Tiffany Thayer's idea of what Fort was driving at, as exemplified in the Fortean Society. I would suggest to any Fortean who for example, wants to ridicule physics, that before he do too much shooting-off of his mouth he do as Fort himself did, and study physics to see why the physicists accept certain facts as proved. If the Fortean is really sceptical enough, he'll probably refuse to accept the word of the textbooks, and insist upon performing all the classic experiments himself. Who knows; maybe he'll find some that don't work? At least, he'd be accomplishing more that way than by criticising orthodox science without knowing a thing about it. When the Fortean Society comes up with a proved theory of its own, or an explanation for supernatural "Fortean" phenomena of any sort, which is capable of empiracal verification, I'll reconsider my evaluation.
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