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Fandango, v. 2, issue 4, whole no. 8, Spring 1945
Page 4
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THE EXPERIMENT THAT FAILED This issue of Fan-Dango marks a drastic change in its scope and frequency of issue, and might be termed a transitional stage, necessary to wind up the last few loose ends of my activity in FAPA. The things that are causing the change are many; probably the chief one is my desire to retain certain cherished friendships which I am sure to lose if I continue activity in FAPA. I shall elucidate this statement in a moment. Fan-Dango, after two or three semi-abortive attempts to get in the groove, struck two issues ago what I felt was a fairly satisfactory groove. Each issue was started off with a lead article by a serviceman FAPA member; this was followed by a few brief articlettes by the editor; the bulk of the magazine was then occupied by rather elaborate reviews and critical commentary on the preceding mailing. Except for the serviceman article, none of this material was of such a weighty nature as to require any particular effort in its preparation, and lent itself admirably to being composed directly on the stencil. It seems, however, that my writings are too distasteful to too large a proportion of the membership for me to continue to present them without careful and detailed revisions. I have felt (and see no reason to change my opinion) that Fan-Dango was a very long personal letter to my 64 fellow members, and that slight ineptnesses in expression, typographical errors within reason, and erratic statements once in a while were thus permissable. I have not felt that I was preparing polished material for publication, but rather that I was writing a letter once every three months. I have made many statements in other letters which were not as well put as they could have been if I'd revised them; I have also made many statements which did not purport to be a permanent exposition of my position but rather the reflection of a passing mood. Nor do I believe that in these respects my letters differ particularly from those of most fans. In my 6th issue, I asked why I had gotten off on the wrong foot with so many of you. Doc Swisher, in "The Strange Case of Francis T. Laney", attempted to show me. I read these excerpts several times, and was able to find only four out of 37 which I would not stand by and if need be repeat. Of these four, two deal more or less with the former feud here in Los Angeles, one was a bit too radically expressed, and one was simply pointless and assinine--one of the things one gets occasionally in any composed-on-the-stencil publication. Despite my inability to see something wrong, the matter bothered me exceedingly. I finally asked my friend Perdue to go through the article and give me the works. Ah. It was a stormy little session, but Elmer finally got me to admit, with reservations, that about half of the statements were calculated to enrage a greater or lesser proportion of the membership because they told fans the truth about themselves--a sure way to antagonize anyone, especially those who make an emotional approach to their problems rather than an intellectual one. Oh, I forgot. FAPA members are noted for their intellectual approach to everything, aren't they? The other half, according to Elmer, contained statements calculated to anger one or more persons, or (if one were looking for it) showed evidences of an attitude of omniscience, an attitude, incidentally, of which I am not conscious. The upshot of this is that I find myself wellnigh incapable of composing for FAPA on the stencil any more. Dammit, I value the good opinion of at -- 4 --
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THE EXPERIMENT THAT FAILED This issue of Fan-Dango marks a drastic change in its scope and frequency of issue, and might be termed a transitional stage, necessary to wind up the last few loose ends of my activity in FAPA. The things that are causing the change are many; probably the chief one is my desire to retain certain cherished friendships which I am sure to lose if I continue activity in FAPA. I shall elucidate this statement in a moment. Fan-Dango, after two or three semi-abortive attempts to get in the groove, struck two issues ago what I felt was a fairly satisfactory groove. Each issue was started off with a lead article by a serviceman FAPA member; this was followed by a few brief articlettes by the editor; the bulk of the magazine was then occupied by rather elaborate reviews and critical commentary on the preceding mailing. Except for the serviceman article, none of this material was of such a weighty nature as to require any particular effort in its preparation, and lent itself admirably to being composed directly on the stencil. It seems, however, that my writings are too distasteful to too large a proportion of the membership for me to continue to present them without careful and detailed revisions. I have felt (and see no reason to change my opinion) that Fan-Dango was a very long personal letter to my 64 fellow members, and that slight ineptnesses in expression, typographical errors within reason, and erratic statements once in a while were thus permissable. I have not felt that I was preparing polished material for publication, but rather that I was writing a letter once every three months. I have made many statements in other letters which were not as well put as they could have been if I'd revised them; I have also made many statements which did not purport to be a permanent exposition of my position but rather the reflection of a passing mood. Nor do I believe that in these respects my letters differ particularly from those of most fans. In my 6th issue, I asked why I had gotten off on the wrong foot with so many of you. Doc Swisher, in "The Strange Case of Francis T. Laney", attempted to show me. I read these excerpts several times, and was able to find only four out of 37 which I would not stand by and if need be repeat. Of these four, two deal more or less with the former feud here in Los Angeles, one was a bit too radically expressed, and one was simply pointless and assinine--one of the things one gets occasionally in any composed-on-the-stencil publication. Despite my inability to see something wrong, the matter bothered me exceedingly. I finally asked my friend Perdue to go through the article and give me the works. Ah. It was a stormy little session, but Elmer finally got me to admit, with reservations, that about half of the statements were calculated to enrage a greater or lesser proportion of the membership because they told fans the truth about themselves--a sure way to antagonize anyone, especially those who make an emotional approach to their problems rather than an intellectual one. Oh, I forgot. FAPA members are noted for their intellectual approach to everything, aren't they? The other half, according to Elmer, contained statements calculated to anger one or more persons, or (if one were looking for it) showed evidences of an attitude of omniscience, an attitude, incidentally, of which I am not conscious. The upshot of this is that I find myself wellnigh incapable of composing for FAPA on the stencil any more. Dammit, I value the good opinion of at -- 4 --
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