DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Astronaut, v. 1, issue 1, September 1947

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Astronaut, v. 1, issue 1, September 1947

Page 15

15
Letter Department

VOX BOX

VAN'S COLYUM!

((EDS. NOTE: For the information of those who did not read Fantasy Illustrated #4, in that issue appeared an article on "Fantastic Smells".))

Fantastic smells: there must be already an immense literature. Classification and registration of our books unhappily is still very poor. In our million volume Milwaukee library, I couldn't even get a reference to works to Human Energy, the only cause, true cost, reasonable exchange value, just price and final purpose of all useful goods and services. But re smellliterature, I am reminded of Kurd Lasswitz, one of our top classic scientifictioneers, who described interplanetary atom-jet travel, synthetic foods, "feelies" (touch movies), disintegrators, the "retro-spectif" (catching and returning from space the light-rays of past events), gravity control, et. al., in 1902 in On Two Planets; also in 1878, invisibility, earth-center tunnels, scientific prophecy, smell-pianos, organs and smellitoriums! A jealous lover secretly mixes and exchanges the gas tanks for Miss Ozodes' (the smell-artist's) symphony, thus leading to her public disgrace, expulsion and death. Zwibolzin, and dozens of other new smells and flavors are mentioned here...Personally I'd contribute a horrible mixture of stale cabbage and impure naphthalers (from packing trucks -- just moved to new quarters) that has persecuted me for weeks; the heaven-filling aroma of a Brazilian coffeeshop in Santiago, Chile (after a dose of laudanum) -- super-coffee -- the first Havana cigar, the first hot rum-grog. Alas, cigarette-inhalers are forever banned from this paradise.

Mysterious Semantics, the science of meanings, boils down to terms of matter and motion, or matter only, if we consider that motion is just a quality of matter, which either moves or doesn't, and that direction, for instance that of humanity towards the conquest of nature, is just a quality of motion. A price of $10 is hereby offered for any word, term, concept, idea signifying anything except matter and motion upon close analysis. Remember, that God, if we believe in Him, is only known to us as the creator of matter and motion and their qualities, and that the soul, spirit, heaven, the transcendental, and "in-material" merely describe some imaginary refined "super-matter" and its functions.

At last, March Amazing Stories brings us as "Titan's Battle", the abridged translation of A. Doeblin's remarkable work, "Mountains, Oceans, and Giants", copyright 1921 -- also in our library. Don't miss it. There you have, maybe for the first time, the astounding wealth of words, terms and ideas of real 20th-century language. Your flesh should creep.

(Continued on next page)

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15 Letter Department VOX BOX VAN'S COLYUM! ((EDS. NOTE: For the information of those who did not read Fantasy Illustrated #4, in that issue appeared an article on "Fantastic Smells".)) Fantastic smells: there must be already an immense literature. Classification and registration of our books unhappily is still very poor. In our million volume Milwaukee library, I couldn't even get a reference to works to Human Energy, the only cause, true cost, reasonable exchange value, just price and final purpose of all useful goods and services. But re smellliterature, I am reminded of Kurd Lasswitz, one of our top classic scientifictioneers, who described interplanetary atom-jet travel, synthetic foods, "feelies" (touch movies), disintegrators, the "retro-spectif" (catching and returning from space the light-rays of past events), gravity control, et. al., in 1902 in On Two Planets; also in 1878, invisibility, earth-center tunnels, scientific prophecy, smell-pianos, organs and smellitoriums! A jealous lover secretly mixes and exchanges the gas tanks for Miss Ozodes' (the smell-artist's) symphony, thus leading to her public disgrace, expulsion and death. Zwibolzin, and dozens of other new smells and flavors are mentioned here...Personally I'd contribute a horrible mixture of stale cabbage and impure naphthalers (from packing trucks -- just moved to new quarters) that has persecuted me for weeks; the heaven-filling aroma of a Brazilian coffeeshop in Santiago, Chile (after a dose of laudanum) -- super-coffee -- the first Havana cigar, the first hot rum-grog. Alas, cigarette-inhalers are forever banned from this paradise. Mysterious Semantics, the science of meanings, boils down to terms of matter and motion, or matter only, if we consider that motion is just a quality of matter, which either moves or doesn't, and that direction, for instance that of humanity towards the conquest of nature, is just a quality of motion. A price of $10 is hereby offered for any word, term, concept, idea signifying anything except matter and motion upon close analysis. Remember, that God, if we believe in Him, is only known to us as the creator of matter and motion and their qualities, and that the soul, spirit, heaven, the transcendental, and "in-material" merely describe some imaginary refined "super-matter" and its functions. At last, March Amazing Stories brings us as "Titan's Battle", the abridged translation of A. Doeblin's remarkable work, "Mountains, Oceans, and Giants", copyright 1921 -- also in our library. Don't miss it. There you have, maybe for the first time, the astounding wealth of words, terms and ideas of real 20th-century language. Your flesh should creep. (Continued on next page)