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Voice of the Imagination, whole no. 25, October 1942
Page 9
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IMAGI-NATION to point out that you have listed my name along with others. Anyway, thanks a lot! '' To start commenting...The Jan. cover was Lousy (and don't forget to copy with a capital 'L'!) If you can't get something better than that have just a blank sheet of paper. I'm not grumbling over much at the subject-matter, but your artist should learn to draw! (Drawing & quartering done here.) My apologies if it isn't the artist at fault but the person who puts it on stencil from the original. In any case, thank goodness that there is at least one British artist who can not only draw well, but can draw well on to stencil. I refer of course to Harry Turner, publisher of Zenith, Britain's best fanmag. (ASIDE: What do you think of his work in general, and which single piece do you like best?) (Reclining nude with Egyptian ground-back -- I mean background.) '' I found nearly all of the letters fairly interesting, as indeed, they usually are, and I was very surprised to see one from me among them. I had been under the impression that it had gone under -- you know, the rolling, rollicking waves, etc. Letters from Britain which you print (I don't say "England" because that cuts out Doug Webster and others in "bonnie Scotland".) are particularly interesting, knowing as I do, more about the English side of fandom than the American. One thing we haven't started over here yet -- fan feuds! May they never start... '' PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT: I wish it to become known throughout the great continent of America (North and South), that, in my opinion, Lieutenant Robert Heinlein, U.S.N., is the best writer of science-fiction America has ever produced! (Note to mystified reader: Please refer back to my letter in the January 1942 VoM.) I give no reasons for my sudden change of opinion. Suffice it to say that I have become a convert! '' Incidentally, "Renny" of Blackburn, has passed on to me a copy of "The Discovery of the Future" -- and although I haven't read it as yet, it promises to be good... '' To continue, I have yet to mention the Feb. VoM. The cover is really good, interesting and useful. Method of reproduction, and details, please! (Foto-litho) It is nice to see just what some people over there look like, -- people we can hardly hope to meet. '' What's this I see? Los Angeles mimeoing in BLACK ink? Tut tut! What has come over you? I thought the only colour you could buy there was green! (We ran out of green-horns & lens. Maybe U need glasses.) '' Another thing. I saw mention of the "Tomaiden!" and the term seemed very familiar; yes, on looking up my files I find that I have a copy of the October 1941 VoM. I see that it is labelled for me in your writing, and I realise that I did not acknowledge it. How I failed to do this I cannot imagine. Anyway, please accept my apologies. '' I guess that's about all for the present, so hoping to receive some more VoMs in the future. (Discovery of the Future!) I'll close with a small signature as requested! -- '' Cheerio, all Best Wishes, and don't forget, -- Yngvi is a louse! Three cheers for Slans!" JACK SPEER again, on 11 Jun F42 from 6323 Western NW, Washington, DC (the adres promist earlier in this ish): "So to Voices 21 and 22. The fotos are all very well liked, except that fugitive from a penny-arcade in the lrh corner. '' Curse your convincing and unmarked Call-It-What-You-Wishes. I almost believe you were quoting from the Singapore Caoutchouc Report. '' I object to your way of saying that your objections to smoking are not moral, but functional. The only justification for morals is function, utilitarianism; but I am not prepared to discard all morals and start building over again from the ground up on this latter concept. '' Change paragraph while I pick a couple of bones with Fortier. He sez you publish a fanzine to please yourself, so you're under no obligation to try to please anyone else. Other faneds, in planning their zines, try to make them pleasing to their readers, including Fortier; it seems to me that this imposes on JJ the obligation to make his own as good as possible if he's going to publish one, or else not waste the readers' time. In the second place, Fortier's colossal conceit is not excused by his admitting it, any more than stubbornness or selfishness are expiated by acknowledging them. Oh, and a couple of other points on 2J4: His talk of 'great things to grasp and struggle for' reveals an ignorance of the relativity of all values. And his worship of the outside world as the real reality is naïve, too; there is no one real world in which really significant events take place, certainly none in which the person can be sure that all foundations won't be swept out from under him. Its superiority to fandom, if any, is quantitative rather than a difference in kind. '' I defy Wiedenbeck to back up his statement that 'No healthy minded male between the ages of 10 and 100 really cares very much for any other form of art except nudes.' He's a nut or a damfool if he actually thinks so. '' Not necessarily futile for Elarcy to bargain with the Devil; inferior beings have been known to get the best of superior ones by accident, or some flaw in the superior one's equipment; also, too, both mite profit, as in my swap of my soul for Slingo in If I Werewolf. '' If Ecco thinks complaining about cutting letters and other 'editing' is an insult to the editor's intelligence, what kind of an insult does he think editing is to the writer's intelligence? '' Someday, Bee Leeds, the mores of mankind will allow undress where it's the handiest thing; but at present the wearing of clothes is inextricably tied up with the necessary taboos against looseness in sexual matters. In this connection, I recall a story by the explorer William LaVarre in which a criminal hiding out in a South American village answered the explorer's counsel of caution with 'She's just a skirt -- without the skirt' referring to a native girl, he ended up with a poison dart in his back, or something. Maybe that's wandering a little from the subject. Bee and the other advocates mite have a point if it were demonstrable that nude-fanciers are more correct in their affairs than the average person; but I fear the reverse is true. '' Gad, I thot Michelism had been laid long ago, and here it walks again min the amateurish accents of Leeds, Tackett, and others. My position once more: Fans as an organized group can directly accomplish nothing in the way of influencing society as a whole, politically, socially, economically, or what have you. Only thru the individuals that fandom influences, and who in turn may as individuals influence the outer world, will fandom make itself felt. Selah. '' Hornig has my moral support in being a C.O., tho I wouldn't be one myself. I wouldn't say now what I said a few months ago that once we're in the war conscientious objection is as foolish as the
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IMAGI-NATION to point out that you have listed my name along with others. Anyway, thanks a lot! '' To start commenting...The Jan. cover was Lousy (and don't forget to copy with a capital 'L'!) If you can't get something better than that have just a blank sheet of paper. I'm not grumbling over much at the subject-matter, but your artist should learn to draw! (Drawing & quartering done here.) My apologies if it isn't the artist at fault but the person who puts it on stencil from the original. In any case, thank goodness that there is at least one British artist who can not only draw well, but can draw well on to stencil. I refer of course to Harry Turner, publisher of Zenith, Britain's best fanmag. (ASIDE: What do you think of his work in general, and which single piece do you like best?) (Reclining nude with Egyptian ground-back -- I mean background.) '' I found nearly all of the letters fairly interesting, as indeed, they usually are, and I was very surprised to see one from me among them. I had been under the impression that it had gone under -- you know, the rolling, rollicking waves, etc. Letters from Britain which you print (I don't say "England" because that cuts out Doug Webster and others in "bonnie Scotland".) are particularly interesting, knowing as I do, more about the English side of fandom than the American. One thing we haven't started over here yet -- fan feuds! May they never start... '' PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT: I wish it to become known throughout the great continent of America (North and South), that, in my opinion, Lieutenant Robert Heinlein, U.S.N., is the best writer of science-fiction America has ever produced! (Note to mystified reader: Please refer back to my letter in the January 1942 VoM.) I give no reasons for my sudden change of opinion. Suffice it to say that I have become a convert! '' Incidentally, "Renny" of Blackburn, has passed on to me a copy of "The Discovery of the Future" -- and although I haven't read it as yet, it promises to be good... '' To continue, I have yet to mention the Feb. VoM. The cover is really good, interesting and useful. Method of reproduction, and details, please! (Foto-litho) It is nice to see just what some people over there look like, -- people we can hardly hope to meet. '' What's this I see? Los Angeles mimeoing in BLACK ink? Tut tut! What has come over you? I thought the only colour you could buy there was green! (We ran out of green-horns & lens. Maybe U need glasses.) '' Another thing. I saw mention of the "Tomaiden!" and the term seemed very familiar; yes, on looking up my files I find that I have a copy of the October 1941 VoM. I see that it is labelled for me in your writing, and I realise that I did not acknowledge it. How I failed to do this I cannot imagine. Anyway, please accept my apologies. '' I guess that's about all for the present, so hoping to receive some more VoMs in the future. (Discovery of the Future!) I'll close with a small signature as requested! -- '' Cheerio, all Best Wishes, and don't forget, -- Yngvi is a louse! Three cheers for Slans!" JACK SPEER again, on 11 Jun F42 from 6323 Western NW, Washington, DC (the adres promist earlier in this ish): "So to Voices 21 and 22. The fotos are all very well liked, except that fugitive from a penny-arcade in the lrh corner. '' Curse your convincing and unmarked Call-It-What-You-Wishes. I almost believe you were quoting from the Singapore Caoutchouc Report. '' I object to your way of saying that your objections to smoking are not moral, but functional. The only justification for morals is function, utilitarianism; but I am not prepared to discard all morals and start building over again from the ground up on this latter concept. '' Change paragraph while I pick a couple of bones with Fortier. He sez you publish a fanzine to please yourself, so you're under no obligation to try to please anyone else. Other faneds, in planning their zines, try to make them pleasing to their readers, including Fortier; it seems to me that this imposes on JJ the obligation to make his own as good as possible if he's going to publish one, or else not waste the readers' time. In the second place, Fortier's colossal conceit is not excused by his admitting it, any more than stubbornness or selfishness are expiated by acknowledging them. Oh, and a couple of other points on 2J4: His talk of 'great things to grasp and struggle for' reveals an ignorance of the relativity of all values. And his worship of the outside world as the real reality is naïve, too; there is no one real world in which really significant events take place, certainly none in which the person can be sure that all foundations won't be swept out from under him. Its superiority to fandom, if any, is quantitative rather than a difference in kind. '' I defy Wiedenbeck to back up his statement that 'No healthy minded male between the ages of 10 and 100 really cares very much for any other form of art except nudes.' He's a nut or a damfool if he actually thinks so. '' Not necessarily futile for Elarcy to bargain with the Devil; inferior beings have been known to get the best of superior ones by accident, or some flaw in the superior one's equipment; also, too, both mite profit, as in my swap of my soul for Slingo in If I Werewolf. '' If Ecco thinks complaining about cutting letters and other 'editing' is an insult to the editor's intelligence, what kind of an insult does he think editing is to the writer's intelligence? '' Someday, Bee Leeds, the mores of mankind will allow undress where it's the handiest thing; but at present the wearing of clothes is inextricably tied up with the necessary taboos against looseness in sexual matters. In this connection, I recall a story by the explorer William LaVarre in which a criminal hiding out in a South American village answered the explorer's counsel of caution with 'She's just a skirt -- without the skirt' referring to a native girl, he ended up with a poison dart in his back, or something. Maybe that's wandering a little from the subject. Bee and the other advocates mite have a point if it were demonstrable that nude-fanciers are more correct in their affairs than the average person; but I fear the reverse is true. '' Gad, I thot Michelism had been laid long ago, and here it walks again min the amateurish accents of Leeds, Tackett, and others. My position once more: Fans as an organized group can directly accomplish nothing in the way of influencing society as a whole, politically, socially, economically, or what have you. Only thru the individuals that fandom influences, and who in turn may as individuals influence the outer world, will fandom make itself felt. Selah. '' Hornig has my moral support in being a C.O., tho I wouldn't be one myself. I wouldn't say now what I said a few months ago that once we're in the war conscientious objection is as foolish as the
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