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Dream Quest, v. 1, issue 1, July 1947

Page 47

UNFATHOMED MYSTERIES OF FANTASY FANDOM
a satire
by Joe Kennedy

BURIED deep within the mouldy files of fanzines that lie silently on the shelves of a squat, brown music cabinet on the ground floor of the Kentucky mansion, concealed and dimmed by the dust of ages unaccountable, nameless secrets sleep. Yea, on the surface fantasy fandom seems to be a normal, ordinary sort of hobby -- a little queer at times, perhaps -- but were the gruesome truth to be known, no fan alive today would ever again snooze peacefully during the midnight hours.

For strange and eerie are the mysteries which rest, dark and dormant, in fandom's past. With your indulgence, dear reader, let us rend aside the curtain of silence and probe into these shadowy realms. 

As I write these words, I clutch in one hand a copy of the thirty-first issue of FANEWSCARD WEEKLY, edited by Ed Connor and Frank Robinson. It is dated "2/12/44." This cardzine was composed of assorted news items, but -- four black smudges adorn the postal! Some of the words were crossed out, probably by the use of that demonaic instrument, the fountain pen. Thus the news items read as follows: "Al Ashley rejected. XXX a broken heel! (I have inserted X's in the space where the words were crossed out.) Further down the card is this intriguing item: "XXX SO SOLLY! Seems other fen got Ack-Morojo cards. XXX" Unquote. I don't recall what the news items refer to -- probably some obscure event in fan history of scant import today. However, I have conferred with other fans who received that issue of FANEWSCARD. On every copy, the publishers apparently scratched off certain offending words! Now, naturally I'd well-nigh give my left arm to know what in heck they crossed off. In fact, when illustrious Brooklyn fans Ronald Christensen and Robert J. Gaulin visited me some time ago, I showed them the card as a curiosity. Gaulin, who is interested in chemistry and electronics and them-thar high brow education thigns, thought he could remove the ink from the card by using typewriter cleaning fluid, and thus we'd be able to read the forbidden words concealed underneath. So I gave him a bottle of type-cleaner, and he scrubbed and scrubbed at the card, but no luck. The ink just refused to come off. And to this day, yours truly and a hundred-odd other fans are still pondering this unsolved mystery: what WAS crossed off of Fanewscard #31?

That's just one of fandom's forgotten mysteries. The rest are beyond number. For instance, I'm still puzzling the identity of the party who sent me an unsigned Christmas card from California in December of 1945. Could it have been a visitor from an alien planet who happened to pick up a copy of a pro magazine, saw my name therein, and for some strange reason known only to his alien mentality, decided to wish me greetings of the yuletide? This is just one of the possibilities that present themselves. Indeed it sounds incredible, but, as Palmer says, use your brain for doubting. You can't prove God in a test-tube, therefore there isn't one, but you should believe in one anyway. So why can't you believe in this?

Saving...

UNFATHOMED MYSTERIES OF FANTASY FANDOM a satire by Joe Kennedy BURIED deep within the mouldy files of fanzines that lie silently on the shelves of a squat, brown music cabinet on the ground floor of the Kentucky mansion, concealed and dimmed by the dust of ages unaccountable, nameless secrets sleep. Yea, on the surface fantasy fandom seems to be a normal, ordinary sort of hobby -- a little queer at times, perhaps -- but were the gruesome truth to be known, no fan alive today would ever again snooze peacefully during the midnight hours. For strange and eerie are the mysteries which rest, dark and dormant, in fandom's past. With your indulgence, dear reader, let us rend aside the curtain of silence and probe into these shadowy realms. As I write these words, I clutch in one hand a copy of the thirty-first issue of FANEWSCARD WEEKLY, edited by Ed Connor and Frank Robinson. It is dated "2/12/44." This cardzine was composed of assorted news items, but -- four black smudges adorn the postal! Some of the words were crossed out, probably by the use of that demonaic instrument, the fountain pen. Thus the news items read as follows: "Al Ashley rejected. XXX a broken heel! (I have inserted X's in the space where the words were crossed out.) Further down the card is this intriguing item: "XXX SO SOLLY! Seems other fen got Ack-Morojo cards. XXX" Unquote. I don't recall what the news items refer to -- probably some obscure event in fan history of scant import today. However, I have conferred with other fans who received that issue of FANEWSCARD. On every copy, the publishers apparently scratched off certain offending words! Now, naturally I'd well-nigh give my left arm to know what in heck they crossed off. In fact, when illustrious Brooklyn fans Ronald Christensen and Robert J. Gaulin visited me some time ago, I showed them the card as a curiosity. Gaulin, who is interested in chemistry and electronics and them-thar high brow education thigns, thought he could remove the ink from the card by using typewriter cleaning fluid, and thus we'd be able to read the forbidden words concealed underneath. So I gave him a bottle of type-cleaner, and he scrubbed and scrubbed at the card, but no luck. The ink just refused to come off. And to this day, yours truly and a hundred-odd other fans are still pondering this unsolved mystery: what WAS crossed off of Fanewscard #31? That's just one of fandom's forgotten mysteries. The rest are beyond number. For instance, I'm still puzzling the identity of the party who sent me an unsigned Christmas card from California in December of 1945. Could it have been a visitor from an alien planet who happened to pick up a copy of a pro magazine, saw my name therein, and for some strange reason known only to his alien mentality, decided to wish me greetings of the yuletide? This is just one of the possibilities that present themselves. Indeed it sounds incredible, but, as Palmer says, use your brain for doubting. You can't prove God in a test-tube, therefore there isn't one, but you should believe in one anyway. So why can't you believe in this?