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En Garde, whole no. 14, July 1945
Page 2
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page 2. HAMBURGER WORDS BY CAPTAIN DONN BRAZIER Last night in an outdoor theater in the Marianas Islands I saw a motion picture entitled "Roughly Speaking", starring Jack Carson, for one. His initial appearance on the screen showed him wearing some sort of a hat shaped like a Christmas tree, equipped complete with burning candles from which he now and then lit his cigarettes. When the hat caught fire, bursting into flames, he dove nonchalantly head first into a garden pool. This morning I finally realized why I had the feeling last night that such actions were very familiar; finally, I recognized Jack Carson's prototypes in fandom and the outside world as well. Did you read the Dali book: "The Secret Life Of Salvador Dali"? Of all the exhibitionistic excentricities of which Dali was guilty, I remember best his appearances in the streets of New York with a monstrously long loaf of bread which he carried wherever he went. Dali and this loaf of bread were as inseparable as Dorothy Parker's nose and thumb; and for the same reason. One of the first motivating forces urging a child to action is his desire for attention. The desire is never discarded, apparently. The desire for attention prompts men to do many strange things; the urge is manifested in many channels. One of the channels leads men to shock an unsuspecting audience with some action or expressed thought which is abnormal or highly exaggerated. Oddly enough, after this initial shock the audience soon becomes distressed with the calculated eccentricity, now grown tiresome from constant repetition. I find myself to have reached this point with a certain habit now widespread in the fandom. Ackerman started the habit, aided by Liebscher, Bronson, Speer, and others; now, in the fan magazines received out here lately (most of them dated 1944) the practise has assumed enormous proportions. The mangling of English words, and the invention of ridiculous, meaningless words (for that's the habit now grown to such distressing frequency) has been carried to tiresome extremes. Ivan Turgenef in "Father and Sons" says: The great lords of the time, when they happened to speak their native language, affected a vicious pronunciation, to let it be understood, that in their quality of great lords they were allowed to disdain the rules of grammar imposed in scholars. For eto some would say efto, others ekto." Could the Number Who Fan be guilty of such affectation? perhaps not, but whatever the reason, I don't want to have him think he's getting away with anything. I think he likes to be shocking; witness the "art" in his magazine which stirred up a serious argument. It just so happens that the mangling of words -- making hamburger out of words that are steaks -- distresses me more than nude "art".
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page 2. HAMBURGER WORDS BY CAPTAIN DONN BRAZIER Last night in an outdoor theater in the Marianas Islands I saw a motion picture entitled "Roughly Speaking", starring Jack Carson, for one. His initial appearance on the screen showed him wearing some sort of a hat shaped like a Christmas tree, equipped complete with burning candles from which he now and then lit his cigarettes. When the hat caught fire, bursting into flames, he dove nonchalantly head first into a garden pool. This morning I finally realized why I had the feeling last night that such actions were very familiar; finally, I recognized Jack Carson's prototypes in fandom and the outside world as well. Did you read the Dali book: "The Secret Life Of Salvador Dali"? Of all the exhibitionistic excentricities of which Dali was guilty, I remember best his appearances in the streets of New York with a monstrously long loaf of bread which he carried wherever he went. Dali and this loaf of bread were as inseparable as Dorothy Parker's nose and thumb; and for the same reason. One of the first motivating forces urging a child to action is his desire for attention. The desire is never discarded, apparently. The desire for attention prompts men to do many strange things; the urge is manifested in many channels. One of the channels leads men to shock an unsuspecting audience with some action or expressed thought which is abnormal or highly exaggerated. Oddly enough, after this initial shock the audience soon becomes distressed with the calculated eccentricity, now grown tiresome from constant repetition. I find myself to have reached this point with a certain habit now widespread in the fandom. Ackerman started the habit, aided by Liebscher, Bronson, Speer, and others; now, in the fan magazines received out here lately (most of them dated 1944) the practise has assumed enormous proportions. The mangling of English words, and the invention of ridiculous, meaningless words (for that's the habit now grown to such distressing frequency) has been carried to tiresome extremes. Ivan Turgenef in "Father and Sons" says: The great lords of the time, when they happened to speak their native language, affected a vicious pronunciation, to let it be understood, that in their quality of great lords they were allowed to disdain the rules of grammar imposed in scholars. For eto some would say efto, others ekto." Could the Number Who Fan be guilty of such affectation? perhaps not, but whatever the reason, I don't want to have him think he's getting away with anything. I think he likes to be shocking; witness the "art" in his magazine which stirred up a serious argument. It just so happens that the mangling of words -- making hamburger out of words that are steaks -- distresses me more than nude "art".
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