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Fandango, v. 1, issue 4, Spring 1944
Page 2
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LOOKING BACKWARD I can see that my activity index is not going to present a very accurate picture of what actually goes on in FAPA. I fear I'm going to have to make a secondary figure showing how many members are actually represented; when people like Speer put 8 items in one mailing, it upsets the validity of my figures. My point, as you probably know, is to try to show that the larger the membership, the less the percentage of activity--and while this mons ter mailing gives an illusion of huge activity, 6 items by Shaw, 8 by Speer, and 3 1/2 by myself--to name a few duplications--pulls the actual index far below my figure. (For the benefit of newcomers, I divide the number of members into the number of items in the mailing to present a percentage of activity which is then expressed in decimal form.) 24th Mailing. 35 papers from 51 members. .690 25th Mailing. 25 papers from 65 members. .400 26th Mailing. *46 papers from 65 members. .737 (*Includes LASFS Postmailing, but does not include the material therein from non-member Joquel or soul-member Degree.) .......And now to the mailing. ----oo0oo---- THE FANTASY AMATEUR. President Ashley, your ideas on expanding the membership are strictly form crud. As it is now, we are the elite of fandom; getting into FAPA is enough of a chore so that the new member feels honored, and wants to do something to justify his having been accepted. If however we raise the limit so high that anyone can get in, we will end up with an anemic and tottering w reck like the National Amateur Press Association, whose 450 members do not publish as much stuff in one whole year as our 65 do in three months. I suggest that you waster a dollar and join NAPA for a year as I did; you will then appreciate FAPA considerably more, and in addition will hastily abandon all ideas of expanding the membership. I'd rather have 65 members, nearly all of whom are publishers than to have something like NAPA with perhaps 50 publishing members and 400 deadheads. If you'd like to work something to improve FAPA, why not introduce an amendment which will greatly up the requirements for minimum annual publishing? I suggest a minimum of 13 8 1/2 x 11 pages (or its equivalent) in a year. There are too many FAPs who are content to put one single-sheeter a year in the mailing, and then sit back and read the hard work of the rest of us..........Along the same line, OE Swisher's ideas on a flexible membership are likewise all wet, though his ideas on deadheads and diminishing returns certainly make sense. I submit that we should stick to our 65 until the waiting list totals ten, month in and month out; at such a time, we MIGHT raise to 75. ----oo0oo---- FAN-TODS. In your "Revists" on #2 FAN-DANGO you make one or two statements I beg to differ with. First, I doubt if HPL's writing should be considered as primarily of the gothic school. Some of his earlier stuff (culminating in The Outsider) is obviously strict Gothic, but the Duneany-ish dream fantasies are not; and I can think of nothing LESS gothic than his later, more scienti-fictional work--CALL OF CTHULHU, MTS. OF MADNESS, SHADOW OUT OF TIME, the Randolph Carter series, and so on. Then I definitely do not consider "literate fantasy" to be limited to the output of Lovecraft and his friends, though of course they are among the few pulp writers who did write in a literate manner. The better work of the following, among others, would be considered literate by me: Stuart-Campbell, Padgett, vanVogt, EESmith, and of course Heinlein-MacDonald.....The "valuable present use of artificial impregnation" still lacks validity so far as I'm concerned. The woman -- 2 --
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LOOKING BACKWARD I can see that my activity index is not going to present a very accurate picture of what actually goes on in FAPA. I fear I'm going to have to make a secondary figure showing how many members are actually represented; when people like Speer put 8 items in one mailing, it upsets the validity of my figures. My point, as you probably know, is to try to show that the larger the membership, the less the percentage of activity--and while this mons ter mailing gives an illusion of huge activity, 6 items by Shaw, 8 by Speer, and 3 1/2 by myself--to name a few duplications--pulls the actual index far below my figure. (For the benefit of newcomers, I divide the number of members into the number of items in the mailing to present a percentage of activity which is then expressed in decimal form.) 24th Mailing. 35 papers from 51 members. .690 25th Mailing. 25 papers from 65 members. .400 26th Mailing. *46 papers from 65 members. .737 (*Includes LASFS Postmailing, but does not include the material therein from non-member Joquel or soul-member Degree.) .......And now to the mailing. ----oo0oo---- THE FANTASY AMATEUR. President Ashley, your ideas on expanding the membership are strictly form crud. As it is now, we are the elite of fandom; getting into FAPA is enough of a chore so that the new member feels honored, and wants to do something to justify his having been accepted. If however we raise the limit so high that anyone can get in, we will end up with an anemic and tottering w reck like the National Amateur Press Association, whose 450 members do not publish as much stuff in one whole year as our 65 do in three months. I suggest that you waster a dollar and join NAPA for a year as I did; you will then appreciate FAPA considerably more, and in addition will hastily abandon all ideas of expanding the membership. I'd rather have 65 members, nearly all of whom are publishers than to have something like NAPA with perhaps 50 publishing members and 400 deadheads. If you'd like to work something to improve FAPA, why not introduce an amendment which will greatly up the requirements for minimum annual publishing? I suggest a minimum of 13 8 1/2 x 11 pages (or its equivalent) in a year. There are too many FAPs who are content to put one single-sheeter a year in the mailing, and then sit back and read the hard work of the rest of us..........Along the same line, OE Swisher's ideas on a flexible membership are likewise all wet, though his ideas on deadheads and diminishing returns certainly make sense. I submit that we should stick to our 65 until the waiting list totals ten, month in and month out; at such a time, we MIGHT raise to 75. ----oo0oo---- FAN-TODS. In your "Revists" on #2 FAN-DANGO you make one or two statements I beg to differ with. First, I doubt if HPL's writing should be considered as primarily of the gothic school. Some of his earlier stuff (culminating in The Outsider) is obviously strict Gothic, but the Duneany-ish dream fantasies are not; and I can think of nothing LESS gothic than his later, more scienti-fictional work--CALL OF CTHULHU, MTS. OF MADNESS, SHADOW OUT OF TIME, the Randolph Carter series, and so on. Then I definitely do not consider "literate fantasy" to be limited to the output of Lovecraft and his friends, though of course they are among the few pulp writers who did write in a literate manner. The better work of the following, among others, would be considered literate by me: Stuart-Campbell, Padgett, vanVogt, EESmith, and of course Heinlein-MacDonald.....The "valuable present use of artificial impregnation" still lacks validity so far as I'm concerned. The woman -- 2 --
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