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Voice of the Imagination, whole no. 8, August 1940

Page 6

6

except for this one, with every issue. (At an interview with Mr Thomas we askt him who gave him the title of "The Man from Mars". He replyd "God did." At this his wife spoke up, denying "I did not!" & cackled crazily. We departed in haste.) — In conclusion I can sum up my feelings for VOM by using a quotation from Fitzgerald's 'Omar Khayy'am'.....'A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thee (The Voice not a beautiful girl) beside me in the wilderness'....."

H. C. Koenig
U noe, HC means HydroChloric, of 2 East End Ave, NYC, gives out with: "For the past few nights I have lain awake wondering if I should send you a few thin dimes. No doubt you have also had a number of sleepless nights wondering if I would subscribe. Hence, to avoid two nervous breakdowns I am sending 0.30cents. Perhaps, we will get a little sleep tonight. Hope you will keep me in mind whenever you issue any more mags from your sanctum sanctorium or the immediate vicinity thereof. If you don't, I'll run short of targets. (Aw, shoot, HC. & if the petard goes off in your own hand, remember—'Blowups Happen"!)

Milt ROTHMAN of 1730 P NW, Wh/DC, fan making good in the pro's as 'Lee Gregor', declares: "Dear Stimme: I ccame very close to forgetting to renew my subscription. I never got into the habit, you know. Here's a buck. That should take care of ten issues. I wonder if I am not being unduly optimistic. But therein lies a philosophy. Elmer Perdue and I are straightening it out in our Saturday night conversations. It's about the war, of course. Everything is about the war. We don't worry about the war anymore. Intelligent people don't worry. We try to make ourselves believe that we are intelligent. You have to be familiar with Olaf Stapleton to understand just what we are doing. We're trying to act like an Odd John would. We feel no emotion towards the war; we don't hate it, we don't fear it. We realize it as the culmination of a series of irresistable events. And as such, we realize where it is leading us. And we realize that within a year or two something pretty big is going to happen. So that perhaps I am being foolish in giving you a whole dollar. But I never have been in love with money. Thanks a lot for the extra copies of my thing. ("Science Fiction is Escape Literature", VOM #6) I'm really glad you liked it. When you write just an article it doesn't matter so much whether or not people like it. But when you've done something so serious as that, it makes you feel pretty good to know that somebody else appreciates it. The next Milty's Mag has something in it in a similar vein, altho more so. It's so goddam serious that I'm scared to death of it, and it's important that it will either drive sffans to realize that they are people first and fans second, or it will make me the prize ass of the FAPA and give me the name of morbid Milty. The funny thing is, my thoughts have traveled so far in the past few weeks that it is already outdated by the second paragraph of this letter. It still means something, tho. It never occurred to me to suspect Miske of being anybody but Miske. Miske, I think, is Miske, and I've exchanged lots of long letters with him. If it must be somebody, Westbrook Pegler is the only person I can think of. Miske thinks that he has defeated me in our argument, and that that is the reason I haven't written to him. He only defeated me in one way. His sole basis is that people as a whole are bad and despicable and stupid. They certainly look like that, don't they? And that's why I can't reply. But instead of hating people like that, as Miske does, I laugh at them, and try to see how funny it all is. So if this gets into VoM, Miske will see this and know that I didn't reply to him because I was afraid of being contaminated by the seething mass of hate that he becomes when he writes letters. Time is too short to waste and spoil in  hating people. And the Chicon moves closer. And I still try to figure out a costume. Woe is me. Yours, with each moment of this pleasure lightly tasted like a glass of Madeira."

JACK CHAPMAN MISKE, by his own admission first of the future men (not to be confused with futurians), refering to VOM #6 says "I regret to see the Voice being a biased, strictly partisan publication suppressing vital information in some letters, printing drier portions of others. You're slipping badly." (It seems we were able to present only about 1/6th of Jack's 3 pg letter. Nextime we'll noe better: Omit entirely 6 other letters & present Mr Miske's in entirety!)

Saving...

6 except for this one, with every issue. (At an interview with Mr Thomas we askt him who gave him the title of "The Man from Mars". He replyd "God did." At this his wife spoke up, denying "I did not!" & cackled crazily. We departed in haste.) — In conclusion I can sum up my feelings for VOM by using a quotation from Fitzgerald's 'Omar Khayy'am'.....'A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thee (The Voice not a beautiful girl) beside me in the wilderness'....." H. C. Koenig U noe, HC means HydroChloric, of 2 East End Ave, NYC, gives out with: "For the past few nights I have lain awake wondering if I should send you a few thin dimes. No doubt you have also had a number of sleepless nights wondering if I would subscribe. Hence, to avoid two nervous breakdowns I am sending 0.30cents. Perhaps, we will get a little sleep tonight. Hope you will keep me in mind whenever you issue any more mags from your sanctum sanctorium or the immediate vicinity thereof. If you don't, I'll run short of targets. (Aw, shoot, HC. & if the petard goes off in your own hand, remember—'Blowups Happen"!) Milt ROTHMAN of 1730 P NW, Wh/DC, fan making good in the pro's as 'Lee Gregor', declares: "Dear Stimme: I ccame very close to forgetting to renew my subscription. I never got into the habit, you know. Here's a buck. That should take care of ten issues. I wonder if I am not being unduly optimistic. But therein lies a philosophy. Elmer Perdue and I are straightening it out in our Saturday night conversations. It's about the war, of course. Everything is about the war. We don't worry about the war anymore. Intelligent people don't worry. We try to make ourselves believe that we are intelligent. You have to be familiar with Olaf Stapleton to understand just what we are doing. We're trying to act like an Odd John would. We feel no emotion towards the war; we don't hate it, we don't fear it. We realize it as the culmination of a series of irresistable events. And as such, we realize where it is leading us. And we realize that within a year or two something pretty big is going to happen. So that perhaps I am being foolish in giving you a whole dollar. But I never have been in love with money. Thanks a lot for the extra copies of my thing. ("Science Fiction is Escape Literature", VOM #6) I'm really glad you liked it. When you write just an article it doesn't matter so much whether or not people like it. But when you've done something so serious as that, it makes you feel pretty good to know that somebody else appreciates it. The next Milty's Mag has something in it in a similar vein, altho more so. It's so goddam serious that I'm scared to death of it, and it's important that it will either drive sffans to realize that they are people first and fans second, or it will make me the prize ass of the FAPA and give me the name of morbid Milty. The funny thing is, my thoughts have traveled so far in the past few weeks that it is already outdated by the second paragraph of this letter. It still means something, tho. It never occurred to me to suspect Miske of being anybody but Miske. Miske, I think, is Miske, and I've exchanged lots of long letters with him. If it must be somebody, Westbrook Pegler is the only person I can think of. Miske thinks that he has defeated me in our argument, and that that is the reason I haven't written to him. He only defeated me in one way. His sole basis is that people as a whole are bad and despicable and stupid. They certainly look like that, don't they? And that's why I can't reply. But instead of hating people like that, as Miske does, I laugh at them, and try to see how funny it all is. So if this gets into VoM, Miske will see this and know that I didn't reply to him because I was afraid of being contaminated by the seething mass of hate that he becomes when he writes letters. Time is too short to waste and spoil in hating people. And the Chicon moves closer. And I still try to figure out a costume. Woe is me. Yours, with each moment of this pleasure lightly tasted like a glass of Madeira." JACK CHAPMAN MISKE, by his own admission first of the future men (not to be confused with futurians), refering to VOM #6 says "I regret to see the Voice being a biased, strictly partisan publication suppressing vital information in some letters, printing drier portions of others. You're slipping badly." (It seems we were able to present only about 1/6th of Jack's 3 pg letter. Nextime we'll noe better: Omit entirely 6 other letters & present Mr Miske's in entirety!)