----------------------------------------------------------------------
(At Gilliland's)
Rosa Oliver, having recaptured her sense of wonder, called the astounding meeting of W*S*F*A* to amazing order at approximately 9:13:20. The adventure-packed minutes were thrillingly approved as read. The Treasurer, Paul R. Oliver (Known to his fannish friends as "Bob") reported that WSFA has an astonishing $4,475.09 in its ultra-secret bank (located some distance from the planet Mars!)
After the din of the fantastic cheer had subsided, Rosa summoned the mysterious committees to deliver their hidden reports. Doll Gilliland, of the powerful "Entertainment" committee, declared with a gallant flourish that an "Ice-cream social" would be the spectacular finish of the night's activities.
After the din of the stupefying cheer had subsided, Rosa summoned the awesomely sinister "Membership Committee" which revealed that they had extended WSFA membership to include John Pomeranz, Ray Ridenour, and Filthy Pierre.
After the din of the fanatic cheer had subsided, Rosa gestured fearlessly to the exotic blond chairman of the impending D'otherclave, Jul, known consort of Mark Owings. Jul raised her stunning voice to the anxiously assembled membership of that sinister force in Fannishness, WSFA, that the mysterious "Seminary Road" Ramada would be the site of the secret and special conclave. It has, as Jul subtly hinted, "many good things."
After the din of triumphant cheer had subsided, Rosa smiled knowingly and nonchalantly asked whether there would be any "Old Business." Faces met faces in anxious and furtive but brief interchanges. There was none. Then Rosa toyed with the gavel and indulged in a secret gesture to the ones who shared her mysterious knowledge of what was coming up.
"Any new business?" Rosa inquired. Tense waves flooded the aura of invisible frivel which filled the room like the aroma of a Venusian Squaldzlutch feeling its way through the subterranean caverns of Kremlia in search of an angry fix. A sigh of relief began to be audible as those who hadn't known, began to know that there would be no new business now.
The Hubbub of announcements followed.
Craig and Marsh Glassner announced that they were fleeing to the relative safety of an undesignated sanctuary near Chicago. The Barbaric Empire would not be able to work its will on them there in their new there. But they would no longer be here. A surge of tearful farewells began.
The Chicon would be the site of WSFA's 1st meeting in September. What dire things would be done to overthrow the forces of fannish lethargy there/(or other places also as well)? Lee Smoire had come armed with a brother. But Bill Mayhew still was resolved to reveal that he had been un-riffed by the powerful State of Maryland's Prince George's County School Board. Jane Wagner (known to many as WSFA's "Secretary") confirmed that she had managed to survive the pogrom at her place of "employment." Star-Wars had also survived and was likely to be in a theater of your choice.
The meeting was terminated at 9:27:55 after a resounding objection from the membership.
After the meeting things happened which are not supposed to be reported here.
(Chez Oliver, R.B.O. presiding)
After some piddling dispute the official time of starting of business was declared to be 9:14:10. Rosa shouted from the reclining chair to get Bob's attention. He reported that the Treasury presently had $4,057.56. The usual "Lets have a party" was mysteriously omitted (forces were at work, or, perhaps the impending world con dampened their lust for endless parties, but who could say?
Rosa pounded her gavel on the small leather circle next to her chair and called for committee reports.
DISCLAVE 83
Alan Huff grinned in his usual devil-may-care fashion and let it out
that the room rate at the Twin Bridges Marriott would be a flat $48.00.
He promised more details soon.
ENTERTAINMENT: The BEER would be fresh from a keg that night
and there would be a poker game and the usual fol-de-rol.
MEMBERSHIP: Kathleen Aranyosi was announced as a new member
even though she had been a member once before. In point of fact, she
is a new member now.
PUBLICATIONS: Jane, in a weak moment, asked Joe Mayhew to do
the September Journal for the 3rd Friday meeting.
DISCLAVE 82: Jack & Eva reported a preliminary payment
to W.S.F.A. of $1,500, more would be coming as the profit was in
excess of $3,000.00 perhaps as high as $5,000.00. The matter of the
"Broken" sliding wall was dropped by the hotel as Jack
seemed to think it was an attempt at extortion by the Banquets staff.
THERE WAS NO OLD BUSINESS (applause).
NEW BUSINESS
Alan Huff consented to have the club nominate preferences for the
Guest of Honor at Disclave 1983. The following were indicated 1)
Vonda McIntyre, Larry Niven, Gene Wolfe, Stephen King and M.A.Foster.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Wayne and Joanna Dionne showed off Amber Joanna Dionne, their new
daughter.
A Round to Robin (NO. 21) was on the typewriter, Jane and Morgan
Woodward will be home in December.
The Art Show materials are now neatly stored in a newly built shed in
the Oliver's carport at a cost of $121.00 charged to Constellation
World Con.
Jack L. Chalker's Four Lord Series is the March selection of the SF
Book club.
There is a publication proclaiming itself to be a Fandom Directory
being solicited for in Locus.
Lee Smoire's Car got her a ROADWARRIOR T-shirt because it looked like
it had been in the wars.
Lee won 2 1st class tickets to L.A. but can't afford to fly to
Chicon.
The 116th Annual Calvert County Jousting Tournament will be held on
August 29, 1982
The meeting was adjourned at 9:59:31 to the protest of many strong voices.
WSFA FISCAL YEAR 1982-1983: 1st Quarter
Brought Forward to June 1, 1982 $5,054.92
Receipts
Dues............$265.00
Interest........ 56.88
TOTAL...........$321.88 + 321.88
$5,376.80
Expenditures
Food and Beverages $1,098.78
Supplies..............189.26
Printing..............131.20
TOTAL $1,419.24 -1,419.24
BALANCE $3,957.56
Submitted by Bob Oliver, WSFA Treas.
Alexis A. Gilliland was awarded the prestigious John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer 1980-1981 at the Hugo Awards Ceremony during Chicon IV. It was a genuine surprise to Alexis. "When I went up to pick up the Campbell award I was speechless; I simply forgot to say anything. I looked around and waved and walked off stage. If I had planned on getting it I could have thanked them for voting for me, told a few jokes or maybe given them the finger."
This is the second year that the Campbell Award has been won by a WSFA member: last year it was won by Somtow Sucharitkul.
MANCHESTER, Md., Aug. 30--Some people don't think Eva Whitley should breast-feed her baby in public. One of them, Jean Sanders of CJ's restaurant in Owings Mills, told her, "Don't come back here until your baby knows how to feed himself," Whitley says. Another, an anonymous caller, asked her how she would feel "if you and your baby were walking down the street and I walked in front of you and spat."
Whitley, who was asked to leave CJ's when she began nursing her baby, has petitioned the Maryland Human Relations Commission to decide whether she was discriminated against because of her sex. The commission has not set a date for the hearing.
Whitley, a 27-year-old home-maker, did not expect hostile reactions when she decided to follow her pediatrician's recommendation to breast-feed David, her 8-month-old firstborn. "We were following the guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatricians," she said, "which says that breast-feeding brings medical, nutritional and emotional benefits to a baby."
The co-owner of CJ's, Jeff Sanders, insisted this week that the issue was not discrimination or breast-feeding, but indecent exposure. Jean Sanders says that Whitley failed to cover herself while nursing. Whitley's husband, Jack, a novelist who works at home and shares in caring for the baby, said this week that his wife was not in public view at the time she was told not to return to the restaurant.
CJ's was a favorite haunt of the couple, who used to take out-of-towners there to sample Maryland crabs and other local delights. On the evening of March 3, Jack Whitley recalls, "we asked for the furthest back booth, because Eva, frankly, was embarrassed. She's not the kind of hippie exhibitionist they're portraying. She sat facing the wall. You'd have to really gawk to know what was going on."
As soon as the baby cried and started nursing, Jean Sanders approached Whitley and asked her to stop. "I know this is the fashionable thing and all that," Jack Whitley quoted Sanders. "But you're going to have to stop. This is a family restaurant."
La Leche League International, a group that promotes breast-feeding, has documented some 35 cases in which women have sought legal guarantee of their right to do so in public.
"The statutes on what does or does not constitute indecent exposure seem to be different in each municipality," says Sara Lofton, a spokeswoman for La Leche. The organization feels that a town in Missouri provided an exemplary solution, revising local statutes to state that the female breast constitutes a private part of the anatomy (which should not be bared in public) except in the case of breast-feeding.
"We encourage mothers to be sensitive" to the needs of our culture" says Lofton, "and while we reassure them that there's nothing wrong with the sight of a woman breast-feeding, we remind them that there are many people who have been brought up to believe that there is."
Some of those people have placed eight to 10 crank calls to Eva Whitley since news of her dispute with the owners of CJ's became public last weekend.
"They start out talking very reasonably and then they just sort of wind up, and they won't get off the phone," Whitley said. "I ask them to write their views and send them to a newspaper so we can start a public debate, but they don't seem interested.... Let me ask you something for a change. Why is a woman nursing her baby news?
Eva Whitley nurses her son, David. She has been surprised by hostile reactions.
Tuesday, August 31, 1982 THE WASHINGTON POST
Please help an outsider understand why some of the same terran males who buy little publications dedicated to the female mammary gland in photographic representation, and who gather together in dark rooms to snigger at motion pictures, professional exhibitors and other representations of these glands, are so upset by the sight of them in their most ordinary use.
TWJ: As a dragon, you aren't well received by persons of taste and sophistication.
DRAGON: Taste and sophistication, among other forms of self congratulation, are only bearable when they creep up on you and you can't smell them.
TWJ: Oh, come on, you surely can't disapprove of good taste!
DRAGON: "Good taste" is only subjective discrimination which one is expected to learn from an arbiter who has acquired the tastes of the circle of power to which one aspires.
TWJ: What do you think of fannish taste?
DRAGON: Fandom is utterly immune to good taste.
TWJ: Because of its acknowledged sophistication?
DRAGON: Sophistication is only pretending one really does not care for the things one enjoys in private. No, Fandom's circle of power is so ephemeral and utterly silly that its standards are meaningless outside its cozy perimeter. The LOC, or letter of comment, published in fanzines is bald proof of fandom's utter security from either taste or sophistication. The typical LOC is as unsophisticated and tasteless as an infant painting itself with its own dung. Generally the writer begins by wallowing in his own imagined importance and tries to make reference to something which the cognoscenti will recognize as a status badge, but which they do not quite possess.
TWJ: Like name-dropping?
DRAGON: Only when the name is obscure to the general reader. References to impossibly trivial events which should be terribly well known to the enlightened, and to the constant feuds among the titans of their nursery.
TWJ: But you must admit that there is a certain tradition and style to the LOC.
DRAGON: Locs have a certain homely cuteness, which like a dog's own vomit, is a flavor most appealing to its author. Fans lap them up.
TWJ: We seem to have gotten somewhat away from what I suspect the readers would like to hear about dragons.
DRAGON: What might that be? Infant Exposure as a means of Population Control?
TWJ: Dragons have a certain romance about them. People want to know --
DRAGON: Classic Rome was known for its strong, healthy bodies and for its equally strong and healthy custom of exposing infants on the mountainsides. Infants, being highly bio-degradable --
TWJ: Excuse me. They'd really rather hear about you. You know, what it's like to be a dragon, etc.
DRAGON: You mean they'd rather hear about me than from me. Oh well. Dragons are a bit like governments: They are large, dangerous and generally get their own way. Isn't that really their chief fascination for most folk? The idea or getting one's own way. Talking about what one feels like in interviews.
TWJ: How do dragons fly? That's the sort of thing they want to hear.
DRAGON: I don't know what to say, Flying more or less comes naturally. One flaps one's wings until one gets the hang of it. Mother taught me when I was quite small.
TWJ: But your wings are rather little compared to your body. How can they provide sufficient lift?
DRAGON: We're not birds, you know. When it comes to flying, we've more in common with fish than birds. But wouldn't it be more interesting to talk about my opinions?
TWJ: Like Fish?
DRAGON: If you insist-- Like fish in that our smallish wings are stabilizers and we actually do most of our flying with with our bodies, which is why the body is somewhat larger than the wings, I suppose.
TWJ: But you're....I mean you don't look likely to float.
DRAGON: I beg your pardon?
TWJ: The relative buoyancy.
DRAGON: Oh that. Well, I suppose it is a combination of being rather powerful enough to swim through the air, and some of the side effects of being what you might call "Fire-breathing". I think it's something to do with super-heated gases, but I am not a chemist, I just fly the thing.
TWJ: About being fire-breathing?
DRAGON: I don't actually breath fire. There is some confusion due to the figurative language. Speaking of figurative language, have you noticed--
TWJ: Exactly what does the term mean then?
DRAGON: I exhale super-heated gases from my spiracles. Ugh! That sounds gross. It's a normal part of my digestive process. That's the reason for the sulphurous aroma non-dragons now and then complain of. We, of course, don't notice it. I'd rather talk about art.
TWJ: Do the gases ignite?
DRAGON: That must be it. One can blast it at unpleasant persons when they insist on discussing banalities. Would you like a demonstration?
TWJ: You mentioned art. Artists have been fond of representing dragons.
DRAGON: Fanciful cretins mostly. I suppose we strike folk rather as creatures of a fantastic sort and thus free for such interpretation as they feel moved to give. It is a pity this conversation is taking place over the telephone.
TWJ: By the way, what do dragons eat?
DRAGON: That is another problem with telephone conversations.
------------------------------------------------------------
THE WSFA JOURNAL is the official piano of
the Washington Science Fiction Association
(Inc.)
Editor-in-Chief: Jane Wagner
1000 6th St. S.W. #312
Washington, D.C. 20024
Assistant Editor: Joe Mayhew
65-C Ridge Rd.
Greenbelt, Md. 20770
This issue was entirely at the mercy of
Joe, and Jane is not to be blamed for none
of it, do you hear! None of it! She is
innocent!
BEST NOVEL:
DOWNBELOW STATION by C.J. Cherryh
BEST NOVELLA:
THE SATURN GAME by Poul Anderson
BEST NOVELETTE:
THE UNICORN VARIATION by Roger Zelazny
BEST SHORT STORY
THE PUSHER by John Varley
BEST NON-FICTION BOOK:
DANSE MACABRE by Stephen King
BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION:
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR:
EDWARD C. FERMAN
BEST ARTIST
MICHAEL WHELAN
BEST FANZINE
LOCUS
BEST FAN WRITER
DICK GEIS
BEST FAN ARTIST
VICTORIA POYSER
THE JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD
(Best New Writer 1980-1981)
ALEXIS A. GILLILAND
SPECIAL AWARD
(for "Keeping the Fan in Fanzine")
MIKE GLYER
FIRST FANDOM AWARD
BILL CRAWFORD
PAT TERRY AWARD
RANDALL GARRETT
BEST FOREIGN NOVEL TRANSLATED INTO JAPANESE
THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER by Thomas Disch
BEST NOVEL
THE GENESIS MACHINE by James Hogan
BEST NOVEL
SHADOW OF THE TORTURER
by Gene Wolfe
BEST SHORT STORY
THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER
by Tom Disch
------------------------------------------------------------
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If you haven't heard before, here's the word: the Washington Science Fiction Association respectfully solicits your vote for the 1963 World Science Fiction Convention. In other words-- D.C. in 63!!!
Yes, we've been busy on initial preparations-- we, in this case, means G.H.Scithers, programmer; Bob Pavlat, diplomat; Bill Evans, receiver; Dick Eney, editor; Chick Derry, publisher; Bob Madle, associate; and Tom Haughey, assistant. Together with the other members of the WSFA, we hope to put on the DisCon here in 1963.
So far, we've picked the hotel--the Statler-Hilton, in downtown Washington. We have a rough outline of the program-- there are too many maybes and uncertainties in it now to be able to say much about it however, other than that it will be fairly relaxed and - we hope - interesting to all. The art show we certainly hope will be with us, and we'd like to make a big thing of the costume ball, with a new idea for handling the judging which will be fun for the judges, spectators, and for contestants.
One of the big problems that faces any committee is the that
a science fiction convention is actually three conventions going
on simultaneously - one for professional writers, one for active,
letter-writing-and-publishing fans, and one for people who just read
science fiction. To a surprising extent, these three conventions
manage to fit together, in spite of the differing interests of the
participants. If the convention committee manages to please all three
groups, it is a high achievement. Many convention committees have
managed to do this in the past - we only hope we can for this one.
Funds? Well, we think we can break even, with just a little extra to pass on to the next con - but don't quote us. And speaking of funds, one of the big decisions that faces us is whether or not to have a band at the costume ball.
Bob Pavlat is against the idea: his position is that very few people actually dance at the ball - most are too busy looking at the costumes. And $225.00, the union minimum, is an awful lot of money to spend.
G.H. Scithers is for the idea: he (speaking of myself in the 3rd person) thinks the greatest value of the band is in supporting the costume parade, providing background music fanfares, and the like. He thinks if it turns out that we can afford the $225.00 this is a good place to put it.
What do you think?
-- George H. Scithers in
MIRTH & IRONY a fanzine edited by
Tom Haughey in 1962