Meeting of November 7, 1986 at the Gillilands', President Michael Walsh presiding, Secretary Erica Van Dommelen taking minutes. The meeting was called to order at 9:15. Treasurer Steve Smith reported $14,779 in the treasury.
COMMITTEES
Disclave 1987: Very little to report. See Joe Mayhew if you want to work.
Disclave 1988: "Hello!" quoth Chair Tom Schaad.
Discon III: Nothing to report.
Entertainment Committee: Think about a party to see Star Trek IV. The annual Solstice Dinner will be Saturday, December 20, at the Gillilands'. WSFA provides the turkey and beverages...you provide the rest. Make your reservations with Dolly and tell her what you will bring. First Friday in December is at Jack Heneghan and Elaine Normandy's, Third Friday is at the Gillilands'.
Old Business: Zip.
New Business: Zip.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Mary Hagen is moving back to Indiana, but The Mad Engineer will continue. (See the ad in this issue). She'll be leaving around Christmas.
Moonstone Bookcellars will remain open despite the recent death of Philip Grossfield.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:38.
I lost the attendance list. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Meeting of November 21, 1986 at Kent Bloom and Mary Morman's, President Michael Walsh presiding, Secretary Erica Van Dommelen taking minutes. The meeting was called to order at 9:15. Treasurer Steve Smith reported $14,725.42 in the treasury.
COMMITTEES
Poker Table: ...will be ordered Real Soon Now.
Disclave 1987: Pay your membership now. It will go from $12 to $15 on January 1. You must be an associate member (i.e., Disclave member) before you can be a voting member.
Disclave 1988: Recommendations with accompanying rationale for GOH are being taken. Preference is for someone who hasn't been a GOH very often. Mary Morman's suggestion of Zenna Henderson was rejected as being impractical although a dead GOH would make for an interesting con.
Entertainment: Make your Solstice Dinner reservations!
Discon III: Buy your presupporting membership now for $5 and receive a button. A SMOF-Con type event will be sponsored sometime in the next 15 months. There will be a meeting December 13 at the Heneghan-Normandy abode at 2:00. Proposed articles of incorporation will be circulated then.
Old Business: None again.
New Business: Still none.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:35.
Attending: Joe Mayhew, Kent Bloom, Mary Morman, Evan Phillips, Vickie Smith, Lee Smoire, Jul Owings, Mark Owings, Tom Schaad, Dick Roepke, Chris Callahan, Mary Hagen, Steven Fetheroff, Bob MacIntosh, Lance Oszko, Elaine Normandy, Michael Walsh, Erica Van Dommelen, Kay Koelsh, George Koelsh, Pat Jones, Laura Jones, Cindy Thomas, Jim Thomas, Linda Melnick, Lee Strong, Bill Mayhew, Ginny McNitt, Jack Heneghan, Alexis Gilliland, Charles Gilliland, Keith Olson, Steve Smith, Bruce Schneider, Joe Hall, Steven Vaughan-Nichols, Ginny Vaughan-Nichols, Cat Slusser, Walter Miles, Judy Newton, Barry Newton, Alan Huff, Nancy Loomis-Stewart
Remember, the best ideas originate in the U.S.; other
people have to think and talk in a foreign language. This
gives you a tremendous technical edge.
--B.S. Benson
NEW ADDRESS
Allison Munn
[censored]
Reston, VA 22090
703 435-3129
For your Japanese videos, "Sakura" has moved to 15809 Rockville Pike, Route 355, just south of the Shady Grove metro station.
From the October 22, 1986 Variety, Shapiro Entertainment has "The Wizard of Speed and Time" in post-production.
New on videotape! "Revenge of the Teenage Vixens From Outer Space," Continental, 83 min., color, VHS or Beta. Three young women beamed to Earth invade a local high school to find boyfriends. When the boys don't measure up, they get turned into vegetables.
--Lance Oszko
Forsake the Sky, by Tim Powers, TOR Books, 217pp, $2.95.
I loved Dinner at Deviant's Palace, so I went right out and bought the first book by Tim Powers that I saw. And I'm not happy. It said TOR Science Fiction on the spine, it said things about interplanetary empires and technology (both crumbling) on the back, and yet it yielded nary a word of science fiction.
Which isn't to say it's a bad book, because it's not. But it could have taken place nearly anywhere, anywhen, with hardly a word changed. I kept reading, hoping for the science fiction to show up, but it never did. It was always lurking on the sidelines, but it never got to play. On page 25 we see a spaceship and the hero is branded with a high-tech device. That's it. No exaggeration. Powers isn't even trying; on a non-Solar planet centuries in the future (I guess), boats are bailed with coffee cans, cereal comes in boxes, and women wear cloaks of badger skins. None of this seems remarkable to anyone.
The characters are good and the plot is good, and the city seems real enough, but it's mainstream. And there is nothing new, which is what I read science fiction for. This wasn't.
--Erica Van Dommelen
AS MANY OF YOU KNOW, LEE SMOIRE HAS VISITED AUSTRALIA 3 TIMES, AND HAS BEEN INTERESTED IN MOVING THERE FOR OVER 3 YEARS NOW. AFTER A YEAR OF INQUIRIES AND ATTEMPTS, SHE HAS FINALLY RECEIVED PERMISSION TO EMIGRATE, BUT IS IN A BIT OF A QUANDARY. SHE MUST GO BY THE END OF FEBRUARY OR SHE LOSES HER VISA. BUT THE PEOPLE SHE'LL BE SHARING HOUSE WITH ARE FINANCIALLY STRAPPED, SINCE THEY ARE HOLDING SPACE FOR HER (AND PAYING HER SHARE OF THE EXPENSES) AND THEY NEED HER BY THE END OF THE YEAR, OR ELSE NONE OF THEM MAY HAVE A PLACE TO LIVE!
LEE HAS BEEN TRYING TO GET AN ADDITIONAL PART-TIME JOB, BUT IS HAVING DIFFICULTY SINCE MOST REQUIRE YOUR OWN TRANSPORTATION TO GET TO. WE WILL BE HAVING AN INDOOR YARD/GARAGE/HOUSEHOLD SALE SAT. DEC. 6 & SUN. DEC. 7, TO INCLUDE FURNITURE, CLOTHING, BOOKS, APPLIANCES, RECORDS, KNICK-KNACKS, ETC., BUT UNFORTUNATELY, LEE NEEDS A LOT MORE THAN SHE CAN EXPECT TO RAISE FROM THAT, SO SHE CAN SHIP THE THINGS SHE IS KEEPING, AND SHIP HERSELF.
SHE CAN'T GET A LOAN FROM A BANK HERE SINCE SHE'S MOVING OVERSEAS, AND SHE CAN'T GET A LOAN THERE SINCE SHE DOESN'T HAVE A JOB THERE YET. HER RELATIVES ARE UNABLE TO HELP HER OUT FINANCIALLY EITHER, SO SHE'S HAVING TO GO TO HER FRIENDS (HER OTHER FAMILY).
WE ARE ACCEPTING DONATIONS, LARGE OR SMALL, AND WE ARE OFFERING FORMAL PROMISSORY NOTES IN $50 AND $100 DENOMINATIONS - FIXED TERM AT $5 OR $10 EVERY OTHER MONTH, STARTING 3 MONTHS AFTER HER ARRIVAL IN AUSTRALIA, WITH 10% OF THE PRINCIPAL ADDED ON TO BE PAID AT MID TERM AND END OF TERM. THE REASON THE PAYMENTS ARE BEING EXTENDED LIKE THIS IS THAT LEE WILL HAVE RUNNING EXPENSES, AS WELL AS HOUSEHOLD SET-UP EXPENSES (I.E., NEW MAJOR APPLIANCES, SINCE THE ONES HERE DON'T WORK THERE OR CAN'T BE SHIPPED).
LEE HAS BEEN A GOOD FRIEND TO ME, AND THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE KNOWN HER IN HER 19 YEARS IN FANDOM (SHE WAS A MERE CHILD WHEN SHE STARTED, OF COURSE) REALIZE THAT THOUGH SHE CAN BE DIFFICULT AT TIMES, SHE REALLY IS A GOOD-HEARTED, FRIENDLY, FANNISH, GOOD-HUMORED PERSON WHO HAS HELPED MANY OF YOU INDIVIDUALLY, AS WELL AS GIVING OF HER TIME AND ENERGY TO CLUBS AND CONS. MOW SHE NEEDS YOUR HELP. IF YOU LIKE HER, PLEASE HELP OUT. IF YOU'RE INDIFFERENT TO HER, HELP OUT TOO, FOR FANNISHNESS' SAKE - LEE WILL BE REPRESENTING W.S.F.A. (AND B.S.F.S.) IN AUSTRALIA FOR POKER, D.C. IN '92, AND GOOD PARTYING. IF YOU DON'T LIKE HER, WELL, CONTRIBUTE ANYWAY; IT'LL HELP GET HER OUT OF YOUR HAIR FASTER! (SORT OF LIKE PRE-SUPPORTING AND PRE-OPPOSING FEES, I SUPPOSE).
PLEASE CONTACT JUL OWINGS AT WSFA, BSFS, PHILCON, OR DARKOVER - OR SEND CONTRIBUTIONS, OR INQUIRIES ABOUT THE PROMISSORY NOTES TO:
Dear Joe;
I forgot to give you this correction for your first issue of Discontinuity. Kindly print the correction in the second issue.
1) My suggestion for the corporate name was not DISTAFF, but DISTAF - standing for District of Columbia Association of Fans (or could be written DistAF). This use of one F of course, would make the word simply the acronym I meant it to be, and not the definable word you seemed to object so violently to.
2) Secondly, if you look in the dictionary (in my case, Webster's Seventh Collegiate & Webster's New Illustrated), you will find the definitions are: la - a staff for holding the flax, tow or wool in spinning; lb - women's work or domain & 2 - the female side of a family.
Now of course, la is totally irrelevant, basically - lb is at least partially applicable, and 2 is at least partially applicable to D.C. fandom, if you ascribe to the theory that fandom is a family of sorts; I certainly do.
The point, of course, is that the FF word (gee, that sounds double dirty) has no bearing on my suggestion, in which I did specify the spelling. You were so intent on dissenting that you must have missed hearing my spelling at that first meeting. I hope this will, clarify matters for the club and bid members when they see it in print, and I hope this eases your concerns a bit.
Peace,
Lee
"...contains more interesting and entertaining material than zines four times its size.
"...amply and cleverly illustrated..."
"This is a zine that shows intelligence."
--- The Texas SF Inquirer
THE MAD ENGINEER, a new science fiction fanzine wants your contributions of short fiction, reviews, artwork, essays, cartoons! Contributors to be paid in copies.
After one year in print, THE MAD ENGINEER is starting a new subscription service. One year (4 issues) for only $3.00. Back issues (#1,#3,#4,#5) can be purchased for 75¢ each.
Write to:
THE MAD ENGINEER
c/o M. Hagan
3333 East Rhorer Rd.
Bloomington, IN 47401
As always, your contributions are welcome and appreciated. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Erica Van Dommelen
Editor, WSFA Journal
2413 N. 11th St.
Arlington, VA 22201
703 522-2540