Usenaut Guerrilla Walks Upright on Planet of the Apes (Damn Long)
Ulrika O'Brien
Or,
Ulrika Lurks the Corflu -- A Piecemeal Recollection
So, is it me, or does Loren MacGregor look an awful lot like
a younger Mike McInerney?
And by the way, I stink at names. If you are among those
who will inevitably slip through the ol' mind-like-a-steel-
sieve, or I missplee your moniker, please accept my humble
self-abasement by way of apology. I am scum. I just suck,
okay?
It was nice, though, having a reason to drive up to the
Bay Area in springtime -- ever since my mother's next-to-
last episode of full-blown mania, I don't get up that way as
much as I used to -- but just now everything is so green it
hurts. There are coral reeves of California poppy and purple
kelp-beds of lupine floating on the shifting, endless
Sargasso of rippling green. There are little wobbly lambs
and calves out with their grazing mothers. There was a flash
of redwing blackbird, and a soundtrack of songs I had half
forgotten on the tapes where I'd put them, and we drove along
and the country rolled away around us. We crossed through
the wind farms with their marching lines of giant windmills
off 580 and felt momentarily stfnal. It's been too long since
I had me a road trip.
The Marriott was dead easy to find, right off the freeway,
and so with no small measure of trepidation we set foot
at last upon a foreign shore, the Land of the
/B/r/o/b/d/i/n/g/n/a/g/i/a/n/s/ Fanzine Fans. According to
the front desk, our trusty cultural informant and mistress
of faanish cachet, Geri Sullivan, had not yet checked into
our room, and about then I realized that I had also missed
my opportunity when passing through Hollywood to pick up a
camouflage make-up kit in three shades of mimeo ink. There
was nothing for it but to gird my loins, hike up my braces,
jut forth my three miles of Scandinavian chin at a jaunty,
devil-may-care angle, and face the natives untranslated,
and unprotected.
While I did almost get waylaid by the lack of standard
navigational landmarks - no art show, no con ops, no
dealer's room to speak of (unless you count the constant,
furtive flutter of fanzines being displayed and swapped,
which, I kid you not, takes place even in public spaces
where minor children might witness it) - I did eventually
find my way to the consuite. Which was largely deserted.
Somebody, I think it might have been Richard Brandt, but
maybe it was someone entirely different, pointed me at the
smoking consuite, where registration was temporarily encamped.
There I collected my badge and a miscellany of paper bits,
not one of which had the reassuring bulk and mass of a
proper program book, but I did my stalwart best to swallow
ethnocentric squeamishness and appear properly grateful anyway.
But could we talk for a minute about point size? See, it
seems to this Evil, Unreconstructed Con-and-Club-and-
Usenet-Oriented Fangirl that fan publishers of all people
ought to have received the long standing and popular
wisdom about point sizes, even on convention badges, by now.
It's basic enough that even lesser life-forms like con
runners have figured it out: Big. Rilly, rilly big.
Omigod-it's-humongous is good. I don't want to appear
otherwise ungrateful, in fact I want to publicly thank
Alyson Abramowitz and her band of merry pranksters for
popping my Corflu cherry in proper style, but honestly,
size does matter. Over the run of the weekend a whole lot
of elevator whispering, a good deal of furtive squinting
and pointing and explanatory beard muttering, and an all
around great lot of rumpus in a Spot-the-Usenaut fannish
version of hunt the slipper would have been spared if the
type on the badges had been big enough that you weren't
actually forced to rest your nose on my left nipple in order
to make my name out clearly. As it was, I briefly considered
getting myself a t-shirt reading, in 391 pt. Arial,
"Yes, yes, goddammit, I *am* Ulrika O'Brien - I've been
walking on my hind legs for years, okay?" But I don't do
t-shirts.
Back in the consuite I committed minor monkey warfare
(the smaller, more playful cousin of guerrilla warfare) by
bringing up my Regency ball gown to work on hand-hemming the
over- and underskirt , thus dragging both costuming, and
far fringe (or at least very nice cloth-of-gold-ribbon trim)
fandoms right into the beating heart of the holy of holies.
The natives were disgustingly bland about these small acts of
blasphemy, and Berni Phillips chimed right in, working on a
wonderous cat quilt she’s making for herself. As a result, the
conversation turned briefly to amputated body parts as a mythic
trope of fantasy fiction, which was kinda cool as a segue from
sewing and quilts. Mainly, though, handwork is a very nice way
to keep busy with something mildly engrossing while playing the
passive auditor to the whirl and flow of nearby conversation,
thus providing an incarnate means to lurk the Corflu.
Somewhere in there I got introduced to Alyson Abramowitz
and Richard Brandt and Jerry Kaufman and Hope Liebowitz
and Lucy Huntzinger and Kim Huett and Stu Shiffman and
Lenny Bailes and Eric Lindsay. And some one of them started
what seemed like a sometime recurring litany of the weekend:
"Oh, so *you’re* Ulrika…I read your stuff on rasseff, I just
don’t post that much." It gave me a much stronger sense
of how many people may actually be out there, beyond the
umbra, following along and taking names. I must say, I
wish I was better at being graceful in the minor-celebrity
/infamy role of being a new face attached to a familiar
name -- I get a little baffled over what to say to "I read
your stuff," since "Please don’t kill me!" doesn’t seem
to hit the right note. Happily, hardly anyone seemed to
want to kill me. I expect they were all expecting a
bitch on heels, and I fooled everyone by wearing flat
shoes most of the weekend. On the other hand, to be fair,
Doug Faunt did go out of his way to snub me a couple of
times; I appreciate that extra effort to make me feel at
home. Also, when Ian Sorensen got introduced to me, he
said, "Oh yeah, you’re the reason I stopped reading
rasseff. You write too much," At first I was a little
overwhelmed by this fulsome effusion, but then I
remembered that he was in town to bid a Corflu and was
undoubtedly on his best behavior with everyone, trying
to impress. Flattery won’t turn my head quite *that*
quickly, but it was very sweet of him to try, nonetheless.
Kim Huett was indeed showing around his packet of
kangaroo flavor condoms, but not offering tastes. I thought
this showed a stunning lack of foresight on his part, since
you never do know what will work with American women.
But perhaps he preferred to get the bike. And sometime
that evening Ian was explaining to one of the grey eminences
that he (Ian) had been charged to give a kiss to said
eminence from some one of the fine ladies of British fandom.
Ian was not showing the least sign fulfilling his charge,
however, and I thought it would be a bit raw if he welshed
(er, scotched? What *is* the past perfect of Brit? Brat?)
under the circumstances, so I went over to one of the
offertory bowls, snatched a kiss, tossed the kiss to Ian,
and observed him complete the pass. I’m sure he’ll be off
book by next week, though.
Friday night also saw a chatty little dinner out with
Alyson and Janice Morningstar, wherein despite all contrary
expectations, we somehow failed to get killed in the
Byzantine traffic and parking tango of a Walnut Creek
Friday night, and I discovered that with heroic effort,
I can show polite restraint when called on to do so. You see,
I’m a teeny little bit of a champion back seat driver.
The world would be a sunnier place if God, Mario Andretti,
and everyone would just acknowledge my superior expertise
and defer to it. So I was hard pressed, in that novel and
creative traffic, to refrain from my usual dulcet and
purely advisory suggestions and from generally subjecting
Alyson to the full force of my helpfulness. But by
circumspectly chewing off my left arm in the back seat, I
managed. At dinner we dissected our filial failures and
ate Greek food. I got a really nice souvlaki, and still
can’t pronounce it.
I had been toying with the idea of trekking out to Palo Alto
to catch the Friday night Regency dance practice for a change,
but the locals seemed to think it would be a good hour and a
half trip in traffic, so I skipped it in favor of getting fed.
Bit of a pity, though – they were teaching quadrilles and
everything.
Back at the hotel, Victor Gonzalez was selected GOH on the
first try by the standard method of drawing names from a hat.
Saturday morning my body betrayed a certain basic
unfannishness of constitution by waking me promptly at
6:40 a.m. (a pattern that repeated throughout the weekend,
even after valiant efforts on Sunday night). Chatted very
pleasantly with Geri for a bit, by dint of the fact that she’s
such a light sleeper that even quietly padding off to the
bathroom woke her. Fortunately she didn’t mind being wakened,
since no amount of super-stealth tiptoeing seemed to help.
Broke fast at the local retro-50’s diner, Mel’s, which did
these really swell fried potatoes wherein the onions were
exactly perfect, with a slight residue of crunch, while
the potatoes had that nice quarter-inch brown crust on one
side.
Much of the rest of the morning was consumed in a series
of unsuccessful attempts at finding a way to print a file
off my laptop despite my having packed neither external
floppy, printer cable, nor the Win95 CD with the printer
drivers necessary to use the Kinko’s Laserjets. In the
end, we faxed the file from my laptop to the fax machine
that the hotel provided in the con suite (a really swell
executive lounge, by the way, with lots of big comfy leather
chairs and couches, and a lovely deck/balcony where the
primroses and jasmine were blooming just beneath the view
of the emerald hills – I never did ask if that was
Mt. Diablo or something else) which was a damned silly way
to produce a one shot, but I’m told it may not be a one shot
in the end, so it's okay.
While out on The Search for Printing, I also picked up a
sketch pad, and spent some of the rest of the con sketching
likenesses of people. Alas for any future fanzine versions
of this report, I was having a pretty off time of it with
resemblance. I got a fairish caricature of Paul Williams,
and a passable one of Art Widner, but Andy Hooper defeated
me utterly, and the best likeness I got was of someone whose
name I never caught. Just figures. And while you wouldn’t
think it to look at him, Ian Sorensen is too good looking
to make a decent subject – features are too regular; there’s
nothing to get a good satiric exaggeration going with.
Unfortunately, what with all the fumfiddling about not
printing things, I managed to miss the one piece of
programming that I was most interested in catching, namely
the panel on fans and music. I only realized this
retroactively, since I’m not normally enough of a program
wonk that I check what’s on the programming before I get
to the point of actually thinking about attending some.
Of the "panels" I did attend, I do have to say that I really
like the concentrically circular arrangement of chairs that
aims more at a roundtable rather than a segregation of
"audience" versus "participant". I assume this is a regular
feature of Corflus.
I did catch the "Corflu with Attitude" panel wherein
several of the Attitude attendees had snapshots to pass
around, so that I now have some notion of what Alison
Scott and Pam Wells and Jim Trash and even Greg Pickersgill
look like. (Those who, for whatever morbid reasons of their
own, wish a reciprocal experience can turn a web browser to
http://128.200.64.106/~gsm/academic/fembabrochure/message.html,
by the way, though the photo is apropos of nothing else in
this report.)
After the Attitude panel I buttonholed rich brown and
introduced myself, since several people had been pestering me
since Friday telling me rich was curious to meet me. Rich
appeared a little nonplused at the initial introduction, as
it turned out that some kind soul had been so eager to ease
the pain of his curiosity that they’d introduced someone else
to him as me. I’m so popular, there’s two of me. Sorry, don’t
ask me -- I’m baffled, too, except to refer the reader back
to previous comments about point sizes. Once we had the
personalities straight there was a shocking lack of fireworks.
We got along pretty famously, had a lovely little chat on
Sunday, as well as a limbo contest to see who could bend
farther over backwards to not step on the other’s toes.
Rich won. (Well, hey, on Sunday, I wore heels.)
After the panels came the benefit auction, with proceeds
variously going to benefit TAFF, DUFF, and Bill Rotsler,
who had apparently been hospitalized with bone cancer.
Andy Hooper made a very canny, sly , not to mention loud,
auctioneer, and Jerry Kaufman gamely worked to keep up. Not
to take anything away from Jerry, it’s just that it turns out
that Andy has this sort of, well, presence, that most people
need a bullhorn and a pair of trained dancing elephants to
compete with. I even bid on a couple of truly spiffulous ATom
color drawings, and (don’t spread this around, okay?) some
old fanzines edited by the terrible Nielsen Hayden twins, but
lacked sufficiently deep pockets to win out on any of it.
After (before?) the dinner break there was a really swell
performance of Hooper’s radio play, _Fanotchka_, which I can’t
possibly do justice to, except to say that it was very funny,
and made me feel again the urgency of need for that mimeo-
camouflage makeup kit. Tribal biases -- glad *I* don't have
any...
Sunday. Sunday is a blur. At the banquet brunch I finally
connected up with Alan Winston and Vanessa Schnatmeier, both
old LASFAPA hands and both formerly L.A. locals, and spent a
little time catching up and conducting character assassinations
on the usual suspects in L.A. fandom. During the formal bits
of the banquet, Don Fitch got two heartily deserved standing
ovations for his yeoman work on the convention, because he was
out of the room for the first one. In the FAAn Awards, Andy
Hooper was declared Best Fanwriter, Aparatchik took the laurel
as Best Fanzine, and some Australian fan artist whose name
I’ve forgotten (I did *say* I suck) won Best Fan Artist.
Since the winner lived near neither Kim Huett nor Eric Lindsay,
it was suggested that they each carry home half the award and
split the difference. Hooper did very magnanimously withdraw
himself from consideration for further FAAn awards for the
next five years or so, after having apparently slurped up a
double handful in recent years. The assembled throng unanimously
elected Bill Rotsler Past President of the fwa for 1996. Ian
Sorenson made a rushed UK Corflu bid presentation (or
whatever it is the Corfliotes call it, what with no competition
and all) before dashing off for his plane.
I was among the craven cowards who wimped out on playing in the
annual softball game, partly because I really, most sincerely
suck at softball, and partly because I had packed neither sweats
nor dark tennies and was unwilling to wallow in the mud and
cold that the morning’s showers had surely made in my blazing
white Reeboks and pointelle tank undershirt. Instead, I was at
the poker table when the first hand of Baseball was played,
and was among those to autograph a joker from the deck in lieu
of the more traditional autographing of the ball that is done
by all those who play in the softball game. Andy Hooper was
very gracious about accepting the card for next year’s TAFF
auction in spite our posture of disloyal wimpitude toward
the Real Thing.
In the evening Cindy Lee Berryhill entertained us with some
of her songs rendered to the accompaniment and surprisingly
good effect of a little hand held Casiotone keyboard, and we
were much amused. Cindy writes really marvelous songs, about
Antarctica, and things, and had apparently just come up from
a very successful show at McCabe’s in Santa Monica, which I am
retroactively heartily sorry I missed. Afterwards I chatted a
bit with Andy Hooper, and a bit more with Paul Williams, and
tried with further lack of success to catch Mr. Hooper’s
likeness, and had much better luck with Mr. Williams. And Andy
was the final participant in round twelve of the Look, It’s
Ulrika Point and Gawk-off, as he guided Victor Gonzalez and a
gaggle of others onto the patio for I know not what nefarious
purposes, herbal or otherwise. It looked decidedly sinister,
however, and I’m mildly fretting about it still, fearing
Repercussions.
And that was the evening and the morning of the third day.
And Roscoe looked down, and He saw that it was good. But I’m
not a faanish fan, you know. Just ask the natives.
--
"Criticism is the only known antidote to error." -- David Brin
Ulrika O'Brien***ulr...@aol.com***caveat lector
Ed Dravecky III
<extreme snippage, totally out of context, and normal for usenet>
<think about a particularly gory episode of this smash hit medical
drama "ER" in regards to this much snipping...then up that 20%>
Ulrika O'Brien (uaob...@uci.edu) wrote:
> I expect they were all expecting a bitch on heels, and I fooled
> everyone by wearing flat shoes most of the weekend.
I'd just like to say that it's writing like this that forced me to
keep reading rasff/afc through all the nonsense. I'm not terribly
into fanzines and now *I'm* sorry I missed Corflu...
--
Ed Dravecky (dshe...@netcom.com) Dallas, Texas, USA
Save "Space Cases"! Write to Nickelodeon *today*!
Richard Brandt
A couple of additions here: In addition to Rotsler being elected
immediate past president, by acclamation we elected Lee Hoffman as past
president for the year 1951.
And darnit, Ulrika, I knew you before there WAS an Ulrika O'Brien! Said
hi to you at some Westercon or something (knew your art from De
Profundis). Didn't I say a glancing hello at LACon too? But not everyone
has my astonishing capacity for remembering tangential encounters and
other trivia....
--
===================================================
http://rgfn.epcc.edu/users/af541/virtual.htm
"I don't remember Kimball Kinnison ever pausing to relax
over a cup of Yuban." -- Redd Boggs
Ray Radlein
Richard Brandt wrote:
>
> A couple of additions here: In addition to Rotsler being elected
> immediate past president, by acclamation we elected Lee Hoffman as past
> president for the year 1951.
A Retro-FAAN Award?
- Ray R.
--
*********************************************************************
"What are we going to do tonight, Brain?"
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky - try to RULE THE SEVAGRAM!"
Ray Radlein - r...@learnlink.emory.edu
homepage coming soon! wooo, wooo.
*********************************************************************
Geri Sullivan
Ulrika O'Brien wrote:
A triff Corflu report! Here are a few comments on saidsame.
> It was nice, though, having a reason to drive up to the
> Bay Area in springtime -- ever since my mother's next-to-
> last episode of full-blown mania, I don't get up that way as
> much as I used to -- but just now everything is so green it
> hurts. There are coral reeves of California poppy and purple
> kelp-beds of lupine floating on the shifting, endless
> Sargasso of rippling green. There are little wobbly lambs
> and calves out with their grazing mothers. There was a flash
> of redwing blackbird, and a soundtrack of songs I had half
> forgotten on the tapes where I'd put them, and we drove along
> and the country rolled away around us. We crossed through
> the wind farms with their marching lines of giant windmills
> off 580 and felt momentarily stfnal. It's been too long since
> I had me a road trip.
Tom Becker took me up Patterson Pass Road to see the windmills up
close and personal on our way to Yosemite on Monday. Yep, very
stfnal. Inspiration implemented by humankind in the same sort of way
that Yosemite is inspiration implemented by nature. Goshwow stuff
all the way. We saw Califonia golden poppies, too. And imagine
seeing all that green and more if all you'd seen for the last 4
months was white, dirty white, and ice.
>
> But could we talk for a minute about point size? See, it
> seems to this Evil, Unreconstructed Con-and-Club-and-
> Usenet-Oriented Fangirl that fan publishers of all people
> ought to have received the long standing and popular
> wisdom about point sizes, even on convention badges, by now.
> It's basic enough that even lesser life-forms like con
> runners have figured it out: Big. Rilly, rilly big.
> Omigod-it's-humongous is good. I don't want to appear
> otherwise ungrateful, in fact I want to publicly thank
> Alyson Abramowitz and her band of merry pranksters for
> popping my Corflu cherry in proper style, but honestly,
> size does matter.
This is the most humorous and entertaining way of saying the names
were printed too small that I've ever seen.
> Saturday morning my body betrayed a certain basic
> unfannishness of constitution by waking me promptly at
> 6:40 a.m. (a pattern that repeated throughout the weekend,
> even after valiant efforts on Sunday night). Chatted very
> pleasantly with Geri for a bit, by dint of the fact that sheıs
> such a light sleeper that even quietly padding off to the
> bathroom woke her. Fortunately she didnıt mind being wakened,
> since no amount of super-stealth tiptoeing seemed to help.
Any number of fans are now certain that you roomed with a Geri
Sullivan imposter as I am usually anything but a light sleeper.
Especially after fewer than 2 hours of sleep (I finished closing
down the consuite and tidying up a 5). But you're right, it was a
pleasant chat and a lovely way to start the day, even if I didn't
fall promptly back to sleep as is my usual habit. And I notice you
seem to have conveniently forgotten the empirical evidence gained
Sunday morning when I slept soundly through 90% of your morning
ablutions and preparations for brunch, waking just 20 minutes before
it started.
> The assembled throng unanimously
> elected Bill Rotsler Past President of the fwa for 1996.
Yes, and Lee Hoffman as past president of fwa for 1951. Huzzah.
Huzzah.
And huzzah, huzzah to you for having written and posted this
delightful Corflu report!
--
Geri Sullivan / g...@toad-hall.com
=================
Love is no magic, no dream of fate, no passion of night.
Love is life. True life. Life true and mad. -- anon.
ulr...@aol.com
>And darnit, Ulrika, I knew you before there WAS an Ulrika O'Brien! >Said hi to you at some Westercon or something (knew your art from >De Profundis).
Oh, golly, was that *you*? I suspect that it was the
associated trauma that wiped the details from my mind.
As it was, the shock of being recognized by someone
outside of LASFS was almost enough to land me in
the hospital. Flattering, but really, really *weird*, ya
know? At that time I was not the sanguine Net.Goddess
that you know and love today (ho).
>Didn't I say a glancing hello at LACon too?
Probably. A lot of people did, which doesn't excuse it.
I was also busy being screamed at by the head of consuite
for his failure to participate in the process leading up to the
convention, that weekend, and may have been a little
shell shocked, which doesn't really excuse it either, but
may explain some amount of hysterical memory loss.
Did I not say I suck? I think it was Mary Kay
Kare was thinking I was snubbing her at Confederation,
(or possibly that same Westercon (wasn't it actually NaSFiC?)
where you first introduced yourself to me -- it was definitely
Tucson, anyway) when in fact I was just having a braino and
failing to recognize her out of the perhaps two dozen Myriadans
I'd only met a couple of times at that point.
My default on seeing a familiarish fannish face is to assume
that it's just one I've seen around, and that the person attached
has no particular reason to know me. But I think I have you
down, now, so I won't have to go through this sort of
international humiliation a third time. You're the tall, bald
fellah who ran the auction, right? <w,w,s,e g>
> But not
>everyone has my astonishing capacity for remembering
>tangential encounters and other trivia....
Clearly, for instance, I do not have any such astonishing
capacity. Oh well, I had to start showing my failings some
time, now didn't I? <impish g>
Ulrika O'Brien, Philosopher Without Portfolio
***ulr...@aol.com***
Julian Warner
Ulrika O'Brien wrote:
<a good, long conreport on Corflu - read it y'self>
<SFX: general wailing & gnashing of teeth>
Damn! One of these days I will actually make it to a Corflu. I am most
jealous of Eric and Kim for having managed to get there. I am doubly
jealous for having missed a chance to catch up with Lucy Huntzinger
again and to meet Cindy Lee Berryhill (we had a coupla her records
before knowing she had anything to do with fandom) and, of course, I
missed meeting you too. *sigh*
The fan-artist you forgot is Ian Gunn. There's a party at a restaurant
tomorrow night as it's the (recurrent) 25th birthday party for Ian's SO,
Karen Pender-Gunn. I'm sure that suitably embarassing announcements
will be made.
Grr! Seethe! Etc!
julian.
Pam Wells
In article <5gsq6u$p...@news.service.uci.edu>
uaob...@uci.edu "Ulrika O'Brien" writes:
<An excellent Corflu report, very much appreciated by One Who
Desperately Wanted To Be There But Couldn't.>
A couple of comments/responses, AKA a WAHF-able LoC (these
acronyms included especially for Dop):
> Mainly, though, handwork is a very nice way
> to keep busy with something mildly engrossing while playing the
> passive auditor to the whirl and flow of nearby conversation,
> thus providing an incarnate means to lurk the Corflu.
This bit reminded me of the days, back in the early 1980s, when
I'd talk to people like Hazel Langford and Judith Hanna while
they sat knitting in the bar. I never did quite get around to
bringing my own knitting to a convention -- perhaps it would be
a good way of making myself Calm Down....
> I get a little baffled over what to say to "I read
> your stuff," since "Please don’t kill me!" doesn’t seem
> to hit the right note.
But it's a *great* rejoinder!
> Also, when Ian Sorensen got introduced to me, he
> said, "Oh yeah, you’re the reason I stopped reading
> rasseff. You write too much,"
Glad his natural charm travelled so well....
> Kim Huett was indeed showing around his packet of
> kangaroo flavor condoms, but not offering tastes. I thought
> this showed a stunning lack of foresight on his part, since
> you never do know what will work with American women.
> But perhaps he preferred to get the bike.
OK, I don't understand this last sentence. It looks like it
oughtta be obvious, somehow, but I'm truly stumped.
> And while you wouldn’t
> think it to look at him, Ian Sorensen is too good looking
> to make a decent subject
And, in the natural charm department, we have another winner....
> I did catch the "Corflu with Attitude" panel wherein
> several of the Attitude attendees had snapshots to pass
> around, so that I now have some notion of what Alison
> Scott and Pam Wells and Jim Trash and even Greg Pickersgill
> look like.
Except that Jim Trash wasn't even at Attitude, so I'm guessing
that the photos came from other British events as well, not that
Jim Barker (the Jim who did come to Attitude) was incorrectly
identified....
> And Roscoe looked down, and He saw that it was good. But I’m
> not a faanish fan, you know. Just ask the natives.
Yeah, clearly. This is not the best written and most interesting
convention report to his rass-eff/afc for a very long time. No
siree. You, my dear, are an impostor. Believe it!
--
Pam Wells Vacuou...@bitch.demon.co.uk http://www.bitch.demon.co.uk
Ulrika O'Brien
By the way, I seem to recall that the native courtesy is to send
copies of such things to people whose names are mentioned. Since
I don't have e-mail addresses for most of the parties defamed,
I'd be happy if anyone who does felt inclined to forward a copy
to them. What is the fanzine equivalent for "netiquette," anyway?
Ulrika O'Brien
Vacuou...@bitch.demon.co.uk (Pam Wells) wrote:
>In article <5gsq6u$p...@news.service.uci.edu>
> uaob...@uci.edu "Ulrika O'Brien" writes:
>
><An excellent Corflu report, very much appreciated by One Who
>Desperately Wanted To Be There But Couldn't.>
*twinkle* Glad you liked!
[snip]
>> Kim Huett was indeed showing around his packet of
>> kangaroo flavor condoms, but not offering tastes. I thought
>> this showed a stunning lack of foresight on his part, since
>> you never do know what will work with American women.
>> But perhaps he preferred to get the bike.
>
>OK, I don't understand this last sentence. It looks like it
>oughtta be obvious, somehow, but I'm truly stumped.
No, it is probably the single most cryptic line in the con
report, since it depends on your being familiar with a particular
joke, generally told about engineering students, computer
science students, and other similar, uh, Sad Cases, to wit:
Sad Case A: Hey, where'd you get the great new bike?
Sad Case B: Well, I was just walking in to campus this morning
and this beautiful girl pulled up on the bike, ripped
off all her clothes, and told me I could have whatever
I wanted.
Sad Case A: Good choice! Her clothes would never have fit you.
[snip]
>> I did catch the "Corflu with Attitude" panel wherein
>> several of the Attitude attendees had snapshots to pass
>> around, so that I now have some notion of what Alison
>> Scott and Pam Wells and Jim Trash and even Greg Pickersgill
>> look like.
>
>Except that Jim Trash wasn't even at Attitude, so I'm guessing
>that the photos came from other British events as well,
Sorry, yes, I was unclear, there. The picture with Jim in it
was of some throng of assembled masses in a pub somewhere, and
was not billed as being specifically from Attitude. (Which word,
for some reason, I now always hear in Ian Sorensen's
pronounciation , which had me near-puddlized all weekend long.
It's a lucky thing his natural charm does travel so well, or
the accent alone would have had me baying at the moon, and I
do so dislike to make quite that much of a spectacle of myself.
In some things, Swedishness persists...)
>> And Roscoe looked down, and He saw that it was good. But I’m
>> not a faanish fan, you know. Just ask the natives.
>
>Yeah, clearly. This is not the best written and most interesting
>convention report to his rass-eff/afc for a very long time. No
>siree. You, my dear, are an impostor. Believe it!
Oh, good, my first fannish hoax...
Gary Farber
In rec.arts.sf.fandom Ray Radlein <r...@learnlink.emory.edu> wrote:
: Richard Brandt wrote:
: >
: > A couple of additions here: In addition to Rotsler being elected
: > president for the year 1951.
: A Retro-FAAN Award?
No, the past presidency. See my "organization."
I suppose we need to explain this Sacred Custom again (and its evolution);
I do suggest you subscribe to APPARATCHIK if you haven't already, Ray.
--
-- Gary Farber gfa...@panix.com
Copyright 1997 Brooklyn, NY, USA
Jim Trash
>
>Except that Jim Trash wasn't even at Attitude, so I'm guessing
>that the photos came from other British events as well,
If they were Ian's photos my guess is that one came from the
Wintersection thing we did in Leeds. I was mercilessly snapped by Ian as
he said, this is just so I can prove you do exist and are not a
pseudonym for someone else.
I've been accused of being pseudonyms for various people including BSFA
Matrix chappie, Chris Terran.
I'm not and there's photographic evidence to prove it.
http://www.scream.demon.co.uk Jim Trash
Ray Radlein
Gary Farber wrote:
>
> In rec.arts.sf.fandom Ray Radlein <r...@learnlink.emory.edu> wrote:
> : Richard Brandt wrote:
> : >
> : > A couple of additions here: In addition to Rotsler being elected
> : > immediate past president, by acclamation we elected Lee Hoffman as past
> : > president for the year 1951.
>
> : A Retro-FAAN Award?
>
> No, the past presidency. See my "organization."
>
> I suppose we need to explain this Sacred Custom again (and its evolution);
> I do suggest you subscribe to APPARATCHIK if you haven't already, Ray.
*Sigh*. First "1975," now this. My second stack overflow in as many
days.
I *do* read Apparatchik, religiously. I even voted for it in the on-line
poll, too, IIRC. Can't remember whether to win, place, or show, but I'm
pretty sure it got my vote.
Mean Green Dancing Machine
In article <5gvekr$4...@news.service.uci.edu>,
Ulrika O'Brien <uaob...@uci.edu> wrote:
>Vacuou...@bitch.demon.co.uk (Pam Wells) wrote:
>>In article <5gsq6u$p...@news.service.uci.edu>
>> uaob...@uci.edu "Ulrika O'Brien" writes:
>>
>>
>>oughtta be obvious, somehow, but I'm truly stumped.
>
>No, it is probably the single most cryptic line in the con
>report, since it depends on your being familiar with a particular
>joke, generally told about engineering students, computer
>science students, and other similar, uh, Sad Cases, to wit:
>
>Sad Case A: Hey, where'd you get the great new bike?
>Sad Case B: Well, I was just walking in to campus this morning
> and this beautiful girl pulled up on the bike, ripped
> off all her clothes, and told me I could have whatever
> I wanted.
>Sad Case A: Good choice! Her clothes would never have fit you.
Odd. I've never heard that joke; I assumed it was a reference to the
line, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle."
--
--- Aahz (@netcom.com)
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 <*> http://www.bayarea.net/~aahz
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het
"Why do you like my boyfriend to tie you up and beat me.?"
-- ELIZA generates a poly moment
Gary Farber
In alt.fandom.cons Jim Trash <j...@scream.demon.co.uk> wrote:
[. . .]
: I've been accused of being pseudonyms for various people including BSFA
: Matrix chappie, Chris Terran.
: I'm not and there's photographic evidence to prove it.
I've met you both, so I can at least testify that two different people
were hired to play these silly roles. ;-)
Ulrika O'Brien
Jordin Kare wrote:
>
> In article <19970321145...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, ulr...@aol.com
> wrote:
>
> >I think it was Mary Kay
> > Kare was thinking I was snubbing her at Confederation,
> > (or possibly that same Westercon (wasn't it actually NaSFiC?)
> > where you first introduced yourself to me --
>
> behaving like a total idiot. I did that a lot around 1986--but we
> discovered what the problem was and with medication I mostly--well, I
> guess normal isn't the right word, but...
My memory is that some Myriadan told me after the fact, but during the con,
that I had looked straight at you (in that giant monster of a consuite,
I think) and didn't say "hi"/acknowledge you and that you'd been hurt and
thought that I was deliberately snubbing you. My guess then as now was that
either a) I had been distracted by my "rich inner life" (i.e., I was
woolgathering) or b)I was having a recognition gap and just didn't place the
face, but unfortunately I never had a chance to buttonhole you and appologize
at the time. (So, um, I'm sorry, okay?) If you want to blame wonky brain
chemistry on your end for the hurt feelings, okay, but frankly I'm just as happy to
take the blame for my sometime social oafishness. There's not much point
in denying that sometimes I'm an oblivious clot.
--
Putting the 'fun' back in 'dysfunctional'.
Ulrika O'Brien *** ulr...@aol.com
Jordin Kare
>I think it was Mary Kay
> Kare was thinking I was snubbing her at Confederation,
> (or possibly that same Westercon (wasn't it actually NaSFiC?)
> where you first introduced yourself to me --
Good grief. I have no memory of this. If I said/did this I was probably
behaving like a total idiot. I did that a lot around 1986--but we
discovered what the problem was and with medication I mostly--well, I
guess normal isn't the right word, but...
MK
Jordin T. Kare ka...@sirius.com
Mary Kay Kare
In article <3339C7...@uci.edu>, Ulrika O'Brien <uaob...@uci.edu> wrote:
(snip)
> at the time. (So, um, I'm sorry, okay?) If you want to blame wonky brain
> chemistry on your end for the hurt feelings, okay, but frankly I'm just
as happy to
> take the blame for my sometime social oafishness. There's not much point
> in denying that sometimes I'm an oblivious clot.
Oh, no, I insist you allow it to be all my fault so I can grovel and
snivel and generally make a further ass of myself. (And if possbile
educate more people to the fact that chemistry *can* provide better
living.)
Aren't fannish newsgroups fun?
MK
Mary Kay Kare
Compuserve's Team SF/F
drg...@aol.com
In article <3339C7...@uci.edu>, Ulrika O'Brien <uaob...@uci.edu> writes:
>...There's not much point in denying that sometimes I'm an
>oblivious clot.
Yes, but, well, so many of the rest of us never notice it.
8-([:^>}
--rich brown