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Sunday, February 12th, 2012
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8:38 pm - Writer Roast Joke 2
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I defended you. I said that both Pel Torro and you have written good sentences.
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, February 9th, 2012
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6:30 pm - Writer Roast Joke 1
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| Friday, March 12th, 2010
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3:37 pm - LoC on It Goes On the Shelf 31
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Tell Brad Foster that he is getting lazy. In Brad's “Casting Out the Book Wryms” only one book spine has text, and that text is Brad's signature. Brad is one of the fan artists that I nominated for a 2010 FAAn and a 2010 Hugo Award. I was impressed that Warren Buff and Co. invited Brad to be a guest of ReConstruction this coming August.
I continue to be impressed at the variety of old books that you find. Did you read Curt Phillips's recent column in Dave Locke's TIME AND AGAIN in which Curt describes his book huntng? Ten cents for paperbacks and $1 for hardbacks: the prices for used paperbacks and hardbacks here is a magnitude higher. I was surprised to find a thrift store recently which prices all of its hardcovers at the low low price of $1.
Book worms are not a problem here. In our previous house, built circa 1912, I occasionally saw a silverfish. Our current house is half as old and I have not seen a single silverfish. And the volume of food, i.e. paper, in this house is greater. We moved into this house in mid-September of 1999.
Are you on the mailing list of Rich Coad for his Sense of Wonder Stories? In the 13-months-late December 2009 issue Graham Charnock, too, reviews “The Croquet Player.”
Poking around free ebook sites today I saw that I can download the out-of-copyright After London or Wild England by Richard Jefferies. Your description does not lead me to put it at the top of my non-existent must-read ebook list.
Wet today, Friday. I might break my string of riding our older son's bike for 20 minutes daily. The string started last Friday. When did you last pedal a two-wheeler? I certainly notice when the pavement starts to incline. I try to maintain the same speed. After six days my stamina is not increasing. Do not look for me in the Tour de France.
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| Friday, December 25th, 2009
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9:13 am - LoC on Fortnightly Fix 5
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Hello! Steve.
Christmas Day morning, lying on the blue couch in my blue silk pajamas inside my black robe beneath a brown blanket. No snow to speak of. The four of us are off to my sister's in 90 minutes, then to a sister-in-law's in the evening,
Just read my first Fix.
One of your correspondents misses fanzines as objects. We are having our basement renovated. Everything comes out but the furnace, washing machine, and dryer. Many, many fanzine objects. Being a stamp collector suddenly seems so much more practical.
I need Chris Holmes eddress so I can send Chris info about our new local von, SFContario.
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| Monday, August 3rd, 2009
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11:36 pm - Gaiman tuckerization in auction
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Neil Gaiman is donating one tuckerization (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckerization) to be auctioned during the Worldcon Fan Funds Auction.
The name of the high bidder will appear "in an unspecified work," Neil
warns, "that might not happen for five years."
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| Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
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8:21 pm - LoC on AmaZed and CorfluZed 1
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Dear Captain Randy & Corflu Zed Crew,
Congratulations. This LoC is my first in months and the first I believe I have written in response to a convention progress report.
AmaZed and CorfluZed 1 is impressive. Randy you are a captain with an experienced and talented crew. I have met a majority of the Corflu Zed committee. I look forward to meeting the rest next March.
The hotel and its neighbourhood as described in print sounded fine. We like Art Deco. Then I viewed the con hotel web site. The Hotel Deca web site images make me think the room rates are a bargain. I just showed Mary Ellen the web site photos. After finishing this LoC my next task is to buy her membership.
We might have to come early to explore Seattle outside of the hotel before the indoor tsunami of Andy Hooper's program yanks our feet from under us in an inexorable riptide.
A robust progress report creates buzz and anticipation, e,g this LoC. Dan Steffan's Walrus-with-fez artwork is up to Dan's usual high standard of technical showmanship and fun. If this art is going to be auctioned, I will bid. Can I start?: I bid $26.00.
Also pleasing is the attention being paid to the Seattle fannish elders, in this PR and in the forthcoming fanthology.
I also look forward to meeting Curt Phillips for the second time. We drove to Abingdon last June for his barbecue. The Corflu 50 group mind has done well in selecting Curt to attend Corflu Zed.
May your membership list overflow its page in the next PR.
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| Monday, June 2nd, 2008
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8:14 pm - Expanded 2007 West Coast Trip Report
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Hugging Art Widner is like hugging a redwood. Art is old, solid, and an attraction. Friends crossed state lines, time zones, and an ocean to help Art celebrate his 90th birthday.
Art announced during the cutting of his two birthday cakes that his ambition no longer is to live to 100 years of age. "I'm going to live to 110!"
We (not the Royal We; Mary Ellen and myself) joined fans, relatives, and local friends of Art, the last weekend of October 2007 at the Breakers Inn in Gualala, California for Ditto\Artcon. The badge said Artcon.
We attended conventions on consecutive weekends, VCon 32 in Vancouver then Ditto\Artcon in northern California.
You know how you see people from a distance in the airport who look like people you know vaguely, and you wonder for a second if those people are the people that you know vaguely? I saw people like that while we waited for our flight to Vancouver.
I read Calvin ‘Biff’ Demmon’s Grunt 1 while not looking at people.
I thought of sending to Dave Langford Calvin’s “I composed my face carefully with my fingers” but did not because Demmon deliberately was careless.
Most of Grunt 1 is Demmon’s Discon 1963 convention report. Demmon leaves you thinking that a Worldcon is the best place you could be with the finest people, despite you knowing his reporting is invention or exaggeration. The fact that he was inspired to write a terrifically amusing Worldcon report makes the idea of attending a Worldcon powerful.
I want to read more Calvin Demmon. The half-page “Farley And The Chair He Was” is very fine writing.
Gotterdammerung Redux, the Best of, July 2007, collection edited by Tommy Ferguson is replete with fine writing by Mark McCann (six articles), Lesley Reece, Hugh McHenry, Joe McNally, Brendan Landers, and Tommy.
McCann’s Corflu UK piece is Gotterdammerung Redux’s equivalent to Demmon’s Discon report. Reece is the token American. All the others have in common that these Belfast lads know each other because of SF.
Actually, in the third from the last article, “Tommy Who?”, when McCann describes Tommy as the Palmer Eldritch of Belfast fans, it is a surprise.
The thread underlying the darker tone of all of these non-Reece articles is the violence and poverty and political religious bigotry in which these young men lived. None of these Belfast lads has as a nickname ‘Biff.’ I have in common with these guys only an interest in SF.
McCann writes “Tommy was off to Toronto in a few days time and wouldn’t be coming back – ever. As I quickly tried to calculate how many rounds I could order before closing time without seeming too greedy, the realization began to sink in. We would never be seeing Tommy again. This was it. Whatever had to be said, had to be said now. Ten years of friendship had to be somehow encapsulated, dissected, cogitated, and celebrated in the next few hours because this really was the last time we would have the opportunity. And then, at that moment of painful epiphany, a drunken brunette in six inch stilettos vomited violently at our table. Whatever meaningful statement I was about to make to the group was lost as we picked bits of carrot off our jeans and moved our pints out of the steaming pool of sick. Instead, Eugene smoothly filled the awkward moment by ordering double Glenfiddichs for everyone.”
Back to our trip. Of the five days we spent in Vancouver rain fell except on the last day. Behind the table during the CUFF panel sat local CUFF winners Graeme Cameron and Garth Spencer, myself (CUFF 2001 to VCon), 2007’s CUFF winner Peter Jarvis, and Fran Skene. VCon after VCon Fran raises money for CUFF with a turkey reading. This year’s turkey reading raised $150. Our audience was two people, one of whom was there only to buy from Peter an Anticipation membership. Parties were not allowed so closed door “prayer meetings” occurred. Fran in her suite hosted a Meet the CUFF winner prayer meeting on Friday evening and a SF Canada and Friends prayer meeting on Saturday evening.
Donna McMahon explained that the Sunshine Coast, like Vancouver, isn’t. Instead of writing another novel she is working part-time for her local environmental group. I bought a Seattle Worldcon pre-supporting membership from bid chair Bobbie Dufault: Bobbie watches DaVinci’s Inquest in syndication on a U.S. channel. Aurora nominee Hayden Trenholm is an assistant to a northern Senator. The Liberal Christmas party, he said, was Jean Chretien with “3,000 of my closest friends”; the Conservatives during their Christmas party compare the width of their ties.
I was surprised during the Aurora Awards ceremony to find that my heart rate had increased although my only possible role was accepting an Aurora on behalf of absent nominee Lloyd Penney. During VCon a light private plane flown by an experienced pilot flew into an apartment building in the area. Christian Sauvé was pleased to have purchased in the adjacent mall a Japanese edition of Fahrenheit 451.
I made a point of seeing “Attack of the Killer Leeches”, part of the video programming by Graeme Cameron of his beloved SF B movies. From “The Astounding Monster Chiller Sci-Fi Thriller VCon 32 Film Program” program: Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)It has a steamy love triangle including Bruno deSota (directed ‘The Brain Eaters’) and Yvette Vickers (evil vixen in ‘Attack of the 50 Foot Woman’), plus monster suits sewn by the cameraman’s grandma. And much bubbling.”
Clint Budd, resplendent in velvet and a vest, and the new Prix Aurora Awards administrator, explained that buying the prix-aurora-awards internet address “was cheaper than being a costumer.” During the Aurora Awards annual general meeting the chair, suit-wearing Michael Walsh, a former shop steward, addressed us as brothers and sisters. Michael had not met Peter; Michael addressed Peter who was wearing a hand printed “Peter\CUFF” name badge, reasonably under the circumstance, as Peter Cuff. Steve Forty still is tanned.
In Vancouver we saw beluga whales in a tank in the Vancouver Aquarium the first day of VCon.
The day following VCon we bought chocolate on Granville Island, walked to Gastown and then, oblivious, through the notorious Downtown East Side, Canada’s poorest postal code, on our way to Chinatown where we ate dim sum. We rode the evening Amtrak train to Seattle.
In Seattle on Tuesday, a remarkably warm and dry day, we ate clam chowder in Pike's Place Market and toured the Science Fiction Museum.
In Portland on Wednesday we descended into the hell of one-way streets in our big rental car and escaped with a Bunch of Books from Powell's.
In Tillamook, Oregon, on the coast, in the Tillamook Cheese Factory we bought four kinds of fudge for the Artcon con suite. Mary Ellen stayed in the car while I explored the Tillamook Air Museum; the massive Second World War U.S. Navy blimp hanger is a showcase for Second World War military and civilian, and other vintage, aircraft
Don't order the Hungarian goulash in The Blue Heron in Coos Bay. Don't run low on gasoline after dark along the coast in Oregon. You can't pump your own gas in Oregon and the gas station owner/operators go home in the evening.
Hold out your hands as if you are grasping an invisible steering wheel. Turn the invisible wheel from left to right and right to left. Do so until you become fatigued. You should do this exercise in preparation for paralleling the Pacific Ocean from Tillamook, Oregon to San Francisco, California on Highways 101 and 1. Highway 101 is impressive but only a warmup for Highway 1.
You will not see any drivers using a cell phone. Okay, cell phone service doesn't exist, but even if it did, driving one-handed is suicidal. Speed limits on curves are as low as 15 mph. A barrier between vehicles and the beautiful abyss is rare. But late October is a good time of year to travel this route: traffic is minimal. The weather was good once we left Portland.
We met fans we knew and fans we only knew as names Friday through Sunday in Gualala. Jack Bell let people handle his iPhone. Walking on Bowling Ball Beach on Sunday afternoon, Luke McGuff said of every thousand photos that he takes, five are keepers. I told Luke "Don't invite me to your home to see your trip photos."
We slept in Mendocino and visited Canada. Mendocino was the Inn's smallest and cheapest room. During the Dead Dog party during a lull in conversation I complained to Ditto\Artcon organizer\hero Alan Rosenthal that in our room's fireplace, instead of a fire log, we only had four sticks. Sympathy from the assembled Dead Doggers sadly was lacking.
Canada, appropriately, was a bigger room in the Inn, occupied by Ian Sorenson and Yvonne Rowse. Luke missed a keeper photo while we and Ian and Yvonne explored the beach below the Inn. I, noting the resemblance of a long piece of kelp to a whip, swung the length of seaweed to wrap it around Ian's legs. Unaccustomed as I am to flinging kelp, the end instead wrapped around Ian's neck and shoulder.
Second biggest disappointment of the weekend: Yvonne's decision not to fly in airplanes any more because of global warming, thus making unlikely her return to N. America. Of course, if Yvonne _really_ was serious, she would not have flown back whence she came.
For details about food and drink, see Hope Leibowitz's comprehensive coverage elsewhere. I will share the information that I ate rabbit during the Saturday evening dinner expedition to St. Orres, a restaurant that looks like a Russian church. And in San Francisco I ate a chicken pot pie that was as big as a pie. The earthquake was free.
We were in a Mel's Diner on Mission Street that Peter Weston would be thrilled to visit when we felt a vibration under our feet as if a subway train was running below us. But San Francisco's BART was a block north below Market Street.
You likely did not hear about this disturbance of the earth's crust if you live outside of California but 5.2 on the Richter scale was enough for next day's San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner newspapers to use the adjective 'Scary' and the verb 'jolts' in their above-the-fold headlines. No deaths, injuries, or property damage, as far as I could learn.
Our first earthquake. Our first travel in a car equipped with GPS. Mostly the GPS worked. We stayed two nights in San Francisco in the Corflu Titanium hotel, the Holiday Inn Civic Centre. The GPS led us to a Civic Centre hotel that was in the neighbourhood but was last in its prime during the Second World War.
Traveler's tip: if you stay in the Holiday Inn Civic Centre, if you want to avoid the colourful and amusing street people on Market Street, walk on Mission Street. "Can you tell me the time?" Deliberate ignorance. ""Fuck you." Mission Street was hassle-free.
Through Mary Ellen's opera glasses from the sand of Bowling Ball Beach I looked at an eagle in the air. When we left the Dead Dog party in the dark of Sunday evening the statue of an elk at the end of the vacation home's driveway moved and walked across the lane.
Memorable was our visit to Art's house, built on a slope in the forest above the highway by Art and hippies in 1975. The attic is below the main floor which is surrounded by a deck. The trees have grown and hide from sight the ocean. Inside is paper Stuff, all of it valuable to Art, separated by paths of open floor wide enough for two people to carefully pass each other.
I am glad that Mary Ellen was with me. I can use the Widner Defence in future when reacting to comments to how many books and other paper Stuff are brought into our house: "Compared to Art's house..."
I gave Robert Lichtman a thick Munich Roundup because of the two pages of photos of fans and pros taken during NyCon 3. All of the text of this German fanzine, not surprisingly, is German. Carol Carr said she could understand German because of its closeness to Yiddish.
Hal O’Brien talked about the significance of John F. Kennedy having Addison’s Disease and speculation that it was a factor in his being assassinated. After his death, Hal said, provision was made for the removal of a president from office because of physical or mental incapacity.
We are grateful to Michael Ward and Karen Schaffer for relieving me of my promise to Hope to drive her on Monday morning to San Francisco International airport.
Terry Floyd was one of the first fans we met on our arrival in Gualala. Terry told me that the mailing tube addressed to me c/o Art was in the con suite. The mailing tube contained a blown-up version of “King” Arthur’s coat of arms.
Last August on the Trufen mailing list Art was dubbed “King” Arthur. Art, in support of Robert Lichtman in an argument of great import at the time, announced “I have better /f/u/g/g/h/e/a/d/s/ fish to fry.”
Randy Byers and I commissioned Dan Steffan to create a coat of arms to give to Art during Ditto\Artcon. Dan is a highly imaginative and skilled fan artist. Dan told us that he has not created a coat of arms and asked for ideas. Randy and I conferred and gave Dan the result of our brainstorming. I gave Dan a sketch as a visual aid. Happily, the result resembled our suggestions not at all.
In the Saturday mail during Artcon Art received the original, coloured by Dan. During the cake cutting I gave Art the big black and white version printed by Pat Virzi. Art was very pleased with the original.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
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8:01 pm - LoC on YHOS 64
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Dear Art,
I enjoyed reading my copy of YHOS 64 that you gave to me during Corflu Silver, reliving Ditto\Artcon. The colour cover looks swell.
Remain calm, Art, but you have only a minority of the Gus Arriola books offered for sale by booksellers advertising on www.abebooks.com. In addition to the two titles you own, also offered are Bug; Gordo; Gordo, the Lover; Gordo's Cat; Ponce De Leon; Tehuana Mama; and Those Playworms Porfirio and Panchito. Bug I suspect would be your first choice of purchase.
The card from Russo and Sorenson? Sounds like a comedy team. Russo would be the stage name for Rowse, Yvonne Rowse. She's the straight man of the team.
Below is what I kept telling myself was my draft of my VCon and Ditto\Artcon trip report. Perhaps sending it to you will inspire me to add to it.
Hugging Art Widner is like hugging a redwood. Art is old, solid, and an attraction. Friends crossed state lines, time zones, and an ocean to help Art celebrate his 90th birthday.
Art announced during the cutting of his birthday cakes that his ambition no longer is to live to 100 years of age. "I'm going to live to 110!"
We (not the Royal We; Mary Ellen and myself) joined fans, relatives, and local friends of Art, the last weekend of October at the Breakers Inn in Gualala, California for Ditto\Artcon. The badge said Artcon.
We attended conventions on consecutive weekends, VCon in Vancouver then Ditto\Artcon in northern California.
In Vancouver we saw beluga whales in a tank in the Vancouver Aquarium and attended the Aurora Awards during VCon. In Seattle we ate clam chowder in the Pike's Place Market and toured the Science Fiction Museum. In Portland we descended into the hell of one-way streets in our big rental car and escaped with a Bunch of Books from Powell's.
In Tillamook, Oregon in the Tillamook Cheese Factory we bought four kinds of fudge for the con suite. Mary Ellen stayed in the car while I explored the Tillamook Air Museum; the massive Second World War U.S. Navy blimp hanger is a showcase for Second World War military and civilian, and other vintage, aircraft
Don't order the Hungarian goulash in The Blue Heron in Coos Bay. Don't run low on gasoline after dark along the coast in Oregon. You can't pump your own gas in Oregon and the gas station owner/operators go home in the evening.
Hold out your hands as if you are grasping an invisible steering wheel. Turn the invisible wheel from left to right and right to left. Do so until you become fatigued. You should do this exercise in preparation for paralleling the Pacific Ocean from Tillamook, Oregon to San Francisco, California on Highways 101 and 1. Highway 101 is impressive but only a warmup for Highway 1.
You will not see any drivers using a cell phone. Okay, cell phone service doesn't exist, but even if it did, driving one-handed is suicidal. Speed limits on curves are as low as 15 mph. A barrier between vehicles and the beautiful abyss is rare. But late October is a good time of year to travel this route: traffic is minimal. The weather was good once we left Portland.
We met fans we knew and fans we only knew as names Friday through Sunday in Gualala. Jack Bell let people handle his iPhone. Walking on Bowling Ball Beach on Sunday afternoon, Luke McGuff said of every 1,000 photos that he takes, five are keepers. I told Luke "Don't invite me to your home to see your trip photos."
We slept in Mendocino and visited Canada. Mendocino was the Inn's smallest and cheapest room. During the Dead Dog party during a lull in conversation I complained to Ditto\Artcon organizer\hero Alan Rosenthal that in our room's fireplace instead of a fire log we only had four sticks. Sympathy from the assembled Dead Doggers sadly was lacking.
Canada, appropriately, was a bigger room in the Inn, occupied by Ian Sorenson and Yvonne Rowse. Luke missed a keeper photo while we and Ian and Yvonne explored the beach below the Inn. I, noting the resemblance of a long piece of kelp to a whip, swung the length of seaweed to wrap it around Ian's legs. Unaccustomed as I am to flinging kelp, the end instead wrapped around Ian's neck and shoulder.
Second biggest disappointment of the weekend: Yvonne's decision not to fly in airplanes any more because of global warming, thus making unlikely her return to N. America. Of course, if Yvonne _really_ was serious, she would not have flown back whence she came.
For details about food and drink, see Hope Leibowitz's comprehensive coverage elsewhere. I will share the information that I ate rabbit during the Saturday evening dinner expedition to St. Orres, a restaurant that looks like a Russian church. And in San Francisco I ate a chicken pot pie that was as big as a pie. The earthquake was free.
We were in a Mel's Diner on Mission Street that Peter Weston would be thrilled to visit when we felt a vibration under our feet as if a subway train was running below us. But San Francisco's BART was a block north below Market Street.
You likely did not hear about this disturbance of the earth's crust if you live outside of California but 5.2 on the Richter scale was enough for next day's San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner newspapers to use the adjective 'Scary' and the verb 'jolts' in their above-the-fold headlines. No deaths, injuries, or property damage, as far as I could learn.
Our first earthquake. Our first travel in a car equipped with GPS. Mostly the GPS worked. We stayed two nights in San Francisco in the Corflu Titanium hotel, the Holiday Inn Civic Centre. The GPS led us to a Civic Centre hotel that was in the neighbourhood but was last in its prime during the Second World War.
Traveler's tip: if you stay in the Holiday Inn Civic Centre, if you want to avoid the colourful and amusing street people on Market Street, walk on Mission Street. "Can you tell me the time?" Deliberate ignorance. ""Fuck you." Mission Street was hassle-free.
Through Mary Ellen's opera glasses from the sand of Bowling Ball Beach I looked at an eagle in the air. When we left the Dead Dog party in the dark of Sunday evening the statue of an elk at the end of the vacation home's driveway moved and walked across the lane.
Memorable was our visit to Art's house, built on a slope in the forest above the highway by Art and hippies in 1975. The attic is below the main floor which is surrounded by a deck. The trees have grown and hide from sight the ocean. Inside is paper Stuff, all of it valuable to Art, separated by paths of open floor wide enough for two people to carefully pass each other.
I am glad that Mary Ellen was with me. I can use the Widner Defence in future when reacting to comments to how many books and other paper Stuff are brought into our house: "Compared to Art's house..."
I gave Robert Lichtman a thick Munich Roundup because of the two pages of photos of fans and pros taken during NyCon 3. All of the text of this German fanzine, not surprisingly, is German. Carol Carr said she could understand German because of its closeness to Yiddish.
Hal O’Brien talked about the significance of John F. Kennedy having Addison’s Disease and speculation that it was a factor in his being assassinated. After his death, Hal said, provision was made for the removal of a president from office because of physical or mental incapacity.
We are grateful to Michael Ward and Karen Schaeffer for relieving me of my promise to Hope to drive her on Monday morning to San Francisco International airport.
Terry Floyd was one of the first fans we might on our arrival. Terry told me that the mailing tube addressed to me c/o Art was in the con suite. The mailing tube contained a blown-up version of “King” Arthur’s coat of arms.
Last August on the Trufen mailing list Art was dubbed “King” Arthur. Art in support of Robert in an argument of great import at the time announced “I have better /f/u/g/g/h/e/a/d/s/ fish to fry.”
Randy Byers and I commissioned Dan Steffan to create a coat of arms to give to Art during Ditto. Dan is a highly imaginative and skilled fan artist. Dan told us that he has not created a coat of arms and asked for ideas. Randy and I conferred and gave Dan the result of our brainstorming. I gave Dan this sketch as a visual aid. You can see the clear resemblance. [Not: MM]
In the Saturday mail Art received the original, coloured by Dan. During the cake cutting I gave Art the big black and white version printed by Pat Virzi. Art was very pleased with the original. He used (to be continued?)
Artcon attendees not mentioned above were Tom Becker, John Berry, Jeanne Bowman, David Bratman, Doug Faunt, Eileen Gunn, Marci Malinowycz, Julie McGuff, and Ulrika O’Brien, Spike Parsons, Audrey Trend and Gregg Trend.
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| Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
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8:53 pm - LoC on Nine Lines Each 51-53
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Dear Ken, JoHn, Ken, and Andy,
“Brazilian beekeepers are now running for their lives, or so says Murray Moore.” It's great to be quoted, even erroneously: egoboo! Ken.
In the next line small green lizards are mentioned. I saw small green lizards outside our motel room located a short walk from the South Gate of Zion National Park.
Ken, you might be surprised, even amazed, to learn that in the late morning of the Wednesday following Corflu Silver I stood –carefully- on the end of the top of Angel's Landing http://www.zionnational-park.com/images/album2/index10.htm.
You might recall the small level area illustrated by the first photo in the fifth row from the top. I arrived and asked an older man, i.e. a guy likely my one age, “Is this it?” That I was not at the top was not obvious. If he had not been there to direct my gaze to the final ascent, I might have ended my climb believing I had been to the top. And as I climbed _very carefully_ several times I wondered to myself, ‘Self, why am I doing this? There are many books that I want to read, places I want to see before I die.’
I want to return some fall to Zion to do the full Narrows Walkthrough.
But the most memorable day of our five-day road trip was Day 2.
Day 1 we stopped at Hoover Dam and arrived at the G. Canyon South Rim at sunset. I don't know if any Americans were there, but I heard German and Italian and French and saw individuals who I guessed to be Japanese. The mother of a family group on the rim asked her children to thank Jesus for their being able to be there and see the sight. I didn't have the wit to say to her ‘Excuse me, we're from Canada: how old is the Grand Canyon?’ Best T-shirt I saw announced ‘I'm not Stressed / I'm Blessed.’
Day 2, east along the south rim and out through the East Gate; descending into the Navajo Nation and the Painted Desert; north on red 89 and then west on black 89. After crossing the Colorado and leaving the Navajo Nation I stood on the older of the bridges, looked down and down to the green water and saw to the south, disappearing around the curve of the river, two rubber rafts carrying what I guessed to be vacationers on one of the days-long float to and through the G. Canyon. Above circled the California condors that have been re-introduced. The National Park Service employee from whom I bought a copy of the fascinating Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West (I'm at page 392) said the scavengers have to be trapped on a schedule and tested for arsenic. On and up through Kaibab National Forest; apple pie and ice cream in Freedonia (which seemed too small to have a Marx Brothers Festival); and finally through the East Gate of Zion National Park and through the two tunnels and to our motel.
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| Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
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8:15 pm - LoC on Physicality of Words on Paper 2
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Dear Anna,
As promised, here is my LoC. I hope to meet you and Andreas and Rebecca again during next year's Ad Astra, and also during the Montreal Worldcon. I enjoyed spending time with existing friends but meeting new friends is important too. On Saturday I also had two enjoyable conversations with an ex-member of The Fledglings writers group who, wearing a suit and tie, was complimented, mistakenly, for dressing as Dr. Who. And I struck up a conversation during the Montreal in '09 party with a Jack Vance fan because he was wearing a Vance Integral Edition jacket; he couldn't afford the 40-volume corrected-text hardcover set of Vance's fiction.
I carry my Corflu bag not because I expect anyone to recognize it but because it is an excellent bag for carrying fanzines and books to read while on the subway or elsewhere. So there I sat at the nexus of Ad Astra last Saturday, perusing the program book, when a hand holding what I quickly decided was a fanzine entered my field of vision. And so we met, because you saw my bag and you know the meaning of Corflu.
I am not good recently about LoCing but I am writing you soon, only three days after meeting you!, because I want to encourage you to continue publishing a fanzine.
I lived in Kingston, I am guessing, September 1979 through February 1980 while my future wife was attending Queen's; we married in June 1980, also in Kingston. I was a Filter Queen vacuum cleaner salesman for a week in Kingston. I did not sell a single vacuum cleaner. I was between jobs. I had left a daily newspaper in Thunder Bay after nine months and I left Kingston in mid-winter for another newspaper job, in a small town 90 minutes north of Toronto.
In Thunder Bay I learned the necessity of a block heater for my car's engine if I wanted my car to start in the winter. Kingston, my wife says, is a cold city because of the old buildings made of limestone. But yes, winter in Kingston is relatively snow-free compared to Ottawa or Montreal. We have been living in Mississauga, immediately west of Toronto, since 1998, and until this winter I regularly at work scoffed at co-workers who complained about the winter weather; I told them that Toronto is in the banana belt of Ontario.
I do not know why someone in France would tell a Swede that the Canadian winter would be colder than you are used to. In Canada the phrase North of 60 is shorthand for the real Canadian north. I see in our atlas that Stockholm is just south of the 60th parallel, while both Toronto and Kingston are south of the 45th parallel. However, as I pointed out to Andreas, Canada has much more geography than Sweden.
The spreading of salt is extreme, I agree, and worst on commercial property because the owners of the malls and plazas and big box stores are terrified that a shopper who falls will sue for damages.
I can become stuck too in the middle of a sentence, Anna, and English is my native tongue!
Pub your ish!
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| Saturday, February 9th, 2008
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5:44 pm - LoC on *brg* 51
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Dear Bruce,
In commenting about Peter Carey's _The Fat Man in History_ you say that you bought your copy in 1974 and read it in 2006: "That's why," you explain, "Elaine and I have built a library; we never know when we might feel like reading a book bought thirty-three years ago." Well put, Bruce. Or, a wonderful rationalization of obsessive behavior.
A behaviour, I hasten to add, which I too have. As evidence I present this list of books purchased on the two previous successive evenings at the BMV (books music video) store in Toronto's Annex neighbourhood.
For younger son Dennis, a request, _Catch-22_ (tpb). For Mary Ellen, for Valentine's Day, _Figures of Speech_ (hc) by Mervyn Peake (drawings representing a saying or proverb).
For me, _Kickback_, (hc) written and illustrated by David 'V for Vendetta" Lloyd; _Foul Play!: The Art and Artists of the Notorious 1950s E.C. Comics!_ (tpb) by Grant Geissman; _Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Herriman_ (tpb) by Patrick McDonnell, Karen O'Connell, Georgia Riley de Havenon; _In Joy Still Felt: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1954-1978_ (tpb); _Book of Longing_ (hc) by Leonard Cohen; _Keats_ (pb) selected and with an introduction by Philip Levine; _Whitman_ (pb) selected and with an introduction by Galway Kinnell; _Shakespeare_ (pb) selected and with an introduction by Ted Hughes; _Wordsworth_ (pb) selected and with an introduction by Seamus Heaney.
I can not claim I bought the above books because I have nothing to read. Earlier this week I received an envelope from Rob Jackson heavy with fanzines, the majority of them very-rusty-staple copies of SFC 35-37, 47, 48-50, 51, 58, 59, 60-61, 62-66.
In the list of choices from BMV, the graphic novel, the EC retrospective, and the Herriman study are established interests of mine. I have been reading reviews of diaries lately and the Asimov was cheap and looked interesting. As well it contains a photo of Asimov accepting his Best Novel Hugo at Torcon 2.
You must have seen Asimov during Torcon 2, Bruce. One of my Torcon 2 memories that quickly comes to mind is my encounter between floors with another young fan. I was descending, he ascending, on the escalators. "Is Asimov here?" he asked excitedly. More slowly I recall being in the audience during a panel during which Asimov drew hisses and boos for suggesting, because of the overpopulation that was going to be the end of civilization, women might have to be limited in the number of children they could bear.
But why the poetry? Poetry is one of the arts to which I am blind. Music is a bigger blind spot. I read your CD reviews Bruce and I am reminded that I am missing out on a major art form. Ballet and opera are other forms of culture for which I do not have an emotional bond. Story telling (visual: movies; comics and graphic novels; print, mostly fiction but also non-; live theatre; television)is the candle around which I helplessly flutter. I realize that music is story telling but I lack the pleasant noise appreciation gene.
Back to the purchase of the best of great poets and the Cohen. I bought these books on the basis that I would make an effort to read them and, hopefully, find the key to crack open the door into appreciation and enjoyment. I will take them with us tomorrow in the car.
Mary Ellen and I are driving to my parents' house. My sister will join us there. We are slowly sorting the contents and emptying the house. My father died in September 2003. My mother died in late November last year. So starting in December, most weekends, one of the two days, Mary Ellen and I spend driving three hours round trip and making progress in the house. In addition most weeks Mary Ellen and my sister go to my parents' house on a week day while I go to work. Tomorrow I will try reading aloud poetry to Mary Ellen when she is driving.
BMV also sells used vinyl. As another attempt to widen my experience I recently bought a Glenn Gould recording. Gould plays Bach; Concerto in F Major ("Italian"); Partita No. 1 in B-Flat Major; Partita No. 2 in C Minor. Columbia Masterworks LP ML 5472. I have listened to Side 1.
My interest only in printed objects has one benefit: our house is filling less quickly than if I also bought DVDs and CDs. Movies I go out to see, on a big screen in a big dark room.
Today is Saturday. I scraped the snow from the driveway earlier today. Real winter (snow: not just cold) arrived in a big way in the past week. In a few hours I am off to the party chez Rob Sawyer and Carolyn Clink, a party which coincides with Hugo and Aurora nomination time.
Some smoffing might occur: who to encourage to run to be the CUFF representative this year at the 2008 Canvention, being hosted by Keycon in May during the Victoria Day weekend in Winnipeg.
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| Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008
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9:28 pm - LoC (not) on TKK 126
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Dear Henry & Letha,
Retroactive Merry Christmas!
The October-dated TKK has reached the top of my fanzines-to-be-read pile. This is a LoC (not) because I haven't turned the Shirm cover, yet.
I attended Ditto aka Artcon in late October. Mary Ellen and I flew to Vancouver for VCon the previous weekend; rode Amtrak to Seattle; drove a rental car from Seattle via Portland to Gualala and on to San Francisco. We experienced an earthquake Oct. 30 and flew home Oct. 31.
Like you, Henry, I lost a parent in 2007. My mother died Nov. 23; suddenly, as the obituary statement goes, but not unexpectedly.
We almost didn't take our Western trip because my mother was in acute care with pneumonia in mid-October. But she was out and she wanted us to go. Ironically she died as my sister was helping her into my sister's car to take her to a long-scheduled appointment with her family doctor.
My mother was very clear that if her heart stopped she did not want an attempt be made to resuscitate her. My sister and I are happy that she didn't linger in a hospital bed.
My mother had a remarkable life in that her life was without tragedy and very unremarkable. She was born and went to school a short walk from the north border of Norwich and lived most of her 95-plus years within the few square miles of the village. One husband and one very long marriage; one house, married and then a widow. She was able to live at home, first with Dad, then by herself. She retained her memory and mind; she was not bed-ridden; she did not have cancer or other terrible disease. She was attached to an oxygen tube for the last several years but she had the freedom of her house and she, rarely, went out of the house with a portable
tank in a cart. But when you are in your 90's you are happy to stay at home.
Another reason for my tardiness in reading fanzines is that my sister and I are co-executors of my mother's will. Either a Saturday or a Sunday of each weekend is being spent at our parents' house, sorting and disposing.
But I will get a break from that duty if I win DUFF and fly to Australia to attend the Australian NatCon being held in Perth during Easter weekend. The voting deadline is Jan. 31 so I should know a day or two later.
Happy New Year!
/\/\
Murray
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| Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
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9:20 pm - LoC on Banana Wings 32
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There I was, Sunday, Dec. 16, on the blue couch wearing an extra layer of clothes and under two blankets and one cat. We woke Saturday to discover our furnace was not working. We were told to expect a repairman Sunday evening. Parts of our house were sort-of-warm thanks to borrowed electric heaters.
Sunday Dec. 16 also was the day of our first true snowfall of the winter. The repairman did not show up until Monday because of the excess of snow.
So I was catching up on recently received fanzines, going around the world: Bento 19 (USA); Interstellar Ramjet Scoop 239 (Australia); Banana Wings, with its striking Steve Stiles cover.
Turning the first page of BW I notice that page 3's text runs off the right margin. I turn page 3. Page 4 is a mirror of the scene outside our living room window: pure, featureless, white. The Alan Hunter illo on the upper left corner of facing page 5 is of a man standing in an open door with a white background. Can the white page 4 be an extension of the illo? Or is page 4 a zen garden, a paper equivalent of raked gravel, a spot of silence and calm to which a BW reader can retire, to think deeply about what he is reading?
Unsettled by this novelty I begin reading with the LoCs because that section seems normal. I am reading The Eminent and Venerable's LoC and I turn the page and facing page 29 is 99.9 per cent white with on the right margin a half a letter and a letter the only marks. A deliberate variation on page 4, I have no doubt. I can't explain it but I know art when I see it. How long before the Tate Modern is at your door?
Turning the page again I am pleased to see Murray for DUFF in bold. Was my LoC on the previous, 99.9 per cent blank, page? I tilt the page to catch the ghost of an image. I try to imagine a Claire & Mark editorial meeting. 'Page 29 with Murray's letter is 99.9 blank' 'That's OK: he knows what he said.'
The text on the Murray for DUFF page runs into the fold. The reader is left to fill in the missing letters. To determine if the guess is correct, said reader can flip to the left margin of page 3 and see the missing letters. A brain exercise for BW's aging readership?
What do I think? First a Prolapse, now a misprinted BW. Has The Eminent and Venerable convinced the proprietors of Fishlifter Press to use his printer, to get a lower cost per copy? He is a pensioner, after all. Possible.
More likely I think is that you two are reacting to the competition. That Man From Birmingham wins the Best Fanzine Nova. (That this issue of BW I expect was printed before Novacon I choose to ignore.) Consternation in Croydon. What to do? 'We'll jazz up our layout' one of you exclaims. 'Stolid!? Boring?! We'll show them' cries the other. 'I've always wanted to combine Aubrey Beardsley with Peter Max.'
BW 33: I can't begin to imagine it.
/\/\
Murray
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| Sunday, September 30th, 2007
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5:13 pm - LoC on Banana Wings 31
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Dear Claire & Mark,
You (Mark, in the lettercol) wonder why Lloyd and I post our LoCs in our Live Journals.
I created my LJ April 3, 2005, as I remember, to be an off-site backup for writing that I would publish in a fanzine.
Lloyd launched his LoCs-only LJ http://lloydpenney.livejournal.com/ July 1, 2006. Inspired by Lloyd, on July 29 I posted in one post nine recent LoCs I had written.
Why? Why not? It costs me nothing but a bit of time. If I want to check something I think that I said, I easily can. And no, I never have reviewed what I have said.
Posting my LoCs in my LJ means publication in full in the event of faneds who do not publish every one of my carefully chosen words.
And no, I don't _do_ anything else with my LJ. Probably this fact explains why when I post to my LJ I am informed that I only have one Friend.
Did I mention that I am a 2008 DUFF candidate to travel to the Swancon being held in Perth at Easter? Well, I am.
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| Sunday, September 16th, 2007
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10:03 am - LoC on Prolapse 8
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Dear Peter,
I continue to be croggled at the thickness, and the quality and the variety of the content, of Prolapse. You have unleashed a gusher in a field that appeared to be tapped out.
Lloyd Penney might have beaten me to you with an explanation of the Prisoners of Gravity T-shirt that John Brunner is wearing in the photo taken during the 1992 Eurocon.
Prisoners of Gravity was a production of the Province of Ontario's educational television channel, TVOntario. Of course a web site exists, from which I learn that approximately 137 episodes were broadcast through five seasons ending in 1994.
Prisoners of Gravity is legendary because, like live theatre, you had to be there. PoG has not been issued as a DVD because the people interviewed only granted the right for their segment to be broadcast. Brunner I assume has a PoG T-shirt because he was interviewed by Mark Askwith. PoG was excellent because Askwith prepared by reading as much as he could of a author's/artist's work. Obviously Askwith would not have read all of Brunner's fiction before interviewing Brunner.
I have learned at http://www.teddog.com/pog/ that I can watch seasons 2 through 5 by going to the Merril Collection. In which episode or episodes Brunner appears is unknown to me. YouTube has a sampling of 15 episodes, but none with Brunner. Here is the description of one of the YouTube samples: "October 8th, 1992. This part includes clips with Douglas Adams, Julius Schwartz and Forrest J. Ackerman."
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9:11 am - P.S. to LoC on *brg* 49
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Toronto theatre audiences are too generous in their standing ovations. I don't stand just because other people stand. But yesterday I was one of the first to stand at the conclusion of a Soulpepper performance of Three Sisters. I stood and clapped my hands despite the nose ring.
The opening was simple and striking. The lights came up and the entire cast was sitting on chairs in a line at the back of the stage. Several characters spoke and then the actors stood and walked elsewhere on the stage and continued speaking or left the stage.
The actress playing Olga --d'bi.young.anitafrika-- spoke first or maybe second. Olga had a long speech. I was sitting in the third row and I was feeling sorry for d'bi.young.anitafrika. She was speaking and her hands were one in the other unmoving in her lap and her nose was running. I could see the moisture under her nose. Almost as bad as not remembering her lines.
But what I was seeing was a silver nose ring, the ring that you see in the nose of bull, but without the space to tie the end of a rope. In the nose of Olga, sister of Irina and Masha and of Andrei in a 1901 play.
I am liberal or at least I like to think I am, so I don't object to colour blind character casting even though I have to work harder as a member of an audience. Also I had to filter her Caribbean accent. I allow that if I shared her accent I would think that all of the other actors were good; too bad about their clashing accents.
d'bi.young.anitafrika is an excellent actress. But wearing the nose ring was bad manners. A nose ring, unlike a pacemaker, can be removed temporarily, surely. Or, as Olga is unmarried, she could have been given a moustache.
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| Sunday, September 9th, 2007
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10:42 pm - LoC on *brg* 49
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Dear Bruce,
I wish I had LoCed *brg* 49, to increase the number of Canadians in the lettercol from three to four. I wondered for a second about Murray MacLachlan but he does not seem to be the Canadian singer/songwriter, Murray McLauchlan. Good first name, though; not common; dignified, yes, dignified but with hints of wisdom and good humour. You can trust a Murray, I always say.
I read Tony Thomas's The Perils of Pericles sitting at a picnic table within sight of the Festival Theatre in Stratford, Ontario. Tony includes a reference to a Stratford, Ont. Shakespeare production.
The weather was perfect. I had stopped on the way at Wilfrid Laurier University, in Waterloo, to deliver to our younger son Dennis odds and ends. We had driven Dennis to Waterloo, and his first year in university, on Labour Day.
I was not in Stratford to see Shakespeare. Yesterday I saw a double bill of Albee's A Delicate Balance and Wilde's An Ideal Husband. And what happened during A Delicate Balance will interest Tony because Tony is a some time actor.
The Stratford Festival mounts productions in four locations in central Stratford. A Delicate Balance was being performed in the Tom Patterson Theatre. The Tom Patterson Theatre is my favourite of the four theatres. It is the only theatre not owned by the Festival. Outside the Festival season the building is used by residents to play tennis and volleyball.
The Festival Theatre is famous for its thrust stage. The stage in the Tom Patterson Theatre is 90 per cent thrust and 10 per cent proscenium-arch. The audience sits in a horseshoe around three sides of the stage on ordinary stairs on stepped levels that you see in gymnasiums. The benefit is that the actors are close to the audience.
A Delicate Balance, Edward Albee, 1967 Pulitzer Prize winning drama. Heavyweight cast including Martha Henry as Agnes and Fiona Reid as Claire. David Fox is Tobias. Fox is the replacement for Stratford's Pavarotti, William Hutt. Hutt retired two years ago but came out of retirement to play Tobias. I had a ticket to see Hutt perform in The Tempest, his official last role, but because I went to the Milwaukee Ditto two years ago I switched my Tempest ticket for an Into the Woods ticket.
Hutt was announced last fall as a cast member of A Delicate Balance. Early this year Hutt withdrew from the cast. News of his illness followed (leukemia, I think it was). Hutt died last spring. Fox took the Tobias role. Fox is only in his third year in the Stratford company but he is an award-winning veteran of the thriving Toronto theatre scene, beginning in the early 1970s.
Before the first of the two intermissions Fox is in trouble. He hesitates so long that a female voice from the rafters gives Fox his line. And within 30 to 60 seconds Fox can't remember his line. He asks, "Line, please." For the rest of the performance he was fine.
During the intermission a veteran usher told me she had never witnessed an actor balk. The woman on my right said she was worried that Fox was having a stroke. His hands were shaking when he was pouring a drink in character. Fox's face is gaunt. His cheek bones are prominent, as are the tendons in his neck. I am guessing he is in his late 60s-early 70s; his appearance of course could be natural aging. I wish him well.
In baseball terms what Fox did was balk. In baseball a pitcher balks when he interrupts his throw to home plate and instead throws to his teammate on first base in an attempt to pick off a runner not standing on first base. When a pitcher balks the runner walks, not runs, to second base.
The closest to a balk that I have seen during the performance of a play occurred two years ago during the performance of a George F. Walker play. Well-known actor and playwright Michael Healey was substituting for an actor unable to perform. Before the start of the performance we in the audience were told that Healey had performed the role but 10 years previous and that he might have a problem remembering his lines. Therefore Healey was going to hold a copy of the script. A refund would be given to anyone who was upset.
Healey held the pages through the performance but I never saw him look at the script. If Healey looked, or if he turned the pages, he did so when the audience was looking at the other actors.
The other disruption which I have witnessed was mechanical, not human, error. Early this year, after the intermission in the Soulpepper Theatre production of Gogol's The Government Inspector, the curtain on one side of the stage caught, such that audience members on that side could not see all of the stage.
Actor Oliver Dennis broke his blocking to move to the trouble spot and, as casually as possible, freed the curtain. But the rising curtain caught and pushed off his hairpiece. The result was a laugh from the audience and a split second acknowledgment of an unscripted smile from Dennis.
Are you really Australian, Bruce? I have never seen a photo of you with a beard.
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| Monday, September 3rd, 2007
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8:44 pm - LoC on Prolapse 7
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Dear Peter,
Not really a LoC on Prolapse 7: the Email Subject is a lie.
Three notable events today, Labour Day 2007. Mary Ellen and I delivered our younger son Dennis to Wilfrid Laurier University for his first year; we went on to attend the annual Hartley (my mother's side of the family) Labour Day picnic; and I finished reading Prolapse 7.
Yes, I know I am behind. I have Prolapse 8 in hand. I was plunged into despair, briefly, a few days ago when I received yet another large envelope with a Royal Mail sticker. Peter's in hyperdrive, I thought. But the fanzine in that envelope was not Prolapse 9 but Inca 2.
I can't concentrate on a proper LoC. I am worried that we left Dennis in the clutches of a cult. Everyone there was chanting, and singing praises of the university, and showing an extraordinary interest in our son. The last part is OK and understandable, but the chanting and singing...
The range of the content in Prolapse 7 led me to this observation: while you (British fandom) have at times worried about whether your numbers were large enough to survive and prosper, you have had the benefit of a large population in a small area, e.g. much larger population than Canada's population in an area the size of southern Ontario.
Your South and the North might seem to be distant from each other, the more so the further back in time, but at least all of the U.K. is in the same time zone.
If you could afford train fare you could attend all of the cons and visit fans. The U.K. fan population has always been small enough that an active fan would know a large percentage of the other active fans, in degrees from very well all the way to vague awareness, but still awareness.
The result is the rich fan history which you are having so much fun sharing and which I and many others are very much enjoying reading.
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| Friday, August 31st, 2007
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6:47 pm - LoC on Inca 2
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Dear Rob,
My reaction upon removing from our mail box today a large envelope with a Royal Mail sticker was 'What?! A new Prolapse, so soon!? Peter must be in hyperdrive.'
Of course the envelope contained Inca 2, or The Return of the Native. I wonder what Thomas Hardy would make of it.
I am humbled by your energy. I managed four pages describing a two-week visit to London and the Eastercon in Chester; you publish 54 pages describing Corflu Quire, your adventure in California, and more.
I report to you that I resumed sorting and indexing my fanzines. A recent spurt brought me into the W's. I am stopped at Warner, Harry Jr. I can tell you that I have a copy of your Flatulette 2, Maya 7 and 8, and Gannetscrapbook 1.
The end of my sorting and indexing would be very near, except my receipt the weekend before Corflu Quire of 14 large boxes of fanzines. I went through their contents in a day to see what might be good to bring to Corflu Quire, Harry Bell items and fanzines to sell for the Send John Hertz to Japan Fund. Successful, the fund I mean: John is at the Worldcon now.
As I replaced the fanzines in each box, on each box I wrote the names of the interesting fanzines. I just took a look. The second box I inspected had Maya in its list. So I either have duplicates of 7 and 8 or duplicates and copies of additional numbers.
And what is the status of _your_ sorting and indexing? Perhaps I will find an answer within the pages of Inca 2.
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| Sunday, August 19th, 2007
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3:10 pm - Loc on Banana Wings 30
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Dear Claire & Mark,
In BW 30 Mark quotes The Eminent Peter Weston. During Corflu Quire when Mark gave to Peter Peter's copy of BW, Peter told Mark 'Only rank neos hand out fanzines at conventions, you know.' Peter consistently tells Mark this truism each time that Mark gives Peter a copy of BW.
I read this description of Peter's behaviour after I attended my first Eastercon. I was confused by Peter's behaviour at Eastercon, which happened after Corflu Quire. Now, having read Mark's anecdote, I understand.
Peter greeted me at Contemplation near the elevators. No one was near us. Looking to make sure we were not being approached, Peter told me "I have something to give you. I am putting it into your hand. Don't let anyone see it, or everyone will want one." The exchange completed, Peter raised his voice to its normal level. When I could look at what Peter had given me, I discovered that I was holding a copy of the new Prolapse.
To describe Peter as Mark does, as eminent, while fair and accurate, does not describe the whole Peter Weston. Equally accurate is the appellation thrifty. But I understand. Being a pensioner often brings constraints.
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