TAFFluvia 8

November 1986

The newsletter of the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund, from North American TAFF administrators PATRICK & TERESA NIELSEN HAYDEN at 75 Fairview #2D, New York NY 10040, (212) 942-6832 Copies available to those displaying an interest in TAFF; sending stamps is a good way to start, voting works even better. And don't forget!: when donating to TAFF, make checks out to us, not to "TAFF," and make them payable in US funds drawn on a US bank. The foregoing dicta apply to North Americans; Europeans please donate and vote through European administrator GREG PICKERSGILL at 7A Lawrence Road, South Ealing, London W5 4XJ UK. Help remove us from office! For more details, see below:


THE 1986-87 TAFF RACE is upon us, and about time, too. This year's ballot lists five candidates, each one deserving of your consideration, each one certifiably eager to go. The winner of this election will be sent to the 45th World Science Fiction Convention, ConSpiracy '87, in Brighton, England over the week of 27 August -- 2 September 1987, and will also visit other fans and fan groups over the water insofar as time, money, and circumstances allow. Upon returning to North America, that person will then administer the North American side of TAFF for the next two elections while we convalesce from that task and laugh cruelly at their sufferings. Despite that, fully five sane human beings want this cup passed their way. We'll be in touch with the losers; we have these options on Florida swampland, see...

Anyone may vote who has been active in fandom since before September 1985; votes must be entered on authentic TAFF ballots (enclosed; please feel free to duplicate and distribute), signed, accompanied by a donation to TAFF of not less than $1 or U (see exhortations in colophon, above), and must reach the Nielsen Haydens or Greg Pickersgill by midnight, 14 March 1987. No late ballots will be counted. On your marks. Get set. Stand!

THE MAIL AUCTION has done rather well this cycle; only two items, but they're both in demand. The first item, issues 14, 16, 17, 19, and 20 of John Bangsund's classic AUSTRALIAN SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW (1966-69; donated by Kim Huett) received bids of $25 from us, $27 from Richard Brandt, $31 from John D. Berry, and $50 from Joseph Nicholas. The other item, a sturdy paperbound volume containing THE COMPLETE TWLL-DDU (manufactured and donated by Dave Langford, and comprising all the issues of his justly famous personalzine of 1976-83 plus an introduction -- signed, and numbered #3), received bids of $20 from Robert Lichtman, $27 from Velma Bowen, $30 from Richard Brandt, $35 from David A. Herrington, $40 from Jerry Kaufman & Suzanne Tompkins, $40 from Bob Webber, $45 from Terry Carr, $50 from David Hartwell, $50 from Ken Josenhans, $55 from David A. Herrington, $55 from Allan D. Burrows, $55 from Robert Lichtman, and $75 from David Hartwell. This has been an interim report: bids are still open on both items until 9 January 1987 (Richard Nixon's 74th birthday), at which point in time we'll publish our penultimate issue of this newsletter and announce the winners of this auction cycle. So think hard, and finger your wallets with care... Writes Mr. Langford: "If your auction is anything to go by, I should evidently abandon both literature and software, and spend the rest of my days growing rich by xeroxing more TDs. Pity it's such a bloody boring job, not least because every single one of my old jokes passes before my eyes in the process.

TAFF IN ATLANTA "... The continued generosity of fandom," reads the ballot, is "what makes TAFF possible." No. kidding. At the Worldcon this year, we raised $1,203.40, which breaks down as follows: $282.00 from Greg Pickersgill's own auction of rare British fanzines, proceeds going to the European TAFF fund; $439.90 off the fanzine sales table (administered with fantastic efficiency by the indispensable Pat Mueller); and $481.50 from the general TAFF/DUFF auction, for which we owe thanks to Tom Whitmore and Greg Pickersgill for auctioneering, Joyce Scrivner and Tom Weber for record-keeping, and Marty & Robbie Cantor for their general co-operation.

Some notes on that auction: Big spenders included Ken Josenhans and Victor Gonzalez, who got the other two TWLL-DDU volumes in the US for $60 and $100 respectively (Victor's was the one hardcover copy; Ken's was donated by Langford with the proviso that the proceeds go to offset Gary Farber's daunting medical debts, a detail we managed to forget until after the auction, but fortunately Ken didn't mind); Nancy Atherton, who spent $90 on a couple of HYPHENs; Fran Skene, who picked up a hand-tinted D. West print (donated by the artist) for $40; and Joyce Scrivner, who took away the uncorrected galleys -- rife with howling scientific errors -- for Carl Sagan's COMET for $50. Further bidders included Marc Willner, Alan Bostick, Robert Colby, Richard Brandt, both Pickersgills, Moshe Feder, and several people whom our notes fail to identify. Finally, a special award for brain-damaged merit must go to Mike Glicksohn, who topped everyone in the bidding for the hyper-rare AUSTRAL LEAUGE YEARBOOK (Charnox, c. 1977) with an offer of $10, and then allowed himself to be prodded by the badgerings of auctioneer Greg Pickersgill into bidding against himself in $1 increments, only stopping when he reached $15 and Greg relented. "Whew," Mike announced, "I thought that other guy would never drop out!"

Our dreadfully incomplete notes and convention-fractured neurons (must be the Coriolis effect, y'know) also fail to yield the name of the public-spirited person who donated several issues of the original 1950s CANADIAN FANDOM to the auction. This fellow was already put out that we (ignorantly) let them go for the trifling sum they netted, and now we can't even apologize to him properly... Who were you? A similar forgetfulness attends upon the identities of those present at Greg's highly successful European-TAFF auction. Thank you all, whoever you were. Thanks again to everyone, as a matter of fact.

GREG PICKERSGILL'S TAFF VISIT is of course Greg's to write up; far be it from us to steal his thunder. However, the bare facts: Greg was in North America for just under two months, during which time he attended two conventions, visited fan centers in New York, the Bay Area, Seattle, Madison, Toronto, and Washington DC; crossed the continent by both air and rail; saw diverse Americana including an aircraft carrier, a mass-market publisher's office, and a jail (as an outside observer, we hasten to add); pronounced the quality of all the small-brewery beers he was plied with "damned good"; partied in all three Worldcon bidding zones, met all five candidates in this year's race, and generally seemed to have an interesting time aside from the random outbreaks of panic and terror which (as we ourselves observed) go with the territory. Watch for his report, now in progress. To all those who hosted Greg in their homes or otherwise contributed to his trip, and particularly to the Worldcon committee for their many considerate acts, TAFF's thanks. Greg travelled farther and stayed longer than any TAFF winner since Arthur Thomson in 1964; that's a lot of stress, and we were impressed by his performance and stamina. "Was it worth it?" we asked. "Bloody hell," was his response, followed by a long silence. Then: "Yes. Definitely. Definitely yes."

BRITISH FANZINES FOR SALE: We have one copy of each of the following; $3 apiece, and please state alternate preferences. Rob Jackson's MAYA, issues 8 (Peter Weston, Malcolm Edwards, others; 1975) and 14 (Bob Shaw, Brian Aldiss, Gene Wolfe, others; 1977). Harry Bell and Kevin Williams's OUT OF THE BLUE #3 (Bob Shaw, Peter Roberts, others; 1981), Simone Walsh's SEAMONSTERS #3 (Chris Priest, D. West, others) and #4 (David Pringle, Rob Hansen, others), both 1979. And Chris Priest's DEADLOSS #3 (1981; 15 solid pages of fanzine commentary and impressive prescience by the estimable CP). Also, for $1 each, we have several copies of MEXICON 2: THE FANZINE, edited by Abigail Frost and featuring articles by Mexicon 2 concom members including Frost, Linda PickersgiIl, Pam Wells, Colin Greenland, Maureen Porter and others; this isn't a convention PR but an actual one-shot genzine -- good stuff. Finally, for $2 each, we have a number of PROGRAM BOOKS from both Mexicons 1 and 2 -- pretty substantial genzines themselves, and worth the money.

VOTE ALL OVER THE PLACE We probably don't need to urge you to use the enclosed TAFF ballot, though that doesn't really stop us. Similarly, you can probably figure out something useful to do with the DUFF ballot riding along here (ourselves, we suggest voting and sending it to the Cantors, though others may have more creative suggestions). What may actually puzzle some of your fine minds is the applicability of the GUFF ballot we've also stuffed into this bundle. Why support a fan fund that doesn't touch North America at either end? Well, for one thing, because a lot of you are probably planning to be at ConSpiracy, where this race's GUFF winner will be sent; if you vote, you get to help choose which Australian that winner will be. Beyond that, though, GUFF could really use your support. The most inherently expensive fan fund (eighteen-hour plane flights aren't cheap), GUFF just barely scrapes by on the support of two fannish communities each of which has a level of disposable income far short of the North American average. So do like we did and stuff a $5 bill in with your GUFF ballot and mail it to Eve Harvey -- cash because it's a lot simpler to negotiate on the British end than elaborate bank drafts, and cheaper for you, too. A little American generosity: we suspect the GUFF people would really appreciate it. |||||