LOCs

I should also mention -- again referencing your LJ post about DD rather than DD itself -- that yes, you have cracked the great secret of getting on the Banana Wings mailing list. Well, actually there are two ways: one, which often throws people, is to ask; and the other is simply to stand still long enough and one of us will probably thrust a copy at you anyway, albeit sheepishly or perhaps by sneaking it into a box of your fanzines when we think you're not looking. That's all there is to it. We do not – despite anything Flick may have told you -- require you to pass an initiation test in which you have to prove that you can list the names of all the members of the 1957 Eastercon, as well as providing a concise definition of what the sevagram is and why you are likely to rule it. (Haven't got the foggiest bloody idea.-Ed)

James was rather good on LJ, I thought, although this may be because he pandered to my own prejudices as a LiveJournal dilettante. I've never been entirely comfortable with this urge to post in public things which to my way of thinking would be better said in private. Not so much the journal owner posting their own thoughts -- although, like so many before me, I have come to be wary of Douglas Spencer's cut-tags -- but this kind of open response, especially of the *Hugs* variety. And, bloody hell, I've just realised that you've suckered me into putting the word *Hugs* in an email. Twice. Balls.

Anyway, what James said rather fits with something that I've noted about him before: he just pops round. We know a fair few fans in the Croydon area but we don't really seem to see that much of each other aside from pub gatherings or parties or conventions (and we will set aside the fact that Noel Collyer's underpants are currently spinning around in our washing machine). (I Don't Even Want To Know.-Ed) But James just pops round... for a cup of tea and a chat. Mostly I suspect this is because he wants to talk about conrunning and he knows that Stef would pretend not to know him and Jim de Liscard would be caustic, but I still think it's kinda significant that he does it.

And if you want something to write about next time, assuming there is a next time, I would actually be interested in your take on what James said, as somebody for whom LiveJournal is more of a, well, way of life (or so I imagine).

I was very interested to read James Bacon’s article about LiveJournal. From my own experience, his views read at least a little harshly; I’ve seen at least as much thoughtless complaint and personal vilification amongst people who know one another at least a little on email bounces - like the Eastercon Yahoogroup, for instance. But LJ, being more directly On The Interweb1, may seem more like public space.

I’d be really interested to know what you think about this - indeed, although I enjoyed the articles in your first issue what I’d really like to see more of in your fanzine is you - because it seems to me that you’re part of a generation that grew up with email and electronic communication generally. When I was a teenager, the location of my school meant that I lived about twenty miles away - in several directions - from my closest school friends. At weekends we had no contact, really (I spent most of my time with an old friend from primary school who lived in the same village as me); we had no email, no mobile phones, and using the phone at home meant running the gauntlet of hovering parents either listening in or reminding us how much the calls cost - actually more of a problem, in both cases, for my friends than me as my parents have always been quite cool, but even having one end of the conversation blocked really put paid to that approach. So in the holidays we used to write to one another. On the paper, through the post. If a letter arrived in the morning (and they tended to, in the mid-80s) then there would be time to scrawl numerous pages in response and rush out to catch the last post in the afternoon, for the reply to arrive the next day. So we’d get a letter every other day at least. It was like, y’know, very slow email.

Now, I may be stereotyping you and your entire generation, but I’m assuming that this seems as weird to you as I found the stories I’ve heard about sf fans in the 1960s not being able to phone one another up because relatively few people actually had phones in their houses.

It’s possibly because I am an old fart but possible also that it’s just because I’m a curmudgeon that I do agree with James about the vileness of electronic hugs. I presume that to those who send them and most of those who receive them, they are a comforting expression of support; but to me it seems like a lazy and also an exhibitionistic reflex, a reaction that says ‘I couldn’t be bothered to offer some genuine sympathy or help which actually demonstrates that I have paid attention to the particular and individual circumstances of your distress; but I did want to make sure that everyone else you know is aware that I rushed to show my utterly unspecific compassion’. I’m sure that’s not what most people are doing or why they’re doing it, but that’s how it comes across to me, and it’s not something I would personally find comforting in any way. Again, I seem to recall that you have both offered hugs in LJ comments and been a recipient on a number of occasions when you’ve been having some really turbulent and upsetting experiences; so what do electronic hugs mean to you?

Meanwhile, I appreciate that James was angered by someone he doesn’t know commenting on his spelling (which, by his own admission in this article, is atrocious). But as I know him quite well I hope he’ll take it in good spirit if I ask whether, if he has a ‘LiveJournal pontificate certificate’, that makes him Pope on LJ?

I was reassured to hear that you are good at walking in stilettos because, while tripping up in them - or, if sufficiently tired and emotional, in any shoes including completely flat pumps - seems perfectly possible, I’ve never quite worked out how anyone could fall off stilettos. ’Cos, well, your foot’s actually inside the shoe unless you’re wearing slingbacks or some similar abomination and maybe if you tripped sufficiently your foot could slip out and you could cart the shoe floppily across the floor whilst stumbling about; but falling off them to me has always conjured up some sort of balancing act which isn’t how it goes at all. Or breaking the heel off, which seems more drastic than the situation being described. Explanations are requested from those with experience...

OK, for you it’s frogs; for me it’s eyes. And sharks. There are many films and tv programmes of which all I’ve seen of some scenes are the bits of the edges that show around my hands; but at least I’m not likely to find either eyes or sharks loose in the garden (whatever you may have heard about Croydon). Now, I wanted to do something to help to rectify the lack of sf you were bemoaning in the first issue, but because I’ve received some letters of comment that come with no prior warning of Eye Horror - and it’s amazing how many of our readership seem to have had eye operations, which I really hope is a coincidence and no reflection on the fanzine itself - I need to tell you that you should skip the paragraph after this one. (If you’re reading this electronically, Abi, just go to the next page.) If you’re including any of this letter of comment in a future issue and you want to put this bit in sight unseen, I can only assure you that I’ve tried to avoid wine-assisted typos.

You may be wanting to avoid the following works of science fiction and fantasy:

• Karel Capek’s classic War with the Newts
• ‘Frog Pond’ by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (Scifiction)
• Jane Yolen’s Commander Toad books
• Harry Turtledove’s Worldwar sequence – and the -Colonisation sequence too, if that’s the one that brings together alternate history of the Second World War and invasion by alien lizards
• ‘Lizard Men’ by Lewis Shiner (F&SF)
• Jennifer Murdley’s Toad by Bruce Coville
• The Cane Toad Hunting Squad by April Broadbent
• The 1972 film Frogs (directed by George McCowan)
• Any adaptation of Aristophanes’ play The Frogs that Tony Keen may put on at a convention (see Banana Wings #26)
• Presumably any fairy story or feminist retelling thereof that involves kissing frogs (see also - or rather not - Terry Pratchett’s Witches Abroad)