Zippetty-ping. Kerriage Return. Automatic. Whheee! After all Ed I have known you a very long time, that time your old girl friend, the one you hired to read Manuscripts, you remember? Nuf sed. And I know you have only my own welfare at heart. Right? Right. So you wouldn't be angry when I explain that Igot the idea, whilst triping on my new tripewriter, that if I carried out your nifty keen suggestions for the rewrite of my BELINDA BEESWAX story, that would drolly enough convert it into a Crime Story, as well as F and SF. Just for the fun of it, then, I couldn't resist sharyimg or even s h a r i n g, my amusement at this droll conceit with Santiago Ap Popkin, the editor over at QUENTIN QUEELEY's MYSTERY MUSEUM. But evidentially I wasn't as clear in my explanations as I should have been. Fingers just ran away with themselves, laughing and giggling over their shoulders (well, knuckles, be pedantic), down the pike. ANYhow, Caligula Fitz-Bumpkin somehow misunderstood. He is not , I mean we must simply Face these things, and Seneca Mac Zipnick is just NOT/ very bright . He, do you know what simpleton did? this will hand yez a real alugh,*Ed:
Guy sent a check• Thought I was offering the story
to him . Boob. A doltish fellowe, Constantine 0'Kaplan,
But, well, Ed, put yourself in my position. Could I
embarass the boy? Bring a blush to those downy
cheeks? Nohohohoho.
Well Ed it's just one of those things that we have
to face as we go through life: and the fact that
QQMM happens to pay four or is it five times what
F&SF pays, has got simply nothing to do with it.
Avile canard, and that's that.
However, I have not forgotten that advance
the time I was in Debtors Prison. And I will,
I will , promise you now NOW, I''1 sit down at my
merry chuckling Selectra Six-Ten, and write
you a real sockadaol sok?dolager of a Science
Fiction story. VISCIOUS TERRESTRIAL BIPED
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxXXXXXXXXXXX ZZZZZZZzzzznnngfhfghhhBZZZ
blurtle blep ha ha, well, perhaps not quite
along those lines. Zo. So
"Forgiven"?
Thine ever so
Avram
Dear Ed:
Well, you mehk me sheahme, mahn, the way you have forgiven me for that peculiar contretemps anent BELINDA BEESWAX'S going to the QUENTIN QUEELEY'S MYSTERY MUSEUM people instead. That yuck, Gerardo A Klutskas. Anyway, I have really been sticking to my last, tappetty-tapp. "Tap". ZWWWWEEPPP! Cling. It's a veritable psychodrama of Semi-Outer Space. XXXXXXXXXnnnnnggggg llullrp prurp plup ZZZZBBGGGgnn INTELLIGENT NONCHITINOUS BIPED ATTEND ATTEND ATTEND ATTEND nana it's always fun and games with this new Selectra Six-Ten, clicketty-cluch, hmble-hmble-hmble-hmble. Just you should drip by you the mouth,
*or "laugh" f as some have it.—Ibid.
so enclosed is a couple pp of the first draff, draught, drocht Spell it can't, not for sour owl stools, but leave us remember the circumstances under which it grew to maturity. More to be piddled than centered. You like, huh? Huh? Huh . Thass whut I thought. XXXxxZZZZzzzzxxxxngngngn clurkle cluhnkle NOCHITINOUS BIFRU BIFURCATE ATTEND ATTEND ATTEND. Agreat line, hey? Arrests you with its like remorseless sweep, doesn't it? Well well, back to the saline cavern Love and kisses, Avram
Dear ED:
See, I knew you would enjoy LOADSTAR EXPRESS. Even the first draft gripped you like ursus somethingorothera , didn't it? Yes. True, it was rather rough. Amorphous, as you might say. But 2 was going to take care of that anyway. Yesyes I had that rough spot, pp 3-to-4 well in mind. I admit that I hsdn't a hadn't exactly planned to do it the way you tentatively suggest. But. Since you do. It would be as well that way as any other. Blush, chuckle. Not exactly what one would formerly have considered for the pp of a family, or even a Family Magazine. Tempura o mores, what? However. WHY N T? XXXXXxxxx====ZZZZZzzzz bgbgbgbngngngn bluggabluggablugga TATATA TA TA AT ATT AT ATTEND ATTEND ATTEND TERRESTRIOUS BIFURCATE NONCHERIDER-MATIC XXXNN FASCIST AGGRESSIVE BIPED goddam Must quit reading alia them student Undrground Wellhung Classified Revolt Papers. To work work WORK toil "With fingers weary and worn, with eyelids heavy and red/ Awoman sat in unwomanly rags, mumbling a crust of bread." Can Laurence Ferlinghetti write lines like that? Can Richard Gumbeiner? It is to laugh. Anon, sir, anon. We Never Forget . Advances advanced to us in our hour od Need, earned eternal
gratichude. clicketty-clunck. Industrously, Avram
Dear Edward:
WowWowWOW! WOW-WOW/WOWW'. !gotcha at alst)) Ignore. Confused by Joy. BUNNYBOY. BUNNYBOY, hippetty goddam HOP, B*U*N*N*N*Y*B*0*Y* M*A*G*A*Z*I*N*E*. You got that? Educational & Literary Compendium? With the big tzitzkas? Tha-hats the one. Bunnyboy Magazine has bumped a burse of.bold, gumped a gurse of XXXXXXX xHa xHa xHa bgnbgn of gold, dumped a purse of gold in my lap. I kid y ou not. NOT NOT. "Not." He adumbrated hilarriously. EXPLOITIVE DIOXIDIFEROUS BIPEDS ah cummon now, cumMON. Shhest, I hardly know what to say, and this Selectra Six-Ten, elecrtified wit and terror, never bu t never a case of The DULL LINE LABOURS, AND THE WHEEL TURNS SLOW, goes faster than my MIND, my mind is BLOWN, out through both ears, walls all plastered with brain tissue.
Carriage return. When in doubt. Carstairs Macanley, formerly of Midland Review , to which I sold, years ago—but you don't want to hear about that, anyway he is now and has been for some time past Fiction Editor of Bunnyboy . So whilst making with the clicketty-clack and addressing the MS of LOADSTAR EXPRESS, I H happened to be thinking of him, and just for kicks, you know, Ed,I mean, YOU. Know me . Ed. Just abig, overgrown kid. So just for k.i.c.k.s., I absentmindedly addressed it to him. Laughed like a son of a gun' when I found out what I'd done. And had already stamped the manila! "Well ..." (I figured) "I'll send it to good old Ed at F&SF soons as Carstairs Macanley returns it. Just to let him see what I/m doing these days. Ed, you have never wished me nothing but good, Ed, from the very first day we met, Ed, and I know that the last thing on your pure, sweet mind, i would be
that I return the money to Bunyboy, and, besides, I am almost 100% sure it's already in type: and we could hardly expect them to yank it. You're a pro yourself, Ed. But don't think for aminute, Eddy, that I've got abig head and/or have forgotten that advance you so, well, tenderly is really the only— And, Ed, any time you're out on the West Coast, just any time at all , night or day, give me a ring, and we'll go out for dinner somewhere. "A Hot bird and a cold bottle", eh Ed? Hows that b grabg bgrarg XXXXX TREACHEROUS BgN BgN bGN TERCH XXXXXzzZZZ bgn bgn bgn TREACHEROUS AMBULATORY TERRESTRIAL AGGRESSIVE BIPED ATTEND ATTNEDNA Attn bgna bgn cluck. Please excuse my high spirits, my head is just buzzing and clicking right now, Inever SAW such a C*E*C*K in my L I F E L I F E in my life. Hey, Ed, I could offer to rewrite the story for Bunnyboy leaving out the parts you suggested, but I don't think it would be right to deprive you of the pleasure of seiing them in print. Wait for the story. I"ll do you something else sometime. Right now I'm going out and buy the biggest can of typewriter cleaning fluid anybody ever saw WE EXSALIVATE ON YOUR PROFFERED BRIBES EXPLOITIVE TERCHEOROSE TERRESTRIAL BIPED AGGRESSIVE NONCHERO-DERMATOID BIPED LANDING YOUR PLANETARY-RAPING PROBE MODULEWS ON THE SACRED CHITIN OF OUR MOTHER-WORLD FASCISTICLY TERMED "MOOM" XXXZZZZBGN BGN BGN BGN BGN BGN IGNORING OUR JUST LONG-REPRESSED PLEAS FOR YOUR ATTEND ATTE ND ATTEnD OHmigod ed oh ed my god i i oh e d e d o
bgna bgna bgna bgna bgna bgna bgna bgna bgna bgna bpur bpur bpur bpur bpur bpur bpur bpur bpur BURP
Dance Music for a Gone Planet
Sonya Dorman
Snow fills the treadmarks where
the General's tank foundered.
A prime Minister stretches
his neck from the wall,
eyes leaking glass.
Tissue thin,
paper of roses peels,
quilts open into blizzards
while we crank up the dark machine
and dance until the parquet shrieks.
The excavators smile
with iron teeth and eat the bricks;
we p
ut another record on.
One day our sons will rummage
in this dump and rig
a new dance hall.
Problems of Creativeness
Thomas M. Disch
"Problems of Creativeness" was published in the April 1967 issue. It went on, in somewhat metamorphosed form, to become "The Death of Socrates" in Thomas Disch's novel entitled 334. Mr. Disch has been a regular contributor to F&SF since 1964. His best-known novels include Camp Concentration and, most recently, On Wings of Song.
There was a dull ache, a kind of hollowness, in the general area of his liver, the seat of the intelligence according to the Psychology of Aristotle—a feeling that there was someone inside his chest blowing up a balloon, or that the balloon was his body. Sometimes he could ignore it, but sometimes he could not ignore it. It was like a swollen gum that he must incessantly probe with his tongue or finger. Perhaps it was filled with pus. It was like being sick, but it was different too. His legs ached from sitting.
Professor Offengeld was telling them about Dante. Dante was born in 1265. 1265, he wrote in his notebook.
He might have felt the same way even if it weren't for Milly's coldness, but that made it worse. Milly was his girl, and they were in love, but for the last three nights she had been putting him off, telling him he should study or some other dumb excuse.
Professor Offengeld made a joke, and the other students in the auditorium laughed. Birdie ostentatiously stretched his legs out into the aisle and yawned.
"The hell that Dante describes is the hell that each of us holds inside his own, most secret soul," Offengeld said solemnly.
Shit, he thought to himself. It's all a pile of shit. He wrote Shit in his notebook, then made the letters look three dimensional and shaded their sides carefully.
Offengeld was telling them about Florence now, and about the Popes and things. "What is simony?" Offengeld asked.
He was listening, but it didn't make any sense. Actually he wasn't listening. He was trying to draw Milly's face in his notebook, but he couldn't draw very well. Except skulls. He could draw very convincing skulls. Maybe he should have gone to art school. He turned Milly's face into a skull with long blond hair. He felt sick.
He felt sick to his stomach. Maybe it was the Synthamon bar he had had in place of a hot lunch. He didn't eat a balanced diet. That was a mistake. For over two years he had been eating in cafeterias and sleeping in dorms. Ever since high school graduation in fact. It was a hell of a way to live. He needed a home life, regularity. He needed to get laid. When he married Milly they were going to have twin beds. They'd have a two-room apartment all their own, and one room would just have beds in it. Nothing but two beds. He imagined Milly in her spiffy little hostess uniform, and then he began undressing her in his imagination. He closed his eyes. First he took off her jacket with the Pan-Am monogram over the right breast. Then he popped open the snap at her waist and unzipped the zipper. He slid the skirt down over the smooth An-tron slip. The slip was the old-fashioned kind with lace along the hem. Her blouse was the old-fashioned kind with buttons. It was hard to imagine unbuttoning all those buttons. He lost interest.
The carnal were in the first circle, because their sin was least. Francesca de Rimini. Cleopatra. Elizabeth Taylor. The class laughed at Offengeld's little joke. They all knew Elizabeth Taylor from the junior year course in the History of Cinema.
Rimini was a town in Italy.
What the hell was he supposed to care about this kind of crap? Who cares when Dante was born? Maybe he was never born. What difference did it make to him, to Birdie Ludd?
None.
Why didn't he come right out and ask Offengeld a question like that? Lay it on the line. Put it to him straight. Cut out the crap.
One good reason was because Offengeld wasn't there. What seemed to be Offengeld was in fact a flux of photons inside a large synthetic crystal. The real flesh-and-blood Offengeld had died two years ago. During his lifetime Offengeld had been considered the world's leading Dantean, which was why the National Educational Council was still using his tapes.
It was ridiculous: Dante, Florence, the Simoniac Popes. This wasn't the goddamn Middle Ages. This was the goddamn 21st Century, and he was Birdie Ludd, and he was in love, and he was lonely, and he was unemployed, and there wasn't a thing he could do, not a goddamn thing, or a single place to turn in the whole goddamn stinking country.
The hollow feeling inside his chest swelled, and he tried to think about the buttons on Milly's imaginary blouse and the warm, familiar flesh beneath. He did feel sick. He ripped the sheet with the skull on it out of his notebook, not without a guilty glance at the sign that hung above the stage of the auditorium: PAPER IS VALUABLE. DON'T WASTE IT. He folded it in half and tore it neatly down the seam. He repeated this process until the pieces were too small to tear any further, then he put them in his shirt pocket.
The girl sitting beside him was giving him a dirty look for wasting paper. Like most homely girls, she was a militant Conservationist, but she kept a good notebook, and Birdie was counting on her to get him through the Finals. One way or another. So he smiled at her. He had a real nice smile. Everybody was always pointing out what a nice smile he had. His only real problem was his nose, which was short.
Professor Offengeld said: "And now we will have a short comprehension test. Please close your notebooks and put them under your seats." Then he faded away, and the auditorium lights came on. A taped voice automatically boomed out: No talking please! Four old Negro monitors began distributing the little answer sheets to the five hundred students in the auditorium.
The lights dimmed, and the first Multiple Choice appeared on the screen:
1. Dante Alighieri was born in (a) 1300 (b) 1265 (c) 1625 (d) Date unknown.
As far as Birdie was concerned the date was unknown. The dog in the seat beside him was covering up her answers. So, when was Dante born? He'd written the date in his notebook, but he didn't remember now. He looked back at the four choices, but the second question was on the screen already. He scratched a mark in the (c) space and then erased it, feeling an obscure sense of unluckiness in the choice, but finally he checked that space anyhow. When he looked up the fourth question was on the screen.
The answers he had to choose from were all wop names he'd never heard of. The goddamn test didn't make any sense. Disgusted, he marked (c) for every question and carried his test paper to the monitor at the front of the room. The monitor told him he couldn't leave the room till the test was over. He sat in the dark and tried to think of Milly. Something was all wrong, but he didn't know what. The bell rang. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
334 East 11th Street was one of twenty identical buildings built in the early 1980's under the Federal Government's first MODICUM program. Each building was 21 stories high (one floor for shops, the rest for apartments); each floor was swastika-shaped; each of the arms of the swastikas opened onto four 3-room apartments (for couples with children) and six 2-room apartments (for childless couples). Thus each building was able to accommodate 2,240 occupants without overcrowding. The entire development, occupying an area of less than six city blocks, housed a population of 44,800. It had been an incredible accomplishment for its time.
SHADDUP, someone, a man, was yelling into the airshaft of 334 East 11th Street. WHY CAN'T YOU ALL SHADDUP? It was half past seven, and the man had been yelling into the airshaft for forty-five minutes already, ever since returning from his day's work (three hours' bussing dishes at a cafeteria). It was difficult to tell whom precisely he was yelling at. In one apartment a woman was yelling at a man, WHADAYA MEAN, TWENTY DOLLARS? And the man would yell back, TWENTY DOLLARS, THAT'S WHAT I MEAN! Numerous babies made noises of dissatisfaction, and older children made louder noises as they played guerrilla warfare in the corridors. Birdie, sitting on the steps of the stairwell, could see, on the floor below, a thirteen-year-old Negro girl dancing in place in front of a dresser mirror, singing along with the transistor radio that s
he pressed into the shallow declivity of her pubescent breasts. I CAN'T TELL YOU HOW MUCH I LOVE HIM, the radio sang at full volume. It was not a song that Birdie Ludd greatly admired, though it was Number Three in the Nation, and that meant something. She had a pretty little ass, and Birdie thought she was going to shake the tinselly fringes right off her street shorts. He tried to open the narrow window that looked from the stairwell out into the airshaft, but it was stuck tight. His hands came away covered with soot. He cursed mildly. I CAN'T HEAR MYSELF THINK, the man yelled into the airshaft.
Hearing someone coming up the steps, Birdie sat back down and pretended to read his schoolbook. He thought it might be Milly (whoever it was was wearing heels), and a lump began to form in his throat. If it were Milly, what would he say to her?
It wasn't Milly. It was just some old lady lugging a bag of groceries. She stopped at the landing below him, leaning against the handrail for support, sighed, and set down her grocery bag. She stuck a pink stick of Oraline between her flaccid lips, and after a few seconds it got to her and she smiled at Birdie. Birdie scowled down at the bad reproduction of David's Death of Socrates in his text.
"Studying?" the old woman asked.
"Yeah, that's what I'm doing all right. I'm studying."
"That's good." She took the tranquilizer out of her mouth, holding it like a cigarette between her index and middle fingers. Her smile broadened, as though she were elaborating some joke, honing it to a fine edge.
"It's good for a young man to study," she said at last, almost chuckling.
The tune on the radio changed to the new Ford commercial. It was one of Birdie's favorite commercials, and he wished the old bag would shut up so he could hear it.
"You can't get anywheres these days without studying."
Birdie made no reply. The old woman took a different tack. "These stairs," she said.
Birdie looked up from his book, peeved. "What about them?"
"What about them! The elevators have been out of commission for three weeks. That's what about them—three weeks!"
The Magazine of fantasy and science fiction : a 30-year retrospective Page 32