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Graceful Bickerings
CHARLIE HEINS, the old political boss with umpteen years of experience, is up to his old tricks. He stuffed the campaign committee full of names. I haven’t seen Heins since September of 1947 and yet my name appeared on the campaign committee for C. A. Shattuck.
In my opinion, the only logical candidate for the NAPA presidency is Vondy. If the tardy Mr. Shattuck is elected, it will be by a machine set up by an old time politico for whom he will be a “yes-man.”
Looking over the latest NAPA bundles, I find a lot of sloppy mimeographing. It seems that our friends of the cylindrical cheesecloths cannot get into their heads that you must clean those things once in a while. I never have seen a printer who did not give his press and type a little cleaning periodically. It looks like our mimeo friends never clean their machines.
The benevolent Dr. Noel has entered our sacred halls. Is he any worse than the old timer politicians who are now ensconced in our “inner sanctum?” Are we crying “wolf” or have we opened a small wound which will soon infect our whole body? The time seems ideal for the Doc’s entrance. With political interest at a new low, offices go begging for holders. Perhaps the next NAPA prexy might give the doctor some inconspicuous office where he could wend his way toward the highest available position. He might even take over the NAPA and establish himself as Ruler Emeritus of amateur journalism.
What is this new organization in New York? It seems that the Blue Pencil Club, the New Jersey Chapter, and the Amateur Printer’s Club are not enough for these New Yorkers. Now they have a meeting of the same old gang and call it by a new name. Will they never learn that New York clubs, excepting the APC, all die ignominiously? Even the APC takes an occasional snooze.
Amateur journalists interested in fantasy writings will find an item entitled “The Rise of Fantasy Literature” by Harrison Smith in the Summer, 1948, issue of the American Scholar. Howard Lovecraft, amateurdom’s hero, is mentioned frequently in the article.
Along this same line, I can readily appreciate the atmosphere New England offers for fantasy tales. At dusk a few evenings past, I was riding near Gloucester when I spied a form moving tangent to the road. It was too large to be a dog and I am sure there is no dog shaped so ghoulishly. This changeling could not have moved as wraithly had it not been one of the noted werewolves of this region. I now have seen and believe.
Since Vic went to sea, we haven’t been hearing much from the Mortimers.
Sour Notes comes to you from the pen of Bob Smith using the press and type of Ed Cole’s Oakwood Press. Send all orchids to R. L. Smith, Jr., West Hempstead, N. Y. Send all brick-bats to the sea. Meanwhile, I’m goin’ fishin’.