June 1990
ISSN 0894-2
The WSFA Journal, the official newsletter of the Washington Science Fiction Association, today announced a new publications format would be used in the future.
At a press conference today, Editor in Chief Lee Strong announced that the Journal would be published in two column, newspaper style format. "Basically, it's a parody of the Post and the Times," stated Strong. "The Journal is the medium of record for science fiction in Our Nation's Capital and should look the part. Our publications staff learned how to use Multimate and Freelance software to create the Journal's new style."
Strong also thanked several fans for their assistance: Susan Cohen for suggesting the Journal use a professional masthead; Alexis Gilliland for creating the new masthead; Tom Schaad, Joe Mayhew and Erica Van Dommelen for helpful advice.
Previously, the Journal was published in a very informal format.
Twelve hundred of WSFA's closest and dearest friends dropped by for a 1990 Memorial Day weekend filled with good parties, artwork, programming, films, frolics, cookies, pools, panels, and an occasional party. A good time was by all true fen for 3.9999 days, beginning sometime on Friday 25 May and continuing through the 28 May Dead Dog Party.
Initial indications are that all areas exceeded the high standards set by Disclave 1989. The film program, starring first run Academy Award winner The Little Mermaid, was very popular. The Art Show reached new heights of both quality and sales. Poolside parties provided plenty of pizzazz while twin Green Rooms accommodated both smokers and nonsmokers in comfort. And the 1990 DisCave, set in the heart of darkest Resnick, was cleaner, comfier and cozier than ever before. Why did it have to end?
More complete coverage of Disclave 1990 will be found in future issues of The WSFA Journal. (The ConComm hasn't recovered enough to write the after action reports!)[]
The meeting convened at 9:18, 4 May 1990. President Erica Van Dommelen proceeded to scare the fish.
Publications reported on Rachel's survey. A new address list will be published. This Journal will be Rachel's last.
The Treasurer reported that we have $3839.78 in the kitty.
The Trustees reported that 2 new members have joined, and that there will be a special elections meeting after the business meeting. [See pg 3.]
Disclave Past was not present but reported that Isaac Asimov's had mentioned last year's book.
Disclave Present was not present, due to illness. The Programming Committee requests that someone tape the concurrent horse races for presentation. The Politeness Patrol will meet after the business and election sessions. Kent Bloom's movie boxes contain Total Recall T-shirts.
Disclave Future was present to report that its book of Lewis Shiner short stories will be in black & white.
Entertainment reported that Doll got a piece of meat caught in her throat at Balticon. The doctor observed that she has "anomalous things" in her throat, but the prognosis is good.
The Committee on Spending a Great Deal of Money on Something Controversial and Useless expressed concern that the Hubble Space Telescope is wobbling. So the Committee is going to do what NASA should have done in the first place: put the telescope on a tripod! Negotiations are underway to purchase Florida, Central Europe and Madagascar for legroom.
Walter Miles reported that the Committee to Discuss Science Fiction had scheduled the topic: Dungeons & Dragons: An Avant Garde Literary Form. Committee Chairfan Mary Mormon then unappointed Walter as spokesfan and announced a new subject: Robin Mckinley.
The Ron Eulick (Poker) Committee will meet after the business and election meetings.
Old Biz: None.
New Biz: None.
If you want your announcement to appear in the Journal to your satisfaction, submit it in writing to the Secretary/Acting Secretary.
Robin has a job as a PC installer.
Naomi Ronis has cards from Larry Baker, Seattle, and Tim Illingworth, Scotland in '95. Her temp job may go permanent.
Matt Leger will celebrate his birthday at Disclave and is looking for crash space.
Hostess Mary Morman announced that House Rules include leaving parking space for Doctor Toad who lives across the road.
Joe Mayhew is compiling a list of names, addresses, and telephone numbers.
Mike Walsh announced that he has books and copies of the missing page 305 of Fall of Hyperion.
Moonstone Bookseller is closing. There will be an attempt to reorganize and reopen.
Avedon and Robb visited Corflu and the Gillilands.
Lee Strong won a Toastmasters areawide speech contest speaking on sc**nc* f*ct**n topics.
Eric Pavlat is getting married to a fan he met at Nolacon.
The meeting adjourned at 9:45.
The 1990 regular election meeting convened 4 May 1990, Steve Smith presiding for the Trustees. An unidentified cat attempted a coup d'etat against the Trustees but was removed by Alexis Gilliland.
Treasurer Bob MacIntosh read a list of the 74 eligible voters. Steve explained the Australian ballot system.
The Trustee nominees for President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer were each elected by acclamation. Elected were Tom Schaad, President; Steve Smith, V.P.; Lee Strong, Secretary; and Bob MacIntosh, Treasurer.
Trustee nominees for Trustee were Doll Gilliland, Dan Hoey and Judy Newton. Covert Beach, Mary Mormon, Rachel Russell and Erica Van Dommelen were nominated from the floor.
Covert Beach, Dan Hoey and Erica Van Dommelen were elected Trustees.
Rachel Russell was nominated for Emperor, but the nomination failed for lack of a second.
Rachel Russell, outgoing Secretary, passed the official WSFA notebook to Lee Strong, incoming Secretary, at a special meeting of the Publications Committee immediately following the election meeting. Rachel then shouted, "Free! Free at last!"
President Erica Van Dommelen called the regular Third Friday in May meeting of the Washington Science Fiction Association to order at 9:19 p.m., 18 May 1990.
The publications Committee announced that Rachel Russell is goofing off under the guise of spelunking. Jane Jetson was jumping up and down on Eva Whitley's chest.
The Treasurer reported $4179.98. A suggestion was made to have a Disclave.
The three Trustees told the team that after a frantic flurry, there was nothing new now. Steve had an election: it was good for him.
Jack Chalker, de facto chairfan of the De Facto WSFA Press Committee, announced the de facto publication of Through Darkest Resnick with Gun and Camera, by Mike Resnick. It is available for $24 on acid neutralized paper bound in de facto blue naugahide. There is a picture of a nauga on the cover. In fact, a nauga IS the cover!
John Pomeranz was not here ... physically.
Disclave Present announced:
--Discave was misprinted in the Program Book as Disclave. So remember: the 'l' is silent.
--An English professor who gave Disclave 90 Chairfan Eva Whitley a 'D' in English will not be on the program. Revenge is sweet.
--Steve Featheroff reports that the hotel still likes us (or Steve anyway). Set-up begins at 9 a.m. Thursday. Show up and help Evan Phillips make this the best Disclave ever.
Disclave Future hasn't arrived yet.
The Entertainment Committee asked everyone to bring kookies to Disclave, home of the International Kookie Konspiracy.
Old Business was conducted in accordance with the Rufus T. Firefly Manual of Parliamentary Procedure.
New Business. A motion and a second to thank the outgoing officers received a round of applause.
The Library of Congress is considering making Joe Mayhew a Recommending Officer for Science Fiction. He would be the first Recommending Officer dedicated to science fiction. Duties would include attempting to define the field. Currently the Library only keeps a small portion of the science fiction collected.
The Publications Committee requested that persons wishing their announcements to appear exactly as announced should write the information down on Joe Mayhew's hand and furnish a copy to Acting Secretary Lee Strong.
President-elect Tom Schaad announced that he will not be available for the first meeting in June. Therefore, the Vice President will have to do some work after all. Vice President-elect Steve Smith announced announced that there would be a coup d'etat at the first meeting in June. Alexis Gilliland announced that there would be no coups in Chez Gilliland since said house was a coup-free zone. Coupmeister Smith then announced that there would be a sudden governmental reorganization at that time. Stay tuned.
Alexis announced a coup of his own: The Shadow Shaia is out, and with a nice cover (even if it isn't naugahide).
Robin is unemployed again, allegedly due to his "argumentative personality". Sigmund Freud, call your office.
Steve Featheroff has a new car. The water pump in the former chariot broke.
Naomi Ronis announced that Francis Freedland's mother is in the hospital. Naomi did not get the job that she was hoping for.
Orphia magazine is available. The science fiction is Slavic and so is the writing.
Jim With A Funny Hat has a new job. The Acting Secretary doesn't know what Jim's job is either.
Mike Walsh made the same announcement that he made at the last meeting.
Abner Mintz has a new job building a tunneling scanning microscope at Penn State Universe.
Chuck Divine has a new job as a software engineer at the Goddard Space Flight Center.
o [Inserted Announcement] Matt Leger has decided that it would be unfair to force fans to choose between Disclave 90 and his birthday party. Therefore, he has designated Disclave as an official Leger Birthday Event and himself as a Mobile Birthday Party. All parties Matt attends are immediately included in the celebration.
The meeting unanimously adjourned at 9:45 p.m.
The ceremonial Passing of the Gavel took place immediately following the regular business meeting. Outgoing President Erica Van Dommelen handed the official WSFA gavel to President-elect Tom Schaad for his presentation to Vice President-elect Steve Smith. Erica then shouted, "Free! Thank the Goddess, I'm free at last!"
Candy and David Gresham are proud to announce the birth of their daughter, Kindra Gresham. WSFA's newest fanlet was delivered by Caeserean section after 48 hours labor. She weighed 8 pounds, 0.1 ounces at birth, and has already attended her first con, Disclave 90.
Paula Volsky, famed Washington author, premiered at the Lincoln Center library, 23 April 1990. Owing to popular demand, she was held over on 24 April for a repeat performance. Called in on short notice, Ms. Volsky gave a bravura performance. Her special appearance was due to the untimely death of poet William Klein, who was previously scheduled to appear.
Press officials for Lincoln Center denied rumors that Andrew Lloyd Webber is adapting Ms. Volsky's work as a musical. They also denied casting Carly Simon as the author.
"Two appendages up."
Siskel and Ebert
"Wonderful, life affirming, makes me proud to be sapient."
The Village Voice
"I laughed, I cried, I kissed fifty bucks goodbye."
The New York Post
"Ms. Volsky has always been a source of inspiration."
George Lucas
If you, like me, first came across references to Richard Burton in Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series or in Burton's erotic translations of the Arabian Nights, you will not be disappointed in Mountains of the Moon.
This movie recounts the adventures of Richard Burton and John Speke in their search for the Source of the Nile. Suspension of disbelief kicks in from the start. Due to some marvelous casting of unknowns as the principals, you accept these people as the characters themselves. The actor portraying Burton plays him larger than life, intensely human yet mortal. Even a hundred years after his death, the vitality of Burton's personality still shines. The true facts of Burton's adventures are more than sufficient for a film, without elaboration.
Being an independent production, it is in limited distribution. In
D.C., it has played at The Uptown. This movie is well worth the search.
If there is any justice in the world, this movie will find its audience.
---LO
[Unfortunately, the mainstream press is rather less enthusiastic
than Lance is. The mundanes characterized the plot as bizarre and
confusing. The casting was viewed as desperate rather than inspired.
And, what is Burton's wife was doing in an otherwise thoroughly
masculine outing? If movies depend on justice alone, Mountains
is an endangered species.
---LS]
Thursday April 26, 1990, I attended the cocktail reception and Grand Opening of HOLOGRAPHY WORLD. Thanks to the ease of my Potomac River crossing, I arrived slightly early at Techworld Plaza to find the French hostess so flustered in her preparations, she forgot her English. Having several minutes to kill before the reception, I explored Techworld. It has a lovely mock Chinese garden plaza. Despite its closeness to the D.C. Convention Center, Techworld is still undergoing development. Its retail shop section has only one store ready for business. The convention facilities are up and running. All in all, I got the impression of another overdeveloped commercial rabbit warren put together without attention to detail.
Still, the developer Giuseppe Cecchi has brought in a center for interactive video, and HOLOGRAPHY WORLD. The Holography World reception was well stocked with a wet bar and a buffet featuring dim sum, fruit and vegetable platters, and European cakes and pastries.
The gallery exhibit consists of 70 items and a small gift shop. The gallery had a limit of 30 people at a time. Not so much due to the size of the gallery as to the fact that the patrons bobbing and weaving to get the full holographic effects. The collection is international and covers several holographic techniques. The holos are stunning. Several jump out of the frame. Others have such a depth of field that you believe the reality continues around the corner. Some images, when looked at obliquely, show the holo continuing beyond the view available when seen head on.
The only disappointment was an exhibit called Micro-chip. This exhibit was a monochrome green microscope protruding out 18" that is highly detailed. When your eye is put to the eyepiece of the microscope, you see a computer chip at the focal point. Unfortunately, the original holograph has been replaced with an inferior copy whose image is blocked when you move forward to view the chip. Perhaps rearranging the light source may help.
Holography World is open 10-6 Tuesday thru Saturday and 12-5 on Sunday. Underground parking is available but expensive. Take the Metro to Gallery Place and head north. Techworld Plaza is located at 800 K Street N.W. Holography World is on the first floor South Lobby.
I highly recommend Holography World.
A donation is suggested.
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The WSFA Journal is the official newsletter of The Washington Science Fiction Association (WSFA).
Publisher..............Tom Schaad
Editor in Chief........Lee Strong
Financial Manager...Bob MacIntosh
Movie Reviewer........Lance Oszko
Staff................Janet Cooke,
Clifford Irving,
Captain Horatio Mindblower,
Peter Panic,
Q,
and a Cast of Thousands
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