From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Old WSFA fanzine
Date: Sat,  8 Aug 2009 15:04:00 -0400 (EDT)
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

The only mentions of WSFA's Miles Davis I can find are:

* WSFA's archives contain a Saturday, August 7, 1948 letter to Miles
  Davis by secretary Roy W. Loan Jr. re Quanta newsletter.  (Exactly
  61 years before your query.)  I believe Steve Smith currently
  possesses these archives.

* Michael Walsh mentioned him in a post to this list on Friday, June 18,
  2004.  The post is at http://KeithLynch.net/wsfa/list/04/6/08180129.htm

He was never an officer of the club.  Nor was he one of the founders.
Nor did the club ever meet at his home.

The jazz musician of that name was black.  Since in 1953 the club
voted not to admit a prospective black member because of his race,
the Miles Davis in WSFA in 1948 must have been white.

The club archives contain three other mentions of Quanta:

* An October 2, 1949 resolution to print meeting minutes in Quanta
  by Chick Derry (who at that time did not yet hold any WSFA office).

* An undated unsigned proposed policy re Quanta

* Undated policies re Quanta by its current (unnamed) editor

They do not contain any actual issues of Quanta, however.  Evidently
they used to, or at least someone before Michael Walsh had a copy, as
there were reprints in the October 1965, November 1980, and January
1982 WSFA Journals, all from the second issue of Quanta.  (The latter
two WSFA Journals are available online.)

I gather that there were just four issues of Quanta.  Issue 1 was
distributed at the Sunday, August 1, 1948 meeting, and issue 2
appeared the following March.  I don't know when issues 3 and 4
came out.

Michael Walsh has issue 1.  Issue 2 is available for sale
online for $25 at http://www.lwcurrey.com/store/92426.htm/
or http://www.abaa.org/books/249758536.html

After Quanta and before the WSFA Journal started in 1965, the club
had another fanzine, Speculative Review, about which I have even less
information.

In addition to being mistaken about Dislcave, Ned Brooks is mistaken
about Franklin Kerkhof.  He's not living in Norfolk.  He died in 1986.
(He was one of the seven founders of WSFA, none of whom are still
living.  He was at various times in the '40s and '50s WSFA's meeting
host, secretary, and treasurer.)