TAFFluvia 9

TAFFLUVIA: number nine, January 1987, is as usual the newsletter of the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund, and comes to you this penultimate (look it up) time from North American TAFF administrators Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden at 75 Fairview #2D, New York NY 10040; phone (212) 942-6832. This publication is distributed free to all persons displaying an interest in TAFF; additional copies may be had for a 22¢ stamp. Don't forget, now, that when you send TAFF money you should make all checks payable to us, not to "TAFF," and make sure they're negotiable in U.S. funds drawn on a U.S. bank; otherwise, just send cash, it's easier for us to deal with:. Europeans, of course, should donate and vote through their very own intrepid administrator, Greg Pickersgill, who may be found on the living-room floor of 7A Lawrence Rd, South Ealing, London W5 4XJ, UK. Are we not old and tired? We are. Depose us. See below:

[§] TIME FLIES. Time to vote. Quite a few of you already have, of course (and that's all the "details of the voting" you'll get from us this issue, ahahaha), but with predictable fannish efficiency a great number of you have yet to fill out and send us a ballot for the 1987 TAFF race, something each and every one of you needs to do early enough for it to reach us by midnight, March 14, 1987. This includes nominators and candidates, too; only bona fide signed authentic ballots will be counted, no matter what your other participation in the race. As you may have already heard, this year TAFF offers fully *five* candidates for your consideration, each one an accomplished and deserving fan of substantial achievements, so your only excuse for not voting is the difficulty you might encounter in making up your mind. No matter. Life is full of hard decisions. Get out those yarrow stalks, roll those dice, and send in your ballot today.

Gee, Mr. Peabody, how do I go about this exciting business of "voting in TAFF"? Am I qualified? Will it hurt? Answers: read the ballot (enclosed); you probably are; and far from being painful, voting in TAFF is a simple, pleasant exercise which invigorates the extremities, revives sluggish circulation, and helps prevent gum disease. Just keep in mind the following true facts: Anyone may vote in TAFF who has been active in fandom since before September 1985; votes must be entered on complete ballots (please don't detach the voting form, or vote on xeroxes that feature only one side of the ballot), must be signed, and must be accompanied by a donation to TAFF of at least one dollar or one pound sterling. Most importantly, votes must reach us or Greg Pickersgill by the deadline; no extensions. All straight now? Bravo.

As usual, anyone may reproduce and distribute TAFF ballots so long as the text is copied verbatim; the practice is in fact positively encouraged, and we'd like to take this opportunity to thank Robert Lichtman, Mike Glicksohn, Jeanne Gomoll, Spike Parsons, Curt Phillips, Terry Hughes, Anna Vargo, Marty Cantor, Brian Earl Brown, Perry Middlemiss, and Irwin Hirsh for doing so.

[§] THE MAIL AUCTION: Issues 4, 16, 17, 19, and 20 of John Bangsund's renowned AUSTRALIAN SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW (1966-69; donated by Kim Huett) are hereby deemed to have been won by Joseph Nicholas, whose bid of $50 -- reported in our last issue -- decisively frightened everyone else off. Our other offering on this go-round has been the last of six bound volumes of THE COMPLETE TWLL-DDU, assembled, donated, and signed by editor Dave Langford; in addition to the frenetic bids reported last time, we received further offers of $90 from Seth Goldberg and $100 from David Hartwell. Congratulations, then, to winners Joseph and David; our thanks to them and the donors both.

[§] AND SPEAKING OF THANKS: much gratitude and appreciation to John D. Berry and Peggy-Rae Pavlat, both of whom made extremely generous donations of saleable items which either we or our successor will doubtless offer up for auction in the reasonably near future; to Donald A. Wollheim, Allan D. Burrows, and Paul Novitski for substantial contributions of unalloyed money to the Fund; and to all of you who've donated in excess of the minimum with your ballots -- the running average so far has been $4.25 per vote, which is hereby deemed Not Too Shabby At All. Good going. The rest of you, take out your pens and pencils and mail those ballots in to us, like, right away. Next issue: late March 1987, featuring the race's results, a financial report, and our fond farewells. See you then.


For those who would become fan fund delegates

FOR A LONG TIME PYRRHA to me was a fortified city on the slopes of a bay, with high windows and towers, enclosed like a goblet, with a central square deep as a well, with a well in its center. I had never seen it. It was one of the many cities where I had never arrived, that I conjured up, through its name: Euphrasia, Odile, Margara, Getullia. Pyrrha had its place among them, different from each of them, and like each of them, unmistakable to the mind's eye.

The day came when my travels took me to Pyrrha. As soon as I set foot there, everything I had imagined was forgotten; Pyrrha had become what is Pyrrha; and I thought I had always known that the sea is invisible from the city, hidden behind a dune of the low, rolling coast; that the streets are long and straight; that the houses are clumped at intervals, not high, and they are separated by open lots with stacks of lumber and with sawmills; that the wind stirs the vanes of the water pumps. From that moment on the name Pyrrha has brought to my mind this view, this light, this buzzing, this air in which a yellowish dust flies: obviously, the name means this and could mean nothing but this.

My mind goes on containing a great number of cities I have never seen and will never see, names that bear with them a figure or a fragment or glimmer of an imagined figure: Getullia, Odile, Euphrasia, Margara. The city high above the bay is also there still, with the square enclosing the well, but I can no longer call it by a name, nor remember how I could ever have given it a name that means something entirely different.

Italo Calvino
INVISIBLE CITIES
1972


Live! From New York! It's the Journal of Policy Studies!
What you've just received, unfortunately, is merely
TAFFLUVIA #9: Special All-Minimal, All-Hortatory Issue
P & T Nielsen Hayden
75 Fairview #2D
New York NY 10040

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