TAFFluvia 3

Sooner than you think; it's time for a third issue of TAFFLUVIA, the newsletter of the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund from North American administrators Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden, 75 Fairview #2D, New York NY 10040 212-942-6832. As before, the European administrator is Rob Hansen, 9A Greenleaf Rd, East Ham, London E6 1DX. As previously announced, copies of TAFFLUVIA are henceforth available to those who donate, bid in the mail auction, or Send Stamps; the rest of you are Taking Your Chances, though we'll do our best to give this wide distribution at minimal expense to TAFF. November, 1985.


CHANGE OF ADDRESS Formerly 2B, the apartment number in our mail address is now officially 2D. Actually, we moved across the hall months ago, but our landlord just recently got around to switching over the mailbox keys. Please make a note of this; if you forget, we might easily never see what you send us. Thanks.

LEAD STORY Nominations are now being accepted for the 1986 TAFF race, which will select a European fan to be imported to the 44th World Science Fiction Convention, ConFederation, in Atlanta, Georgia over the weekend of August 28 - September 1, 1986. To qualify for the ballot, all a potential candidate needs is (first!) two North American and three European nominators, one of whom may in fact be a cohabiting couple, for a maximum of six different names; these nominations should be written out and signed; (second!) a "platform" of not more than 100 words, for reproduction on the ballot form; (third!) five pounds sterling as a "bond" in donation to TAFF, thus signifying the candidate's willingness to put money in a position roughly adjacent to mouth; and (fourth!) a signed Promise, of High Seriousness, confirming that should the candidate win he or she will indeed attend ConFederation and administer the European end of the Fund for the following two years, barring Acts of God, given this day and signed by my hand for real no fooling, Jophan (X, Hiser Mark). Deadline for providing the above materials to European TAFF Administrator Rob Hansen is midnight, December 31, 1985, after which ballots should be available on both sides of the Atlantic no later than January 15, 1986; votes will then be accepted until May 15, 1986, at which point a Winner will be announced, crowned, paraded through the streets on a flying pig and festooned with garlands water-lilies and old copies of SCIENCE FANTASY NEWS. Yes, TAFF is simple at heart, just a quaint ritual of innocent aborigines clustered here and there on the North Atlantic quadrant of the planet, but don't let that spoil your fun. Act now, act without thinking, be true to your tribe.

Actually, there seems to be considerable interest this time, with no fewer than three major fans Over There making serious noises about running (or "standing," as they say) for TAFF, filing nominations, signing bits of paper, and generally doing the Whole Bit: in alphabetical order, Judith Hanna, Simon Ounsley, and Greg Pickersgill, all with supporting Casts of Thousands. All three of whom, we say at the risk of violating the sacred oaths of "administrator objectivity," are Excellent People and Fine Fans who've been personally inspected by field representatives and found to conform in every respect to the highest Standards of this august (or "November") institution. Good show, rah rah, you're all a credit to your tribe. Yes.

WE'D LIKE TO THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN for the support TAFF's received in the last few months. Since the previous TAFFLUVIA, the Fund has received money, crucial help, and/or auctionable material from the following kind souls: Moshe Feder and Tom Whitmore (who ran the TAFF auction at the NASFiC, netting over $200 through the generosity of the bidders); Pat Mueller and the Lone Star Con committee (who helped set up that auction); the Windycon Art Auction and Ro Lutz-Nagey (who raised $95 for TAFF between them, passed on to us by Peter Toluzzi and Joni Stopa; particular thanks to Ro, who deserves to be declared some kind of fannish national monument at this point for all the money he's raised for the fan funds); Leah Zeldes, Dick Smith, Bill Cavin, and Ken Josenhans (all of whom loaned us mailing lists on short notice so we could get TAFFLUVIA #2 to various people who'd voted in the last race and whose addresses we'd lost); Jerry Kaufman and all the people who bid at his Norwescon fan-funds auction; Stu Shiffman and Walt Willis (who donated back issues of their own fanzines to sell for TAFF); Devra Langsam, Barbara Wick, and Brian Thomsen (who donated Other Stuff for auction, much of which you'll see at various regional conventions or at the Atlanta superauction: be there, or miss some once-in-a-lifetime opportunities); the Corflu 2 committee, whom we forgot to thank last time for donating three Corflu T-shirts (by Jay Kinney), which sold for a tidy sum at the Yorcon auction when flogged to the multitudes by enthusiastic TAFF-supporter Greg Pickersgill; and finally, such helpful people as Ron Ontell (who arranged cheap printing for TAFFLUVIA #2, published before John Carl found this Gestetner 320 on the street for us; yes, you heard right); Fred Haskell (who helped prepare TAFFLUVIA #2 for mailing); and that fine fellow, that generous guy Bill Wagner, fifth-year incumbent in the important local fannish office of "Tolerant Guy With Car," without whom, etc, yes. Indeed. And, of course, thanks to all who bought fanzines from TAFF, or bid in the mail auction; we'll get to the auction in a moment. Coming right up. But first:

PLAINT We have a major failing as Ideal Administrators: we don't attend many cons. Between now and the end of our term, we'll likely make it to Corflu and the 1986 Lunacon, and possibly be at Disclave and the Worldcon; we'd be surprised to find ourselves able to get to any others. In view of this, we'd like to issue a Call For Help: anyone willing to receive large quantities of TAFFish material from us and arrange to have it auctioned off at a con we won't be attending, please contact us a.s.a.p. Through the kindness of Tom Whitmore, Pat Mueller, and ace agent Moshe Feder we were able to arrange the Austin auction from a distance, and we wouldn't mind doing it again. As with the NASFiC auction, not only can we provide a wide selection of material (fannish, stfnal, Seriously Collectible and Silly), but we can also furnish annotated manifests containing Useful Notes on the provenance and significance of the stuff. "Invaluable," said auctioneer Whitmore, and you will too. Drop us a line if you're game, OK? Thanks.

AS-YOU-MIGHT-EXPECT DEPT. While nearly everyone seems more-or-less satisfied with the 20% rule (as far as we can tell); a couple of fans have amused themselves with the construction of elaborate scenarios by which a determined pressure group could manipulate the system into providing absurd results, or into producing a victory for Hold Over Funds. At this, we raise an eyebrow, and wonder just how much TAFF can be expected to defend itself against the depredations of people bent on pure mischief-making -- i.e., if we postulate that within TAFF's community such stunts are OK, then how valid is TAFF in any form? In fact, we don't think as poorly of the fannish community as these scenarios seem to; nowhere on our horizon do we see fans so Machiavellian as to deliberately "pack" the ballot with dud candidates in order to divide the vote so as to make a bilateral 20% impossible to get, etc. We think the 20% rule is mostly useful as a "velvet rope" -- the sort of barrier that, while offering no real defense against brute force, nonetheless makes clear what path is Expected of participants in the system. (Note that Making-These-Expectations-Clear was a major demand put forth by those complaining last year about TAFF's general informality.) Given that fact, given that TAFF ultimately functions on mutual trust or not at all, and given that no multiple-choice balloting system is in the final analysis Perfectly Fair (Ben Yalow has informed us that this is *Mathematically Demonstrable*), we're inclined for the moment to let it lie. Let's see how it works, OK?

A couple of notes, however, seem appropriate. Some of you wondered about the effect of "No Preference" votes on the total number of votes out of which a winner must get (1) a majority and (2) 20% on each side. This is a good question, particularly since in the last DUFF race administrator Jerry Kaufman counted "no preference" votes as part of that set. Our feeling is that what Jerry did was, technically, incorrect (though it wouldn't have affected that DUFF race one way or the other). Strictly speaking, a "no preference" vote isn't a vote, but rather a donation, and should be acknowledged in TAFF progress reports as such. A vote is for a candidate, or for "Hold Over Funds"; thus, if we get 150 votes plus 50 ballots enclosing money and marked "No Preference", in order to win a candidate must have received a majority out of 150 (i.e. 76 or more), not a majority out of 200 (i.e. 101 or more). The same base figure (150 rather than 200) would be used for 20%-rule calculations.

One other technical note, then. The best objection to the 20% rule appears to be the increasing unlikeliness of any candidate getting 20% on the first ballot votes from each side as the overall number of candidates increases: obviously, someone's going to pass that hurdle in a three-candidate race, whereas in a six-candidate race, quite possibly no one would, thus throwing the race to Hold Over Funds. We have a couple of initial observations to make here: first, that it's been decades since more than four candidates ran for TAFF at once, and second, that even when the field's been crowded, there's always been one obvious standout (occasionally two), followed by a remainder of distinct also-rans. Thus, this objection would seem to be based more on theory than on TAFFish reality. Still, one corrective modification that's been suggested would, if no human candidate (i.e. no real person, as opposed to H. Overfunds) got 20% of the vote on both sides on the first ballot, then temporarily set aside the 20% rule and proceed with. preferential-ballot-style elimination until someone had both 20%s, then drop all the candidates who didn't. We dunno. We're still thinking about this (it would make races with four or more candidates less chancy) (but we'd have to make sure everyone understood how it worked) (and there are other dissenting points of view). What do you think?

THE MAIL AUCTION has been going so well it surprises even us. TAFF's taken in over $350 worth of top bids so far on the various items announced last time, and there's over a month and a half of bidding still to go. Not bad for a stack of fanzines perhaps seven inches in height. A quick rundown on how all this works: The fanzines listed below were first put up for auction in TAFFLUVIA #2, and constitute Cycle #1. What follows is a progress report on the bidding for them; they are still open for bids though the final deadline for bidding on them is midnight, December 31, 1985. Following that, winning bidders will find their names announced in TAFFLUVIA #4. Meanwhile, following the Cycle #1 list you'll find another list, entitled Cycle #2: these are fanzines that have been donated since last issue. Our next TAFFLUVIA (#4), the same issue as will announce winners on the items in Cycle #1, will also feature a progress report on bidding in Cycle #2; winning bidders on those items will be announced in TAFFLUVIA #5, the issue after next. Thus it's a rollover-sort-of process, complicated to explain but simple once you get the hang of it.

Two more notes before we get. to the lists. First, we'll accept bids in any form -- by letter, in person, or via the phone -- at any time prior to the deadline. Second, in the event that two or more people tie on the top bid, naturally the winner will be the person whose bid came in first. All straight? Then to the auction floor, faans: the smell of sawdust underfoot, the gavel of the auctioneer, the tent walls flapping in the wind, the terrified bleatings of the livestock in their pens, the even more terrified bleatings when Moshe Feder and Kim Huett get out their billfolds. And You -- as they say -- are There.

Cycle #1: Progress Report, November 17, 1985
Final deadline: December 31, 1985

Cycle #2: New Stuff
Progress report next issue;
winning bids announced in the issue after that

As the bids above demonstrate, the heyday of Irish Fandom may have been a while ago, but that's done nothing to diminish its mystique, nor to reduce the desire of lots of people (ourselves, *sigh*, included) to own those hard-to-get bundles of quarto paper. Fortunately, more are available: all the items in this next cycle were donated by Walt Willis who, goggling at the amounts people were willing to pay for these old zines, did the decent thing and sent more, There isn't an infinite supply, though (we checked), so don't assume stuff like this will keep going up for sale indefinitely. With many of these items this may be your only chance; for instance, your administrators have never, in eleven years of fanzine collecting, seen a SLANT for sale before.

WHICH IS ABOUT IT for the auction stuff this time, but not the end of our Vile Huckstering on behalf of TAFF; far from it. Quite a few of you ordered from the list of $1 fanzines we ran in the last TAFFLUVIA; much to our embarrassment, nearly all the items on that list were bought (and immediately read) by local neo-fanzine-fan Velma Bowen before we could even get TAFFLUVIA in the mail. That won't happen this time (we have Assurances), so we feel no qualms about listing a number of fanzines we have one or a few copies of for sale at fixed prices, first-come-first-served. To be safe, though, you might want to specify alternate selections when sending money, just in case what you order is gone -- like, Send This Other Item Instead, or even Keep The Money For TAFF. (In fact, after returning the checks sent by a number of people who ordered out-of-stock materials last time, we received several of those checks by return mail along with notes saying that they wanted to donate to TAFF whether or not they got fanzines in return. For such generosity and forbearance, many mildly-chagrined thanks.) The fixed-price stuff this time around:

ALSO FOR SALE -- we never cease, it seems -- are several copIes of Patrick's FANTHOLOGY 1981, $2.50 each; a few SWEETMEATSes (Jerry Kaufman's collection of Sandra Miesel's fannish writing) for $1.25; a coupla copies of the LACon edition of the NEO-FAN'S GUIDE, $1 each, and quite a stack of program books (full-fledged ten-page fanzine, fulla notes & commentary and like that) left over from the 1982 Norwescon stage production of THE ENCHANTED DUPLICATOR -- 75¢ or, gosh, free with any order over $10, whether you want it or not. All of which rounds off the Hard Sell section of this issue, but not quite: read on.

STALKING THE WILD TAFF REPORT: Squeezed out of our last (or "August") issue was a two-page chart providing historical and bibliographic detail on all Taff reports since the Fund's inception -- written and unwritten, complete and incomplete -- profusely annotated and laden with fannish didactica of the most uplifting sort. We'd planned to publish it in this issue, but changed our minds when Brian Earl Brown told us about the special Trip Reports Issue of MAD SCIENTIST'S DIGEST he was putting together. So instead you'll find that piece of research, plus More Thoughts About Taff by us, in Brian's fanzine: MAD SCIENTIST'S DIGEST 10, $2.50 from Brian Earl Brown at 20101 W Chicago #201, Detroit MI 48228. Also included, we hear, are chunks of Taff reportage from Terry Hughes and Roy Tackett, among other traveling jiants; 58pp in all.

Also mentioned last time was Rob Jackson's imminent publication of Dave Langford's full-length Taff report, THE TRANSATLANTIC HEARING AID, previously serialized in innumerable fanzines and soon to be available in one volume, revised. Well: it gives us genuine pleasure as Administrators to be able to announce that "soon" has transformed itself to "now", that for the first time in over ten years a Taff report has made it all the way to the finish line, that in fact copies of the 76pp, reduced-type, copiously-illustrated (Shiffman, Steffan, many others) TRANSATLANTIC HEARING AID by Dave Langford (1985 Best Fanwriter Hugowinner: The Trufan's Champion) are now available, for $3.50 including postage, from us.

Writes Langford, "The effect on my conscience has been salutory. I recommend it!"

Check.


inscrutable page-filler

"One of the worst counts against Dramatic Art (as well as against Pictorial) was the simple fact that it came from Italy. We must fairly put ourselves into the position of an honest Englishman of the seventeenth century before we can appreciate the huge praejudicium which must needs have arisen in his mind against anything which could claim a Transalpine parentage. Italy was then not merely the stronghold of Popery. That in itself would have been a fair reason for others beside Puritans saying, 'If the root be corrupt, the fruit will be also: any expression of Italian thought and feeling must be probably unwholesome while her vitals are being eaten out by an abominable falsehood, only half believed by the masses, and not believed at all by the higher classes, even those of the priesthood; but only kept up for their private aggrandizement.' But there was more than hypothesis in favour of the men who might say this; there was universal, notorious, shocking fact. It was a fact that Italy was the centre where sins were invented worthy of the doom of the Cities of the Plain, and from whence they spread to all nations who had connection with her. We dare give no proof of this assertion. The Italian morals and the Italian lighter literature of the sixteenth and of the beginning of the seventeenth century were such, that one is almost ashamed to confess that one has looked into them, although the painful task is absolutely necessary for one who wishes to understand either the European society of the time or the Puritan hatred of the drama. Non ragionam di lor: ma guarda è passa."

-- Charles Canon Kingsley
Plays and Puritans
London, 1859


A MYSTERIOUS LIST OF NAMES Diane J. Bayley, Bob W. Bayley, Craig Bearfield, Henry C. Beck Jr., Irene Beck, Alex Berman, Michael J. Braun, N. David Brim, David Brin, Charlotte N. Brown, Michael Lee Burgess, Pat Burrow, Stephen A. Carey, Rose Carlson, Gail N. Christopherson, Patricia Clenent, Martha J. Coady, Maureen Dorris, Cindy Ford, Robert S. Goodman, Bob Greenberg, Halina K. Harding, Mark Hardy, James R. Hoss, Sandra H. Hyde, Linda Jacobs, Eric Kagan, Janet Kagan, John S. Kerr, Lyn Laughlin-Curry, Susan Levy, Ben Liberman, Douglass A. Lott, Do-Ming Lum, Dennis Lynch, Cass W. Marshall, Vicki H. Marxen, Lisa Mason, Dan Maxim, Gloria Lee Macmillan, Lori Meltzer, Jennifer Mitchell, Dean Natkin, John Newman, Marilyn R. Newton, R. K. Nicholson, James H. O'Meara, Michael J. Peckovich, Stephen Perry, William A. Price, Gary R. Robe, Perry Rothenbaum, Joseph A. Sarno, Missy Shadowens, Dale Staley, Allen N. Steele Jr., Debra Stopa, Chuck Stout, Peter Theron, Carolyn H. Thompson, Melody A. Wade, Marcus D. Watts, Ann Weiser, Pamela Welper, Donald Wenzel, Peter Wezeman, Elaine Wojchiechowski, and B. G. Workman. What these people have in common is that they didn't receive Taffluvia #2 but should have, since they're all North Americans who voted in the last Taff race. (The master address list was lost -- long story and we had to reconstruct it; thanks again to Zeldes, Smith, Cavin, and Josenhans for staunch assistance.) If you have an address for anyone on that list (or if you think you do -- those names were transcribed from Taff-ballot signatures), do Taff a favor and drop us a card; we'll make sure they get a copy of this plus the previous issue as soon as possible. Thanks.

Another list of names worth presenting here consists of: Seth Goldberg, &c. Dave Rike, Mark Richards, Velma Bowen, Tom Perry, Megret Stull, Robert Lichtman, Terry Hughes, Spike Parsons, Sarah Prince, Moshe Feder, and Janice Murray, all of whom bought fanzines from the fixed-price list in our last issue. ::: Incidentally, anyone who wants ballot masters for the next race immediately upon their production (i.e., in mid-January, 1986) would be well-advised to let us know now; we'll be sending them out to the candidates, their supporters, and major fannish news media, hut if you don't fall into that category and want some anyway, just ask. ::: The Complete Taff Guide, announced last time and requested by a colossal four (4) people, is ahem ahem a little late; we're actually Almost Done With It, and will be distributing it shortly. ::: Finally, we did indeed put those correction stickers on page 14 of all 500 copies of Taffluvia #2. Wanna make something of it? (Pained look.) ::: Duff ballots enclosed; do the decent thing with them. ::: That's all. 19 November 1985.


A tangible aroma (for want of a better word)


TAFFLUVIA #3
p & t nh
75 Fairview #2D
New York NY 10040

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