Written by Fred Patten, and published on the LASFS Rex Rotary, July 21, 1965. Intended for Apa L, Fortieth Distribution, LASFS Meeting no. 1458, July 22, 1965. Address: 1825 Greenfield Avenue, Los Angeles, California, 90025. Phone: GRanite 3-6321.

Further word on my LonCon plans: the Blish charter flight has definitely been cancelled and all moneys returned, which means that my arrangements through the Thomas Cook agency have now been confirmed as my travel schedule. Gee, that means I'll be returning to Los Angeles just in time to welcome Len Bailes to our fair city.

The Committee to Plan Things has a couple of Things Planned now:

There'll be a Theatre Party to see Blake Maxam in "Once Upon a Mattress" on Friday, July 30th, at San Fernando Valley State College. Blake will be playing the male lead, Prince Dauntless the Drab; any of you who want to see a LASFSian and a darn fine actor at work won't want to miss this one. "Once Upon a Mattress" is the musical that Bruce was parodying in Apa L as "Dunce Upon a Mattress" awhile back, as you may remember; it's a lively fantasy-musical based on the old fairy tale of "The Princess and the Pea". If you haven't seen it before, or haven't heard any of the fans who have been raving about it, come up and ask us. Anyhow, tickets will be sold at the door, so there's no need to put in any reservation in advance; but we will try to meet at the theatre a half hour or so before the play begins (8:30 p.m.) so that we can all get seats together, and so we'll be united in a group in case we decide to adjourn to a coffee shop afterwards. The date -- Friday, July 30th. Time - 8:00 p.m. Price - $2 a ticket. Place - San Fernando Valley State College.

There'll be another LASFS Picnic on Saturday, August 7th, probably pretty much like the last one, but with a few possible changes. (The fee will be collected in advance this time.) More word will be forthcoming in the next couple of weeks, but the date is definite, so you can mark it off on your calendars now.

What would you like to see in the way of future LASFS outings? Besides picnics and theatre parties, there are many attractions in & around Los Angeles that are worth looking into. For instance, are there enough LASFSians interested in taking the Universal-International studio lot tour to organize a party for sometime in late September or early October? What places have you always been meaning to visit but never getting around to, that you'd like to see on a LASFS outing? Let's have your suggestions.

I'd still like to work up some events big enough that we can get the fans from San Diego, the Bay Area, and Las Vegas to come into town and make a weekend of it. Hey, Ed, Felice, and Dwain, we'll keep you posted; you let us know what you want to see, too.

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-- BEING COMMENTS ON LAST WEEK'S DISTRIBUTION

If all the people who came out here for the WesterCon don't go home pretty soon, we may have to raise the number of copies required back up to 40 again. 35 copies weren't nearly enough last week. Well, we'll see how attendance averages this week.

Ed Meskys -- I think things are going to be a little too busy down here for the next few weekends for any of us to want to use up an entire one traveling to Berkeley and back for a Theatre Party. Possibly after the LonCon, when Summer will be over, and we'll have all settled back down into our routines again. ## Several of the people who got THE BEST FROM APA L at the WesterCon complained about having their copies disappear and having to buy new ones. I hope nobody had anything more important than fanzines lifted.

Dave Van Arnam -- I'm glad you felt so at home here at the WesterCon, and I'll be waiting for your fuller trip report this week or whenever. I don't recall seeing too much of the Fanoclast group at the Con, come to think of it; were we just at different parts of the Con most of the time, or did you spend much time outside of the hotel altogether? I'm sorry I was so exhausted from all the late hours in putting out the Apa L anthology that I wasn't able to stay awake late enough into the night to enjoy any of your all-night parties; I didn't get to talk with any of you nearly as much as I'd've liked.

Ted White -- Back to your old Underwood, please. Your IBM may be better for manuscript writing or volume production, but it apparently won't cut a clear stencil. Abandon not the friends of thy youth. ## You seem to have all sorts of adventure on the highway. I can only recall being in one really dangerous situation, when my car spun completely out of control on a rain-slick street and did a couple of complete circles. Fortunately, the street was almost deserted, and I had things back under control by the time I was near any other traffic. That must've been three or four years ago; fairly soon after I joined fandom, because Bob Lichtman was with me at the time. ## The LASFS Meeting you attended was deliberately cut short so that there'd be plenty of time for conversation & getting to meet each other. The current practice seems to be that if there isn't a definite program, we adjourn the formal Meeting as soon as possible for socializing. This may be good for older members, but is not so good for new, prospective members -- but we're back covering old ground again. Anyhow, any time we know there's going to be any large number of visiting fans at a Meeting, things are usually scheduled to formally adjourn right after the Treasurer's Report, etc., so we can all gab informally. ## Hey, I hope this isn't all the Con Report you're going to write? Or are

you putting it somewhere else?

Andy Porter -- It's KPFK in the LA area, and KPFA in the Bay Area. KPFK's doing all right as of the last time I heard anything about it, which was quite awhile ago. Didn't they just sponsor that mediaeval fun-fair, Bruce & Dian? It was KPFK which introduced me to "The Goon Show", for which I'll always be grateful. ## You get the British and German prozines distributed in NY? We seldom get much foreign-language stuff out here, except, for some strange reason, the Italian. I say this without having checked the Oriental areas of town, where I understand the Japanese edition of F&SF can be found. I keep a close eye on the Mexican newsstands (mostly for comics), but except for those 1957 copies of the F&SF reprints, there's been no sf that I've spotted. (Unless you count a Keyhoe flying saucer paperback with a Schomberg cover reprinted from the Feb. '55 FANTASTIC UNIVERSE.) And while I'm not an artist, I am a fanatic on the subject of mint condition; yes, I've stopped loaning out my books, too. ## Besides U.S. flags, there's a building in downtown LA that flies the U.N. flag. Why, nobody knows; there's no U.N. local office or information service in the building. I asked the guard once, and he said, "I don't know; there's this guy who comes by and raises it every morning, and I guess we aren't doing anything else with the pole." So it flies level with the national and state flags every day.

Redd Boggs -- Is this poem just for its own effect, or didn't you ever really like the old AMAZING? As a whole, it's never been any great shakes, but it's always managed to come up with something from time to time to justify its existence, in my opinion. Arthur C. Clarke, Poul Anderson, E.E. Smith, Edmond Hamilton, to name a few of its authors; maybe they don't produce enough good material to merit a yearly "Best" collection from its pages, but I think its absence would be keenly felt. I'm afraid you may be right about that "Ultimate obscurity", though; I cross my fingers and hope not. ## By your 'defense' of Tom Gilbert, you seem to have given a highly erroneous picture of him to Creath Thorn, making him seem as some blind fanatic who froths at the mouth at the prospect of missing a Distribution. Needless to say, this isn't so, and I hope nothing you've said will give any of our out-of-town contributors any false pictures as to the mental stability of our membership.

Jack Harness -- If the inclusion with RR #38 had been intended as a fanzine for you, it would've been labeled as such. Better not mistake everything that goes through Apa L as having some arcane reference to yourself; you'll go nuts looking for hidden meanings that aren't there. Consider it enough that everybody else in Apa L goes nuts trying to figure out the obvious references to the fmz for JRH. Oh, I have some coming up... ## I consider Gorey's The Remembered Visit as his biggest letdown yet. It has both too much plot and not enough, if you know what I mean. The more popular he seems to become, the more pallid his work seems to become.

June Konigsberg -- Disney holds the film rights to all the Oz books except for The Wizard of Oz itself, and I doubt he'd try to top the 1939 extravaganza even if he could. He's been making noises about The Patchwork Girl of Oz for years now; first it was supposed to be an all-cartoon feature, then, at the height of the Mickey Mouse Club, it was going to be an all live-action film starring the Mousketeers (but he made "Babes in Toyland" instead), and I haven't heard a word about it for the last four or five years. His two big projects right now are supposedly Kipling's Jungle Books (with good old Sterling Holloway as the voice of Mowgli) and Winnie-the-Pooh. At any rate, he couldn't very well make a bigger botch of Oz than some of the Ozian dramatic productions already have. Or haven't you seen the 1924 movie? ## Your illo is by John R. Neill, from Thompson's The Lost King of Oz. ## Glad to see you active in Apa L.

Rich Mann -- I'm not sure that Apa L is the place to talk about the Lerner Amendment in N'APA; not, at least, without explaining to the non-N'APAns here what it's all about. (Fred Lerner submitted an amendment in N'APA, the apa-Committee of the National Fantasy Fan Federation, that would ultimately lead to the apa's secession from the parent club.) I'm in favor of N'APA retaining its N3F ties. The apa was, after all, started as a committee of the N3F by & for its members; and the tie-in is a real one. Many N'APA members have been recruited through their N3F membership and their first learning of its existence through N3F publications. Letters still come in from the Neff neos at the rate of about one a month asking for information. Because of this strong bond, I feel that the two groups should retain their present status. After all, without its raison d'être as an N3F committee, what purpose does N'APA have other than being just another apa in a field that's already crowded with them? For those apa-fans who aren't interested in N3F membership, there are plenty of other apas to join; there's no need to steal the N3F's own. However, this is my opinion; I agree that the matter does deserve to be brought up to see what the entire membership thinks of it. ## Speaking of N'APA, Steve Barr reports that his copy of the June mailing was opened by the Post Office, the "Book Rate" disallowed, and he was charged the additional 70-odd cents to bring it up to parcel post rates. And I understand various SFPA members have had the same situation with their recent mailing, which went out at "Educational Matter" rates. It looks as though the days of "Book Rate" and "Educational Matter" are definitely kaput.

John Trimble -- Well, I've already made it clear about how I feel about the lack of a Huckster Room at a Con, and I'll sure be willing to work at lining one up for the Pan-Pacificon. Now that we know that Ben Stark is willing to haul his stuff down after all...