Dad zine excerpt: “The loud and the mundane”, La Viand Rose, summer 1956

My dad was active in the sf fanzine community in the 1950s and 60s. Every so often I post excerpts from his zines.

He was 26 when he wrote this.

the loud and the mundane:

“Had a mimeograph salesman in to see me today,” said Randy. “You ever hear of a Gestetner?”

We were sitting in his living room. My job was his old one, and I’d stopped by to get a fill-in from my predecessor and to make arrangements for our trip to Michigan for the annual training course in the job’s essentials — my first year, and Randy’s second. It was my first meeting with Randy, who had moved up to a similar position in another city.

His first statement and question weren’t exactly what one generally greets a stranger with, and I was somewhat surprised; but then I didn’t know Randy then. I admitted having heard the name before. “Quite a machine,” he commented. “The ink comes in a tube.” He looked at me sharply, as if prepared to be contradicted. I mumbled something like Well imagine that, I guess they’re —

“And they’re $200 cheaper than an A.B. Dick! Think I’m going to buy it. They’ve got this drum that…” and he talked on about the virtues of the Gestetner. I said nothing nor, I think, was I expected to. But expressed wonder, amusement, and interest at appropriate times, while the mind dwelt on the smallness of the world and the values of a fannish education and the profane uses to which this mimeograph untouched by enchantment might, and no doubt would, be put.

And speaking of the smallness of the world, and perhaps also of the profane uses to which my dad referred, it seems only fitting that 54 years later, when I searched “mimeograph,” I found this video from Portland’s own IPRC: