Aha! I warned uber fanzine guy Bill Breiding that if he messed up any bits in an article on Sword-and-Sorcery writer David Mason (Kavin’s World, etc.) I sent in for his new zine Portable Storage Two that I’d correct on the trusty blog.
If he wants he can correct it on his end as more copies get ordered, then anyone who has the repudiated version can claim it’s a marker of an early state — that’s how we do “first edition” stuff in the POD realm. I guess.
Here’s the textual change that didn’t get made:
In 2016 a guy showed up for one of the first Hammett Tours of the spring—one of the guys who track down the odd and eccentric and interesting writers I slipped into Literary World of San Francisco. Brian Doohan—you wouldn’t have heard of him—and David Mason are two of those names that come up most often.
He told me that he was a fan of the guide book, using it to track down things he might want to read. And he told me he had just read Devil’s Food.
I told Bill: “in bit above I double-up the ‘track down’ wording (see, nothing like writing something the last day), so change to”:
In 2016 a guy showed up for one of the first Hammett Tours of the spring—one of the guys who track down the odd and eccentric and interesting writers I slipped into Literary World of San Francisco. Brian Doohan—you wouldn’t have heard of him—and David Mason are two of those names that come up most often. He told me he had just read Devil’s Food.
I was knocking it out on the due date, as I usually do things, so I accept a full share of any blame. It’s not as if we’re talking The Gettysburg Address — but you’ll agree the revamp is smoother.
The article deals with my decades-long quest to track down the David Mason porno novel Devil’s Food, set in San Francisco. One of my off trail books about books pieces, kind of in-line with the stuff I used to do in Firsts.
The zine itself (you can sample the first pages) deals with the usual variety of general zine concerns, pushing the idea that POD opens up wide vistas for Pubbing Your Ish. Music. Books. Mimeo. Everybody dying.
And in the letters column I tell Bill he sounded like an egghead in Portable Storage One.
His rebuttal?
With only a fifth grade education I’ve never even remotely thought of myself as an egghead. Existentially, it’s as improbable for me not to acutely examine the processes of fanzine publishing as it was for Bill Bowers!
Sounds like an egghead, right?
