Published by whim and fancy every two months.
Contents copyright 1996 by Henry Wessells. All rights reserved.
All correspondence to:
TEMPORARY CULTURE, Post Office Box 43072, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043-7072
Or by electronic mail to Cooper Wessells, Honorary Secretary:
Electronym: wessells@aol.com
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Greetings & Salutations!
You are among the select recipients of this newsletter devoted to the work of Avram Davidson. Feel free to forward the newsletter to anyone you wish, or send their details to me at the above address, and they'll receive subsequent issues.
This issue is almost entirely from my own "pen" but future issues can include musings, grumblings and correspondence on all topics relating to Avram's writings (or, perhaps not).
I paraphrase Reno Odlin, who has said: these are matters best discussed in comfortable armchairs over port or brandy, but scattered as we are, we make do with telectronic substitutes. At least until the giant AVRAM 2000 convention (Time and place will be announced).
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The Nutmeg Point of this newsletter's title is a corn-trading town mentioned in Avram's 1977 story "Manatee Gal Ain't You Coming Out Tonight." It seems somehow right to grace the town with a newspaper, however humble (probably a weekly four page broadsheet with at least 7 typographical errors on the first page alone), and to adopt that title. Your editor resides in New Jersey, which, like Nutmeg Point in the story, is the butt of many jokes (Which exit? et sic cetera); as Avram remarked apropos the Slovatchko newspaper editor in "The Crown Jewels of Jerusalem, or The Tell-Tale Head,"
There would be little point in making references to someone's illegitimacy if he chose to answer his telephone with "Bastard speaking, yeah?"So.
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AVRAM DAVIDSON'S BIRTHDAY IS WORLD BOOK & COPYRIGHT DAY
UNESCO has designated 23 April as World Book & Copyright Day, a fitting but very oblique recognition of the significance of that date. As you may recall from the introduction to "Go Forth, Thou Grore" in Pulphouse 6, William Shakespeare, James Buchanan, and Stanford P. Dole, President of the Republic of Hawaii, had the same birthdate. The editor of The Nutmeg Point District Mail asks, will this afford any more protection for Avram's work in such places (viz. Russia) where the writ of copyright law scarcely runs?
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72 POINT BANNER HEADLINES: THE NEW AVRAM COLLECTION
The biggest news is without doubt Avram Davidson: The Best of the Best, edited by Grania Davis and Robert Silverberg, to be published by White Wolf in 1997.
EDITORIAL NOTE: THIS BOOK WAS PUBLISHED BY TOR BOOKS AS THE AVRAM DAVIDSON TREASURY IN OCTOBER 1998.
Table of contents (subject to final confirmation):
Introductions by Robert Silverberg and Grania Davis
My Boy Friend's Name is Jello
story introduction by Robert Silverberg
The Golem
story introduction by Damon Knight
Now Let Us Sleep
story introduction by Gregory Benford
The Necessity of His Condition - Queen's Award Winner
story introduction by Karen & Poul Anderson
Help! I am Dr. Morris Goldpepper
story introduction by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre
Or the Grasses Grow
story introduction by Alan Dean Foster
Or All the Seas with Oysters - Hugo Award Winner
story introduction by Guy Davenport
Dagon
story introduction by John Clute
The Ogre
story introduction by Peter Beagle
Author! Author!
story introduction by Melissa C. Michaels
Where Do You Live, Queen Esther?
story introduction by Kate Wilhelm
The Sources of the Nile
story introduction by Gregory Feeley
The Affair at Lahore Cantonment - Edgar Award Winner
story introduction by Eileen Gunn
Revolver
story introduction by Bill Pronzini
The Tail-Tied Kings
story introduction by Frederick Pohl
The Lineaments of Gratified Desire
story introduction by Henry Wessells
Sacheverell
story introduction by Spider Robinson
The House The Blakeneys Built - Nebula Nominee
story introduction by Ursula K. LeGuin
Goslin Day
story introduction by Jack Dann
Selectra Six-Ten
story introduction by Ed Ferman
Polly Charms, The Sleeping Woman
story introduction by Gene Wolfe
And Don't Forget the One Red Rose
story introduction by Richard Lupoff
Crazy Old Lady
story introduction by Ethan Davidson
Hark! Was That the Squeal of an Angry Thoat?
story introduction by Mike Resnick
Manatee Gal Won't You Come Out Tonight
story introduction by Peter Beagle
afterword by Lucius Shepard
Naples - World Fantasy Award Winner
story introduction by William Gibson
Full Chicken Richness
story introduction by Gardner Dozois
The Hills Behind Hollywood High (with Grania Davis)
story introduction by Grania Davis
The Slovo Stove
story introduction by Michael Swanwick
The Odd Old Bird
story introduction by George Scithers
While You're Up
The Spook Box of Theodore Delafonte Brooks
story introduction by Algis Budris
Yellow Rome
story introduction by Darrell Schweitzer
Many thanks to Grania Davis for this information.
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MORE NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
Avram's novella, "The Boss in the Wall" will appear in the anniversary issue of Century magazine. It's an excellent piece, set in the USofA in more or less contemporary times, and people with peculiar academics, odd survivals, and many Avramisms.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Boss in the Wall : A Treatise on the House Devil, a short novel by Avram Davidson and Grania Davis, was published in book form by Tachyon Publications of San Francisco (1998). Century ceased publication without publishing further work by Davidson.
Your editor's comprehensive though still imperfect and very much "Preliminary Annotated Checklist of the Writings of Avram Davidson" is in current issues of the Bulletin of Bibliography (March & June 1996).
"Sambo" (with Ethan Davidson) appeared in the May 1996 issue of the Australian magazine Eidolon.
The entry on Avram Davidson in the forthcoming Encyclopaedia of Fantasy (Orbit) was written by none other than the eminent Davidson scholar Gregory Feeley. If the editorial style is anything like the that of the Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction, it should be both authoritative and colorful.
Avram biographer Eileen Gunn reports that her assistant is nearly done cataloguing Avram's letters.
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WHERE? WHICH? A short quiz (from published works only)
Whose names are implied but NOT mentioned in "The Singular Incident of the Dog on the Beach"?
Where is "The Third Sacred Well of the Temple"?
Identify the source of the following associations significant to Vergil Magus:
Extra credit given for answers in essay form. Answers next time.
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The URL of The AVRAM DAVIDSON Website is: http://www.cnj.digex.net/~pcks/henry/
NOTA BENE: THE CURRENT URL IS: http://www.xmlhead.com/avramdavidson
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