Henry Wessells, Editor.
Cooper Wessells, Honorary Secretary.
All correspondence to:
TEMPORARY CULTURE
Post Office Box 43072, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043-0072
Electronym: wessells@aol.com
Use this electronym for requests to be added to or dropped
from the mailing list. Back issues are archived at the
Avram Davidson Website, URL : http://www.avramdavidson.org/
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EL VILVOY DE LAS ISLAS
The Nutmeg Point District Mail edition of El Vilvoy de las Islas
by Avram Davidson was published on 30 July 2000 with a preface
by Joanna Russ, an introduction by Don Webb, and a critical
afterword by Gregory Feeley.
Novelist Wendy Walker writes : "Avram Davidson: the wildness of
his ear makes this story an enchanted island."
The trade edition of the book is available in two states: 100 copies
in paper wrappers ($12.00, postpaid) and 25 hardcover copies
numbered 1 to 25 and hand bound in quarter green linen and Indian
desert grass paper over boards, stamped in gilt with the vilvoy device
that appears on the book's title page. Eight hardcover copies
remain
available for purchase ($50.00 plus $3.00 shipping). Libraries
will be billed.
Cheques, payable to Henry Wessells, may be sent to :
P.O. Box 43072, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043.
(Orders may be placed by e-mail to wessells@aol.com and
will be held until payment is received.).
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SPECIAL AVRAM DAVIDSON ISSUE OF NYRSF
The June 2000 issue of The New York Review of Science Fiction
is heralded as a Special Avram Davidson Issue and includes much of
interest: "Rum, Blood Magic, & Giant Iguanas : Avram Davidson's
Adventures in the Jungle" reads the cover blurb. There are three
selections from Dragons in the Trees are published, with a brief
introduction by your editor, and Hugh Leddy's memoir of
Avram Davidson in British Honduras is reprinted. There are also
several photographs by Ed Emshwiller (Emsh) from the Milford
science fiction writers conferences, including, for the first time
in
recent memory, the famous Emsh portrait of "Avram Davidson,
Milford, Pennsylvania, 1960" (the celebrated bathing suit photograph
that graced in miniature the back cover of Or All the Seas with
Oysters).
The selections from Dragons in the Trees include "Kindly Hold
Out Your Right Index Finger," from the version Avram revised
shortly before his death ; and two lengthy passages extracted from
the original typescript, "In the Confederate Settlement" and "Along
the Lower Moho (The Iguana Church)."
Single copies of The New York Review of Science Fiction are
available at $3.50 each from : Dragon Press, P.O. Box 70,
Pleasantville, NY 10570.
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CORRESPONDENCE
Guy Davenport writes from Lexington, Kentucky, a propos of the
Special Avram Davidson Issue of The New York Review of Science
Fiction :
Merci bien. Avram in his Margate Sands bathing suit is a sight.
"Kindly Hold Out . . ." is a perfect little story, and an astute bit
of
anthropology. [. . .]
I wasn't aware that Avram had finished the third Vergil. Dante,
Hermann Broch, Davidson: what a crew!
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A note from the proofreader of El Vilvoy de las Islas :
Avram Davidson's novella presented one of the most challenging
tests of the largely unsung skills of proofreader and typographer,
for
his playful variations on accepted notions of spelling simultaneously
ring changes on dictionary English and demonstrate what might be
termed contagion of narrative. As the novella probes deeper into
the question of the Wild Boy, the vilvoy of the title, and the author
cites peculiar journalistic sources from Ciudad Ereguay, the linguistic
quirks of the Amigos Friends column of "La Voz de la Nación,
With
Seccion in ingles" spread throughout the narrative, to the point where
it is impossible to untangle source and citation in this work after
the
first excerpted passage (pp. 5-6). This complex multilayered
narrative
structure and seemingly digressive tone is accompanied by a tightly
knit
correspondence of images that is in fact rather uncharacteristic in
Davidson's writings : yet another of this story's charms.
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CORRECTION
Your editor blinked and mixed one telephone conversation with
something unrelated, thereby distorting the facts.
Carol Emshwiller sent the following correction to the brief note
on "Avram and the Children":
No, Avram didn't tell the kids stories ... that I ever knew of.
No,
I'm sure he didn't. That's the point. He just sat there.
He didn't
need to talk at all as far as I could tell.
-- Carol Emsh
Accordingly, the corrected text is given below:
AVRAM AND THE CHILDREN
In a recent conversation, Carol Emshwiller recalled how she first
met Avram Davidson in the early years of the Milford Science
Fiction Writers' Conference. "The first time I saw Avram he was
sitting in an armchair in the big room where we all met. I had
three little kids and the youngest was very shy. All of a sudden,
I looked over and they were all sitting on his lap. He was chubby
and had a big black beard, and it was as if, here's Santa Claus.
That was the case with all the children. Avram didn't tell the
kids
stories ... that I ever knew of. No, I'm sure he
didn't. That's the
point. He just sat there. He didn't need to talk
at all as far as I
could tell. Every year Avram gave a children's party."
Mrs. Emshwiller notes that this was a side of Avram's personality
that those who knew him in later life may not have encountered.
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WILLIAM WALKER, REDUX
From the electronic mailbox :
**Yeah, that's a pretty good retort all right, except that Avram took
it
from the rootin-tootin American epic poet Joaquin Miller (1837-1913),
who when asked if he had ever been to Nicaragua, supposedly said,
"Was Milton ever in Hell?"
Bruce "bruces" Sterling -- seez all, nos all
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BOOKS NOT RECEIVED
The current issue of Weird Tales includes a double page spread
advertising the Wildside Press re-issues of the novels of Avram
Davidson, available through <<www.wildsidepress.com>>.
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AVRAM DAVIDSON SOCIETY MEETING
An autumn luncheon of the Avram Davidson Society is planned for
late September or early October. Further details will be announced
in
the next issue.
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Next Issue Date: September 2000
Including: "Herman Melville and Avram Davidson: Literary and
Geographical Intersections"
The editor of The Nutmeg Point District Mail invites contributions
on any topic pertaining to the life and work of Avram Davidson.
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