Earl Kemp On Fandom

Chatter with Earl Kemp continues...

(If you missed earlier parts of the interview: Intro, on science fiction, on censorship and politics, on reading and writing.)

SPS: I can understand your reluctance to return to editing... But a memoir? Or an anthology of your own works? You've been writing for years and have many fans...

Earl: That's the good part about the LA show mentioned separately. Makes me feel huge and significant with people actually wanting to meet me, to look at me askance and, unconsciously touch me. Sure makes me wonder where I was when I was doing all those wonderful things they imagine me doing.



SPS: OK, to recap you think the Internet is wonderful, but you still don't see the possibility of a return to or recreation of the sf community -- or any author/fan family?

Earl: No I don't. It's all part of the burgeoning of the world. Everything is becoming too big, too costly, too unmanageable even by those in power who think they're doing it right and only for the buck. They don't get any of it. They don't want to get any of it. They don't want anything disproving their concepts of what they think of as money-making reality.

The best times are always with the right person/people/group and that is limited, by necessity, to all one can handle.

There are annual World SF Cons...they attract many thousands of people from far too many tangential directions with their own crosses to bare. Multiple tracks of bland propaganda hyping things of no significance. Twenty to 30 program items going on simultaneously in several different ballrooms and, at times, even in several different 4-star, plush, unreasonably expensive hotels, some within walking distance.

SPS: I'll admit I've never been... It's always seemed more for exhibitionists than shared/sharing interests. But hey, I'm now elusive, if not heading for hermit status.

Your points about size are valid; it is difficult to create mass intimacy. Orgies do not satiate when the real point is a connection based on something more than body contact. Yet immense popularity sort of forces the situation, no?

Earl: It certainly forces me to avoid the situation. Otherwise I would find myself spending thousands that I don't have just to sneak around and secretly meet old friends who are doing the same thing and avoiding all else.

SPS: It's a conundrum of sorts... Fans create popularity; yet the more popular the person/work/genre, the less access and connection. In some cases this decreases popularity; in other cases, I think it decreases the quality/care of the work/person. (Then again there's the misplaced idolization of celebrity itself.) Have you any thoughts on how to balance this?

Earl: No. [But] then there is the annual Corflu meeting of fanzine editors, usually less than 200 where everyone knows your face and damned near everything else. A sit down, hash it out, get screwed up, network with your closest friends from all over the world. Heaven! I can hardly wait.



Image credits:

LAPB 2008 photos at NooSFere.

Corflu photo from gsmattingly at Flickr.