( L ) — CONTENTS:

LACTIVITY  / LAKEHEAD SF SOCIETY / LAUREATE AWARDS / LITHOGRAPHY / LOYAL AND BENEVOLENT ORDER OF WOLLHEIM STOOGES

LACTIVITY

— Short for ‘lack of activity,’ as in a member of an Apa whose annual contribution of material fails to meet the ‘minac’, or minimum activity, that is to say ‘minimum number of pages,’ required to maintain membership. Can also be used as a general term for failure to meet obligations, or even just failure to accomplish anything at all, but is mostly, or at least historically, applied to lazy Apans.

[ See APA, APAN, MINAC ]

LAKEHEAD SF SOCIETY

— The first SF club to be organized in Hamilton, Ontario, founded in 1947. Perhaps the 4th SF club to be created in Canada (only the Ontario Science Fictioneers, the Montreal SF Society, & the Toronto SF Society predate it, as far as I am aware).

The LSFS was one of the founding trio of clubs affiliating to form the Canadian Science Fiction Association in 1948. Members of LSFS formed the first executive of the CSFA, including Paul Revey as CSFA President, according to Jack Bowie-Reed.

[ Note: Harry Warner Jr. describes “James Templar as President & Paul Rebey (Revey?) as Secretary-Treasurer,” but this is one of his rare inaccuracies. ]

The LSFS “issued several circular letters and established correspondence with outlying fans so as to bring about the formation of additional clubs” such as the Picton SF Society which formed in June 1948, or the two correspondence clubs (National Fantasy Fan Federation & the Fantastellar Association) founded during the CSFA meeting at Torcon I in July of 1948.

1949 saw the LSFS putting out a newsletter on behalf of the CSFA. With a membership expanding to near 50, things seemed to be going well. But then Paul Revey resigned as CSFA President, & was replaced by LSFS member Clare Richards. Several founding members of LSFS, probably the most active, moved away. Membership dropped, activity declined. A project to publish indexes of SF literature was put on hold.

By early 1950 the LSFS had stopped pubbing the CSFA newsletter. Then the club folded. However, Clare Richards & a few others carried on representing CSFA until the Winnipeg SF Society was able to replace them in early 1951. (JBR) & (HWJ)

The CANADIAN FAN DIRECTORY published by the Canadian SF Association in 1952 lists a few contemporary Hamilton fans. Some or all may possibly have been members of the LAKEHEAD SF SOCIETY. They are:

David Beasley, W.H. Braden, Stan Bryant, Leon J. Buta, Greg Cranston, John W. Farlam, James A. Gull, Arthur Hays, R.E. Kilgour, Jack Leith, Andrew McDonald, Bert Murdock, Art Payton, Jack Perrow, Paul D. Revey, J.C. Richards, Bertha M. Tait, James Templar, William H. Webb, & Evan Wilms.

[ See CANADIAN SF ASSOCIATION ]

LAUREATE AWARDS

— Laureate awards were originally certificates presented to winners and runner-ups in several categories ( publishing, editing, writing, poetry, and artwork ) in an annual poll conducted among members of FAPA judging the contributions of members. Circa 1945 the practice of awarding certificates lapsed ( and was eventually taken up by the N3F — National Fantasy Fan Federation ), but the poll as such continued within FAPA, becoming known as the EGO POLL.

[ See EGO POLL ]

LITHOGRAPHY

— A form of offset printing in which text and/or art is traced on a block of stone with greasy chalk, the stone then being coated with a mixture of acid, gum and water so that the unchalked surface will reject ink. After ink is rolled over the surface, only the actual design is inked, and paper can then be laid down on the stone to pick up the impression desired.

I do not know if any fanzines were ever printed from stone, but for a while — 9 months in 1941 — Forrest J. Ackerman through his ‘Assorted Services’ offered faneds the option of printing off a Lithography variant utilizing flexible metal plates instead of stone. This was presumably cheaper than the lithographic services offered by commercial printers, but would still be pretty darned expensive compared to other methods. The metal sheet variant allowed more detail, including half-tone photo reproduction.

I do not know if any Canadian zines ever employed lithography, but in that the process is described in the first two fancyclopedias and mentioned in the Pavlat/Evans fan index it must have been in occasional use by American faneds. The cover of the first edition of Eney’s Fancyclopedia II was lithographed, for instance.

[ See CARBONZINE, DITTOGRAPHY ( DITTOING ), GESTETNER, HEKTOGRAPHY, MIMEOGRAPHY, REPRODUCTION ]

LOYAL AND BENEVOLENT ORDER OF WOLLHEIM STOOGES

— This was an attempt by Wollheimists (supporters of Donald Wollheim, prominent New York fan in the mid to late 1930s, later a well-known editor and publisher) to defuse accusations by their opponents in assorted fan feuds that they were mere ‘stooges’ of the ‘dictator’ Wollheim by exaggerating the concept to an absurd degree and appearing to take great pride in belonging to the LBOWS.