You can view this issue in several formats:
Pages 6–9 are on a different sort of paper from the rest of the issue and parts of them are extremely faded (or extremely bad repro in the first place, not sure which). We have several copies and by squinting at all of them, we've recovered most of the text. Some, mostly in the upper corners, has defeated us for the moment. A few more words might be readable eventually with a better scanner and clever image processing.
In these transcriptions, comments on the transcription appear in roman square brackets, there being no such brackets in the printed text. One set of italic square brackets does appear, "[in Minneapolis]" Comments by the editor appearing in the printed text, in contrast, appear in double parentheses.
Page 6 reads:
--- RUNE 13 :: PAGE 6 ---
[...........s?]ings in Frisco?"
[................ings?] the New Orleans fans and the Houston people [...]
[.............] going to be making a '73 bid, so they all cancell [sic] each other out,
[.....] we predicted."
"and with less than 100 votes," Stodolka said, "we can take the worldcon..."
"Yes," I laughed. "Yes...."
And so, Children, ends the story. Stodolka, Fletcher and I have figured out
that the only people who could win would be St. Louis, Minneapolis, or Des Moines,
Iowa. The St. Louis people might support us; we wouldn't think they'd want a con
so soon after having one. And who would vote for Des Moines, Iowa? So we've got it
in the bag. And the night we figured out our maneuvers, and how they worked, we
got a phone call from somewhere in California. The voice said, "I am the Ultimate
Secret Master of Fandom. You have done your work well. Hahahahahahahahaha...."
The above piece of esoterica was written entirely on master, December 13th,
(a Friday), 1968, by Your Servant to Obey..................................
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MINNESOTA fandom [large lettering]
AN OCCASIONAL DEPARTMENT OF RUNE
Harry Warner's fan history will clear up a lot of areas of question on Twin
City fandom. To fill up the general gaps, Harry Warner has supplied the following
information in a recent letter:
"Organized fandom [in Minneapolis] really dates back to 1937 when the Min-
neapolis Science Fiction League Chapter formed." Note: The Science Fiction Leage
was a national SF club sponsored first by Gernsback's WONDER and then by THRILLING
WONDER. - JMY. "The chapter didn't survive but some of its members continued to
meet unofficially, and then the MSF was organized, meeting for the first time on
November 29, 1940. it lasted until early 1943, when almost all the members had either
entered the service or moved away, then the survivors resumed informal get-togethers
until December 27, 1947, when the group was formally reactivated." Harry goes on
to say that the group was "still going strong in 1951."
Redd Boggs has said that nine people attended the first MFS meeting, in 1940.
The last MFS meeting Redd remembers was in 1952. The first Minn-Stf meeting had five
people, and was held Saturday, November 27, 1966. There was no organized area fandom
during the intervening 14 years -- although attempts were made to activate and
regenerated such an organization.
And Redd Boggs speakes ablely on the subject.
Page 7 reads:
PIZZA,[?] PI, & SCIENCE FICTION [large lettering]
( A SERIOUS DISCUSSION) by Redd Boggs
((Editor's Note Again: Redd hasn't given specific consent for this article
to be reprinted, so I take all responsibility for it's publication here. This
was an editorial in Redd's zine DISCORD, number 11, dated April, 1961. I can
find no copyright data, but if it is copyrighted, then it's done so by Redd
Boggs, I would presume. Apologies extended to Redd for not getting the com-
plete information on the reprinting of this material. In the future, we'll
hopefully be able to reprint a Boggs article on Minnesota fannish history that
ran in Ruth Berman's NEOLITHIC. Redd has given permission for me to reprint
the historical article. -- JMY. ))
The only difference between the old buildings of the lower loop and the new
central library building of Minneapolis, which has sprung up among them looking
out of place as an electronic bathtub in a Chic Sale Outhouse, is that they are
drab dirty and ugly, while it is bright clean and ugly. But at least the girl at
the library's information desk was attractive as compared with the elderly li-
brarian types who usually handle those duties and I beamed at her approvingly as I
asked, "Where is the Twin Cities Fantasy society meeting being held?" I knew the
room number (253-A) but not the location, and this was lucky, for as I said those
words a sound seemed to come from the sky, like a breaking harp-string, dying away
mournfully, and I understood only her gesture toward the southeast corner of the
library.
I took the escalator to the second floor, paused to let the nitrogen bubbles
rise out of my blood, and almost instantly noticed John F. Anderson, Jr. bouncing
toward me, resplendent in sports coat and sharply pressed trousers. I blushed for
my second-best sweatshirt and baggy pants and winced at his youthful energy and
enthusiasm. He had been the moving spirit (though Ruth Berman did much of the spade-
work) behind this first attempt in nine years at organizing a new Twin Cities fan
club, and he led me back to show me the meeting hall he had booked: a large airy
room bathed in a great deluge of cold blue fluorescent light and containing 200
empty pastel-green chairs and an equally empty rostrum half a block away. John left
me to occupy the premises while he went off to try to round up some more people.
I started to sit in a contour chair, then thought better of it and perched
gingerly on a table. I suddenly realized that the hall wasn't empty after all, but
was crowded with ghosts summoned by a breaking harp-string to this bright new lo-
caltion to conduct old familiar business. Oliver Saari and Douglas Blakely and John
Chapman were there, in the very first row. And Arden "Buns" Benson and Bob Madsen
and Carl Jacobi. And Phil Bronson, passing out copies of The Fantasite, and John
Gergen and Gordy Dickson. And Cliff Simak and Kenny Gray and Richard Elsberry. And
Poul Anderson in long stocking cap, flaunting a Wallace button, and Dale Postomily
and Manson Brackney arguing about women. And Morris Dollens, surrounded by tons of
photographic and recording equipment, and two dozen other fans of youre were present
too. And occupying the rostrum stood Samuel D. Russell, delivering his famous lec-
ture on Weinbaum.
I knew that in a little while the meeting would break up and everybody would
pile into Saari's Stfnash (long since scrap iron) and zoom down Hennepin avenue to
the New Elgin cafe (long since out of business) for the usual post-meeting bullfest
over coffee and sandwhiches[sic]. I stood up and tottered over to the window and looked
at my reflection in the dark glass. I looked solid enough, with no trace of ecto-
plasm rusing up from my extremities. I turned back to the room and gestured fircely [sic].
Page 8 reads:
--- RUNE 13 :: PAGE 8 ---
[..........and?] at the sound of that dread word all the ghosts [........]
John returned with two girls in tow. One, I knew instantly, must be none
other than Ruth Berman, the first Minneapolis BNF to blossom since Richard Els-
berry; the other proved to be her self-styled fake fan kid sister, Jean, age
9 1/2 Time which had labored long and mightily to bring forth another Minneapolis
fan, had done its work well, I decided; Ruth doesn't resemble cynical old Elsberry,
being a bright, attractive, and personable young lady. I fumbled out my fountain
pen but she was apparently too awed to ask for my autograph. Just then another fan
showed up: Fred Calvin of St. Paul, complete with a scholarly briefcase and the
beginnings of a beard. Out of one or the other -- I didn't notice which -- he
fished a copy of The Dying Earth and waved it aloft as a credential.
It soon appeared that both Ruth and Fred are math students at the university
and they converse largely in algebrese or calculese, full of irrationals, absciseas,
and pi-i's[pi-l's?]. "I used to be a whiz at long division," I said after awhile. Actually
that was a lie, although I was pretty good at short division, but this boast didn't
impress them, for some reason. I decided that a conversation with Joan would be more
enlightening. "How's the world treating you?"I asked brightly. She looked puzzled,
[the?] remarked meditatively, "According to the dualistic epistemology, the world is
composed of two sets of entities: material things ad mental states of ideas. The
inferred materials things are existentially non-identical with the immediately pre-
sented ideas from which they are inferred, and..."
Three other people came in just then, and I wondered if they were material or
mental; at any rate they were high school students and SF readers who had never
contacted fandom previously. There were now eight attendees at the meeting, which
was not a bad showing -- the first Minneapolis Fantasy society meeting in November,
1940 had a total attendence of nine -- but the big hall swallowed us up like the
expedition to the center of the earth. John was, I'm afraid, slightly crushed, al-
though he shouldn't have been; he decided not to hold an official meeting but to
try again at a later date. Ruth invited everybody out to her house for coffee. The
Bermans and Fred went in one car, while John and I took my redoubtable Rambler. Be-
ing slightly unfamiliar with that corner of the city I made a wrong turn somewhere
and drove the Honeybee in a bee-ling across lots most of the way, arriving far
ahead of the other car.
Forewarned by phone, Ruth's parents made John and I welcome. The stately Ber-
man manse, staring moodily through a couple of black evergreens at Lake Nokomis, is
a large place containing the usual durnishings [sic] and the even more important require-
ments for the good life: books, records, musical instruments, and hobby equipment.
Ruth's father is a doctor, and was engaged at the moment in the delicate surgical
operation of making pizza. As soon as the others arrived, we were ushered into a
breakfast nook where we ate pizza and chatted with Terry and Miri Carr. The latter
two weren't present except as metal states. Inspired by pepperoni and hot coffee
Ruth grabbed the phone and dialed Berkeley (the city, not the bishop), and it was the
work of but a moment to make contact with the Carrs in order to tell Fanac about
this latest event in the history of Twin Cities fandom. Ruth paid for the call, but
generously allowed me to monopolize the phone for several minutes, and just as gen-
erously Terry permitted me to speak briefly with his sexy wife.
Afterwards Ruth showed me her Oz collection -- all those early editions featuring
full-color plates by Neill! -- and Jean sat down at the grand piano and nonchalantly
played Poulanc's "Mouvements Perpetuels" with her shoes off ( as an encore she played
Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" with a real hammer.) And there was chitter-chatter and
deep discussion till it was time to leave. I offered John a ride home (he lives out
Page 9 begins:
--- RUNE 13 :: PAGE 9 ---
[..................]) and Ruth volunteered to drive Fred at least part way [back?]
[....old?] St. Paul. Before we parted, we paused awhile in the Bermans' front [..]
to identify some of the stars and constellations blazing in the late-winter sky.
Far out across ice-locked Lake Nokomis, Norlemin's star glimmered dimly.
( End. )
And the rest is easily readable off the scans.
Rune 13 was published before 1977 without a copyright notice and so is in the public domain.