Clear Ether!

All-purposes personalzine of Samuel Edward Konkin III (aka SEK3). It was not available by subscription, only in APAs (volume 1 was published in apa-nu) and in exchange. Started before December 25, 1975 and ended not before October, 1980. Total list or even number of issues remains unknown yet. Consisted mostly of fannish material and comments, but covered variety of topics from politics to D&D. According to SEK3 Clear Ether!, was his publication for personal gratification for those who are gratified similarly. It was not meant as an ideological publication, but his philosophy was inseparable from his way of thinking so it showed through. Nevertheless, CE! was his creative, aesthetic, artistic outlet - and unabashedly fannish, faanish... and sercon when he's out to to pick a good fight.

According to SEK3 himself (see CE! vol. 4 No. 1 and vol. 2 No. 10), CE! was named after the expression of heroic friendship in Doc Smith's Lensman series; it sums up what Ayn Rand would call SEK3's "sense of life." (His commentzine ...And on Green was the Lensman's way of saying "of course" or "on target" from "All clear and on green, Kimball!") And if you don't know what a sense of life is, read Ayn Rand's Romantic Manifesto.

Other known apazines by SEK3 were Tarzine of the APAs (APA-L), The Competitive Quest (Alarums & Excursions), Frefanac! (Frefanzine) and starting with volume 2 Clear Ether! was supposed to combine them all so it started being published in variety of APAs instead of one (later Tarzine of the APAs sometimes accompanied CE as a commentzine as well as The Competitive Quest sometimes appeared in A&E). Also, approximately starting with volume 4 was accompanied with commentzine ...And on Green. It's not enough information at the moment, but volume 2 of Tarzine of the APAs was probably published in Scapa Flow (starting in 1980. Typewritten issue vol. 2 No. 2 tells that it's a "commentzine for Scapa Flow") and volume 3 was revived in APA-L as "more-or-less weekly" contribution (there were at least eight issues in 1987).

According to Marc S. Glasser (the official collator of APA-NYU), SEK3 was the co-founder of APA-NYU back in 1974, and he contributed to it on and off until his death in 2004. There were times when he was in it almost every month, and then there were years when they didn't hear from him at all. Probably it depended on what else was happening in his life--when he was getting regular work at a printing shop, it was a lot easier for him to typeset and print zines to contribute. (It was usually titled Clear Ether!, but he used ...And On Green! occasionally for zines made up entirely of comments on other people's zines. Marc doesn't think he ever used Tarzine of the APAs in APA-NYU.) Marc also confirms the meaning of names above and adds that Tarzine of the APAs was a pun on Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Starting with volume 4, Konkin stopped the practice of announcing on the first page of Clear Ether! which APA (and which mailing) current issue was primarily intended for and where to look for the next issue, it makes it harder to systematize available scans.

Vol.	Issue	Date	Pages	Notes	APA
1	1	April 11, 1974	2	The very first issue.	APA-nu 1
1	2	June 6, 1974	2		APA-nu
1	3	July 4, 1974	2		APA-nu
1	4	August 1, 1974	2		APA-nu
1	5	August 31, 1974	2	Discon issue	APA-nu
1	6	November 7, 1974	4	Double issue numbered as numbers 5 and 6.	APA-nu
1	7	November 30, 1974	2		APA-nu
1	9	January 9, 1975	2	No. 8 is missing, maybe there wasn't any -- to make issue number equal to APA-NYU disty number. But there is not enough information.	APA-nu
1	11	April 17, 1975	2	No. 10 is missing too.	APA-nu
1	12	May 29, 1975	2	The last issue published in NYC.	APA-nu 12
2	1	December 18, 1975	2	The first one published in California. The first typeset one as well.	APA-L 553, APA-nu 14
2	2	December 25, 1975	2		APA-L 554
2	4	February 18, 1976	4	The De-liberation of D&D	A&E 7 (intended for 8), APA-L 557
2	7	April 1, 1975	2	Filler Reviews: review of Winter of the World by Paul Anderson	APA-nu 15
2	8	April 4, 1976	3	Illuminati Strike in Long Beach!	A&E 10
2	9	April 24, 1976	1	Anderson for Hugo	Frefanzine 3
2	10	May 17, 1976	4		A&E 12
2	11	June 1, 1976	4		APA-nu 16
2	12	July 8, 1976	2		Frefanzine 4, CarbAPA 4
2	13	July 14, 1976	2		A&E 13
2	13	August 19, 1976	4	Yes, it's No. 13 again for some reason.	A&E 14
2	16	November 13 (October 17), 1976	6	My copy shows pages misdated from page 2 on out, marked as CE17	LASFAPA 2, APA-nu 19, CarbAPA 7
2	18	November 4, 1976	3		A&E 17
2	19	February 8, 1977	4		A&E 19
2	20	February 11, 1977	4	Romanticism, Star Wars, Strange Horizons	LASFAPA 5, APA-nu 23, Frefanzine 4
2	21	March 9, 1977	4		A&E 20
2	23	April 6, 1977	4		LASFAPA 7, APA-nu 25, Frefanzine 5
2	25	July 18, 1977	3		Lords of Chaos (new D&D APA), A&E 24
2	26	July 2, 1977	3		Frefanzine 7
2	29	August 21, 1977	2		LASFAPA 11
3	2	March, 1978	6		LASFAPA 18
3	3	April, 1978	4		Frefanzine 12
3	11	September 1, 1978	1		Frefanzine 14
4	1	January, 1979	4	I'm here, I'm here, Let the Bells Ring Out and the People Cheer!... Introduction to new (bimonthly) format
4	2	March, 1979	4	Nice big article Future Societies: Libertarian Alternative
4	4	September, 1979	4		Scapa Flow 7
4	5	July 8, 1980	4	"With this issue, Volume Four of Clear Ether! ends. It's gone through various incarnations and will reincarnate at least once more. But volume 5 will be limited to comments to APA-NYU, of considerably less general interest than the five issues in this volume."	Scapa Flow 11
5	1	September, 1980	2		APA-nu, Scapa Flow 12
5	2	October, 1980	4	(Plus 2 pages of Tarzine of the APAs with comments)	APA-nu
5	4	November, 1982	4		APA-nu 90
5	5	December, 1982	2		APA-nu 92
5	6	August-November, 1983	2		APA-nu 100
5	7	September, 1984	2	(Erroneously numbered as Vol. 5 No. 6)	APA-nu 112
5	8	September, 1985	2		APA-nu 124
5	9	October, 1985	4		APA-nu 126

...And on Green!
Vol.	Issue	Date	Pages	Notes	APA
1	15	February, 1980	4		Scapa Flow 9
1	18	May, 1980	4		Scapa Flow 10

Tarzine of the APAs
Vol.	Issue	Date	Pages	Notes	APA
1	4	September 25, 1975	4		APA-L 541
1	5	October 2, 1975	2		APA-L 543 (missed 542?)
1	6	October 16, 1975	2		APA-L 544
1	10	November 13, 1975	2		APA-L 549 (missed 548?)
2	2	November 28, 1980	2		Scapa Flow
2	3	January 29, 1981	2		Scapa Flow 14
3	1	March 19, 1987	1	Wonder What Happened to Me? (Plus 1 page of Kent Hastings' zine.)	APA-L 1140
3	2	March 26, 1987	1	Wonder What Happened to Me? Part Two, Getting Zines Done	APA-L 1141
3	3	April 2, 1987	2	Cyberpunk vs New Wave: Part One, First Thoughts	APA-L 1142
3	4	April 9, 1987	2	ConDom is Still A Way Of Life (Missed collation and was actually published with the next issue.)	APA-L 1144
3	5	April 16, 1987	1	Great Expectations &c.	APA-L 1144
3	6	April 30, 1987	3	Packed Fannish Calendar	APA-L 1147
3	7	September 24, 1987	2	The Fannish Summer of My Fortieth Year & Related Thoughts	APA-L 1167
3	8	October 1, 1987	2	The Fannish Summer of My Fortieth Year & Related Thoughts Part Two (Concluded)	APA-L 1168

The Competitive Quest
Vol.	Issue	Date	Pages	Notes	APA
1	1	October 14, 1975	4		A&E 6

Frefanac
Vol.	Issue	Date	Pages	Notes	APA
1	1	September, 1975	2		Frefanzine 1

Frefanews
Vol.	Issue	Date	Pages	Notes	APA
2	2	February, 1984	4	"Welcome to 1984!"	Frefanzine 45
2	5	October, 1984	7		Frefanzine 50

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