Difference between revisions of "Midwestcon Incident"

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Midwestcon Incident
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(Redirected page to Midwestcon 5#Midwestcon Incident)
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While there have undoubtedly been many "incidents" at [[Midwestcon]] worthy of note, this usually refers to the incident of the [[Door]]: at [[Midwestcon 5]] in 1954 when [[Harlan Ellison]] supposedly waterbagged [[Jim Harmon]], and [[Harmon]], out of anger, retaliated by putting his fist through [[Harlan]]'s motel room door; the police were called by the motel management to haul [[Harmon]] away, and the attendees had to pass the hat both to pay for the door and to get [[Jim Harmon|Jim]] out of jail.
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#REDIRECT [[Midwestcon 5#Midwestcon Incident]] [[Category:redirect]]
 
 
This has become a [[fannish]] urban myth, what with many "first-person" tellings by people who were at that [[Midwestcon]] but who did not actually see it take place. (The traditional version of the story is told in [[Fancyclopedia 2]] under [[Door]].)
 
 
 
According to [[rich brown]] (who wasn’t there), [[Harlan]] didn't waterbag anyone, he emptied a pitcher of water out his window so the "splat" would get the attention of [[Harmon]] and others who were, in [[Harlan]]'s opinion anyway, being loud and obnoxious.
 
 
 
Since, in this version of the story, they were across the courtyard, not a drop got on any of them, but [[Harmon]], who was inebriated, took umbrage anyway, charged up the stairs and knocked down [[Harlan]]'s door. [[Harlan]] only locked the door because a [[femmefan]] was in his room, reading the [[stencils]] for the next issue of his [[fanzine]] ''[[Dimensions]]'', and he thought she might feel compromised if people talked/gossiped about it in subsequent [[fanzine]] tellings of the event ("to read his [[stencils]]" might be read as "to see his etchings," a euphemism at the time for seduction). But a number of years after the event, the [[femmefan]] in question wrote it up herself and thereby verified this account. But, as with other urban myths that have made it into legend, perhaps it all sounds better the way it was originally told.
 
 
 
The story was undoubtedly helped along in its rise to general notoriety by Ellison's pronouncements of [[Seventh Fandom|Phony Seventh Fandom]], a group widely regarded as loud and obnoxious.
 
 
 
[[Buck Coulson]], who ''was'' there, [http://www.jophan.org/mimosa/m13/coulson.htm recalled] in ''[[Mimosa]]'' 13: <blockquote>The Ingalls Hotel was old-style, opening directly onto sidewalk and street, and the front rooms overlooked the sidewalk. My knowledge of the event is mostly hearsay; [[Mary Southworth]], who was on the spot (and who still comes to [[conventions]] here and there as a [[huckster]]), had a somewhat less dramatic and perhaps more factual account, but I don't recall it well enough to retell it exactly. The report I heard was that [[Harlan Ellison]] was amusing himself by dropping water bags out the window, restricting himself to [[fannish]] targets. [[Jim Harmon]], who was both a [[big-name fan]] of the day and a rather large, rotund one as well, got splashed and resented the fact. He stormed up to Harlan's room, where Harlan had prudently locked the door. When Harlan refused to come out, Jim began to batter his way in, knocking out one panel of the door. There was a lovely story that Harlan was frantically calling the police while Jim was trying to drag him out the hole in the door, but this seems to have been fiction -- for one thing, the Ingalls didn't have telephones in the rooms. Someone did call the police, however, and Harmon disappeared leaving Harlan to explain things, while most of the rest of the convention milled about in the hallway enjoying the show. The police left and that evening Harlan came around to various [[room parties]], apologizing for the affair and taking up a collection to pay for the broken door. A bit later, Harmon came around, 'disguised' in [[Lynn Hickman]]'s coat (which was about half the size he usually wore), apologizing for the incident... and taking up a collection to pay for the broken door. Our group tossed quarters to each one.</blockquote><blockquote>
 
 
 
The next year, we were back at the same hotel, to find that the broken door had been repaired with a piece of unstained and unpainted plywood, and that the hotel now had a redecorated meeting room. I've always wondered just how much money was collected for the door...</blockquote>
 
 
 
{{fanhistory | year=1954}}
 
[[Category:US]]
 

Revision as of 17:26, 3 October 2020