Just Things

A 12-page, single-sided one-off published by Jack Gillespie on May 29, 1938, the (Sun)day of the Newark Convention. Most, but not all contents dealt with the wars for Michelism; the rest is apparently better forgotten. It was included in FAPA mailing 4 (Summer 1938).

The Immortal Storm (chapter 25) immortalised it for posterity:

Jack Gillespie, a Michelist, contributed to the feud Just Things; the only original remark in this leaflet which was printed upon different sizes of yellow second shoots, was a query as to how Moskowitz "ever got the idea that Michel’s was a Communistic speech."

Jack's friend Richard Wilson reported in Escape 2, semi-jocularly:

Jack Gillespie is having his typewriter repaired. The missing 'z'--lack of which gave him so much trouble when he wrote hysterically about S. Moskowitz in Just Things--will be replaced, and he will again be able to dash off long, nasty articles, beginning on Jas. V. Taurasi. "God," he said to us, "how I hate Taurasi!"

More seriously (though still entertainingly) and in detail, reviewing the "fourteen magazines, pamphlets, etc., issued especially for the Fourth Eastern Science Fiction Convention" (and at the con's behest, "when they requested that each publication contain 12 pages") in Science Fiction News Letter 27 of June 4th:

Jack Gillespie employed the greater part of his journey from New York to Newark in cutting up long strips of yellow paper, upon which were masses of mimeographed wordage. A stapler, which protruded from his hip pocket, was to have bound 12 different jagged pieces of paper together to form his convention publication. At the last moment, however, he lost courage, and the Affair went Just Thingsless. Seven pages of it are devoted to caustic comments on the Moskowitz–Wollheim affray (tho J.G. was somewhat hindered by the lack of a Z on his typewriter). We found, to our dismay, "Stuff by Wilson” (scraps written on subways) in there. A sample of "stuff by gillsp," an article(?): "Astrology. If you are born under the sign of Ghu Ghu the Watermelon please write your congressman." Just Things will probably find its way into a future FAPA mailing.

"Just Things" also went on to serve as the title of Gillespie's "Guest Space-Filler-Upper" ("What am I to write about?” "Oh, about half a page.”) in SFNL 43, September 24th. This included a claim

Sam Moskowitz gets more despicable as the days roll by. His latest underhanded trick is to bribe people to spy for him. (I can prove it, Sammy.)

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Publication

1938

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