View source for LASFS

===Comment From [[Marty Cantor|Marty]] - 8/13/07 6:12 AM ===

''[[APA-L]]'' was started by members of LASFS, not by the [[club]]. ''APA-L'' has never been run by LASFS but has always been free to use club facilities.

''[[LASFAPA]]'' was started by a single club member, [[Harry Andruschak]], and is also not controlled by the club. Unlike the weekly [[APA-L]], ''LASFAPA'' is a monthly [[APA]]. Both ''APA-L'' and ''LASFAPA'' share the dubious distinction of now being much smaller than they were in the late 1970s-1980s, but they both continue the tradition of regular paper [[fanac]].

I currently run both APAs having run ''APA-L'' three different times and ''LASFAPA'' twice.

Please note that one of our members runs serial chapters, cartoons, and other filmic items for about a half hour before the business meeting begins, with the start of the meetings usually anywhere from 8:00 to 8:10 pm.

The LASFS Board of Directors meets on the Second Sunday of each month, starting around 11:00 am. 2:00 pm is when the Second Sunday Open House begins. Open to all, members socialize, play board and card games, and picnic in the patio 'twixt the two buildings.

See also: [[How It Began]].

{{fancy2|text=
The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, founded 1934 and thus the oldest local in fandom. Formerly the LASFL as a branch of the [[SFL]], the group also held Overseas Chapter #1 of the [[SFA]], and when they also became a chapter of the [[Science Fictioneers]] and seemed likely to affiliate with other general fan organizations, they voted to take this neutral (and, Yerke says, meaningless) name.

The most famous members of the LASFS were [[4E|Ackerman]] and [[FTLaney|Laney]], but there
have been many active fans associated with it, including [[Charles Burbee|Burbee]], [[Ray Bradbury|Bradbury]], [[Walt Daugherty|Daugherty]], [[EEEvans]], [[Al Ashley]], [[Art Joquel|Joquel]], [[T. Bruce Yerke|Yerke]], [[SD Russell]], [[Morojo]], and [[Paul Freehafer]], plus numerous immigrants from the rest of the country during the [[war]] years, some honorary members, and persons who only temporarily lived in [[LA]]. The LASFS is not only the longest-lived local in fandom, but up to the
[[Blowup]] was the most consistently active. In 1940 they claimed the name of [[Shangri-LA]], and became the Rome whither all roads led in the months after Pearl Harbor. They have probably had the largest attendance records of any [[local]] at some meetings, including numerous celebrities, and even maintained their own [[clubroom]] up to 1948.

[[Mirta Forsto]] ([[Morojo]] and [[4E|Ackerman]]; it's [[Esperanto]] for "Myrtle Forest")
dominated the club all during the war years and for a long time before and after. Between them and the [[Moonrakers]], [[Knanves]], [[Outsiders]], and [[Insurgents]] -- successively -- there had been sustained differences during all this period, which in the end caused the [[Blowup]] and knocked the LASFS out for a decade. 

For some time these clashes were kept out of the general fan press and subordinated to [[club]] spirit; one emerged for a second in 1938, when, in the [[Michel]]istic period, a board of censorship was set up to keep over-controversial material out of the [[OO]], ''[[IMAGINATION!]]'' and another one came in '42 when [[Robert A. Heinlein|Heinlein]] resigned just before going into the Navy, giving as his reason the attacks on him by [[T. Bruce Yerke|Yerke]] of the [[Moonrakers]]. But at the end of 1943 a successive series of internal explosions began with the Knanve secession, when dislike of Ackerman personally, [[4e]]'s objections to the intrusion of drenching and wenching on LASFS affairs, and discontent with the accomplishments of the club as compared to its possibilities led Yerke, [[Phil Bronson|Bronson]], and others to withdraw briefly. Early in 1944 Ackerman's puritanism and [[FIAWOL|fandom-is-all]] attitude (he had taken to passing out little notes of reprimand to those who didn't meet his standards) provoked a more general withdrawal by the [[Knanves]] plus [[Paul Freehafer]], [[SD Russell]], [[FTLaney|Laney]], and [[Pogo]]. Originally they were merely disgusted with [[LA]] [[fandom]], but Ackerman issued an attack on their intentions which led them to declare [[feud]] on the LASFS. Their attacks apparently brought LA fandom briefly to the verge of extinction, but as many of the [[Outsiders]] had little residual interest in fandom the schism was temporarily healed, after some vigorous cut-and-thrust, in May when the Outsiders were largely either [[gafia]] or re-instated in the LASFS. [[FTLaney|Laney]] continued his criticism of the club from within, however, describing the "pathologically neurotic incompetents imagining themselves as fine minds and cultured individuals" mercilessly.
   
When the [[Slan Shack]] group arrived in September 1945 they soon came around to Laney's point of view; and when they became vocal about it in their [[publications]] and otherwise an investigation committee was appointed ([[Jack Wiedenbeck|Wiedenbeck]], [[Walt Liebscher|Liebscher]], [[Al Ashley|Ashley]], and perhaps others) which after a couple of months' investigation returned an unanimous report that the LASFS should be
given back to the Indians; that no measures could rehabilitate the club, and its collapse would be no loss to the world, the flesh, or the devil. Reasons cited were violent dissimilarities of interests among the members, coupled with mutual lack of tolerance for the opposition; the extreme prevalence of pathological neurotic symptoms; and a lack of interest in moving to greener pastures combined with boredom with the club as it existed. Not long afterward the [[Insurgent]] Element arose, which unlike previous schismatic groups did not rejoin the club but carried on war &aacu; outrance. In 1948 [[Ackerman]], turning [[pro]], began to [[gafiate]] as a [[fan]], while his old ally [[Morojo]] had dropped out about the end of the war. The LASFS lost its dominance in fandom with surprising speed. By 1949 the magic of its name, as the poetically inclined might put it, had vanished quight; till the revival at the time of the [[Solacon|1958 con]] the [[Insurgents]] and new groups like the [[Outlanders]] were the only effective portions of Los Angeles Fandom.
   
After the [[Insurgent]] [[Blowup]] the club was left with few active fans and became mainly a [[science-fiction]] club, with some large well-attended meetings in 1948-52 but without contact with fandom. A few members crashed the [[proz]] and the annual [[Fanquet]] was inaugurated; in 1948 the annual series of [[Westercon]]s was begun. ''[[Shaggy]]'', once a top [[fanzine]], became a disconnected series of [[one-shots]]. ("Just as fabulous things happened to us as to the [[Wheels of IF]]," complained [[Sneary]], "only there was no [[Willis]] or [[Bob Shaw|Shaw]] to write them up.") Another blowup, whose details are obscure for the reasons just mentioned, took place at the end of this period, when (1952) [[Jim Wilson]], [[Ed Clinton]], and [[Rick Sneary]] resigned in protest over certain club actions that were forced on them. By 1955-56 things had gotten so bad that only three people showed up for some meetings ["and one of them was a guest", adds Rick]. But in 1957 a revival of activity, at least locally, took place, sparkplugged by [[Bjo Wells]], who dragged the LASFS back into fandom via the activities connected with the [[SoLACon]]. Several members became active independently. Whether this renascence can be made good is at this writing hidden.
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{{fancy1|text=
The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. The LASFL had also held Overseas Chapter #1 of the [[SFA]], and when they also became a chapter of the [[Science Fictioneers]], and seemed likely to affiliate with other general fan [[organizations]], they voted to take this neutral and, says [[T. Bruce Yerke|Yerke]], meaningless name. 
 
The most famous members of the LASFS are [[4E|Ackerman]] and [[Morojo]], but there have been many other active [[fans]] associated with it, including [[Ray Bradbury|Bradbury]], [[Walt Daugherty|Daugherty]], [[Art Joquel|Joquel]], [[Paul Freehafer|Freehafer]], the founders of the [[HFL|Los Angeles Clubs#Harbor Fantasy League]], the [[Moonrakers]] and [[T. Bruce Yerke|Yerke]], numerous immigrants from the [[MFS]] and the [[Golden Gate Futurians]] and elsewhere in the [[war]] years, and some honorary members and persons who only temporarily lived in [[LA]]. The LASFS is the longest-lived [[local]] in [[fandom]], most consistently active. In 1940 they claimed the name of [[Shangri-LA]], and became Rome whither all roads led in the months after Pearl Harbor. They have probably had the largest attendance records of any local at some meetings, including numerous celebrities. For a long time they met in the Little Brown Room of Clifton's Cafeteria, but during the war moved their stuff into first one and then another official [[club room]] finally finding a swell place in an ex-beauty parlor where members drop in Sundays, days off, and evenings to do the things that a clubroom is designed for. 
 
Between [[Mirta Forsto]] on the one hand and the [[Moonrakers]] or others on the opposite, there have at times been sustained differences. For the most part, these have been kept out of the general [[fan]] press and subordinated to club spirit. One emerged for a second in 1938, in the [[Michelistic]] period, when a board of censorship was established to keep too controversial material out of ''[[Imagination!]]'', the official publication. Another flare-up occurred when [[Robert A. Heinlein|Heinlein]] resigned just before going into the Navy, giving as his reason the attacks on him by [[T. Bruce Yerke|Yerke]]. Toward the end of 1943 a rash of resignations broke out, but that story belongs in 1944. Suffice to say that the reasons appear to have been: Dislike of Ackerman personally; Ackerman's objections to the intrusion of [[drinking]], wenching, [[ktp]], on LASFS affairs; belief that the Society was becoming a collection of psychologically maladjusted people; and discontent with the accomplishments of the LASFS as compared to its possibilities. 
}}

{{fancy1|text=
'''LASFL''' – [[Los Angeles]] branch of the [[Science Fiction League]], later the LASFS. 
}}

{{club | start=1935}}
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