Argentus 09 (2009).pdf

From the Mine

Steven H Silver

lthough numbered as Argentus 9, this is really the

eleventh issue of Argentus , since both 2005 and 2009

saw special editions of the ‘zine published early in the year.

In 2005, there was the Argentus Guide to Game Shows ,

which needs to be updated following four more years of

fans on game shows, including an impressive five-game run

by Christine Valada on Jeopardy! This year’s issue was

Argentus Presents the Art of the Con , an 80 page look at

con-running. I’d love to add articles to either or both of

those special editions, so if you have anything you’d like

included, please feel free to send it to me.

2009 also saw Argentus receive its second Hugo

nomination, for which I would like to thank all the 2008

contributors and all the Hugo nominators. I take great pride

in those nominations and although it is my name on the

ballot as editor, Argentus would not be what it is without the

efforts of the writers and artists who permit me to use their

work in its pages. Similarly, Argentus was recognized by

the video-blog Chronic Rift with its Roundtable Award, and

although I wasn’t able to record an acceptance speech in

time for their subsequent award show, I want to thank the

producers of Chronic Rift for the award on behalf of all

Argentus ’s contributors and also want to point them to the

other great work being down with fanzines.

The opening article in this issue in non-science fictional

in any way, although I’ve run portions of it in a variety of

other fanzines. A look at six silent film comedians, which

was tremendous fun to research. You can find parts of it in

Alexiad , Askance , Challenger , Chunga , The Drink Tank ,

and Reluctant Famulus , or you can read the entire thing

here, along with additional “DVD-extras.”

Gregory Benford sent in a piece in which he talks about

the predictive nature of his own science fiction and the one

time he managed to predict the future. Later in the issue,

several authors, ranging from Robert Silverberg to Michael

Burstein, talk about the one story they’ve written which

seems to have disappeared from public consciousness. No

reviews, reprints, nominations. Perhaps it will inspire

readers to track down copies of the original (and only)

appearance and find out why these authors still have a warm

spot in their heart for these stories.

At the Nebula Awards in Los Angeles in 2009, Janis Ian

filked her own song, “At Seventeen.” Not wanting to allow

her cleverly re-written lyrics to go to waste, I approached

her had she agreed to allow me to reprint them in Argentus ,

so just imagine sitting in a room a listening to Janis sing

these words while accompanying herself on guitar.

And we give you travel, whether it is James Bacon’s

bookstore crawl through the wilds of South Africa, A

description of Cat Valente’s book event that took place as

she rode The City of New Orleans from Chicago to the Gulf

of Mexico, Larry Sanderson’s tragic-comic attempt to fly to

Viet Nam, Cheng-Ho’s voyage of discovery for China, and

the beginning of Steve Green’s TAFF report (I refused to

allow him to send me the portion of the report covering the

time he stayed with me in Chicago…but I am looking

forward to reading it). After reading the beginning of

Steve’s piece, make sure you use the enclosed TAFF ballot

to vote for either Anne Murphy/Brian Gray or Frank Wu to

be the 2010 TAFF delegate.

Back in 2008, Howard Andrew Jones blogged about an

idea he called Universe-R, a fictional alternative world

where all the books and movies he wants to see, but won’t

be created, actually exist. I asked him to write something

up for Argentus , but his schedule meant it wouldn’t appear

until this year. I know I’d love to see the second season of

Firefly that exists in some alternate.

An off-hand comment by Ralph Roberts on the Mike

Resnick discussion list has led to his reminiscences about

working for NASA in the 1950s and 60s.

And Fred Lerner has contributed his usual insightful

piece looking at the way critics attempt to constrain the

boundaries of the genre by defining what does and does not

belong.

For the mock section this time, I asked people to re-

imagine various classic television shows as science fiction.

See what a science fictional Happy Days or Three’s

Company would look like at the end of this issue.

From the Mine ..................................................................... 1

Six Silent Clowns ................................................................ 2

The Virus-Scarred Man ..................................................... 18

Welcome Home ................................................................. 20

Taff Notes: Prelude............................................................ 21

A Culture of Maps, Trains, and Sex: A Review of

Catherynne M. Valente’s Palimpsest Tour ........................ 25

Cheng Ho Discovers America! .......................................... 27

Welcome to Universe-R .................................................... 29

The Bonds of Discipline .................................................... 30

NASA, My Dream Job ...................................................... 31

A Day In East London ....................................................... 33

Down and Out on the Way to Sai Gon or Breaking Bad ... 38

They Disappeared .............................................................. 44

Letters of Comment ........................................................... 49

Mock Section..................................................................... 54

Sheryl Birkhead: 49

Kurt Erichsen: 29

Brad Foster: 27

Anne Green: 22, 34, 51, 53

Deb Kosiba: 20

Sue Mason: 18, 30, 37, 52

William Rotsler: 59

MO Starkey: Cover

Brianna Spacekat Wu: 31, 32, 43

Silver. You can reach him at 707 Sapling Lane, Deerfield, IL

60015-3969 or via e-mail at shsilver@sfsite.com. His LiveJournal

is at shsilver.livejournal.com and his website is at

www.sfsite.com/~silverag. He’s also on Facebook.

Six Silent Clowns

Steven H Silver

Ben Turpin

In 1913, after a few years in the cinematic wilderness,

Turpin was befriended by Wallace Beery and played

support roles in several of Beery’s “Sweedie” movies, made

for Essanay at their Niles, California studios. When Charles

Chaplin came to Essanay, he befriended Turpin and made

Turpin his second banana in a handful of films.

The men had different views of comedy, however, with

Turpin looking more for the quick slapstick laugh and

Chaplin wanting to create more complex films. After a few

films, the two separated, with Turpin moving to Vogue

Studios before hooking up with Mack Sennett

Sennett, who is best known for the Keystone Kops films,

was nothing if not unsubtle, and his films demonstrate that.

Turpin’s own broad humor fit into Sennett’s concept of film

quite well, and he was willing to appear in several films cast

against his physical type. In addition to the perennially

crossed eyes, Turpin wore a small brush moustache and

stood only 5’4”, an inch shorter than Chaplin and Buster

Keaton. Given his statue and odd appearance, Sennett cast

Turpin in roles such as a Yukon prospector in Yukon Jake

(1924) (a role that both Chaplin, 1925, and Keaton, 1922,

also found themselves in).

Turpin’s biggest success came when Sennett cast him in

parodies of other film stars, most notably in The Sheik of

Araby (1923), in which Turpin parodied Rudolph Valentino.

Turpin similarly parodied Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Erich von

Stroheim, William S. Hart, and more.

In 1924, however, Turpin announced his retirement from

films. His wife, who had lost her hearing in an accident

several years earlier, suffered the first in a series of strokes

and he decided to spend his time taking care of her. A series

of shrewd investments allowed him the leisure to turn his

back on films, as he had also become a real estate magnate

efore there was

Charlie Chaplin,

Buster Keaton, or Harold

Lloyd, before even Roscoe

Arbuckle, Ben Turpin

stepped in front of the

cameras at Essanay

Studios in Chicago to help

fill roles in the movies

being made by Broncho

Billy Anderson (the Ay in

Essanay). Although

Turpin’s goal was to

conquer the new medium of film, his primary role at

Essanay was to work as a janitor, shipping clerk, a property

boy and scenery shifter, a “telephone girl” and scenario

writer despite having a long career in Vaudeville behind

him.

Born Bernard Turpin in New Orleans on September 19,

1869, Turpin moved to New York with his parents in 1876.

When he was seventeen, his father informed him that he

was planning on moving back to New Orleans, but that Ben

should try his hand in Chicago, and gave Ben $100 in seed

money. Turpin lost the money in a crap game in Jersey City

and hopped a freightcar, living the life of a hobo and filling

in the odd jobs with attempts to entertain people,

specializing in pratfalls, tumbles, and tricks. According to

Turpin, when he was thirty, a box fell on his head,

permanently crossing his eyes, a condition he later claimed

not only enhanced his comedic value, but which he also

insured for $25,000.

Shortly after Turpin married Carrie Le Mieux, he began

working at Essanay from 1907 through 1910, making

eighteen films before leaving the janitorial job and films

behind. His first film, An Awful Skate, or The Hobo on

Rollers , has the distinction of being Essanay’s first film.

The idea for the film was obvious since Essanay’s original

studio at 496 North Wells Street was also the home of the

Richardson Roller Skate Company.

During that time, he scored a notable first in film history

when he starred in 1909’s Mr. Flip . Playing a character who

flirts with every woman he meets, he became the first actor

to receive a pie in the face on screen. It wouldn’t be until

1914, when Mabel Normand threw a pie in Roscoe

Arbuckle’s face in A Noise from the Deep that an actor

would actually throw a pie in someone’s face.

In 1909, Turpin commented, “I had many a good fall,

and many a good bump, and I think I have broken about

twenty barrels of dishes, upset stoves, and also broken up

many sets of beautiful furniture, had my eyes blackened,

both ankles sprained and many bruises, and I am still on the

go.”

Turpin gets film’s first pie in the a face in Mr. Flip.

in the Hollywood area. To further save money, for Turpin

was quite frugal, he acted as the janitor in at least one of the

apartment buildings he owned. Le Mieux had made 14

films, including eleven with her husband, but had been

retired from acting since 1917. She died on October 1, 1925.

A month after Carrie’s death, Turpin entered the hospital

in Santa Barbara with acute appendicitis. While there, he

met a nurse, Babette Dietz, and the two married in 1927, by

which time Turpin had come out of retirement and rejoined

Sennett. In 1928, however, Sennett liquidated his studios.

Turpin signed a contract for ten shorts with Artclass, and

also returned to the still thriving Vaudeville Circuit.

Given Turpin’s broad physical comedy, the sound era

was not particularly kind to him. He continued to appear in

numerous shorts, such as Paramount’s Lighthouse Love with

Mack Swain in 1932, where Turpin appears in only the final

moments of the film. Although he continued making what

were essentially cameos throughout the thirties, his career

was mostly over and he was able to live on his real estate

holdings. Turpin’s final role was in the Laurel and hardy

film Saps at Sea in 1940, where he appears for a moment as

the punchline of a joke.

A month after Saps at Sea hit the theatres, Turpin

suffered a minor stroke, followed by an heart attack a week

later. He died in a Santa Monica hospital at 1:50 AM on

July 1, 1940. Between 1907 and 1940, he appeared in 230

films.

At Biograph, however, Normand was not given large

parts, partly because Griffith felt that her humor was not

appropriate for the more serious films he was making. She

also distracted the other actresses while they were working.

Nevertheless, Normand was effective in dramatic roles and

began commuting west with the company during the winter

months and making films with Griffith.

In 1912, Mack Sennett left Biograph to form his own

company, Keystone Pictures, with the backing of Adam

Kessel and Charles Baumann. In making his plans for a new

studio which would bring comedy to the masses, Sennett

convinced Normand that he would be able to give her larger

roles in comedies that were not as sedate as the comedies

that were being made at Biograph, since Griffith would no

longer be able to dampen Sennett’s style.

At some point, Sennett and Normand began a

relationship, which was often stormy, but lasted for several

years. Although the two never married, they were very close

for several years and in the 1970s, a musical, “Mack and

Mabel,” starring Robert Preston and Bernadette Peters was

created, although it was not successful.

In her films for Sennett, she created her own character,

also called Mabel, just as Charles Chaplin created the Little

Tramp, Harold Lloyd created Glasses, and Buster Keaton

created Old Stoneface. Mabel’s character was a happy-go-

lucky mad-cap girl who was game for anything. In the years

leading up to World War I, it was a character that appealed

to the American public.

In 1913, Sennett paired her with Roscoe Arbuckle in the

film A Noise from the Deep . In that film, Normand takes the

pie in the face gag first used on film by Ben Turpin in Mr.

Flip and takes it a step further, becoming the first person to

throw a pie in another actor’s face on screen. Arbuckle was

the recipient of that first thrown pie.

In 1914, Normand was paired with a new arrival on the

Keystone lot as Sennett took Charles Chaplin under

contract. Chaplin was not happy on the Keystone lot and, in

fact, didn’t fit in well. Normand was one of the few people

on the lot who befriended him and she and Chaplin

appeared in several Keystone films together during the year

he was with Sennett. Sennett dealt with the situation by

having Normand direct Chaplin in Mabel at the Wheel,

which did not sit well with Chaplin, although as the public

began to see Chaplin in films and his popularity grew,

Sennett backed off and Chaplin was able to work peacefully

with Normand.

In December of 1914, Keystone Pictures released what

may be the biggest hit for the Normand-Chaplin team with

the film Tillie’s Punctured Romance . The film resulted in

Normand losing Chaplin as a costar when he demanded a

huge increase in his pay based on its popularity. Sennett let

him go and he signed with Essanay for a much larger price.

As a result, Sennett re-paired Normand with Roscoe

Arbuckle for a series of films about Fatty and Mabel.

In the new series of films, Arbuckle and Normand were

on a more equal footing than previously and the series

enjoyed success. However, in 1915, Normand suffered a

head injury. According to Sennett, Normand was injured by

a thrown shoe. Normand herself claims that Arbuckle

injured her by sitting on her head. Keystone actresses Adela

Rogers St. Johns and Minta Durfee (Arbuckle’s wife) both

Mabel Normand

Even if you have

never heard of Mabel

Normand as an actress,

there is a good chance

that you’ve heard of a

film character based on

her. When Billy Wilder

was writing the film

“Sunset Boulevard,”

about a washed up silent

film actress, he named

her Norma Desmond. Her first name came from Mabel

Normand’s last name. Norma Desmond’s last name came

from someone else who featured in her tragic story.

Mabel Normand was most likely born on November 9,

1892, the youngest of three children. She was born and

raised on Staten Island, New York. For a while, she worked

at the Butternick garment factory. In 1909, she left the

garment industry and began taking on jobs as a model in

New York City, posing for Charles Dana Gibson, creator of

the Gibson Girl, and James Montgomery Flagg, who would

go on to create the “Uncle Sam Wants You” recruitment

posters for World War I. When another model, Alice Joyce,

found work at the Kalem Film Company, Normand decided

to follow suit, and made some films with D.W. Griffith’s

American Mutoscope and Biograph Film Company. While

working her first season with Griffith, she met one of his

directors, Mack Sennett. When Biograph moved to

California to take advantage of the weather, Normand

stayed behind making films for the Vitagraph Company

with John Bunny (1863-1915). Normand wasn’t happy

working with the older Bunny, and when Biograph returned

to film in New York, Mack Sennett lured her back to

Biograph.

claim the injury occurred after Normand walked in on

Sennett having a tryst with Mae Busch. Durfee says the Mae

threw a lamp than hit Normand, while St. Johns claims that

a distraught Normand broke off her engagement to Sennett

and tried to commit suicide.

Sennett held back the release of her film Suzanna until the

bad publicity died down. When Suzanna was released in

1923, it was popular and seemed to presage a renewal for

Normand, but it wasn’t to last.

On January 1, 1924, Normand visited Edna Purviance

and her current paramour, Courtland S. Dines. Dines had

some words with Normand’s driver. Normand’s driver was

an ex-convict and he shot Dines with a gun that belonged to

Normand. Associated with another murder, there were

further calls for her films being banned, but Normand went

on a public relations tour. Even when her films weren’t

banned, her reputation was damaging the bottom line and

was expensive for the studios to overcome.

Later in 1924, Normand’s name was again tabloid

fodder when Georgia Church named her in divorce

proceedings against her husband. Apparently, Norman

Church and Mabel Normand had been in a hospital at the

same time and Church had told his wife that they had an

affair. After Normand’s name was dragged through the

newspaper columns, Church recanted, explaining he had

made up the accusation. The accusations and scandal had

taken their toll, and Normand’s career was essentially over,

although she tried to make a comeback in 1926 and 1927.

In 1926, Lew Cody, who costarred with Normand in

Mickey surprised her by proposing and the two were quickly

married. Their marriage was stormy, but it lasted until

Normand’s death in 1930. Normand spent much of 1927

suffering from recurrent pneumonia, and in 1928, she was

diagnosed with tuberculosis. In 1929, she was put into a

tuberculosis sanitarium in Monrovia, California, where she

died of the disease on February 23, 1930. Between 1910 and

1927, Normand appeared in 226 films.

Roscoe Arbuckle

1915 was a bad year for Normand. Although she seemed

to recover from the head injury, later in the year while

filming in an airplane with Chester Conklin, Conklin

accidentally released the throttle, causing the plane to crash

in a fireball. Both he and Normand was laid up for several

days, but neither seriously injured.

Normand left Keystone and formed the short-lived

Mabel Normand Feature Film Company. One of its first

projects was Mickey , which was the first feature length

comedy to allot top billing to a single actor, in this case

Normand. For unclear reasons, however, Mickey was

shelved until December 1917, when it was accidentally sent

out in a mislabeled film can. The film turned out to be a

sensation and copies were rushed out as quickly as the film

could be duplicated. However, Normand and her company

didn’t reap the benefits. In fact, by the time Mickey was

released, she was under contract to Samuel Goldwyn.

More importantly, her busy pace was wearing Normand

down, as was the fact that she was having problems

weaning herself from the painkillers she began taking as a

result of the 1915 concussion and plane crash. Furthermore,

while she has previously been known for her diligence on

and off the set, her behavior was becoming more erratic and

she began attending parties into the early hours and showing

up late for work. Her attitude began showing up in her films

and her public was turned off.

On February 1, 1922, Normand visited with a good

friend, William Desmond Taylor, with whom she may have

been having an affair. She left his house and blew him a kiss

from her car. The next day, Normand received a visit from

the police. Taylor had been found lying in his house, shot

from behind with a .38 caliber gun, a photo of Normand

nearby.

Although the police never tied Normand to the murder,

or even accused her, she was pilloried in the press and by

the public. Her popularity suffered and as the press piled on

innuendo about a possible sexual relationship between

Normand and Taylor, her films were banned in some cities.

Normand fled to Europe to escape the press and Mack

Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle

was born in Kansas on March

24, 1887, the youngest of nine

children, and promptly named

after Republican political boss

Roscoe Conkling, a strange

choice considering that his

father, William Goodrich

Arbuckle, was a staunch

Democrat. Apparently,

William was convinced that

Roscoe was illegitimate and

hated him, naming him after a

man he also hated to confirm that feeling. Throughout his

youth, William beat Roscoe.

The family moved to Santa Ana when Roscoe was a

year old. His mother died when he was 12 and his father

abandoned him shortly after. Arbuckle survived by taking

odd jobs in restaurants and hotels in San Jose, eventually

being discovered when he was singing in a restaurant

kitchen. The Vaudevillian who found him persuaded him to

perform at a local amateur night, where he was heard by

David Grauman, who recruited him to perform in

Vaudeville as a singer and dancer for his brother Sid

Grauman, who would go on to build Grauman’s Chinese

Theatre and Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

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