Fred Lerner, White River Junction VT

Thanks for Challenger #25, which came in today's mail, along with the latest issue of Extrapolation. I read Chall in one sitting, but I have yet to open Extrap, and I suspect I'll never read that issue. It's devoted to Ursula K. Le Guin, and I think my time would be better spent reading her than reading about her. The nice thing about Challenger is that I can both read you and read about you at the same time.

Jeeze, pass that Extrapolation on to me! Any good critical writing about LeGuin is worth reading.

By far the most interesting piece in this issue was "Hebrews 13:3". I'm fond of quoting Kipling's line from Captains Courageous: "The most interesting thing in the world is to find out how the next man gets his vittles." When someone not only tells you how he makes his living, but conveys the passion that led him into that work and sustains him through the disappointment and despair that are built into it, you can see how absolutely right Kipling was. From "Hebrews 13:3" I learned something about Louisiana's criminal justice system, something about the miscreants who find their way into its clutches, and a good deal about who Guy Lillian is and what makes him tick. These are all things well worth knowing - especially the last.

Your piece on your interview with Alfie Bester was fascinating. I well remember Heinlein's appearance at the 92nd Street YM/YWHA (not the YWCA) in Manhattan. He didn't give a speech, but rather selected written questions from the audience and gave his answers to them. Afterwards, when he sat signing autographs, I was standing nearby when Alexei Panshin walked up and tried to introduce himself. Heinlein refused to shake hands with him, on the grounds that Panshin had read letters that Heinlein had written privately. That was the only occasion on which I saw Heinlein in person; the experience didn't cause me to wish to repeat the experience.

As you can see from "A Show of Hands" this issue, I was there too! You should've found me and mentioned that we'd be exchanging fanzines in thirty years.

I was glad to see your pictures of the Watts Towers, which do indeed remind me of the whimsically embellished architecture of Antonio Gaudíí. He, too, used scraps and shards as decorative elements in his constructions; and he, too, worked Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam. Of all the arts, architecture is the one that most compels my interest, I think because it reveals more than any other endeavor the assumptions of the architect and the society in which he works. The painter and the composer may create the most elaborate of structures: but they need not worry about them falling down! That danger imbues architecture, even at its most whimsical, with a seriousness that is sometimes lacking in the other arts.