K/S & K.S. (Kindred Spirits)/Issues 7-8
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| K/S & K.S. (Kindred Spirits) Issues | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Issues 001-002 | Issues 003-004 | Issues 005-006 | Issues 007-008 | Issues 009-010 | Issues 011-012 |
| Issues 013-014 | Issues 015-016 | Issues 017-018 | Issues 019-020 | Issues 021-032 | Issues 033-054 |
| Zine | |
|---|---|
| Title: | K/S & K.S. (Kindred Spirits) |
| Publisher: | |
| Editor(s): | Central Mailers: BH (#1-#12), NS (#13-), DM (1988), LB (1993), BA (1997-1998) |
| Type: | APA, letterzine |
| Date(s): | 1982 until at least 1998 (as print), however, it also moved online in 1996 to become K/S Circle |
| Frequency: | supposedly every two months but was more erratic than that |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Star Trek: TOS |
| Language: | English |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
K/S & K.S. (Kindred Spirits) is a Kirk/Spock Star Trek: TOS bi-monthly apazine.
They were published between 1982 and 1998.
Issue 41 was published around July 1992. Issues 61-65 were published in 1993.
Issue 7 (1984)
K/S & K.S. (Kindred Spirits) 7 was published in January 1984 and contain 109 pages.
The apa has one new member: PD, but has lost four members: DVH, LB, GJO, and RL.
This issue has 15 tribs by 25 members.
Fanworks and extras:
- Jim, poem by WR ("Inspired by Somtow Sucharitkul's story "Comets and Kings" from his collection Fire Fran the Wine Dark Sea.")
- illo of Kirk and Spock by SW
- a two page flyer for White Horse Video (gay porn: "I'm talking about the filmmakers who are now exploring the relationship between gay eros and gay violence...between the rose and the steel-tipped cock...between gay longing and gay rape. I'm talking about the new wave in gay cinema which for the most part is simply not available from your standard video sources.")
- a reprint of "Sex in Science Fiction: A Selected Bibliography" by Franklin Hummel (November 1983) -- 9 pages, lists 12 media zines
- The Crucified, poem by TG
- another chapter of the story "Rebirth" by JG
- One Step Beyond, poem by DD (was planned for the fifth issue of Obsc'zine that was never published)
Tribs: BL (Imagine), TGK/T'R (And in this Corner), RKL (Ruth's Riteings), KS (Christmas Card), WR (Out of the Halls of Vapor and Light), SW (Fantasies), BPG (Ad Astra #4), TG (Et Nunc Et Semper), SBS (Ear's Only #6), CH (Lamartian Lune), SL (11/15/83), DD (Just Words #5), JG (Unity of Opposites), BH (For the World is Horny and I Have Touched Spock's Thigh #6), CAT (And What We Were Before #7)
From BH:
I have often found myself wishing that they'd never made any new ST movies at all. I guess it's true what they say: you can't go home again.
From BH:
It may be just a question of semantics, but to me gay people are attracted ONLY to the same sex. If they are attracted to members of both sexes (like K and S), then they are bisexual. But then again, it's as you say: "... if they are having an exclusive relationship with each other, they are being quite homosexual about it...' But since they aren't gay, then they would simply be bisexuals currently involved in a homosexual relationship, but if there were gay... NORMAN!! COORDINATE!! Oh, never mind! I don't seem to be making sense. It just doesn't sit right with me to call K and S gay, that's all.
From BH:
That's the difference between this apa and APA Enterprise: here we talk about (and in great detail) the reasons behind WS being bare chested, and LN not, and in APA E, they are still trying to decided if there were ever any episodes where either Kirk or Spock was topless. Sometimes those people really get me going.
From DD:
You say you prefer the male approach, like the one that Pete Fisher has, and I can understand what you are saying, but it bothers me when people make generalization. Have you read other K/S written by men? From the few I have read, it seems to run the same kind of gambit -- from the hard and realistic to the overly romantic and unrealistic for the characters. Also, consider that females who are writing K/S are writing it for fe male audiences, does it really matter in the long run as long as the people you are writing it for are pleased and entertained? Besides, I've noticed that when I've tried to have my own work checked out by gay men, you run into the same diversity of expression. Some will say everything is perfect and quite believable within the parameters expressed and others will give you long lectures on what is wrong. And even there is confusion, because sometimes they are drawing on their own experiences that have nothing to do with men like K and S. I don't know if there is an answer.
From JG:
Back in 1978, when I was first getting interested in fandom, I corresponded with some fans in the Seattle area who had a Trek fan club that was involved in many "real world" activities — gay rights, fair housing, ecology, animal protection, ethical aware ness, recycling, lobbying for space exploration — you name it. (They were also involved in more traditional fannish activities such as running cons.) At the time, it just seemed like a "logical" thing to do, trying to implement the STAR TREK philosophy. Around this time, there were several groups of fans who were actively involved not just in consuming Star Trek but in putting it into practice. There was the campaign to name the space shuttle, the Welcommittee, an effort to organize a "Starfleet Academy" (sort of an alternative to the Boy Scouts, based on IDIC) and of course the campaign to bring back the show/movie. Well, things have changed a bit in fandom since then. We seem now to be more a fandom of passive consumers than of active doers. Rather than relate our interest in STAR TREK to things we are doing in the real world, we are more likely to relate STAR TREK to our consumption of other media products. And even where the STAR TREK movies are concerned, we're more likely to accept whatever the producers dish out instead of organizing to get them to do it better. What's happened?
From JG:
I've noticed another change. When I look at the fans I knew back in 1978 and 1979 who now are no longer active in fandom, it seems that most of them are women whose "mundane" careers have become richer and more satisfying in the interim. Conversely, quite a few of the people who've remained in fandom seem to have their careers on "hold" (maybe by choice) or are in dead-end jobs or otherwise seem to have big empty spaces in their lives that they use fandom to fill. It's not that there is anything wrong with using Trek to fill a void or need of any kind. On the contrary — if Trek can bring happiness and fulfillment to people for whatever reason, it has done all we possibly could want it to do, and more. BUT — when fandom is made up more and more of people who are in fandom to avoid the boredom and drudgery of their mundane lives — as opposed to people who are stimulated by what is happening in their mundane lives to bring new ideas into fandom — the nature of fandom itself is affected.Anyway, here are a few hypotheses that crystallized out of the train of thought I had today. I offer them for what they are worth.
(1) Fandom goes through phases of "expansion" and "contraction." When Trek is attracting people who've never been involved in fandom before, neofen with diverse interests and perspectives are brought in. This in turn brings new ideas and excitement to fandom. When fandom dwindles to a "hard core," the fans who are left include many whose heavy involvement in Trek and other media fandoms precludes much involvement in anything else. Fandom begins to feed on it self, to overwork the same themes, and stagnates. Of course, nowadays Trek is likely to attract new fans only through a successful new Trek movie. Conversely, a movie that's a bust will result in departures from fandom.
2) Fandom reflects social and economic trends in the "mundane" world. Economic and job stagnation means less control over our own lives and more need to escape from unpleasant realities. Fans experience this too, and it shows in our writing. Fans whose "mundane" lives are not going well are unlikely to write positive, affirmative Trek fiction with the élan of the series.
(3) Fans whose mundane lives are not very satisfying are likely to spend more time on fanac than fans whose mundane lives are relatively satisfying. Thus, it is likely that at any given time a significant percentage of fan fiction will be written by fans who are in fandom to "escape" from the mundane world. This percentage is likely to increase when the economy is stagnant and when fandom itself is in a "contraction" phase.
Please note that I am not making these comments to criticize anyone else in fandom. No one is at fault for needing to "escape" from time to time, and even if they were, I'd be just as guilty as anyone else. The irony is that, if Kirk and Spock were suddenly marooned in 20th century U.S.A., they'd be the last persons to become media fans (all of those delightful pieces of fan humor where Kirk and Spock discover their own fandom notwithstanding!). I just can't see our Captain and First Officer spending their free time watching videotapes, reading bondage stories, or otherwise becoming full-time passive consumers of TV, movies, and fantasy. They'd be too busy out and DOING.
From JG:
Careful analysis of h/c writing: I subscribe to that old adage about how the unexamined life is not worth living. Some times people don't like to analyze why they do what they do because they're afraid of what they might find out if they looked too closely. It was [CD] who argued that h/c helps people who write it to work out their real life problems via their stories. If you feel this is a false attempt to legitimate these stories, you probably should discuss it with [CD]. My own response, when I read h/c lit, is likely to be a totally unanalytical "Yuck, sick!!"
From JG:
I don't think that genuinely creative writers — as opposed to hack writers — write what their audiences want. Real writers follow their own creative lights. I doubt anyone in her audience ever told Leslie Fish, "Gee, Leslie, we fans are just dying to read a STAR TREK story about anarchism," or "oh, golly, you've just gotta write something for us about the Roman Empire!"One thing is for sure: you and [BPG} definitely are a lot more fascinated by rape and violence than I am! Maybe it's difficult for you to see how your interest in rape and violence might appear to an outsider be cause you are so close to your own attitudes. You've written a fair amount, in these pages, about how much you get off on these topics in K/S. Are you trying to back away from those words? I've noticed, incidentally, in your comments to [BL], a tendency to deny you "meant" the hostile and negative statements you've made about Spock in previous issues. I wonder if you are having trouble taking responsibility for what you've written.
Showing violence (on STAR TREK) is not the same as advocating violence or finding sexual titillation in it. Do you have trouble distinguishing between the two? Hmm, I always wondered how people who're into S&M could also be into STAR TREK — maybe that's what some of the S&M fans think STAR TREK is about!
From JG:
Marshak and Culbreath could benefit from a strong editor. Their writing has good ideas, but it is terribly undisciplined — self-indulgent perhaps is the word for it. At a con once, S&M told us they'd produced a draft for SHATNER: WHERE NO MAN that came to 800 pages!! And they said that was after they'd cut out everything that possibly could be cut out (or so it seemed to them).
From JG:
I agree with you that some British authors tend to make Kirk into a terrible wimp and that it's partly a cultural difference. If the British zines' editorial standards are more relaxed than ours, it may be because they are in such a rush to publish so much in such a short period of time. In a way, their enthusiasm to get the material into the hands of their readers as quickly as possible, without agonizing over the fine points of editing and design, is part of their fannish charm. Their zines are a lot like the early Trek zines, which were put together with a minimum of attention to mechanics (some of them, anyway), because the editors knew they had a starving audience out there that couldn't bear to wait.
From JG:
Your remarks to [CAT] about Kirk fans have abetted me in an idea I'm trying to formulate. For lack of better words, I suggest that K/S fans are either "givers" or "receivers." That is: There are some K/S fans who identify with one character, but who like to write about the other character as a love object from "their" character's point of view. Other fen seem to be able to write lovingly only about the character with whom they themselves identify. An example is the Kirk "fan who is interested in Spock only insofar as Spock shares her own worship for Kirk. Or the Spock fan who caresabout Kirk only as leige to the mighty Vulcan.
From JG:
"We should all look for ways to make money from doing what we love to do (i.e. anything having to do with Star Trek)"— yeah, but why? As the gay playwright Harvey Fierstein said, "once you start doing something for a living, it kills all the fun of it." That's an exaggeration — and I guess it's always better to make money than not to make money, other things being equal. If it were just a matter of doing the fannish things we love to do anyhow and having somebody hand us a royalty check from time to time, I'd be all for it. How ever, I doubt it can ever be that simple. Gene Roddenberry has written volumes on the compromises he had to make to get STAR TREK on commercial television. Of course, if what you love to do happens also to be tremendously viable commercially, that's terrific. But it doesn't happen every day. Personally, I enjoy the luxury of producing a non-profit zine with a circulation of 500 or 600 and being able to do exactly what I want, without the Marketing Department looking over my shoulder. Of course, we all have to make a living, and I hope that what I do for a salary will always be something I'd enjoy doing for free anyway. But just because I enjoy what I do for money doesn't mean I have to make money from everything I enjoy. Carried to its logical conclusion, that would mean I should try to get paid for playing with my kids, partying with my friends, and making love with my husband. Who'd want to carry the profit motive that far?Whether or not you feel the urge to benefit financially from STAR TREK fanac may have some thing to do with how active you are in fandom. Fans who are more active and involved and prolific than I am probably have a greater interest in trying to get paid for their activities. Personally, I would not choose to leave my regular job and spend full time on STAR TREK. In fact, the thought of spending so much time on fanac that it would even come close to a full-time job is a little scary. But many fans feel just the opposite. So you can chalk up my reaction to the fact that I function on a very low level of fannish activity.
I also feel there's a difference between work and "play" that can't be reduced to the difference between getting paid and not getting paid. I don't get paid for all the work I do (by any means); and when I was working for a public interest law firm where people kept right on working after the funding ran out, I did just that for three months and loved it. But that doesn't mean I thought of it as "play," the way I look at STAR TREK. I'm defining work and play very subjectively — play is what you do for recreation from your work; so that one person's work can be another person's play, and vice-versa. Incidentally, just to show that I'm not trying to be too simple-minded about this, I belong to a group called Zerowork which is dedicated to the abolition of "work." Nevertheless, I think that even if we weren't forced to work for our living, there would still be a difference between work (our craft or profession) and play (what we do for sheer fun). How did I get off on this tangent, anyway? May be just to say that I understand how aspiring writers, artists, and editors in fandom can look at STAR TREK as their work, for which they deserve to get paid; but there are others of us who are just in it for fun.
From JG:
Our actual printing cost for ORGANIA was 3.4 cents a page. The cost of contributors' copies (60 contributors) added 0.5 cents a page, and pre-printing costs (stats, art supplies, Xerox, postage, etc.) came to a whopping 0.9 cents a page. Pencil drawings and reduction really did not cost us that much extra, but the color cover and perfect binding did. Zines that cost more than 10 cents a page bother me too. Many editors feel they are entitled to recover something for the value of the labor they put into publishing a zine, and that accounts for some of the high prices we see nowadays. I think there are some legal problems with this, but I got enough nasty letters from editors after saying so in UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR to know when to shut up.
From JG:
Picky points in copyright law again. You mentioned the copyrights of authors and editors in the NEW VOYAGES series. Only very rarely is the editor, as opposed to the author, the owner of copyright in a story published in a fanzine. The author's copyright remains hers until it's transferred to someone else. Most fan authors never execute a transfer of copyright to the editor, although such transfers (usually by written contract) are extremely common in "pro" publishing. The fanzine GUARDIAN is an exception: the eds of that zine have the authors transfer their copyright to them so they can register the entire zine as one work for a single $10 fee. Then they execute transfers of copyright back to the authors. Some editors, on the contrary, assume they can slap their own copyright on a zine and it will mysteriously become theirs. Not so. The 1976 Act has very explicit provisions regarding copyright in contributions to collective works. These provisions protect the author's copyright even if the collective work bears only a single copyright notice, that of the editor. If the editor's copyright is the only one that appears on the zine, and the author has not transferred her copyright to the editor, in legal effect the editor has simply placed a mistaken copyright notice on the zine, and the author's copyright survives. However, innocent third parties are entitled to rely on the mistaken notice, as you suggest the NV publishers did. Hence the need for authors to threaten legal action to secure the royalties due them. The notices on zines about copyright "reverting" to the authors and artists are a little misleading, I think, unless there has been an actual transfer of copyright, which in most cases there hasn't. Often, it would be more accurate if the editor simply stated that the works in her zine are copyrighted in the names of the authors and artists, without using any "revert to" language.
From JG:
Just out of curiosity, though, I asked a couple of guys I know who work as pressmen for some of the big printing companies in town if they could conceive of a situation in which a printer or pressman would refuse to a customer's work. They pondered this for awhile and finally decided that it might happen "if the material were really anti-union. Since both Kirk and Spock clearly are part of management, I can see this could be a problem. Maybe if you slipped in a few kind words for your local district council in the middle of the sex scenes?
From JG:
It would be nice to think that fans success — fully resisted exploitation by Bantam for the NV series. However, I don't think it was quite that simple. I know some excellent fanwriters highly regarded in fandom, who submitted stories to NV and were basically given the cold shoulder by S&M, Bantam, or — who knows who had the final say?
From JG:
I liked DREAMLOVERS. I think what I appreciated most was Pete Fisher's candor. What did you find "disgusting" about him? I know ST fans who've gone off the deep end at least as badly as he, but lacked his perspective on what they are doing. ST fans have been known to let their marriages/relationships collapse because they were lost in a fantasy world with the show or the stars. At least, Pete and his lover Marc were able to talk about it openly. And Pete at least survived his fantasy obsession, which is more than you can say for some fans.
From JG:
I guess we've all had our anxious moments with office copiers. Sometimes I think the machine can tell when it has K/S in its innards (talk about machines being able to feel...). I ran off the last page of my last apa on the only reducing machine in our building. It was having a bad day, and a lot of the pages were coming out smudged. You are supposed to leave the botched pages in a wire basket above the copier so that they can be credited to the university's account. But I just couldn't leave those pages in the basket, could I? I ran off with a big sheaf of smudged pages, tore them to shreds, and dumped them in a wastebasket at the end of the hall. I was sure someone was going to call after me, "Hey, come back here and put those pages in the basket?"
From JG:
I thought referring to K&S as "the boys" was cute the first few times you used it, but with constant repetition I'm beginning to find it a bit of an irritant. This isn't meant as an effort to tell you how to write or talk. I know there are millions of things I say that irritate you, after all. Referring to men and women as "boys" and "girls" is dehumanizing, treats them as objects, etc. (I know you know all that). Besides, I think two men together are much sexier than two boys (overgrown or otherwise). Some of the bondage/slavery stories get off on reducing Kirk and/or Spock to a state of "boy"-like dependency that has nothing to do with age. On the other hand, [Gayle F] wrote a story in which Kirk's slave status and masculine strength, energy & maturity were presented in highly erotic tension — that's the kind of slavery story I really enjoy.
From SBS:
If you're collecting stories about embarrassing moments caused by K/S zines, I left one behind by mistake in the employee lunchroom -- an really graphic one, too, illos by [Gayle F]. I imagine it's still sitting in the lost and found box in the office of the Publisher's secretary; since he is a real homophobic, Bible-thumping Moral Majority type AND my boss, I decided that $15 for a replacement copy would be cheap compared to looking for a new job. Gutless of me, I know, since claiming the zine would have supplied a great opening for preaching IDIC but you know what they say about he who will not hear. Maybe, though, someone else picked it up and read it, and her eyes have been opened to the joys of K/S and Trek. What a consoling thought.
From CH:
How neat to see that 3 out of 4 writers in the Trekstar nominations were K/S.... I don't get Interstat anymore. Do you suppose this bums Teri out? I mean, the reason they started these awards was because the media fans were taking over the Fan Q's and now the K/S is gaining on the Trek-only categories, and I don't think she is all that fond of K/S.
From DD:
You're hooked on S/H too? I've not seen more than about half a dozen episodes, but those S/H zines are enough to hook anyone. At least the 3 I borrowed contain sensitive, realistic love stories and believable situations.
From DD:
At World Con, I was one of a group who had lunch with Pat Stall. I hadn't seen her since July 1982. She's still the same old irrepressible Pat. She's very active with doll conventions & went to California earlier this year in connection with one. At World Con, she only came in for half a day, so we didn't see much of her, but I did enjoy her enthusiasm at the chance to see the display of prize-winning costumes from othe World Cons. Her eye for the detail gave me a better appreciation of the costumes. She hopes to get to Clipper Con.
From BPG:
Well, on top of [description of some serious personal problems redacted], receiving a copy of the APA (#5 I think) in which the sound of axes grinding was positively deafening.... I wrote out some replies...and never typed them; I hadn't the stomach for it. Look, folks, I WANT TO TALK ABOUT IDEAS AND THINGS — zines, stories, art, whatever. I DON'T WANT TO EXCHANGE STUPID, SNIDE COMMENTS AND PERSONAL ATTACKS. I'm sorry; that's the way it is. Therefore, if you have something of that nature to say to me, do it in INTERSTAT, or better yet, in private communications where it belongs — if it truly belongs anywhere. If you can't understand the difference between discussing an idea and attacking a person who espouses it, I feel very sorry for you. And I can only conclude that a person who persistently misunderstands everything I say — an intelligent person — must be doing so with malice aforethought. Beware the person who ascribes false motives to you by misinterpreting purposefully your writing! I'm well aware that this is one important ploy of the person who seeks to damage another person's credibility and reputation. To the fans who do this, I can only say: Just how stupid do you think I am? Just how undisceming do you think the other readers of this APA are? And do you think they want to read this kind of crap all the time? I'd be very, very ashamed of myself if I did the kind of thing some of you do. And that applies especially to those of you who have never even met me, but apparently feel obliged to be hostile. Try examining your motives; you may be horrified. Well, enough of the lecture.
From BPG:
Then, worst of all, after having to get a desperation job (I hadn't eaten for 12 days) doing proofreading and keyline (pasteup to you) for a publisher of CHURCH BULLETINS!!! Eeeyuck! Even if I were in the least religious it would make me ill.[snipped]
Well, with the horrible job I've got, I don't have time to read anymore, just do a little artwork. But I'm going to chuck it before the weather gets bad, and try my hand at writing, & doing graphics & illos for the small press publications. I'll most likely starve to death. Anyone who can offer me a really good idea of who to will my extensive collection of K/S-ST-SF art and fanzines to will receive my gratitude (I can't very well say undying gratitude) I was thinking of the STW, but it seems to have such a tenuous existence. I wish there were some kind of society for the preservation of Star Trek. But with all the bias and pettiness in fandom I suppose that that idea is quite impossible.
From BPG:
Now, first of all, that I "love violence" is completely false in every respect. Please do not say it again; I would hate to think that you were trying to convince other fans of such nonsense. Your misinterpretation of my possible alternate universe stories was dumfounding. Why would you conclude that a story set in a universe In which the Romulans had conquered Earth would be about violence, or would even necessarily be any more violent than a story set in "our" Trek universe??You liked the story, [JG], I sent you enough to want to print it in your zine, So: was it violent? Of course not! You know, what you keep ignoring is that, while many of us enjoy "relationship" tales (with or without sex), and "socially significant", "important" stories, we also enjoy the tense eroticism and passion in some K/S, also in hurt/comfort. That is the "attraction factor" in the stories you call violent. It is not the violence people are attracted to; it is intensity of emotion, of passion, the rush of vicarious arousal that accompanies it (whether people want to admit it to themselves or not), and the impelling sensuality of some of these tales. Well, if you can't feel it yourself, there is really no way I can describe it to you; it's like trying to describe an orgasm! And I miss the intensely passionate stories, like the ones Gayle used to write. *sigh*
[snipped]
I don't think fans should have to apologize for liking that kind of story. Sometimes I think there is pressure from one's fellow fans to like whatever kind of story happens to be in vogue amongst the current crop of BNFs at that moment. That kind of "peer pressure" is one thing I find particularly revolting in fandom. "Follow-the-leader", dictate everyone's taste, and crush the dissenters....that kind of stuff has no place in a fandom which ostensibly embraces the philosophy of IDIC.
From BPG:
Did my comments on how to mail artwork annoy you?? They were the very same instructions I give to all the editors I deal with, and theydon't have, with a few exceptions, any difficulty. The instructions were perfectly straightforward and not intended as any kind of putdown. It is, after all, part of [B's] and your job as editors to learn how to deal with the P.O. Whether you request further art contributions from me is, of course, your decision I don't consider that you are doing rae any great favor by using my art — not that I don't appreciate being in your zines, you understand. You certainly expressed your unqualified approval of my illo for ORGANIA 1 (and I received several complimentary LoCs on it). So, what I would really like to know is why your assessment of my art has changed so radically since then. Are you letting your editorial judgement be affected by someone with an axe to grind? This isn't a court, and I really don't think you need to defend [LB], [CH], or anyone else. You DO exasperate me sometimes, [JG]. Ungracious is ungracious Look it up. It is more HOW something is said than WHAT is said. If you are going to tell someone that you hate what she says, and that she should go fuck off, you should at least do so with grace and style. Otherwise, you sound like an unvarnished asshole. If you read that comment to which you were referring again, imagining that it is I addressing you, maybe you'll get the picture. Goodbye all. Gotta run — more next APA, I await all your loving replies!
From SW:
Your question about bondmates knowing each other's thoughts got me thinking. If we accept the idea that Spock and T'Pring were bondmates, then they can't know each other's thoughts because Spock had no idea that T'Pring was going to challenge. He also didn't know that she had a thing for Stonn. If Spock and T'Pring were not bondmates, then what were they? Also, another case in point -- Sarek and Amanda. Amanda didn't know about Sarek's attacks or that he had the heart condition and was taking medication or anything like that. Obviously, bondmates can keep secrets if they want to. Perhaps it's best. Not many of us poor humans could stand to live with the truth and nothing but the truth all the time, could we?
From SW:
I, too, have read Dreamlovers by Pete Fisher, and I thought it was the pits. It was a great disappointment. From some comments I'd read about it, I expected it to be better. Gag City, is right! I hope his fan novel. Black Star is better. It couldn't be much worse, that's for sure.
From SW:
I hope those of you with home computers don't have one made by Texas Instruments because they just announced today that they are getting out of the highly competitive home computer market. In other words, folks, your expensive toy is now obsolete and you can go whistle for spare parts. That's the way the software bounces.
From RKL:
Many years ago , when I first got into Trek, I began writing a K/S story that also had a woman in it with whom Kirk became involved (Spock also became involved with her). I never quite finished the story. And years later, when I tried to finish is, I realized that it was hopelessly outdate. When I started writing it, K/S stories were relatively new and Kirk and Spock had to be really forced by circumstances to even admit their feelings for one another, let alone to do anything about it. I still have pieces of the story. And I still treasure a couple of scenes -- one of which is a scene of Kirk and the woman making love.
From WR:
I got NOME 6 and BROKEN IMAGES in the mail just a couple of days after the move. They made my day for two days straight. Ask anyone around here -- I didn't speak or show up for meals or anything. I got teased for having my nose in fanzines all the time...I liked BROKEN IMAGES but it was too long. I could have used some extensive editing. And I wanted more of our Spock and Kirk in the end. I liked NOME 6 very much but that one to be continued story at the end.... arg. I can't wait for more.
From BL:
I agree with you about Yesterday's Son showing the care of a real fan. I thought it was excellent. I also enjoyed Web of the Romulans.
From BL:
I disagree with you on LN. The studios themselves would have loved to dump him whether the fans liked him or not. In fact, they wanted name stars to have top billing in ST 1. It was Roddenberry who talked them out of it. They just wanted the money and whether LN would be in it or not, they would still make Trek for the money. And I believe they would still be successful. But Bennett and Leonard have been friends for years and had been discussing his directing abilities for a long time. THAT is why LN got the job. Sometimes I think that fans think their words are what moves things, or gets them going. The thing is we do have clout to some extent, but it is little unless we get advertised. (i.e. Spock's death scene). But even then, the studios are contemptuous of us. Gotta shake them up.
From TGK:
All the Duet zines have pretty much the same quality of stories in them. Only #7 (I think it's #7; I ordered #7 and got something entitled Slightly Duet.) is different. It's got a lower S.Q. (Sex Quotient) I prefer 'em a little more blatant, so I'm not as fond of this issue. The stories are no better or worse than they are in the other volumes, though. Most of them could use a little less poetry, too.
From TGK:
Congratulations [S], you've managed to make your Spock look like he is missing an eye [in your illo]. Or was that your intent?
From TGK:
Maybe some of us are unconsciously defining "gay" as being synonymous with "wimp" when applied to people? I haven't noticed any objections when the relationship is defined as gay, only when Kirk and Spock are.
From TGK:
I liked Dreamlovers too. Did you know that the book Pete refers to as Black Star (with Duke Delaney) is going to be available through the Out of Bounds people? You might write to Lezlie Shell for information if you're interested.
From TGK:
I know what you mean about the "no lubricant" stories. The only ones that bother me more are the ones where Spock apparently manufactures his own. I can only think of two at the moment. "Poses" by Fish and Agostino in K/S Relay, and "Immortalized" by Taffie Bush in Out of Bounds, Again. I don't know why this bothers me, but it does. It might have something to do with the fact that I have this uneasy suspicion that the authors may have been trying to turn him into a more "feminine" character, but then again it might not.
Issue 8 (1984)
K/S & K.S. (Kindred Spirits) 8 was published in April 1984 and contains 64 pages. The deadline for the next issue was June 15, 1984.
Despite the very volatile remarks by BPG in the previous issue, there are very few comments about her or directed to her. One thanked her for a book list and then said: "I hope bad times have run their course for you and things have gotten better." Another fan said: "I [don't have axes to] sharpen for I like your illos. But I was wondering if it was worth all the effort to reply to others negative comments on your opinions. What about ignoring them? Being ignored is much worse then having someone to argue with!" BPG, herself, did not contribute to this issue.
Four members have dropped out (JT, CH, TG, NE), but two more joined (BC, GD).
There are 15 tribs from 22 members.
Members lost: JT, CH, TG, and NE. Members gained: BC and GD.
Tribs: GD (Activated K/S Gene), GAR (Star Trek Lives), PD (Hi Everybody), BAC (The Realm of You#1), RKL (Ruth's Riteings), WB (in the form of a poem called Kirk's Retraction), SBS (Ears Only #7), TGK (And in this Corner... #8), CH (Lamartian Lune), JG (Unity of Opposites), AC (USS Enterprise), SL (3/10/84), CAT (And What We Were Before: (or, Ghosts of my history will follow me...) #8), BL (Imagine), AC (Opposite Poles)
Fanworks and extras:
- a flyer for "The Eddie Murphy's Disease Foundation" -- a fan boycott/campaign regarding Eddie Murphy's EXTREMELY offensive anti-gay remarks on his LP called "Eddie Murphy: Comedian"
- a ballot for the first annual K/Star Awards
- Obsession, poem by GD
- The Night the Bunk Broke, Do You, Translation, Sometimes, poems by GAR
- untitled poem by BAC
- Kirk's Retraction, poem by Wendy Rathbone
- another installment of the story, Rebirth, by JG
From AC:
This is going to be the last apology you are ever going to see in this APA — at least on this subject. I am sorry for the lateness of K/S and KS Number 8. [B] and I enjoy doing the APA but we are acutely lazy. There's no other excuse this time. We are attempting to turn this around by adding a mailing date to our deadline date. If this doesn't work we'll talk about turning over the APA to one of the many members who have volunteered. We realize that by now you are used to being able to mail us your pages a little late (o.k.— sometimes a lot late) and having them be included in the current mailing, but this time there will be no safety margin. If this is a hardship to those people who must send pages for Number 9, please write and ask for an extension. We won't delay the mailing for you but we will hold your membership for one more issue.
From SBS:
Re the term K/S: Would you believe it's because a Captain ranks a Commander? Seriously, I suspect it comes from the tradition of listing the more important person first — Doctor & Patient, Husband & Wife, Mr. & Mrs (I don't mean to say that men ARE more important than women, just that that's how they were viewed in the past.) I skimmed my K/S collection, trying to get a rough count, and I'd say that Kirk is more often given the dominant or male, role in their relationship to Spock's 'female'. I'm not talking fucker/fuckee, rather who makes the decisions in a relationship, who defers to the other's wishes, whose ambitions/career are treated as more important. The ones with a dominant Spock seems to be limited to two categories: The Male-in-Pon-Farr-Must-Rule type, and the Pre-Reform Vulcan Warrior or/Slave Owner type. (No prize for guessing the slave's name!) The stories set more closely in the aired Trek reality and dealing with an on-going relationship seems to always have Spock exhibiting, the "wively virtues": turning down chances at his own command I whither thou goest), learning to read and respond to the needs of his mate, acceding to Kirk's desires (for example, indulging Kirks taste for a variety of locations for sex at the risk of his own desire for modesty/privacy), etc, etc. Come to think of it, that begs the question: if we say Kirk is listed first because he has the male role the question becomes "Why is Kirk perceived as more masculine than Spock?" I'd say it's because Spock displays more of the traits our society calls feminine: a pragmatic approach to life (vs. Kirk's more idealistic nature; a preference for passive hobbies like chess (vs. wrestling); a taste for artistic pursuits like music (vs, reading military biographies) Plus, Spock often qualifies statements of his views "In my opinion-', 'I suggest', "It would perhaps be wiser" — according to reports I've read this is typically a female way of talking, And as I said earlier, power and control are perceived as masculine traits — and by virtue of his rank Kirk is dominant to Spock in these respects. Does this masculine/feminine pattern hold for A/B and S/H? I have no familiarity with those shows, (In fact, I'a not even sure whether the blond is Starsky or Hutch!) It would seem to fit H/L.
From RKL:
I just wrote into APA Enterprise about how serene this APA was and how we can disagree without making nasty remarks to each other and how nice it was to have civilized discussions in contrast to the chaos and nastiness that goes on in that APA. Please let's have a little sense of IDIC here. We should be able to disagree without self-righteous and hostile renarks to each other. Generally, I find the tone of this APA very congenial and I look forward to getting it and reading it from cover to cover. It would be nice if we could maintain that good feeling.
From RKL:
To answer your question of "Why did Edith have to die?" The answer is because Harlan loves to see noble suffering and wants us all to know what a shitty world this is, so he never writes a happy ending. Ha, Ha, only half-kidding.
From BAC:
I have a question of my own for everyone. Why, in so many stories in which Kirk and Spock have made a commitment to each other, do they become formal bondmates in a traditional Vulcan ceremony instead of getting married Terran-style? Is the Vulcan form of marriage supposed to be somehow superior to the Terran form of marriage? Is it necessary because of Pon Farr? Does the forming of a deep mind-link between K and S always mean that they are then bondmates in the formal sense, (without benefit of a ceremony on Vulcan) and can it happen without Kirk's full cooperation and approval? Can they simply live together as lovers without being married or bonded and still be as deeply committed and have as strong a relationship as with a bond and/or marriage? Which of these arrangements do each of you prefer? (Gods, this is starting to sound like I'm handing out an assignment for a term paper.) Anyhoo, I'd love to hear everybody's opinion on this subject.
From BAC:
At first, fandom was for me, a way to fill a void in my life. However, it has helped to build my self-confidence, get me involved in new activities, make wonderful new friends, and for the first time since high school, actually make an attempt at writing, not because I have to, but because I want to. Sometimes it's an escape, too, but everyone needs that. Everytime you read a novel, play a game or go to a movie, you are escaping from the "real world". That's necessary though, to the health of the psyche, as long as you maintain a balance between reality and fantasy.
From BAC:
Why do we say K/S instead of S/K? An interesting question. The most obvious answer is we always think of Kirk first in everything. He is the captain, and when we list the people of the Enterprise, they are almost always listed in this order-Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, etc., down the line in order of, well, I hate to say importance, but that's the only word 1 can come up with at the moment. I think it just happened that way. 1 don't read any particular significance into the order, like Kirk being the one "in command" of their relationship, the "superior" to Spock. I'd like to think that they have an equal relationship in their private life. I don't agree with those stories in which Spock must be the superior in their personal life because a Vulcan male is naturally dominant. Anyway, I think it has become automatic for fans to say Kirk and Spock, therefore to say K/S.
From BAC:
Perhaps Edith had to die because something she would or would not do if she went forward to the 23rd century, would change what was supposed to happen in the future of the Federation. Not to mention that the presence of Edith would screw up a future K/S relationship.
From BAC:
K/S songs — yes! I can think of several - "Even Now", "Somewhere Down the Road", "Ready To Take A Chance Again", Somewhere in the Night", etc., all by Barry Manilow; "Come in From the Rain" by Melissa Manchester; "We're All Alone" and "Look What You've Done to Me" by Boz Scaggs; "Longer" by Dan Fogelberg; "Time in a Bottle" by Jim Croce, and "You" by Jane Oliver. And that's just a short list. Those are my favorites!
From GAR:
H/C stories don't have to be the kind with sadistic tortures, they can be just ordinary hurts too. I love to see men show tenderness for each other and these were the 1st stores that woujd allow for it. They gradually were replaced by K/S, but I still think they are two distinct types. I must have grown up totally isolated or something, cause I never knew men could be so caring and showing of emotions like that. And the few examples in real life I saw, were only If someone were hurt. Then they could be caring and not stoic or macho. To me when sex enters into a relationship it is not the same kind of love as in h/c, it is more like lustful gratification then true altruistic love, which is what I like best in a story.
From GAR:
On your chart of givers and receivers, wouldn't it seem that a Spock fan who writes from Kirk's point of view and is a receiver is exactly the same viewpoint as the much maligned, and in fact banned, Mary Sue. I see it just the same, just a switch of gender and then one can play out fantasies without breaking up the wonderful KS relationship with some interfering woman. I think people just write themselves into one of the guy's places. I think females fantisize of being male, after all, males seem to have all the fun.
From GAR:
Your comments on escaping ostracism in our society is so true. And it is such a comfort to love some high ideal, some person in fiction, for you know they will not change, nor will they hurt you. Then you find there are others who share the same fantasy, and they become your real life friends. Fandom is fantastic! Your relating of how you almost converted to Catholicism because of seeing the movie, The Robe, is neat! That's how others get into various cults and then get stuck into them for they don't see as clearly as you did "that it was only a movie" that caught them up. Fandom is almost the same idea really, but has much more freedom and uniqueness.
From GAR:
[BPG], I'm replying to [your comments in] which you said so many people seemed to have axes to grind. I have none sharpen for I like your illos. But I was wondering if it was worth all the effort to reply to others negative comments on your opinions. What about ignoring them? Being ignored is much worse then having someone to argue with!
From GAR:
What? No"/" relationship between S&H because Hutch lacked sensitivity? He's the most sensitive person I've ever seen! (but that doesn't make him not mean at times!) I too am very annoyed at him because he was so cutting down of Starsky, but that was in the last two seasons of the show when it was going downhill fast. The 1st and 2nd seasons showed him much more kind and loving to his friend. I love those guys. Sensitivity doesn't preclude meanness, sometimes it makes it worse, for it is two sided. Used toward good to understand someone with sympathy, used toward bad to exploit or pick on them. The sensitive person is more easily hurt by others and can either choose never to hurt others as they have been hurt, or can be extra mean and bitter. Hutch sort of goes both ways!
From PD:
I am fairly new to fandom. Jacqueline Lichtenberg introduced me to zines and fandom about two and one half years ago, and I may never forgive her. I knew nothing about zines or fandoms or conventions. I just happened to enjoy one of her books and felt a burning urge to write her and tell her so, I had never written to an author before. It was the mistake of my lifetime. I recieved about eighteen flyers with all sorts of great information about zines and conventions and the name of a fan here in Detroit who I share zines and dinners.
From GD:
I too have notice how many of the hurt/comfort writers have gone on into K/S. Perhaps the h/c theme was a necessary part of the evolutionary process from friendship to physical love? The last issue of CONTACT which I read was #5/6, many of the stories included seemed strained. As if the authors were taking extreme caution to confine their story to h/c when it actually would have seemed more natural for it to be K/S.
From GD:
Kirk's lack of chest hair versus Shatner's abundant supply of same. In an early issue of T-NEGATIVE, there was an interview with Shatner in which it was mentioned that he had just finished making a TV movie about Alexander the Great. Stills of the movie show him sans chest hair. I believe the lighter color of hair also came out of this film. Also, GR wanted a physical as well as emotional contrast between Kirk and Spock. Have you seen the [Gayle F] illo that shows their coloring reversed? Kirk has hlack hair. Spock is a blond. Very interesting.
From GD:
I like your artwork, [BPG]. Honest, Even the ones with the rather exaggerated anatomy. And I wouldn't know a litho crayon if it sang soprano and gnaffed at my ankles. Make a deal, I'll "be polite about your art and you reciprocate on my poetry, OK?.
From JG:
Re K/S zines and people at the office. Fortunately the people I work with at the Developmental Disa bilities Center are pretty "unglued." People read the K/S zines I bring to the office, and one of my co-workers and I are collaborating on a K/S/Uhura menage a trois. In more con ventional work settings, I've tended to use my interest in Trek and K/S as an incentive to work harder. In some situations, you can "earn" the right to be a little eccentric by being enough of a high-achiever. I find it hard to conceal my interest in ST from people I work with. I feel they deserve to know the wierdo they're working with. Full disclosure!
From JG:
Your comment about "opinions, some of which I agree with and some of which I don't" made me think of the attitude toward "opinions" I've noticed so often in fandom — that they are basically arbitrary and irreducible. Peo ple are always saying, in INTERSTAT and other places, "You're entitled to your own opinion," "I respect your right to your own opinion," yet usually are employed to cut off discussion rather than to advance it. (Or, as someone remarked in the current issue of INTERSTAT, people seem to be saying, "I respect your right to your own opinion, but nobody as dumb as you should be allowed to live!") A fan friend once observed that fans tend to reduce IDIC to tolerance of different opinions — although, as she also pointed out, IDIC was supposed to mean much more than that: an affirmative acceptance of diversity, of different ways of life, different values. Sometimes I think that if we fans began to treat other fans' opinions as the starting point of discussion rather than the end of it — that is, if we realized that opinions are not arbitrary and irreducible but flow from much more fundamental values and principles — we'd have more constructive discussions. Take the discussion in INTERSTAT of THE WRATH OF KHAN. Basically, the discussion never got beyond the "it was a great movie" vs. "it was a lousy movie" stage. Why didn't people ask one another, "What is it in your basic understanding of STAR TREK that made you think it was good or bad?" Opinions are just conclusions; unless we under stand why people hold the opinions they do, we aren't really communicating.
From SL:
On the subject of confiscated zines, I am sure there have been more seized than THE PRICE & THE PRIZE over the years. I know last summer we had a copy of TD #1 confiscated by the British postal service. We decided there must be something about those [Gayle F] covers that rings alarm bells in the minds of their cus toms inspectors.
From CAT:
I don't have any objections to people writing stories where either or both K & S are gay, but I don't see them that way. To me it makes the K/S relationship that much more special and rare and rich for them to go outside of their normal sexual preferences to be together than to be just part of a pattern, and it makes the relationship much more interesting for me to explore. Also, it too often happens that when a writer writes either of them as gay, she changes their personalities so that they are no longer recognizable as the men we've come to know and love and all they share are the same names. However I do also think that we are all capable of being bisexual given the right circumstance.
From CAT:
From CAT:
I must be a hack writer as you imply because I certainly didn't expect you to read my words as advocating that writers should write what their audiences want. What I thought I was saying was that unless you wrote and hid everything in a drawer, you are not writing for yourself and thus you are writing to communicate. Those they say that they are just writing for themselves and then hand their work to even one person else are not being honest -- they are trying to communicate what they think, even if it is only to one person. And to communicate, you must be aware of how to reach your audience. If you have something to say, to some degree you have to couch it in terms that are going to be acceptable to your audience, be cause if you don't carry your audience with you, they are not going to hear what you say no matter how pure to your ideals you want to be. The simplest example is that if you want to say something about the Kirk/Spock relationship to the anti-K/Sers, how far do you think you'll get if you couch your message in terms of a K/S story?[snipped]]
I don't have a love affair with violence despite what you may think. I hate to be hurt... I could easily never write another vio1ent story and still get most of what I want to say across, but when I write, I try to make you feel what the characters feel. If you are reading about sex, I try to make you feel that sex; if you are reading about the characters triumphing over adversity, pain, or injury, I try to make you feel along with the characters. It's not a gratuitous love of hurting the characters, but to make the audience feel along with them. It's like "Summer's End", D.T. Steiner's constant torture had a purpose — she broke the audience along with Spock. There was no question by the end that Spock wouldn't have broken; I myself was counting the pages of the torture long before it was over because I couldn't take much more. Another story might have made me skeptical that Spock, our Vulcan would've broken, but not that one. One of my greatest regrets was that that was never finished. So that we could see how K & S ultimately triumphed. That's what I really get off on and I usually try to write that into my stories. And I didn't mean that I like to read rape stories because I like to see my characters torn apart and devastated. I said I liked to read them when they show the strength of character within, that the hero can come through relatively unscathed, at least where it counts, and triumph over it. It is part and parcel with what heroes are meant for in the first place — role models.
From CAT:
No one told Leslie that they were dying to read a story on anarchism; quite the opposite, many fans moaned and groaned throughout the entire "Weight". But that doesn't mean that Leslie didn't know her audience or tailor her work to fit it. She was brilliant enough^to know that she would probably not get that many to read what she really wanted to write about — her politics, so she tied it to a story that everyone hated. I forget the name of the story that originally started the whole thing off and I'm too tired to go look it up, but Leslie said — I know a way out of this. And everyone who was depressed by the story said: oh yeah, show us. And Leslie took everyone on a merry chase right through her politics. She could've written a simple little story to get them out of that situation, but she used it for her own purposes. I have always applauded her for reading her audience right, for manipulating them right into reading what she wanted them to read, despite the fact that they protested all along the way, and for writing a damn fine story. But that doesn't mean she didn't know exactly what she was doing or that she was sitting back saying this Is the story I'm writing for me. Leslie didn't need to lecture herself on the subject. By your definitions that should've made her a hack writer, because she just didn't write what she wanted to write about--her politics but stooped to using a vehicle in which to couch her message.
From CAT:
Your explanation of why Spock might not feel desire outside of port farr is quite plausible. However, none of that was in "THE PRICE" nor was it even hinted at. Readers should not be kept in the dark as to what the author is saying, especially something as important to the story as that. I still feel that considering the expertise Syn shows in her writing, even in that story, that "The Price" is ultimately very poorly written.