Steve Barnes - a remembrance by Judith Brownlee
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| Title: | Steve Barnes - a remembrance by Judith Brownlee |
| Creator: | Judith Brownlee |
| Date(s): | July/September 1985 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Star Trek: TOS |
| Topic: | |
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Steve Barnes - a remembrance by Judith Brownlee is a 1985 essay by Judith Brownlee.
It was written in 1985 shortly after M.L. "Steve" Barnes passing.
The essay was printed in Datazine #37.
Some Topics Discussed
- the zines Eridani Triad, Grup
- the fic A Handful of Snowflakes
- possibly the first Star Trek sound collage audiofic, a satirical X-rated comedy, perhaps similar to Star Trek's Lost Gay Episode
- the Star Trek Lives! con in 1972
From the Essay
I was working on ERIDANI TRIAD with Gail Barton and Dee Beetem and she was there with art work, and with a story she hoped we would print. I read the story; it was a Nurse Chapel story. I was never very sympathetic to Nurse Chapel stories, and this one was a regular horror story. It put my teeth on edge... but the writing was good -- very good. Gail and Dee were not enthusiastic to print it either, for the same personal reasons. We worried about telling her because she was our friend and we didn't want to hurt her. All three of us talked to her and told her that it was a well-written story, but grated on our personal sensibilities. She took it well. We helped her find another zine to print it.
And that's the story of how ERIDANI TRIAD turned down A Handful of Snow Flakes, one of the most popular and controversial Trek stories ever written. I don't regret it, though, it just wasn't our cup of tea.
Stevie joined the Denver Area Science Fiction Association with us, and also joined the writers workshop being run by Ed Bryant that Dee and I belonged to.
One of the factors that led to my leaving the group was my difficulty in dealing with criticism of a piece of mine I thought highly of. Another memory I have of Stevie was how she sat grimly through the same type of vivisection of one of her treasured submissions. And she took it. Not smiling, but she took it. I knew she had more grit than I did. When she published her first story in an anthology I was as pleased as if it had been I that had made the sale. When she sold her first Western novel, I was beside myself with pleasure and envy.
A group of us were sitting around talking one day and we took a look at a new flyer that had just arrived announcing the next edition of a popular Trekzine and soliciting new material. Orte of the instructions was "No Spock-goes-to-bed-with stories". We laughed at that and I said that they were missing a good bet and that someone ought to do an x-rated zine with nothing but that kind of story. We started to brain storm on ideas. We got out the Star Trek Concordance to look for a good name. It didn't take long to get to the g's and the obvious name leaped out at us. Several weeks later Stevie and Carrie Brennan got in touch with me and asked me if I was going to proceed with the x-rated zine. I told them I couldn't because I was heavily involved in ERIDANI TRIAD. They asked if I minded if they did. I said no.
And that's how GRUP was born.
Stevie and Carrie and I thought of ourselves as the original DOB's (Dirty Old Broads). Stevie was always a little self-concious about her age, and the fact that she was a little older than a lot of the women involved in the Trek phenomenon. I didn't think of her as old, if I did, then I would have to think of my age, too, and it was irrelevant. All I knew was that she enjoyed a good joke and had one of the most wonderful laughs, one that made you feel good to be alive. It was just another one of those dirty jokes that we all laughed about when she put together an x-rated " tape using recorded bits of voices from all the tapes she had made of Star Trek episodes. It was so funny you laughed until your side hurt and it was hard to breathe. She was very self-conscious about people hearing it, but when Maureen Wilson, the president of Gene Roddenberry's fan club told the Great Bird about it, he wanted to hear the tape. When Maureen asked Stevie if she would send the tape to her to pass on the GR, Stevie was torn between wanting him to hear the tape and being afraid that he might disapprove. She had stars in her eyes when she showed us the personal letter he wrote to her expressing his enjoyment of the tape and his appreciation of the fact that she did it only with her tape recorder, having no access to any kind of sound equipment.
Stevie and Carrie and I all flew to New York City for the first Star Trek convention in 1972. It was a grand adventure. We met so many people that we had only known by name. Devra Langsam was our mentor. I found some original artwork in a raffle and picked up an Alicia Austen portrait of Spock for a song. We had infamous parties in our hotel room which included D. C. Fontana and Hal Clement. We served our cocktail invention, the Pon Farr.
Sunday morning Stevie got up early to go to the Statue of Liberty. Carrie was dead, but I opened an exhausted eye as she got ready to leave. "Want to go with me," she asked. "Not on your life!" I answered as I turned over and went back to sleep. She came back later with a paperweight in the shape of the building. When we asked her about the view, she replied that visibility was about 12 inches. But she seemed happy to have done the tourist number just the same. That night on the Sunday evening news in New York City the coverage of the convention began with a long establishing shot of the oil painting of Spock that Stevie had entered in the Art show. It had seconds of coverage as the reporter set up the story in a voice-over. We were streaming and Stevie was almost swooning.
"If I died now, I'd die happy," she exclaimed.
I learned after her death by her own hand last month, that she considered those days with us and Trekdom the happiest days of her life, days that were gone for good, never to return. Her hair had turned all gray since then and her personal life had turned into a turmoil that never seemed to resolve itself. I loved her, although I had not seen her for several years. Many of us loved her, but she reached the point where she couldn't feel it. So she went home, away from the pain and turmoil.
Blessed Be, Stevie. Until we meet again.