Time and Tides (Editorial, NYRSF 303)

When NYRSF launched, the issue generally went to the printer in the last week of the month before the cover date, which meant that subscribers received the issue sometime late in the month on the cover. In the post-paper era, we've aimed to get the issue out to Weightless Books sometime in the last full week of the cover month.

Last month's issue (October) shipped about a week into November, and this one (November) is shipping the first week in December. That's down to me completely; in our current production process, there are several key bottlenecks that I can block by inaction, and there has been sufficient chaos in my household over that period that we fell behind. This issue in particular is late because I dragged my feet until we washed up against the rocks of Thanksgiving/Hanukkah. So, my apologies. I believe that the December issue will be out between Christmas and New Years without problem; let us hope.

Because this is nominally the November issue, I'm going to tell a story that occurred at the November NYRSF Work Weekend over a decade ago, a story I've told many times but never written down. On November 16, 2002, I learned that the actor Eddie Bracken had died two days previous. Bracken was a "character actor," skinny and big-nosed with a slightly shrill voice that meant he would never be a dramatic leading man. No one sets out to be a character actor, but Bracken's masterful comedic timing lead to starring roles in two of the best Preston Sturges films, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek and Hail the Conquering Hero, which is what I knew him from; I learned from the obituary he also had his own radio show for 3 years before returning to Broadway and a slow fade from prominence for the next 50 years. (It's not quite as sad as that sounds—according to his Wikipedia entry, he has separate stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his radio and film/television careers.)

So, I happened to mention his death to fellow staffer Eugene Reynolds, who made a very sad face and elaborated. Paraphrasing:

A few years ago, I heard a long radio interview with Bracken. He was a native of New Jersey, and after his career was more or less over, he moved back to my home town, Montclair. He spent a lot of time working with local repertory theatre—especially the Paper Mill Playhouse in Milford, New Jersey. He explained that he thought that supporting local theatre was important, because that's where the next generation of actors is going to come from. Bracken himself had started out in a local rep company; the senior member of the company had been in Our American Cousin.

When I'm telling the story face-to-face, that's where I pause and wait. For the most part, sf fans laugh in surprise, because one of the defining characteristics of sf fans of the classic tradition is that they have the type of magpie brain that finds it interesting to know the name of the play that Abraham Lincoln was watching at Ford's Theatre. And it's pleasantly uncanny to feel the tendrils of deep time, to realize that the actor starring in a World War II comedy began his career with someone present at one of the defining moments of American history and then himself lived to see the September 11th attacks, only a few miles from his own house.

The past is ever with us, sometimes more than others.

—Kevin J. Maroney and the editors

Comments

[Kip W]

"The sockdolagizing old man-trap!"

There's the only line I sort-of know from "Our American Cousin." I think it was close to the end… of that particular production.