A Window in Isengard

[page 10] A WINDOW IN ISENGARD by David Hall. This, the first issue of Entmoot, was conceived in a state of panic <ILLEGIBLE WORD> at a good run, and written with one eye on the clock. It is not, as Greg Shaw admits (nice of him), very good. But it was all put together in about a week, and, anyway, it is not so much an issue as a birth announcement. I'll bet that even J.R.R. himself was not very impressive at the moment of birth. As it is, this was done quickly so as to be distributed; Greg at a con in Los Angeles, me at the Midwest con in Cincy. Throw it away if you like; future issue will make it forgetable. Everything in here is my fault, I suppose. I compiled this, stooped even to poaching from my own fanzine to fill it, typed it, and ran it off. One page is very messy; all are filled with typos. Blame me. Right now I am in Cape Girardeau, typing the last of the stencils on my aunt's typewriter -- with no corflu, incidentally. It was rather nerve-racking putting it out, I must say, and now I'm only glad it's (almost) over. What with everything else, the single most nerve-racking @nerve-wracking@ thing in the putting together of this fool magazine was the receipt from Greg of a full page of Sindarin. "Send it back if you don't think you can stencil it." He said, "And I'll do it. But I want it in the magazine." I didn't think I could do it, and I'd have been glad to send it back with a tender note attached, but there wasn't time. I had to stencil it myself. But it worries me considerably. I might as well confess it -- I can't read Sindarin myself. Therefore I never even knew what it was I was stenciling. Any mistakes in it Iknow @I know@ I'll catch the blame for, even if Greg made them. "Oh, Hall must have done that." I worry about that. I also worry that the letters, drawn in my tired hand, are illegible, -- or that I put an accent where it doesn't belong, or left out full phrases and never knew the difference. If you possibly can, try to read it -- if only to tell me how much I goofed it up. Ihe part that bothers me most is -- after all that work, that stenciling and attention to detail -- I don't even know what it says. It may be a flood of horrifying blasphemies directed at my own head. It looks nice, though, and I'm anxiously awaiting Greg's article on reading the elvish tongues, so I can learn to do it. (Prof. Tolkien's notes somehow escape me.) Who knows? We may put out a rider in all Sindarin some day... at least it will keep outsiders from reading it and making dumb comments because they don't understand. I've had fun showing that page, with no comment, to several relatives. "I'll need to put on my Glasses @glasses@." was the response of all. So -- this is finished. I now turn off the responsibilty of publishing to Greg ... may he be welcome to it, and may you all send him pages of Sindarin to print. And ... let me know what I said, will you? And ... send all complaints to him as well. As far as I'm concerned I did my duty. Dave.