Word: ackerman
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Scifipedia, an online biographical dictionary, defines Ackerman first as "American fan." That's good enough. As much as almost any writer in the field, he created a devoted, informed audience for speculative fiction. If he didn't coin the term "sci-fi" - Robert Heinlein used it first - then by using the phrase in public in 1954 he instantly popularized it (to the lasting chagrin of purists, who preferred "SF"). Forry, as everyone called him, was the genre's foremost advocate, missionary and ballyhooer. His love for the form, stretching back more than 80 years, godfathered and legitimized the obsessions...
...fanatic. Fan as in fancier. Fan as in fantasy lover. Forrest J Ackerman, who died Thursday at 92 of a heart attack in Los Angeles, was all these things and many more: literary agent for such science fiction authors as Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, A.E. van Vogt, Curt Siodmak and L. Ron Hubbard; actor and talisman in more than 50 films (The Howling, Beverly Hills Cop III, Amazon Women on the Moon); editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine and creator of the Vampirella comic book franchise. But each of these trades was an exponent of his educated ardor...
...Born in Los Angeles in 1916, Ackerman traced the birth of his vocation to 1926, when he read his first "scientifiction" tale in an early issue of Amazing Stories, the pioneering magazine published by Hugo Gernsback, for whom the Hugo Awards are named. (Ackerman won a 1953 Hugo as No. 1 fan.) Forry was hooked for life, as he would later hook so many others. Three years later the teenager found his stride. He had his first letter published in Science Wonder Quarterly; won a contest in the San Francisco Chronicle with a story about a voyage to Mars...
...billion in loans to keep their companies afloat. Official Washington was outraged at the extravagance. Columnists and comics were ever so grateful for the gift. "I mean, couldn't you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here?'' whined Representative Gary Ackerman of New York...
...Ford announced they were selling two jets (meaning, of course, that lower-ranking execs will be flying Northwest to the plant in Valencia) and driving a Ford Escape hybrid to Washington. GM has caved completely and shut down its air force, throwing 50 people out of work. (Thanks, Congressman Ackerman!) Maybe the President should send his helicopter for the GM honchos. He doesn't really have use for it now. And when some truly desperate Americans need a dramatic rescue, sending in Marine One isn't a bad idea...