Leslie Fish in 2001. Creative Commons photo by David Gillett
Well known science fiction figure Leslie Fish has died. Although best known in science fiction fandom as a "filker," i.e. a science fiction folksinger, she also was a writer.
"Fish (1953-2025) died Nov. 29 at age 72, while in hospice care at her home," according to an obituary posted at the Libertarian Futurist Society blog by Michael Grossberg. See also this File 770 obit (fourth item) and this Wikipedia bio. [Update: Like one of my favorite musicians, Cars leader Ric Ocasek, Fish apparently lied about her age! She actually was 81. See below.]
While I could justify this news item by mentioning the overlap between science fiction fandom and Illuminatus! fandom, there is a more direct connection to the interests of this blog.
Fish was part of the anarchist scene in Chicago in the late 1960s that Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea also were part of. See this interesting Jesse Walker article from 2005 in Reason magazine, which also (maybe) reveals who the "real Mama Sutra" was. But Jesse also shares this bit from when he was researching the article: "The one time I interviewed her, she told me that she had been Robert Anton Wilson's dope dealer when they both lived in Chicago."
UPDATE: More information from Jesse Walker: A Leslie Fish Memorial Filksing will be publicly available live on YouTube.
Also from Jesse: "Also, the guy who just passed it along tells me that he 'just got consent from the family this morning to disclose Leslie's actual birthdate: March 11th, 1944. So she died at the age of 81.' (Many obituaries said 72 instead, because apparently she habitually lied about her age.)
3 comments:
I don't think I ever actually met Leslie. Back in days when I was a regular convention goer, I attended a few filk sessions, but it wasn't really my thing. When I first joined Facebook, I friended pretty much everyone with an s-f connection and she was one of them.
I don't converse with my Facebook friends as much as I should and therefore didn't talk with her much. I really only remember 2 exchanges. The first, I was supporting Hillary against Trump (I didn't much care for HC but considered her the better option among those likely to be elected) and Leslie took me to task, telling me that Clinton was coming for our guns.
The second exchange came when I was speaking in defense of my few trans friends. She disagreed with me there.
I have no idea what she was like in person; her friends seem to think very highly of her, as they should. But in our interactions, she was hostile and seemed to consider me an idiot (I think that was her actual term).
The Wikipedia article I linked to makes it clear that her views on trans people were pretty strong, well beyond arguing that people apparently born male should not play in girls' sports, maybe people serving life for murder should not get an expensive operation at taxpayer expense, etc. She was a "zero tolerance" kind of person. She also was anti-immigration, which is out of step with the traditional libertarian view, although admittedly there are plenty of apostates these days among purported libertarians.
I know she still considered herself an anarchist after she adopted those not-very-anarchistic views (see Gaza too); I've wondered whether she still identified with the anarcho-syndicalists. The world's first quasi-MAGA Wobbly?
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