Fangs for the Memory

Forrest J. Ackerman, sage of Famous Monsters of Filmland
magazine, ur-movie fan and coiner of the term “sci-fi,” still gives tours of his
memorabilia collection every Saturday morning. Moved from its longtime, multiroom
opulence in the Los Feliz Hills to a side street in the flats off Hillhurst, the
Ackermansion includes everything that’s eventually going to be preserved
at duodecahedrillionaire Paul Allen’s $22-million Science Fiction
Museum/Experience Music Project at the foot of Seattle’s Space Needle. There’s
an entire room devoted to Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis; the
golden idol from Raiders of the Lost Ark; personally autographed
H.P. Lovecraft books and Stephen King’s first short story (a framed, typewritten
page placed over the mantelpiece). Ackerman, who once used to pal around with
Ray Bradbury and L. Ron Hubbard to talk about science-fiction writing, is a little
hard of hearing but no less enthusiastic or punny. (Those raised on his writing
in the 1970s and 1980s, before getting into the harder stuff of Fangoria,
were hopelessly warped by this senseless humor.) Walk gently through these gates
of joy — you never know what you’ve got until it slips through your fingers and
flies away. 4511 Russell Ave. (at Hillhurst, on the N.W. corner, in
the first bungalow), Los Feliz, (323) MOON-FAN; (323) 666-6326, RSVP line.

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