Offensive Squid

Post edited 12:00 pm – September 7, 2010 by Hljothlegur

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Ladies, can I get a squee?

 

PhotoSquee via Cat Sparks

 

As a bonus, Charlie Stross squee, for those of you who wanna hug him:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8…..otostream/

Hljothlegur said:

Ladies, can I get a squee?

 

PhotoSquee via Cat Sparks

 

As a bonus, Charlie Stross squee, for those of you who wanna hug him:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8…..otostream/

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I see both together with a plushie on the flickr account you linked to over in the hugo thread Charles Stross & Peter Watts. you can get all your squee in one place.

I also can recommend squeeing over China Miéville.

all we need are skin cells from all of the above and the right technology to bring forth a horrible chimera child. we can call him the plushie squeed.

Hljothlegur said:

sheila said:

[...] I also can recommend squeeing over China Miéville.

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Am I squeeing over Mieville's person or writing?  Because I feel the need in the plushie photo to gently take Mr. Stross' wine glass from him and rub his Buddha belly.  I know, it's insane.  But there it is.  And it has nothing to do with the writing.  :)

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Not only is China Miéville one hell of a writer, he is not bad looking either. and have you read interviews with him? the man has an interesting life and mind.

and I crush on writing too. crushed for a long time on Egan, and who knows what he looks like?

(now I am trying to remember all the writers I ever crushed on with just the writing, not the image)

Post edited 10:38 am – September 9, 2010 by Hljothlegur

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sheila said:

 

and I crush on writing too. crushed for a long time on Egan, and who knows what he looks like?

(now I am trying to remember all the writers I ever crushed on with just the writing, not the image)

Ray Bradbury. I'm sure you've seen it:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/46222

His writing is hit-or-miss, but I felt so much better after I saw this rude obscene little video, because I have written to a limited number of writers, never write mash notes to strangers, but I wrote one to Mr. Bradbury, and it was a doozy. It was a real, pen&paper love letter.

I'd read Fahrenheit 451 years before and found it moving, and then as a very old man, he recorded a narration of it, and it was even more powerful in that format than when I read it as a girl. Also included was a section where he talked about becoming a writer and his philosophy of fiction, and he stops at one point in his explanation of what he wanted his work to do, and he says fervently and sincerely, "Make love to me. I want you to take my novel to bed and read it under the covers." Or some such weird embarrassing nonsense. And when I heard it? I'm sure I flushed red. It was so naked in what I think were his actual feelings about writing, so fervent in its eroticism, that I got a brain-blasting teenaged rush of testosterone. Which is pretty hysterical, if you consider his age and decrepitude, and there am I, giggling like a girl. So I wrote him a note telling him that he had succeeded in making love to one teenaged girl back on the day. *headdesk*

See, I comfort myself by thinking that Ms. Bloom was in some little way, confessing. Well, that's what I tell myself.

Mr. Mieville is homosexual?

Post edited 5:32 pm – September 9, 2010 by sheila

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Hljothlegur said:

Flanders said:

China Mieville is not gay. At least, he hasn't said so publicly. However, he addresses gay themes in his work and keeps schtum about his personal life, which leads people to draw conclusions. 

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Oh, of course, one never knows about people!  I was taking my cue from that fact that he was dressed and coiffed in a mode fabulous.   Actually, he mostly looked like Mr. Clean, but with a very elaborate vocabulary. Maybe Mr. Clean as a ex-pat Romanian professor of English.  

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huh, I figured you knew something I didn't. anyway, here's the good picture I remember:

Squid's Meaty Role in China Miéville's Kraken

Tall and buff, he has a shaved head, a row of earrings curving sharply around the edge of his left ear, a Ph.D. in international relations from the London School of Economics and a mind that skips easily from “Jane Eyre” to welfare reform to the joys of bicycling around London. He is also a serious Socialist who ran for Parliament in 2001. The Evening Standard called him “the sexiest man in British politics.”

he looks like he could kick some serious ass.

Ps. wait, he sounds like he could kick some serious ass. I'd have trouble keeping up with an argument with this guy, is my impression. hence, admiration.

Post edited 8:25 am – September 10, 2010 by Hljothlegur

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Flanders said:

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See, one never does know. Which is why, unless somebody introduces me to their spouse/SO, or appears on the cover of "Out" magazine under the headline "I AM A GAY HOMOSEXUAL WHO HAS GAY GAY SEX WITH PEOPLE OF MY SAME GENDER IDENTITY, BECAUSE I AM GAY GAY GAY," they have Shrodinger's sexual orientation.
And really, you should ask yourself, when speculating about whether someone is or is not, "Does this fact alter my perception of his work?" Sometimes the answer is legitimately yes, but most of the time it does not. Ferinstance, for years I believed Spaulding Gray was gay. Turns out he wasn't. Doesn't change a thing.
 
In case you were wondering, Samuel R. Delaney, definitely gay. Arthur C. Clarke, probably gay (he's dead, so I can suspend my rule against speculating). 

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Schroedinger's Big Gay Box – where the cat is both gay and not gay simultaneously until we open the lid?  I like it, conceptually, I like it. 
 
Haha – Spaulding Gay does seem gay when you hear his storytelling, and there you are, just assuming you are hearing an interesting digression by some articulate well-traveled gay man, and then you realize, oh, that's his SO he's mentioning, but it sounds …female?  He was very gender bendy that way.  Arthur Clarke's work, by contrast,  is not even vaguely gay in content, no matter the adventures of his penis in life.  Thanks for the, erm, tip on Samuel Delaney.
 

I was asking about Mieville in terms of squee, not his work.  If his work is GAY GAY GAY, that's another topic.  Unless we decide that squee springs purely from the work or the beauty of the mind itself, which is what sheila was hinting at.  I dunno. 

 

I guess I wasn't thinking about it deeply?  Mieville was dressed in this one interview like a gay man, which I guess I took to be a declaration that he was a gay man, but since his tight white short-sleeved tee did not actually say on it, I AM A HOMOSEXUAL, I wasn't sure if my impression was correct.  Where I work, being able to spot who is gay without asking is of extreme importance, so I am always trying to sharpen my skills in this.  But you're saying it is rude to discuss people's gayness in public? I have no idea where the line is anymore, because they keep moving it. I've noticed perfect strangers with no sexual interest in me will now tell me about their sexual likes and dislikes in amazing detail. Is homosexuality still taboo enough that we ought to ignore it?

 

What is the proper nature of The Squee?  Does it have to be sexual?  Spiritual? I definitely think it has to do with some quality of the squee-object that causes the squee-er a rush of happiness or pleasure.  Squee is also social, a bonding mechanism, don't you think?

 

And why does everything surrounding and attached to Peter Watts skew towards the recursive, analytic, and philosophical?

Flanders said:

One thing to consider is that crossing cultural boundaries can fuzz the gaydar. Central Asian men regularly hold hands and express physical affection publicly in ways that would seem very gay indeed to American eyes, but are quite emphatically not gay. Mieville, specifically, is a radical leftist who would be the type to aggressively question established gender norms. I agree that he does express some non-heteronormative behaviors in dress and appearance, but, on the other hand, Rock Hudson managed to keep it under wraps for decades. Just because one isn't walking around like Freddy Mercury doesn't mean one is straight.

 

And what kind of job do you have where you need to be able to spot gay people, but can't ask them? Or is it an office pool sort of thing?

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I will secret away that datum on fuzzy gaydar, for you are no doubt correct.

 

You do know I have no problem with China is he's 100% straight or 100% queer?  It's like listening to someone with an accent you can't quite place – you ask the guy next to you – what is that, Italian?  Is that guy italian, you think?    I'm not gonna go beat him up or something. 

Post edited 4:17 pm – September 10, 2010 by sheila

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Hljothlegur said:

sheila said:

I had been waiting for the sequel for a long time until I found out about that. Have you read Triton? I can't remember when it was that I read that, but I had enjoyable mind blowingness from the ability of people to change gender and even gender identity, nevermind that the protagonist is so unlikable about it. I love genderfucks.

I haven't read it; is it a must read?

Not sure. I'd consider Dhalgren the must-read Delany book. and people have love/hate reactions to it.

 Hey, wasn't that word "limerant" rescued from oblivion by NPR?  It was about to drop out of the OED a few years ago.

It's in the OED? cool. I didn't realize it was a real word. I thought it was slang for describing a crush-like emotion/behavior. My OED is still packed away from when I moved a few months ago. One day I will get an electronic version. I've got the 2 volume 4-up version with a magnifying glass.

[...]

You're very flexible, you know. Some people absolutely require a visual for crushing or squeeing.
…But you're saying it is rude to discuss people's gayness in public?

Maybe? Or anything that the person has put inside their personal space, not just sexual orientation. But I haven't figured out where politeness is. I'm just guessing. and I'm not a prude or anything like that. It's the privacy and consideration part that is more important to me than the sexualization of a person.

So if I ask about Mieville's gayness, take it as me asking if he was publically uncloseted in a way that didn't come up in a few short interviews. He might have said, "As a gay man, I think.." as a way to shoehorn it into an interview, but not every "famous" person feels the need to blort it all out.

Your hypothetical doesn't seem overly rude to me.

I noticed when I first starting hanging around the crawl there was a remarkable lack of sexualized squee, and I postulate it has to do with the skeptic-friendly austere tone set by Glorious Leader, his actual presence on the crawl, but also the heavily male contingent. There is a fair amount of squee about Mr. Watts' opinions, though, intellectual squee.

haha, next blog post I should comment that I'm tying that entry to a chair and nomming it. in the interest of upping the sexualized ironic squee ante.

 And no fanfic. That is interesting. I found one Blindsight fanfic, and no fic in which Peter finally gives into a torrid longing for Karl Schroeder – that accidentally shared waterbottle during a panel on why humanity is doomed, noticing how Karl's eyes sparkle in the low light of the Steampunk fashion show, Karl breathelessly hoping Peter will sit next to him during the Battlestar Galactia blooper reel. I've read fic by full grown women that is exactly in that mold, but, nope, that form of extreme squee has not yet materialized for our Squid. I will be interested to see if his increased fame from the Hugo causes these more traditional forms of fandom to start. Or is this the norm for writer fandoms? I have mostly watched actor's and musician's fan groups.

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You should write some author/author fanfic parody in a noir transhuminist style.