Brutal yet humorous take on fandom
Louann Miller
The Geek Hierarchy
by Lore Fitzgerald Sjöberg
Elf Sternberg
Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.com> writes:
>http://www.brunching.com/todaypage.html
Cool! I am Geeky from Top To Bottom! Forwarded to
alt.fan.furry, with extreme prejudice.
Hey, Louann, I see a version for t.o. anyway. It would have to
be left-right in alignment, with something like "Biologists who publish
in Nature" on one side and "Theologists who publish in the Discovery
Institute Journal" with arrows going in both directions labeled,
"Believe they have a better grip on reality than..."
Elf
--
Elf M. Sternberg, Immanentizing the Eschaton since 1988
http://www.drizzle.com/~elf/ (under construction)
I have seen the light. I was not impressed.
Arthur D. Hlavaty
>In article <pjmj3u4l8k7qonthm...@4ax.com>
> Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>>http://www.brunching.com/todaypage.html
>
> Cool! I am Geeky from Top To Bottom! Forwarded to
>alt.fan.furry, with extreme prejudice.
This may be the most forwarded URL since the _Wired_ article on
Asperger's.
--
Arthur D.Hlavaty hla...@panix.com
Church of the SuperGenius in Wile E. we trust
E-zine available on request
Matt Silberstein
New Year's Eve, we are out at a club watching Southern Culture on the
Skids having a great time. And I see a guy in a tee-shirt with "i lov
it" on the back. I shudder, knowing what the front says, but I had to
go look. Yep, it said "tivoli". It is geeky enough to wear that shirt
at all, but on New Year's? In a NYC club? That is just too geeky for
words.
Christopher K Davis
> Hey, Louann, I see a version for t.o. anyway. It would have to be
> left-right in alignment, with something like "Biologists who publish
> in Nature" on one side and "Theologists who publish in the Discovery
> Institute Journal" with arrows going in both directions labeled,
> "Believe they have a better grip on reality than..."
ObSFW: there have been a number of non-biologists published in Nature
lately, like Vernor Vinge, or David Langford, or Poul Anderson, or
Arthur C. Clarke, or, um, me.
(Though mine wasn't SF, and was actually written by biologists anyway.
Hit http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v409/n6822/suppinfo/409860a0.html
and download "Supplementary Information comprising [...] Full Author List"
and scroll down. :-)
--
Christopher Davis * <ckd...@ckdhr.com> * <URL:http://www.ckdhr.com/ckd/>
Put location information in your DNS! <URL:http://www.ckdhr.com/dns-loc/>
Bill, n. 2. A writing binding the signer [...] to pay [...]
Gates, n. 4. The places which command the entrances or access [...]
Doug Palmer
> 1. What are "furies"?
The erinyes who avenge those crimes against art that involve taking a
human body clad only in lingerie and placing a ferret's head on it and a
tail behind it..
--
Doug Palmer do...@charvolant.org http://www.charvolant.org/~doug
Mark Hanson
news:76998029.02010...@posting.google.com...
> New Year's Eve, we are out at a club watching Southern Culture on the
> Skids having a great time. And I see a guy in a tee-shirt with "i lov
> it" on the back. I shudder, knowing what the front says, but I had to
> go look. Yep, it said "tivoli". It is geeky enough to wear that shirt
> at all, but on New Year's? In a NYC club? That is just too geeky for
> words.
What is tivoli?
Mark
David Tate
> by Lore Fitzgerald Sjöberg
I assumed this thread was going to be about _Bimbos of the Death Sun_...
David Tate
Matt Silberstein
Sorry. Tivoli is a big geeky computer systems management system.
Elf Sternberg
how...@brazee.net writes:
>1. What are "furies"?
"Furries." A subset of fandom similar to Anime or Trekkers, but
with a different interest. Primarily interested in anthropomorphic
characters and stories, where animal characteristics are present in
protagonists. Can be everything from sentient or depictedly sentient
animals (such as the rabbits ein Richard Adam's _Watership Down_ or the
dolphins in David Brin's _Startide Rising_) to aliens with "animal"
charateristics (Niven's Kzinti, Cherryh's Chanur series, and my
favorite, the whole of James White's _Hospital Station_ series) to
humans with "genetic engineering" or magic to advantage (such as Andrew
S. Swann's _Moreau_ series).
Furry fandom has a serious image problem because it's perceived
by much of the rest of fandom as excessively obsessed with sex. Furry's
real problem is that, unlike Anime or Trek, there are no definitive,
popular narratives, no stories on which a significant subset of furry
fans can agree are important or foundational. Without that, the only
thing that seems to unify furry fandom has become visual depicitions of
popular characters. You can imagine how long that took to devolve into
smut.
There are some really good "furry" stories out there. Dave
Farrance posts a monthly listing of popular novels still available at
your local used bookstore. But unfortunately, Furry fandom has never
been able to rise above its perception as primarily a "visual" fandom
with no narrative at all and thus only an excuse to draw and trade
"feelthy pictures," and it has become a self-fullfilling condition as
new potential fans tend to select-in or select-out of the fandom based
on exposure to same.
>2. What is "tivoli"?
A suite of business management tools from IBM. Very geeky.
Mark Hanson
news:76998029.02010...@posting.google.com...
>
> Sorry. Tivoli is a big geeky computer systems management system.
Ah, yes. That *is* geeky. But not very funny. "Funny" would have been if his
shirt had said , "dos / i lov it." THAT would have been funny.
Mark
Mitch Wagner
says...
> There are some really good "furry" stories out there. Dave
> Farrance posts a monthly listing of popular novels still available at
> your local used bookstore. ...
I don't know if this is on Farrance's list, but for a highbrow furry
novel try "Gun, With Occasional Music," by Jonathan Lethem. It's a
private eye noir novel in the traditon of Raymond Chandler, set in Los
Angeles in a near-future world where technology has raised the sentience
of animals - or, at least, mammals - to human levels. One of the villains
is a Mafia legbreaker and kangaroo, another character is a wealthy man
who keeps a sheep as a mistress. Lethem plays it at two levels: farce and
sad melodrama.
--
Mitch Wagner weblog http://drive-thru.org
Bryan Derksen
>Fun page. But I have to admit to ignorance about two aspects:
>
>1. What are "furies"?
This page has a pretty good overview:
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Furry
Arthur D. Hlavaty
No, this is by someone who has an understanding of fandom.
Louann Miller
<hla...@panix.com> wrote:
>On 8 Jan 2002 08:08:35 -0800, dt...@ida.org (David Tate) wrote:
>
>>Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<pjmj3u4l8k7qonthm...@4ax.com>...
>>> The Geek Hierarchy
>>> by Lore Fitzgerald Sjöberg
>>
>>I assumed this thread was going to be about _Bimbos of the Death Sun_...
>
>No, this is by someone who has an understanding of fandom.
Note the large number of double-headed arrows, i.e. group A thinks B
is geekier, while group B is equally certain about group A.
Louann
Mark Atwood
>
> This page has a pretty good overview:
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Furry
I love wikipedia. I learned about it only last week, and have already
added corrections and bits of knowledge to a fair number of articles,
and learned a great deal from reading hundreds more.
--
Mark Atwood | Well done is better than well said.
m...@pobox.com |
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
David Dyer-Bennet
> >2. What is "tivoli"?
>
> A suite of business management tools from IBM. Very geeky.
*Business management* tools from *IBM* are geeky? Lordy, what
universe have *you* been hanging out in, Elf? Them's *applications*,
and *applications* are by definition very far from geeky.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd...@dd-b.net / Ghugle: the Fannish Ghod of Queries
Book log: http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/Ouroboros/booknotes/
Photos: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/
Bryan Derksen
>bder...@REM0VEgpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Bryan Derksen) writes:
>>
>> This page has a pretty good overview:
>> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Furry
>
>I love wikipedia. I learned about it only last week, and have already
>added corrections and bits of knowledge to a fair number of articles,
>and learned a great deal from reading hundreds more.
The only thing that makes me hesitant to cite it more often around
here as a subtle and devious attempt to snare more high-quality
interesting folks into working on its articles is... can you imagine
what it would be like if T*d H*ld*n discovered it as well? :)
Johnny1A
But of course!
I laughed so hard when I read that chart...! But of course I broke
out laughing again when I read the bottom panel. The phrase "...where
Kirk is an ocelot or something..." will be going through my head all
day tomorrow.
I fit into that chart in several places, and others I wouldn't touch
with a 37.5 foot pole. But why stop there?
That chart could be expanded outward, with more double-arrows, to
include mundane fiction fans, soap opera fans, soap opera fanfic
writers, country music fans, medievalists, SCA, Civil War reinactors,
and 30 year old women who really do enjoy monster truck rallies.
Shermanlee
Richard D. Latham
To be more precise, they're a very small division of a big geeky
computer company :-)
--
#include <disclaimer.std> /* I don't speak for IBM ... */
/* Heck, I don't even speak for myself */
/* Don't believe me ? Ask my wife :-) */
Richard D. Latham lat...@us.ibm.com
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
Arthur D. Hlavaty <hla...@panix.com> spake:
> On 8 Jan 2002 08:08:35 -0800, dt...@ida.org (David Tate) wrote:
>>Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<pjmj3u4l8k7qonthm...@4ax.com>...
>>> The Geek Hierarchy
>>> by Lore Fitzgerald Sjöberg
I do have one factual problem with this - "Anime fans who insist on
subtitles" do not consider themselves less geeky than "Anime fans who
don't care about subtitles". Subbers consider themselves morally and
intellectually superior to dubbers, and most wouldn't care if you called
them geeky or not; hell, we'll generally let you call us otaku, which is
rather more offensive, as long as you don't try to use it as an
insult...
I've actually witnessed fistfights break out over Sub vs. Dub, back
before it was easy to get anime, and I had to go to college anime fan
clubs to get more anime. Thank Cthulhu for cheap (subtitled!) anime
DVDs... Now I don't have to meet other otaku in person.
>>I assumed this thread was going to be about _Bimbos of the Death Sun_...
> No, this is by someone who has an understanding of fandom.
Yes, and? Bimbos was a nigh-perfect snapshot of what con-going fandom
is like. _Zombies of the Gene Pool_ was a much darker view of a kind of
fandom that's mostly gone extinct (though I guess you could classify
USENET as a kind of mimeographed 'zine gone viral...)
Let me guess, you were the "barbarian" walking around in his
underwear?
--
<a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"No one is safe. We will print no letters to the editor. We will give no
space to opposing points of view. They are wrong. The Underground Grammarian
is at war and will give the enemy nothing but battle." -TUG, v1n1
Sean O'Hara
>
> New Year's Eve, we are out at a club watching Southern Culture on the
> Skids having a great time. And I see a guy in a tee-shirt with "i lov
> it" on the back. I shudder, knowing what the front says, but I had to
> go look. Yep, it said "tivoli". It is geeky enough to wear that shirt
> at all, but on New Year's? In a NYC club? That is just too geeky for
> words.
I've successfully hit on women while wearing an "I DATE CRACKWHORES"
shirt in a club. I doubt that an obscure tech joke on his shirt
really hindered the guy's social life -- well, more than it's already
hindered.
--
Sean O’Hara
Now an unemployed college graduate!
“Lucas and Speilberg are the most financially successful filmmakers
of all time because they're the biggest whores.” – William Goldman
Sean O'Hara
C:/DOS
C:/DOS> RUN
RUN, DOS, RUN
Damien Neil
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
> I do have one factual problem with this - "Anime fans who insist on
> subtitles" do not consider themselves less geeky than "Anime fans who
> don't care about subtitles". Subbers consider themselves morally and
> intellectually superior to dubbers, and most wouldn't care if you called
> them geeky or not; hell, we'll generally let you call us otaku, which is
> rather more offensive, as long as you don't try to use it as an
> insult...
I think the chart works better if you read it as "considers themselves
FAR less pathetic than..."
- Damien
Richard Harter
You have a really sick mind.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net,
http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, http://www.varinoma.com
Love, no matter how pure, is the most selfish of gifts.
For that reason it is the one gift that must be given.
Mark Atwood
Pages can be "wound back" two weeks by any user. It's surprisingly
proof against malice.
Arthur D. Hlavaty
'Kamikaze' Hughes) wrote:
>Tue, 08 Jan 2002 17:05:04 -0500 in <l7rm3ustdsrcbm0r2...@4ax.com>,
>Arthur D. Hlavaty <hla...@panix.com> spake:
>>>I assumed this thread was going to be about _Bimbos of the Death Sun_...
>> No, this is by someone who has an understanding of fandom.
>
> Yes, and? Bimbos was a nigh-perfect snapshot of what con-going fandom
>is like. _Zombies of the Gene Pool_ was a much darker view of a kind of
>fandom that's mostly gone extinct (though I guess you could classify
>USENET as a kind of mimeographed 'zine gone viral...)
>
> Let me guess, you were the "barbarian" walking around in his
>underwear?
*Very* bad guess.
_Bimbos_ is a person with limited powers of observation and a style
that often sounds snotty, even when it's counterproductive to do so,
wildly overgeneralizing from Rovacon. It is a condemnation of fandom
for respecting writing more than being thin and rich, which are the
two goals everyone should strive for, and be miserable if they don't
have.
_Zombies_ is a spiteful follow-up from a self-dramatizer who described
herself as "the Salman Rushdie of science fiction" because some people
wrote that they were not amused by its predecessor. The long arm of
coincidence drags its knuckles to reveal a writer's secret identity.
The pharmaceutical-poisoning scene gets almost all the details wrong.
The zine writer can't go two paragraphs without begging people to buy
back issues. (That's the sort of geek I am, and I haven't seen that in
25 years of zine reading.) Of course, none of the fans have made
anything of themselves because fans never do. (The zine writer, for
instance, is a high school science teacher, and thus beneath
contempt.) Nevertheless, Hollywood is bidding millions for their lost
writings.
Louann Miller
wrote:
>I fit into that chart in several places, and others I wouldn't touch
>with a 37.5 foot pole. But why stop there?
>
>That chart could be expanded outward, with more double-arrows, to
>include mundane fiction fans, soap opera fans, soap opera fanfic
>writers, country music fans, medievalists, SCA, Civil War reinactors,
>and 30 year old women who really do enjoy monster truck rallies.
Yep. Lord, what fools these mortals be. We might as well enjoy it.
Louann Miller
<hla...@panix.com> wrote:
>_Bimbos_ is a person with limited powers of observation and a style
>that often sounds snotty, even when it's counterproductive to do so,
>wildly overgeneralizing from Rovacon. It is a condemnation of fandom
>for respecting writing more than being thin and rich, which are the
>two goals everyone should strive for, and be miserable if they don't
>have.
I'm told that McCrumb gives the same treatment to other "really into
hobbies" social groups in other novels -- Americans being consciously
Scottish (if there's an official term for that, I don't know it) in
"Highland Laddie Gone." Haven't read it myself, allow appropriate NaCl
grains.
Louann
Richard Harter
<hla...@panix.com> wrote:
[snip rant]
You give good fatuous indignation. Thanks for the chuckle.
Avram Grumer
Arthur D. Hlavaty <hla...@panix.com> wrote:
> _Bimbos_ is a person with limited powers of observation and a style
> that often sounds snotty, even when it's counterproductive to do so,
> wildly overgeneralizing from Rovacon. It is a condemnation of fandom
> for respecting writing more than being thin and rich, which are the
> two goals everyone should strive for, and be miserable if they don't
> have.
And even though it's supposed to be a murder mystery, the identity of
the murderer is clearly telegraphed (so clearly that I first thought it
must be a red herring) in the murder scene.
--
Avram Grumer | av...@grumer.org | http://www.PigsAndFishes.org
In the country of the assless, the half-assed man is king.
The Great Gray Skwid
> Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<jism3uo14rbm6c4b4...@4ax.com>...
> > On Tue, 08 Jan 2002 17:05:04 -0500, Arthur D. Hlavaty
> > <hla...@panix.com> wrote:
> > >On 8 Jan 2002 08:08:35 -0800, dt...@ida.org (David Tate) wrote:
> > >>Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<pjmj3u4l8k7qonthm...@4ax.com>...
> > >>> The Geek Hierarchy
> > >>> by Lore Fitzgerald Sjöberg
> > >>I assumed this thread was going to be about _Bimbos of the Death Sun_...
> > >No, this is by someone who has an understanding of fandom.
> > Note the large number of double-headed arrows, i.e. group A thinks B
> > is geekier, while group B is equally certain about group A.
> That chart could be expanded outward, with more double-arrows, to
> include mundane fiction fans, soap opera fans, soap opera fanfic
> writers, country music fans, medievalists, SCA, Civil War reinactors,
> and 30 year old women who really do enjoy monster truck rallies.
Some of that has already been done:
http://www.brunching.com/images/geekchartbig.gif
--
| | |\ | | | ) Theudegisklos "Skwid" Sweinbrothar
|/| |\ |/ | |X| ( SKWID, Vulture V4 pilot ( The Humblest Mollusc
| | | | | | | ) Evan "Skwid" Langlinais ) on the Net
"Ram Air? Sounds like a Porn Airline?"-Mel http://skwid.home.texas.net
Andrew Plotkin
> On Wed, 09 Jan 2002 08:06:28 -0500, Arthur D. Hlavaty
> <hla...@panix.com> wrote:
> [snip rant]
> You give good fatuous indignation.
Do you have grounds for disagreeing with his characterization of the
book?
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
David Tate
>
> I'm told that McCrumb gives the same treatment to other "really into
> hobbies" social groups in other novels -- Americans being consciously
> Scottish (if there's an official term for that, I don't know it) in
> "Highland Laddie Gone." Haven't read it myself, allow appropriate NaCl
> grains.
I wouldn't say she's quite so hard on the "Highland Games" crowd as
she is on the fen crowd. Still pretty hard, though.
(FWIW, the Kate MacPherson(?) novels, including _Highland Laddie
Gone_, are considerably better than either _Bimbos_ or _Zombies_.)
David Tate
Richard Harter
wrote:
>Richard Harter <c...@tiac.net> wrote:
>> On Wed, 09 Jan 2002 08:06:28 -0500, Arthur D. Hlavaty
>> <hla...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>> [snip rant]
>
>> You give good fatuous indignation.
>
>Do you have grounds for disagreeing with his characterization of the
>book?
But of course. Why do you ask?
For sale: One shield of Umor, unused.
Ian McDowell
<loua...@yahoo.com> wrote:
I have, and I thought she did a quite marvelous job of skewering the
ersatz American "Scottishness" of people like my stepmother, who is
constantly trying to drag my father off to the Highland Games at
Grandfather Mountain, has at least twenty books full of those damn tartans
(don't try telling her that the "ancient" patterns were largely the
invention of two Victorian charlatans), and who insists on eating haggis
at least once a year even though she doesn't like it and has to pour half
her glass of scotch over it to disguise the flavor.
Mind you, I laughed out loud several times during BIMBOS OF THE DEATH SUN
and never felt it was any more mean-spirited than it should be. But then,
Rovacon was also my introduction to fandom
Ian McDowell
<av...@grumer.org> wrote:
>In article <v6fo3u8043210bcns...@4ax.com>,
> Arthur D. Hlavaty <hla...@panix.com> wrote:
>And even though it's supposed to be a murder mystery, the identity of
>the murderer is clearly telegraphed (so clearly that I first thought it
>must be a red herring) in the murder scene.
I seem to remember the central mystery in ROCKET TO THE MORGUE not being
all that puzzling, either. Of course, that book was written by One of Us.
Arthur D. Hlavaty
wrote:
>Mind you, I laughed out loud several times during BIMBOS OF THE DEATH SUN
>and never felt it was any more mean-spirited than it should be. But then,
>Rovacon was also my introduction to fandom
It almost excuses McCrumb.
Randy Money
>
> On 9 Jan 2002 05:19:50 GMT, kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu (Mark
> 'Kamikaze' Hughes) wrote:
>
> >Tue, 08 Jan 2002 17:05:04 -0500 in <l7rm3ustdsrcbm0r2...@4ax.com>,
> >Arthur D. Hlavaty <hla...@panix.com> spake:
> >>>I assumed this thread was going to be about _Bimbos of the Death Sun_...
> >> No, this is by someone who has an understanding of fandom.
> >
> > Yes, and? Bimbos was a nigh-perfect snapshot of what con-going fandom
> >is like. _Zombies of the Gene Pool_ was a much darker view of a kind of
> >fandom that's mostly gone extinct (though I guess you could classify
> >USENET as a kind of mimeographed 'zine gone viral...)
> >
> > Let me guess, you were the "barbarian" walking around in his
> >underwear?
>
> *Very* bad guess.
>
> _Bimbos_ is a person with limited powers of observation and a style
> that often sounds snotty, even when it's counterproductive to do so,
> wildly overgeneralizing from Rovacon. It is a condemnation of fandom
> for respecting writing more than being thin and rich, which are the
> two goals everyone should strive for, and be miserable if they don't
> have.
_Bimbos_ is a farce, romp that rather accurately nails certain fan types
I've seen frequently while hanging around the fringes of fandom. I
didn't see anything in it that was meant to be destructively or
condescendingly satirical; I did see a fair amount of nose-tweaking.
> _Zombies_ is a spiteful follow-up from a self-dramatizer who described
> herself as "the Salman Rushdie of science fiction" because some people
> wrote that they were not amused by its predecessor. The long arm of
> coincidence drags its knuckles to reveal a writer's secret identity.
> The pharmaceutical-poisoning scene gets almost all the details wrong.
> The zine writer can't go two paragraphs without begging people to buy
> back issues. (That's the sort of geek I am, and I haven't seen that in
> 25 years of zine reading.) Of course, none of the fans have made
> anything of themselves because fans never do. (The zine writer, for
> instance, is a high school science teacher, and thus beneath
> contempt.) Nevertheless, Hollywood is bidding millions for their lost
> writings.
I had a different problem with _Zombies_: it was a serious mainstream
novel about a group of science fiction writers weighted down and
ultimately twisted out of shape by being shackled to the two main
characters from _Bimbos_. They were fine in _Bimbos_, fit the tone of
the book well, but in a more serious novel they couldn't carry the
weight: I don't think Bertie Wooster would fit into _The Maltese Falcon_
or _The Long Goodbye_, either.
Randy M.
James Nicoll
Randy Money <rbm...@library.syr.edu> wrote:
>
>I had a different problem with _Zombies_: it was a serious mainstream
>novel about a group of science fiction writers weighted down and
>ultimately twisted out of shape by being shackled to the two main
>characters from _Bimbos_. They were fine in _Bimbos_, fit the tone of
>the book well, but in a more serious novel they couldn't carry the
>weight: I don't think Bertie Wooster would fit into _The Maltese Falcon_
>or _The Long Goodbye_, either.
Hrm. But there _is_ a Jeeves-like character in Asimov's Black
Widowers mysteries. I could see a farce where Bertie decides to go into
the detective business because his Scary Aunts are after him to marry
again and being in a trade will scotch that possibility as far as girls
of the proper sort are concerned. Besides, the Belgian fellow in the
flat next door makes it look so easy.
James Nicoll
--
"Don't worry. It's just a bunch of crazies who believe in only one
god. They're just this far away from atheism."
Wayne & Schuster
Matthew Austern
> "Arthur D. Hlavaty" wrote:
> > _Zombies_ is a spiteful follow-up from a self-dramatizer who described
> > herself as "the Salman Rushdie of science fiction" because some people
> > wrote that they were not amused by its predecessor. The long arm of
> > coincidence drags its knuckles to reveal a writer's secret identity.
> > The pharmaceutical-poisoning scene gets almost all the details wrong.
> > The zine writer can't go two paragraphs without begging people to buy
> > back issues. (That's the sort of geek I am, and I haven't seen that in
> > 25 years of zine reading.) Of course, none of the fans have made
> > anything of themselves because fans never do. (The zine writer, for
> > instance, is a high school science teacher, and thus beneath
> > contempt.) Nevertheless, Hollywood is bidding millions for their lost
> > writings.
>
> I had a different problem with _Zombies_: it was a serious mainstream
> novel about a group of science fiction writers weighted down and
> ultimately twisted out of shape by being shackled to the two main
> characters from _Bimbos_.
At least by two characters with the same names and some of the same
personality traits as the two main characters from _Bimbos_. I don't
think it's possible to make those books consistent with each other.
Randy Money
>
> In article <3C3DC4F2...@library.syr.edu>,
> Randy Money <rbm...@library.syr.edu> wrote:
> >
> >I had a different problem with _Zombies_: it was a serious mainstream
> >novel about a group of science fiction writers weighted down and
> >ultimately twisted out of shape by being shackled to the two main
> >characters from _Bimbos_. They were fine in _Bimbos_, fit the tone of
> >the book well, but in a more serious novel they couldn't carry the
> >weight: I don't think Bertie Wooster would fit into _The Maltese Falcon_
> >or _The Long Goodbye_, either.
>
> Hrm. But there _is_ a Jeeves-like character in Asimov's Black
> Widowers mysteries.
None of the BW stories I've read have the heft of _TMF_ or _TLG_. They
don't really derive from Hammett/Chandler, but more from Ellery
Queen-style.
(Next poster will no doubt argue with me, pointing out that Queen was
one of the bridges between the Golden Age mystery and the hard-boiled.
Well, I have this to say about that: Nuts to you, nit-picker!)
> I could see a farce where Bertie decides to go into
> the detective business because his Scary Aunts are after him to marry
> again and being in a trade will scotch that possibility as far as girls
> of the proper sort are concerned. Besides, the Belgian fellow in the
> flat next door makes it look so easy.
>
> James Nicoll
Now that one, I'd like to read, although Bob Hope's movie _My Favorite
Spy_ probably comes close to the final product.
Oooookaaaaaayyyyyy ... Let me rephrase ...
As I was sending it out, it occured to me there are a couple of stories
by Peter Cannon I'd like to read, one puts Wooster in a Lovecraft
universe and another puts Sherlock Holmes in a Lovecraft universe (I
think; it's been awhile since I read the synopsis).
Anyway, _Zombies_ is more like taking Wooster and stuffing him into
_TMF_ or _TLG_ without changes to the current structure of those novels.
_Zombies_ felt like two very different novels fighting one another for
supremacy and I walked away feeling it was really a mainstream work
about sf writers, and a potentially very good serious novel, undermined
by the elements of farce carried over from _Bimbos_. My wish would be
for McCrumb to eventually rescue the story about the old writers and
make a whole new novel from it, which is something that will probably
never happen.
Randy M.
Randy Money
Good point.
Randy M.
James Nicoll
Randy Money <rbm...@library.syr.edu> wrote:
>James Nicoll wrote:
>>
>> In article <3C3DC4F2...@library.syr.edu>,
>> Randy Money <rbm...@library.syr.edu> wrote:
>> >
>> >I had a different problem with _Zombies_: it was a serious mainstream
>> >novel about a group of science fiction writers weighted down and
>> >ultimately twisted out of shape by being shackled to the two main
>> >characters from _Bimbos_. They were fine in _Bimbos_, fit the tone of
>> >the book well, but in a more serious novel they couldn't carry the
>> >weight: I don't think Bertie Wooster would fit into _The Maltese Falcon_
>> >or _The Long Goodbye_, either.
>>
>> Hrm. But there _is_ a Jeeves-like character in Asimov's Black
>> Widowers mysteries.
>
>None of the BW stories I've read have the heft of _TMF_ or _TLG_. They
>don't really derive from Hammett/Chandler, but more from Ellery
>Queen-style.
Agreed.
>(Next poster will no doubt argue with me, pointing out that Queen was
>one of the bridges between the Golden Age mystery and the hard-boiled.
>Well, I have this to say about that: Nuts to you, nit-picker!)
The difference is in part, I suspect, that Hammett worked as
a detective and had an utterly unromantic picture of the job. Chandler
disliked the premises of the "cosy mysteries" (Don't know if they were
called that when he wrote "The Simple Art of Murder"), although I think
he took more liberties with reality than Hammett did. Was it "Trouble
is My Business" where Marlowe gets knocked out pretty much every time
says the title of the short story? I wonder if he ended up like Mohammed
Ali in old age?
>> I could see a farce where Bertie decides to go into
>> the detective business because his Scary Aunts are after him to marry
>> again and being in a trade will scotch that possibility as far as girls
>> of the proper sort are concerned. Besides, the Belgian fellow in the
>> flat next door makes it look so easy.
>>
>Now that one, I'd like to read, although Bob Hope's movie _My Favorite
>Spy_ probably comes close to the final product.
[*]
>Oooookaaaaaayyyyyy ... Let me rephrase ...
>
>As I was sending it out, it occured to me there are a couple of stories
>by Peter Cannon I'd like to read, one puts Wooster in a Lovecraft
>universe and another puts Sherlock Holmes in a Lovecraft universe (I
>think; it's been awhile since I read the synopsis).
>
>Anyway, _Zombies_ is more like taking Wooster and stuffing him into
>_TMF_ or _TLG_ without changes to the current structure of those novels.
>_Zombies_ felt like two very different novels fighting one another for
>supremacy and I walked away feeling it was really a mainstream work
>about sf writers, and a potentially very good serious novel, undermined
>by the elements of farce carried over from _Bimbos_. My wish would be
>for McCrumb to eventually rescue the story about the old writers and
>make a whole new novel from it, which is something that will probably
>never happen.
Oddly enough, this is close to my view of WJW's _Days of Atonement_,
where I liked the portrayal of a flawed but sypathetic character and didn't
care for the SFnal part of the plot. But then, I read Kramer and Zondi
mysteries and K&Z definitely have the flawed part down pat.
Rachel Brown
> >
> >>that often sounds snotty, even when it's counterproductive to do so,
> >>wildly overgeneralizing from Rovacon. It is a condemnation of fandom
> >>for respecting writing more than being thin and rich, which are the
> >>two goals everyone should strive for, and be miserable if they don't
> >>have.
>
> and never felt it was any more mean-spirited than it should be. But then,
> Rovacon was also my introduction to fandom
Was Rovacon a notoriously bad con, or what? I never heard of it (but
I'm not a big con-goer).
I read BIMBOS before I'd ever been to a con, and I thought it was
hilarious. But when I re-read it, I was struck more by how nasty it
was. The only characters who aren't fat, deluded losers are the
scientist who doesn't think of himself as an sf writer, and an
academic who teaches sf. If McCrumb had been a fan, those two would
have come in for their share of parody as well.
The other annoying thing is that the academic keeps going on about
feminism and sexism in sf, in a way that McCrumb clearly agrees with,
but she has clearly not been exposed to the feminist idea that women
(and men) should not be judged by how well they match up to
conventional ideals of beauty. "Fat" and "pimply-faced" are shorthand
for "loser" in this book.
She also lost points with me for holding up THE MISTS OF AVALON as "an
excellent book based on Celtic lore."
However, while I'm knocking McCrumb, I have to point out that in
addition to her lightweight, fun but snotty novels, she also has a
terrific, atmospheric series of Appalachian "ballad" mysteries, which
are borderline fantasy (ghosts and second sight.) The
characterization is excellent, and McCrumb has much more sympathy for
her characters. The first one, WILL YOU EVER RETURN, PRETTY PEGGY-O?
is fine but not her best. THE HANGMAN'S BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER and SHE
WALKS THESE HILLS are great.
Rachel
Ian McDowell
rpho...@mediaone.net (Rachel Brown) wrote:
>Was Rovacon a notoriously bad con, or what? I never heard of it (but
>I'm not a big con-goer).
I went there during my first year in the MFA program at the University of
North Carolina at Greensboro, hitching a ride some folks from SF3, UNCG's
Science Fiction Fantasy Fan Federation. It was, erm, interesting.
I have to confess my traveling companions made more of an impression on me
than the game itself. Most of them smelled rather rank, making the trip
in the student activities van something of an ordeal. I alread knew one
guy from my History of the Dark Ages class, which he was auditing. He was
a short, bald fireplug-shaped fellow with an orange Bismarck mustache, who
always came to class (and to the con) in a filthy grey jumpsuit with
crushed moths on his shoulders (from riding his scooter at night,
apparently), and who went by the name of Tarn. In class, he liked to ask
questions like [high reedy voice] "Dr. Beeler, would it be fair to say
that the Huns raped their victims before or after they killed them?"
Then there was the huge woman in the too-tight jumpsuit and jackboots, who
wore her hair in greasy rolled Princess Leia Braids and smoked a cheap
cigar. She seemed utterly subsumed by her persona in a roleplaying game
called Traveler, and introduced herself to me as Titania Darklighter,
reeling off the various crimes she was wanted for in various star
systems. When we were stopped by a State Trooper because the van's
license plate was close to falling off, she had to be physically
restrained from getting out and drawing her plastic raygun on him.
The driver was a guy named Steve, who seemed comparatively normal at the
time. I recently ran into him again at a local coffeeshop, where he
politely asked me how my novels had done. Before I could even answer, he
went into a looooooong story about his mariage, his divorce, and his
sexual fantasies about the sad, retarded middle-aged woman who lived in an
apartment above the coffeehouse and who liked to hand out Bibles on the
street. Seeing my eyes glaze over, he stopped himself (finally) and said
"but perhaps I've said too much." "Yes, you have," I said, "now please go
away."
I don't actually remember much about the convention, other than meeting
Alexi Panshin in the dealer's room. His wife apparently lived in Roanoke,
and he was trying to raise extra money by selling old galleys and
reviewer's copies. He practically begged me to buy a signed copy of
HEINLEIN IN DIMENSION, and got pretty abusive when I politely declined.
Per C. Jorgensen
> I'm told that McCrumb gives the same treatment to other "really into
> hobbies" social groups in other novels -- Americans being consciously
> Scottish (if there's an official term for that, I don't know it) in
> "Highland Laddie Gone." Haven't read it myself, allow appropriate NaCl
> grains.
She does make fun of the "conscious Scottishness" in _Highland Laddie
Gone_, but I still got the feeling that she had a lighter touch when it
came
to the Highland festival people, and even more when it came to the
Civil War reenactors (but then, of course, it probably pays to be more
polite
to people knowing real-life bayonet drill than to people knowing
Starfleet phaser drill :-) in _MacPherson's Lament_. What I'm
specifically thinking of is that she does not harp on the "those people
all have low-status jobs in real life" theme which was the one thing
I found grating in here excursions into fandom.
-- PCJ
(who otherwise still snickers appreciatively over select passages
of _Bimbos of the Death Sun_)
Konrad Gaertner
>
[goin' to Rovacon]
>
> I have to confess my traveling companions made more of an impression on me
> than the game itself. Most of them smelled rather rank, making the trip
> in the student activities van something of an ordeal. I alread knew one
> guy from my History of the Dark Ages class, which he was auditing. He was
> a short, bald fireplug-shaped fellow with an orange Bismarck mustache, who
> always came to class (and to the con) in a filthy grey jumpsuit with
> crushed moths on his shoulders (from riding his scooter at night,
> apparently), and who went by the name of Tarn. In class, he liked to ask
> questions like [high reedy voice] "Dr. Beeler, would it be fair to say
> that the Huns raped their victims before or after they killed them?"
"Yes, those are usually the only options you get. Next question."
--KG
Rachel Brown
> questions like [high reedy voice] "Dr. Beeler, would it be fair to say
> that the Huns raped their victims before or after they killed them?"
The only possible response to that is "Why do you want to know?"
(Or, if you're a guy, "Would you like me to show you?")
Reminds me of a grad school classmate of mine, a technically skilled
writer, who, every quarter, turned in a play featuring an increasingly
young teenage girl and an increasingly old man, and a leering focus on
their sexual escapades. We spent two years critiqueing those without
commenting on their content, because some of us also wrote plays with
icky subject matter, and we felt that we weren't in the business of
being moral police anyway.
Then he took to wearing skintight bicycling shorts to class, hitting
on really young freshgirls, and finally flew overseas to pick up a
mail-order bride. He returned alone and much despondent, she having
apparently decided that she didn't want a green card _that_ much, and
he turned in a play about a twelve-year-old girl and her happily
incestuous relationship with her father.
In a spontaneous eruption of everything we'd been thinking for the
last two years, all six of his classmates burst out with, "You're a
pervert!" elaborated at some length.
Last I heard, he'd become an associate professor at that college...
Rachel
Lee Ann Rucker
Brown <rpho...@mediaone.net> wrote:
> I read BIMBOS before I'd ever been to a con, and I thought it was
> hilarious. But when I re-read it, I was struck more by how nasty it
> was. The only characters who aren't fat, deluded losers are the
> scientist who doesn't think of himself as an sf writer, and an
> academic who teaches sf.
IIRC, the female lead reminisces about how she used to be a fat,
deluded SF fan, and isn't she happy now that she's given up SF and can
fit into an Emma Peel catsuit.
I've been to two Worldcons, a couple of Baycons, and one Aggiecon.
I've seen a few people who might fit McCrumb's descriptions but they
were far from the majority.
Jim Cambias
<lru...@mac.com> wrote:
> In article <9884ad1c.02011...@posting.google.com>, Rachel
> Brown <rpho...@mediaone.net> wrote:
>
> > I read BIMBOS before I'd ever been to a con, and I thought it was
> > hilarious. But when I re-read it, I was struck more by how nasty it
> > was. The only characters who aren't fat, deluded losers are the
> > scientist who doesn't think of himself as an sf writer, and an
> > academic who teaches sf.
>
> IIRC, the female lead reminisces about how she used to be a fat,
> deluded SF fan, and isn't she happy now that she's given up SF and can
> fit into an Emma Peel catsuit.
>
It's not so much that she was deluded as simply immature. As an adult she
reads (and teaches) SF, so she hasn't exactly given it up. It's just that
she recognizes it as a taste in reading material, not a lifestyle or a
badge of hidden elite status.
> I've been to two Worldcons, a couple of Baycons, and one Aggiecon.
> I've seen a few people who might fit McCrumb's descriptions but they
> were far from the majority.
McCrumb's portrayal is a little out of date, I think. Her cons are a lot
more like ones I remember going to in the 1980s rather than recent ones.
Cambias
Ian McDowell
rpho...@mediaone.net (Rachel Brown) wrote:
>Reminds me of a grad school classmate of mine, a technically skilled
>writer, who, every quarter, turned in a play featuring an increasingly
>young teenage girl and an increasingly old man, and a leering focus on
>their sexual escapades. We spent two years critiqueing those without
>commenting on their content, because some of us also wrote plays with
>icky subject matter, and we felt that we weren't in the business of
>being moral police anyway.
[Rest of creepy story snipped]
Yikes, Rachel. I never had an experience like that, but when I was in the
MFA Writing program at UNCG I knew a guy who wrote story after story that
ended in an orgy of sodomy and murder, usually with overtones of
_Deliverance_. Two couples go white water rafting; their expedition ends
in an orgy of sodomy and murder. A boy scout troop gets lost in the
woods; their outing ends in an orgy of sodomy and murder. A senior
citizens' tour bus breaks down in the Uwharrie National Forrest; before
the sun rises, there's an orgy of sodomy and murder.
He flunked out of the MFA program, more or less -- not due to his grades
in his writing classes, but because he never finished wrote a final paper
for one "academic" (non-writing) class and committed plagiarism in
another. Somehow, he ended up in the Pre-Law (!) program at the
University of South Carolina. He wrote me several times, suggesting I
come visit him. "We could take my father's pistols and go boar hunting."
Yeah, right, like I'd ever go into the woods with that guy.
Ian McDowell
>I've been to two Worldcons, a couple of Baycons, and one Aggiecon.
>I've seen a few people who might fit McCrumb's descriptions but they
>were far from the majority.
I've never been to those conventions, sadly. I have been to four World
Fantasy Cons, three World Horror Cons, one NeCon, one Rovacon, two
ChimeraCons (Chapel Hill, NC, back in the 80's), nine Stellarcons
(Greensboro and High Point, NC, formerly held at UNCG but no longer
associated with the university), and five DragonCons.
At those WFCs and WHCs, maybe 60%-70% of the fans (as opposed to maybe 40%
of the pros) in attendance were heavily built, but only a much smaller
percentage exhibited obvious signs of social awkwardness, whether physical
(breath and body odor) or behavioral (odd tics, grunting, talking too
loudly and in non-sequitars or nonstop infodumps, initiating unwanted
conversations, invading personal space, etc.). Still, spending time in an
elevator with a group of them, or getting wedged in by them in the
dealer's room, could color one's impression of the whole.
At DragonCon, the overall percentage of human body fat was actually
smaller (there are a lot of slim-to-skinny goths and vampire roleplayers
there), but the personality types were more extreme and the very largest
guests seemed, well, larger than at the print-oriented conventions, and
(more important to the geek stereotype) considerably less socialized. And
they often smelled much worse, particularly the Klingon contingent (sweat,
spirit gum and latex are not a good combination).
At my one Rovacon, back in the early 80's, at least 70% of the people in
attendance seemed fairly pear-shaped and there was a very visible, albeit
quite possibly unrepresentative, percentage of utterly unsocialized
loonies (the fact that I'd ridden there with a group of them influenced
this impression, of course). At ChimeraCon, most of the attendees were
also heavily built, but they were particularly well behaved, quite good
company and reasonably well groomed. At several of the Stellarcons, the
body fat percentage was higher than at any other con I've attended, the
loony quotient was fairly high, and grooming standards were lax. These
conventions also had the most unkempt, obnoxious, foulest-smelling and
drunkest pro guests (the late Robert Adams was one spectacular example,
but hardly the only one), along with rather more socialized and
presentable ones like Larry Niven, Hal Clement, Frederick Pohl and Joe
Lansdale (Joe denies ever being in Greensboro, but I shared my Catfish
Fingers with him at Darryl's, dammit).
In other words, when looked at objectively, I encountered a pretty mixed
lot that included lots of very nice and presentable people (not that all
nice people are presentable, or vice-versa) , but if I intended to write a
blistering satire, there was no dearth of raw material. God knows, many
of the other writers I've met or hung out with at conventions, when
talking quietly at dinner or in small groups at the bar, discuss the fans
they've been surrounded by that weekend in terms only slightly less
derisive than McCrumb's.
Ian McDowell
cam...@SPAHMTRAP.heliograph.com (Jim Cambias) wrote:
>McCrumb's portrayal is a little out of date, I think. Her cons are a lot
>more like ones I remember going to in the 1980s rather than recent ones.
This may be true. The most McCrumb-like cons I ever went to were in the
80's, particularly the early 80's OTOH, I'm not sure how much my
impression is shaped by the fact, after 1988, I was meeting more pros than
fans, and when I hung out with the latter, it was folks I already knew.
Mitch Wagner
ian...@mindspring.com says...
> I have, and I thought she did a quite marvelous job of skewering the
> ersatz American "Scottishness" of people like my stepmother, who is
> constantly trying to drag my father off to the Highland Games at
> Grandfather Mountain, has at least twenty books full of those damn tartans
> (don't try telling her that the "ancient" patterns were largely the
> invention of two Victorian charlatans), and who insists on eating haggis
> at least once a year even though she doesn't like it and has to pour half
> her glass of scotch over it to disguise the flavor.
We had haggis at the big tourist pub near the top of the Royal Mile in
Edinburgh, along with what I'm told are the traditional mashed potatoes
and pureed turnips, or something like that, which are traditionally
called tatties and neeps, or something like that.
I actually didn't think the meal was too bad. It wasn't GOOD, mind you,
and it's not something I'm eager to try again, but I ate the whole thing
without difficulty. It was basically bland, texture-free, and salty, like
school cafeteria food, which I didn't mind either. The haggis reminded me
of the Jewish food stuffed kishka, which is not surprising, since it's
basically the same thing: mammal intestine, stuffed, mainly with herbs.
The pub is named for some kind of folk hero of Edinburgh, who was a
respected city councilman and cabinetmaker by day, catburglar by night,
and who was, when caught, hung on a gallows he'd built for the city
himself. I'm sure the first Scottish person who reads this post will
respond withe name of the pub, and appropriate corrections to the first
paragraph, immediately.
--
Mitch Wagner weblog http://drive-thru.org
Mitch Wagner
> Mind you, I laughed out loud several times during BIMBOS OF THE DEATH SUN
> and never felt it was any more mean-spirited than it should be. But then,
> Rovacon was also my introduction to fandom
Based on my limited exposure to cons, and to organized fandom in general,
I'd say "Bimbos of the Death Sun" was an okay parody of the BAD parts of
fandom.
Even there, more experienced fans tell me that "Bimbos" fall down, not
capturing all the varieties of obnoxious fans in all their variety.
The shy, fat girl dressed in the leather barbarian costume was, on first
reading, funny, but then after you think about it a minute, it's just
cruel. Ha ha isn't it funny that a fat girl might think of herself as
attractive! Ha ha isn't it funny that there are men out there so pathetic
as to think the fat girl really IS attractive! Ha ha!
I felt the same way about the so-called Krispy Kreme calendar that was
making the rounds in e-mail a few months ago. The joke was that the
calendar was decorated with pictures of fat women in bikinis. I received
the message in e-mail from someone I didn't even know - he'd meant to
send it to someone else with a similar address - and I responded: "I
weigh about 270 pounds. You want to explain to me why this is funny?"
I mean, I *know* I don't look good, and I should lose weight, but that
doesn't mean I'll cheerfully go along with being the object of fun and
mockery. Ha ha, aren't I good sport? No, not about that.
The same guy who sent me that e-mail sent me a similar e-mail in similar
circumstances a year or two earlier. It was a picture of a skinny guy
having sex with an enormously fat woman--she must have weighed at least
500 pounds. I think this guy has Issues about weight, if you ask me.
Oh, dear, I seem to have committed both topic drift and rant, haven't I?
Mitch Wagner
rpho...@mediaone.net says...
> I read BIMBOS before I'd ever been to a con, and I thought it was
> hilarious. But when I re-read it, I was struck more by how nasty it
> was. The only characters who aren't fat, deluded losers are the
> scientist who doesn't think of himself as an sf writer, and an
> academic who teaches sf. If McCrumb had been a fan, those two would
> have come in for their share of parody as well.
And the academic describes herself as a "recovered fan."
Mitch Wagner
ian...@mindspring.com says...
<snip>
> Yeah, right, like I'd ever go into the woods with that guy.
LOL!
Mitch Wagner
Ian, I like you, but I have to Raise an Eyebrow at your inclusion of
obesity and pear-shapedness with social sins such as halitosis and body
odor caused by bad grooming, invasion of social space, unwanted
conversation, infodumps and other rude behavior.
David Cowie
[I have eaten haggis and it wasn't bad]
My parents are both Scots and when converstion comes round to haggis I
am irresistibly reminded of the Monty Python line "Haggis is considered
by the Scots to be not only a national delicacy but also fit for human
consumption". It really isn't bad to eat ... but it's also something
created by people who couldn't afford to waste any part of an animal,
even if it wasn't that tasty. It's food as a maintenance function.
--
David Cowie
There is no _spam in my address.
"You had to do WHAT with your seat?"
Ian McDowell
Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>In article <iankmcd-1001...@pool-63.50.56.106.rlgh.grid.net>,
>ian...@mindspring.com says...
>
>> I have, and I thought she did a quite marvelous job of skewering the
>> ersatz American "Scottishness" of people like my stepmother, who
>>who insists on eating haggis
>> at least once a year even though she doesn't like it and has to pour half
>> her glass of scotch over it to disguise the flavor.
>
>We had haggis at the big tourist pub near the top of the Royal Mile in
>Edinburgh, along with what I'm told are the traditional mashed potatoes
>and pureed turnips, or something like that, which are traditionally
>called tatties and neeps, or something like that.
Anthony Bourdain's marvelous A COOK'S TOUR has a chapter about haggis that
is surprisingly mouth-watering, and makes me want to try it when it's been
prepared by some who knows what she or he is doing.
Ian McDowell
Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>Ian, I like you, but I have to Raise an Eyebrow at your inclusion of
>obesity and pear-shapedness with social sins such as halitosis and body
>odor caused by bad grooming, invasion of social space, unwanted
>conversation, infodumps and other rude behavior.
Point taken and apologies offered, but I didn't actually intend the Fat =
Unsocialized Obnoxious Geek equation. I don't think there's anything
wrong with having a higher percentage of body fat than what the mass media
portrays as "normal," and even actual obesity, while a serious health
hazard, is not the same kind of "problem" as unsocialized or anti-social
hehavior.
However, I seem to recall, perhaps wrongly, that someone upstream was
taking exception to McCrumb's _physical_ descriptions of the her fictional
fans as well as they way she portrayed their personalities -- not just
objecting to the way she characterized their body types, but disputing the
prevalence of the body types themselves. In other words, I (perhaps mis-)
read that poster as saying, essentially, "McCrumb portrays fans as having
a tendency to be fat and I don't think that's true."
While my own impression is also a subjective one (it's quite possible that
I've been conditioned by society to _expect_ to see "fat" people at SF
conventions), I really do notice a higher percentage of large men and
women at such gatherings than I do elsewhere in my daily life. Now, one
can argue, with some justification, that it is cruel and shallow of
McCrumb to mock them for this, that she portrays their physical
characteristics in an excessively negative light, but it's less easy to
argue that those physical characteristics aren't somewhat common in our
circles.
phil hunt
>
>Ian, I like you, but I have to Raise an Eyebrow at your inclusion of
>obesity and pear-shapedness with social sins such as halitosis and body
>odor caused by bad grooming, invasion of social space, unwanted
>conversation, infodumps and other rude behavior.
Oh, I don't know.
I'd say that obesity and smelling bad are both (1) things that can put
others off about one, and (2) things that (unless one has a medical
condition) are avoidable if one takes the effort to do so.
So they are roughly comparable.
--
===== Philip Hunt ===== ph...@comuno.freeserve.co.uk =====
One OS to rule them all, one OS to find them,
One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them,
In the Land of Redmond, where the Shadows lie.
Shaad M. Ahmad
phil hunt <ph...@comuno.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>I'd say that obesity and smelling bad are both (1) things that can put
>others off about one, and (2) things that (unless one has a medical
>condition) are avoidable if one takes the effort to do so.
>
>So they are roughly comparable.
No comment on the body odour issue, but I think the current research
into the OB-1 gene and leptin suggests that our bodies are preprogrammed
to have a certain balance of fat; that if one is unfortunate enough to have
that balance set at higher than is aesthetically preferred, one can bring
one's weight down by exercise and dieting, but will feel hungry and
lethargic until that original balance point is reached once again.
That said, there certainly are dietary and cultural practices that
make say, Americans in general, more obese than natives of many other
nations.
Regards.
- Shaad
Ian McDowell
M. Ahmad) wrote:
> That said, there certainly are dietary and cultural practices that
>make say, Americans in general, more obese than natives of many other
>nations.
Many Brits of my acquaintance seem obsessed by how "fat' we all are here
in the U.S. In a sense, they see us all the way the mainstream world
sees fandom.
Ross TenEyck
The haggis I had reminded me more of meatloaf than anything else --
imagine a meatloaf a bit heavier on the oats than usual, and a touch
spicier. It *looked* pretty horrible, on the tray -- it resembled
a large grey bowel movement more than anything else. But once the
outside was peeled back and it was dished up, it didn't look any
worse than ground beef, and it tasted just fine.
I don't know if the haggis I had was representative, but it was
claimed to be authentic. For whatever that's worth.
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Shaad M. Ahmad
Ian McDowell <ian...@mindspring.com> wrote:
Thanks, Ian. I now have a mental image that will make me chuckle at
odd hours and further my being stereotyped as a mad scientist.
- Shaad
Nancy Lebovitz
Ian Montgomerie <i...@ianmontgomerie.com> wrote:
>
>It doesn't explain SF fans being fat, either. Unless you are
>proposing that genes predisposing one to obesity also predispose one
>to like SF (this would be a rather remarkable link), one expects any
>higher average body weight among convention attending populations to
>be due to non-genetic factors.
>
I'll suggest that fandom excludes fat people less than mainstream
society does--partly because almost all of it is sedentary hobbies
(it's possible for fat people to be athletic, but it's less likely)
and partly because there's much less prejudice against fat people.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com 100 new slogans
And on the eighth day, God said, "OK, Murphy, you take over".
Shaad M. Ahmad
>On 13 Jan 2002 00:48:06 GMT, sh...@Stanford.EDU (Shaad M. Ahmad)
>wrote:
>> No comment on the body odour issue, but I think the current research
>>into the OB-1 gene and leptin suggests that our bodies are preprogrammed
>>to have a certain balance of fat; that if one is unfortunate enough to have
>>that balance set at higher than is aesthetically preferred, one can bring
>>one's weight down by exercise and dieting, but will feel hungry and
>>lethargic until that original balance point is reached once again.
>
>This is only true to a point - a fairly small point in the context of,
>for example, modern American society. Which isn't the fattest society
>in the world because there are more people about with the OB-1 gene
>(or any other fat-related gene).
<< Long commentary snipped >>
Ian, there WAS a second paragraph in my post, one that you might
have failed to notice. I'll include it here:
>> That said, there certainly are dietary and cultural practices that
>>make say, Americans in general, more obese than natives of many other
>>nations.
Regards,
- Shaad (who is blessed with one of those metabolisms/
OB-1 alleles/leptin levels that allows him to
eat like a hog and still remain slim)
Richard Harter
wrote:
>In article <n7524uonted1h5ao5...@4ax.com>,
>Ian Montgomerie <i...@ianmontgomerie.com> wrote:
>>
>>It doesn't explain SF fans being fat, either. Unless you are
>>proposing that genes predisposing one to obesity also predispose one
>>to like SF (this would be a rather remarkable link), one expects any
>>higher average body weight among convention attending populations to
>>be due to non-genetic factors.
>>
>I'll suggest that fandom excludes fat people less than mainstream
>society does--partly because almost all of it is sedentary hobbies
>(it's possible for fat people to be athletic, but it's less likely)
>and partly because there's much less prejudice against fat people.
There is (or at least was) much less prejudice in fandom than in
mundania, at least conventional social prejudice. The whole "fandom
excludes fat people less ..." is well off the mark; fat people, et
cetera, are first-class citizens in fandom. The social divisions have
to do with media.
The people who was saying that McCrumb was making fun of the fat
losers are, at least partly, expressing their own prejudices. The
notion that fat matters and the obsession with losers are mundane
prejudices and are fairly ugly ones at that.
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net,
http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, http://www.varinoma.com
Love, no matter how pure, is the most selfish of gifts.
For that reason it is the one gift that must be given.
Nancy Lebovitz
Richard Harter <c...@tiac.net> wrote:
>On 13 Jan 2002 07:38:28 GMT, na...@unix1.netaxs.com (Nancy Lebovitz)
>wrote:
>
>>In article <n7524uonted1h5ao5...@4ax.com>,
>>Ian Montgomerie <i...@ianmontgomerie.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>It doesn't explain SF fans being fat, either. Unless you are
>>>proposing that genes predisposing one to obesity also predispose one
>>>to like SF (this would be a rather remarkable link), one expects any
>>>higher average body weight among convention attending populations to
>>>be due to non-genetic factors.
>>>
>>I'll suggest that fandom excludes fat people less than mainstream
>>society does--partly because almost all of it is sedentary hobbies
>>(it's possible for fat people to be athletic, but it's less likely)
>>and partly because there's much less prejudice against fat people.
>
>There is (or at least was) much less prejudice in fandom than in
>mundania, at least conventional social prejudice. The whole "fandom
>excludes fat people less ..." is well off the mark; fat people, et
>cetera, are first-class citizens in fandom. The social divisions have
>to do with media.
>
mundania, but I've heard plenty of talk in fandom about fatness
being a sign of social undesirability. The differences are that one
has to be a lot fatter in fandom to be considered "fat" and that
fatness seems to have a lot less impact on one's social life.
Still, I can't help wondering whether the talk drives some people
away. I'm not in the size class that generally gets attacked, and
I don't know how much difference the prejudice makes.
>The people who was saying that McCrumb was making fun of the fat
>losers are, at least partly, expressing their own prejudices. The
>notion that fat matters and the obsession with losers are mundane
>prejudices and are fairly ugly ones at that.
They are--and I'd say that McCrumb shares them.
Joe Slater
>While my own impression is also a subjective one (it's quite possible that
>I've been conditioned by society to _expect_ to see "fat" people at SF
>conventions), I really do notice a higher percentage of large men and
>women at such gatherings than I do elsewhere in my daily life.
At the last Worldcon there was some sort of Christian gathering
organised by another organisation, within the same convention centre.
When the two groups met in the halls one could recognise the
Christians pretty easily: most of them weren't obese.
jds
--
Joe Slater was but a low-grade paranoiac, whose fantastic notions must
have come from the crude hereditary folk-tales which circulated in even
the most decadent of communities.
_Beyond the Wall of Sleep_ by H P Lovecraft
Jaimie Vandenbergh
wrote:
>In article <MPG.16aa32f63...@news.elcjn1.sdca.home.com>, Mitch
>Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>>Ian, I like you, but I have to Raise an Eyebrow at your inclusion of
>>obesity and pear-shapedness with social sins such as halitosis and body
>>odor caused by bad grooming, invasion of social space, unwanted
>>conversation, infodumps and other rude behavior.
>
>Point taken and apologies offered, but I didn't actually intend the Fat =
>Unsocialized Obnoxious Geek equation.
I don't believe you implied it - your post quite accurately had both
Fat and UOG as seperate (but overlapping) groups.
McCrumb, however, conflates the two.
Cheers- Jaimie
--
Now I lay me down to sleep
Try to count electric sheep
Sweet dream wishes you can keep
How I hate the night. - Marvin the paranoid android
Andrew Wheeler
>
> ian...@mindspring.com (Ian McDowell) wrote:
> >While my own impression is also a subjective one (it's quite
> >possible that I've been conditioned by society to _expect_
> >to see "fat" people at SF conventions), I really do notice
> >a higher percentage of large men and women at such
> >gatherings than I do elsewhere in my daily life.
>
> At the last Worldcon there was some sort of Christian
> gathering organised by another organisation, within the same
> convention centre. When the two groups met in the halls one
> could recognise the Christians pretty easily: most of them
> weren't obese.
Most of the Christians were also African-American, which was another clue.
They dressed better, as well. (i.e., "Sunday-go-to-meeting" clothes
rather than "the T-shirt about the panel I'm about to go to").
All in all, the two groups were pretty easy to tell apart.
--
Andrew Wheeler
Editor, SF Book Club (USA) -- speaking only for myself
No Ideas But In Things!
Jim Cambias
<david_co...@lineone.net> wrote:
> On Saturday 12 January 2002 19:30, Mitch Wagner wrote:
> [I have eaten haggis and it wasn't bad]
>
> My parents are both Scots and when converstion comes round to haggis I
> am irresistibly reminded of the Monty Python line "Haggis is considered
> by the Scots to be not only a national delicacy but also fit for human
> consumption". It really isn't bad to eat ... but it's also something
> created by people who couldn't afford to waste any part of an animal,
> even if it wasn't that tasty. It's food as a maintenance function.
The haggis I've had was almost indistinguishable from Jimmy Dean breakfast
sausage. (Not that surprising, given that much of the Southern US was
settled by Scots.) Don't see what all the fuss is about. So it's a
stomach. Bratwursts are made from _intestines_. Why does one rate an
"eeeeuuwww" and the other a "no ketchup on mine" from the general public?
Cambias
James Nicoll
Nancy Lebovitz <na...@unix1.netaxs.com> wrote:
>In article <n7524uonted1h5ao5...@4ax.com>,
>Ian Montgomerie <i...@ianmontgomerie.com> wrote:
>>
>>It doesn't explain SF fans being fat, either. Unless you are
>>proposing that genes predisposing one to obesity also predispose one
>>to like SF (this would be a rather remarkable link), one expects any
>>higher average body weight among convention attending populations to
>>be due to non-genetic factors.
>>
>I'll suggest that fandom excludes fat people less than mainstream
>society does--partly because almost all of it is sedentary hobbies
>(it's possible for fat people to be athletic, but it's less likely)
>and partly because there's much less prejudice against fat people.
Weights. Fat people should do weights. It's enormously
gratifying to have to increase the load after some fit but thin
person is done with the machines.
--
"Don't worry. It's just a bunch of crazies who believe in only one
god. They're just this far away from atheism."
Wayne & Schuster
Margaret Young
wrote:
>
>She also lost points with me for holding up THE MISTS OF AVALON as "an
>excellent book based on Celtic lore."
>
Having had to sit through way too many of my friends telling me that
that book changed their lives I would be interested in hearing more on
this from you.
Margaret
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faint smell of cat pee.
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Margaret Young
wrote:
>In article <110120022238497876%lru...@mac.com>, Lee Ann Rucker
><lru...@mac.com> wrote:
>
<snip description of people at different cons>
I have been to conferences mainly peopled by a) Political Scientists,
b) Political behind the scenes types AND I have gone to a number of
American sports events.
At all three I was amazed at the high percentage of people who were
"heavy set" - and at the constant availability of food. The main
difference to me is that at "serious" conferences people seldom eschew
shirts in favour of body paint reflecting their team colours. (Pause
while I imagine Rush Limbaugh stripped to the waist with a picture of
an elephant painted across his belly).
Ian McDowell
<mmy...@umich.edu> wrote:
>On 10 Jan 2002 12:18:13 -0800, rpho...@mediaone.net (Rachel Brown)
>wrote:
>
>>
>>She also lost points with me for holding up THE MISTS OF AVALON as "an
>>excellent book based on Celtic lore."
>>
>
>Having had to sit through way too many of my friends telling me that
>that book changed their lives I would be interested in hearing more on
>this from you.
I couldn't finish it, and that was before I got to the point where I
couldn't read anybody else's Arthurian novels (it happens when you write
one yourself, or least, it did to me). Not only did I find the prose
bland and uninviting, but the simplistic Good Pagan Women vs. Evil (or at
least Misguided) Christian Men dichotomy got on my nerves (and I'm an
atheist and secure enough about my own gender that I'm not bothered by
skillful male-bashing). That and the Southern California Celticism.
phil hunt
>In article <MPG.16aa32f63...@news.elcjn1.sdca.home.com>, Mitch
>Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Ian, I like you, but I have to Raise an Eyebrow at your inclusion of
>>obesity and pear-shapedness with social sins such as halitosis and body
>>odor caused by bad grooming, invasion of social space, unwanted
>>conversation, infodumps and other rude behavior.
>
>Point taken and apologies offered, but I didn't actually intend the Fat =
>Unsocialized Obnoxious Geek equation. I don't think there's anything
>wrong with having a higher percentage of body fat than what the mass media
>portrays as "normal,"
Apart from likelyhood of dying earlier?
> and even actual obesity, while a serious health
>hazard, is not the same kind of "problem" as unsocialized or anti-social
>hehavior.
It seems to me that obesity is *the same* as unsocialised behaviour or bad
breath, in the effects it has on one's perceived sexual attractiveness.
Margaret Young
wrote:
>In article <kpb34ug2it9v48j2q...@4ax.com>, Margaret Young
"Southern California Celticism." [*]
James Nicoll
phil hunt <ph...@comuno.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>It seems to me that obesity is *the same* as unsocialised behaviour or bad
>breath, in the effects it has on one's perceived sexual attractiveness.
This varies considerably with fashion, even on timescales as
short as a decade. Look at the women in dawn-time music videos from
that distant era Men called the 1980s. Hollywood Wasting Disease had
hardly begun to spread back then (1).
Marilyn Monroe would be considered too fat to be a lead actress
if she got bumped from the 1950s to the present day. She seems to have
enjoyed some success in her home time, however.
OBSF: Some SF novel I read recently where the female protagonist
is not even 200 pounds but the male protagonist thinks she is cute anyway.
James Nicoll
1: I draw a distinction between people who are naturally thin and people
who are forced by fashion to starve themselves to a weight which
is unhealthy for them.
Mitch Wagner
ian...@mindspring.com says...
> In article <MPG.16aa32f63...@news.elcjn1.sdca.home.com>, Mitch
> Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
>
>
> >Ian, I like you, but I have to Raise an Eyebrow at your inclusion of
> >obesity and pear-shapedness with social sins such as halitosis and body
> >odor caused by bad grooming, invasion of social space, unwanted
> >conversation, infodumps and other rude behavior.
>
> Point taken and apologies offered, but I didn't actually intend the Fat =
> Unsocialized Obnoxious Geek equation. I don't think there's anything
> wrong with having a higher percentage of body fat than what the mass media
> portrays as "normal," and even actual obesity, while a serious health
> hazard, is not the same kind of "problem" as unsocialized or anti-social
> hehavior.
>
> However, I seem to recall, perhaps wrongly, that someone upstream was
> taking exception to McCrumb's _physical_ descriptions of the her fictional
> fans as well as they way she portrayed their personalities -- not just
> objecting to the way she characterized their body types, but disputing the
> prevalence of the body types themselves. In other words, I (perhaps mis-)
> read that poster as saying, essentially, "McCrumb portrays fans as having
> a tendency to be fat and I don't think that's true."
Okay, point taken. Thanks for clarifying that.
Mitch Wagner
ph...@comuno.freeserve.co.uk says...
> On Sat, 12 Jan 2002 19:48:51 GMT, Mitch Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
> >
> >Ian, I like you, but I have to Raise an Eyebrow at your inclusion of
> >obesity and pear-shapedness with social sins such as halitosis and body
> >odor caused by bad grooming, invasion of social space, unwanted
> >conversation, infodumps and other rude behavior.
>
> Oh, I don't know.
>
> I'd say that obesity and smelling bad are both (1) things that can put
> others off about one, and (2) things that (unless one has a medical
> condition) are avoidable if one takes the effort to do so.
Yeah, but a bad odor is actually unpleasant, while the only person I harm
by being fat is myself.
Mitch Wagner
ph...@comuno.freeserve.co.uk says...
> On 13 Jan 2002 00:23:07 GMT, Ian McDowell <ian...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> >In article <MPG.16aa32f63...@news.elcjn1.sdca.home.com>, Mitch
> >Wagner <mwa...@world.std.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Ian, I like you, but I have to Raise an Eyebrow at your inclusion of
> >>obesity and pear-shapedness with social sins such as halitosis and body
> >>odor caused by bad grooming, invasion of social space, unwanted
> >>conversation, infodumps and other rude behavior.
> >
> >Point taken and apologies offered, but I didn't actually intend the Fat =
> >Unsocialized Obnoxious Geek equation. I don't think there's anything
> >wrong with having a higher percentage of body fat than what the mass media
> >portrays as "normal,"
>
> Apart from likelyhood of dying earlier?
>
> > and even actual obesity, while a serious health
> >hazard, is not the same kind of "problem" as unsocialized or anti-social
> >hehavior.
>
> It seems to me that obesity is *the same* as unsocialised behaviour or bad
> breath, in the effects it has on one's perceived sexual attractiveness.
Yeah, but if we're not going to sleep together (not if you don't buy me a
drink first, sailor), and you're not going to sell me health insurance,
or hire me to do some athletic work, then why should my weight matter?
Michael S. Schiffer
<iankmcd-1201...@pool-63.50.56.40.rlgh.grid.net>:
>...
>Many Brits of my acquaintance seem obsessed by how "fat' we all
>are here in the U.S. In a sense, they see us all the way the
>mainstream world sees fandom.
ObSF: Dudley Dursley's obesity as an integral part of his general
awfulness (and the tendency of the authorial voice to see his size
and weight as funny in themselves) in the Harry Potter books.
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
Nancy Lebovitz
Michael S. Schiffer <msch...@condor.depaul.edu> wrote:
>ian...@mindspring.com (Ian McDowell) wrote in
><iankmcd-1201...@pool-63.50.56.40.rlgh.grid.net>:
>>...
>>Many Brits of my acquaintance seem obsessed by how "fat' we all
>>are here in the U.S. In a sense, they see us all the way the
>>mainstream world sees fandom.
>
>ObSF: Dudley Dursley's obesity as an integral part of his general
>awfulness (and the tendency of the authorial voice to see his size
>and weight as funny in themselves) in the Harry Potter books.
Though it gets more complex later in the series with whatshername,
the head of the French wizards' school.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> The pub is named for some kind of folk hero of Edinburgh, who was a
> respected city councilman and cabinetmaker by day, catburglar by night,
> and who was, when caught, hung on a gallows he'd built for the city
> himself. I'm sure the first Scottish person who reads this post will
> respond withe name of the pub, and appropriate corrections to the first
> paragraph, immediately.
I know who you're talking about, having had the Ghost Walk in Edimburgh,
but not being Scottish myself, I'm excused from remembering the name,
fortunately. :-)
I've had haggis. The fact that it's not actually vile is not enough to
redeem it in my eyes. Not that I have never had good food in Scotland,
mind you...
...I had some very good Indian food in Stormoway.
--
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
Gens una sumus
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
My impact with Americans was also like that. In general, to European
eyes the most obvious thing one notices about Americans in general is
the prevalence of very large persons. It's far enough from our average
that it hits us pretty hard. Often, it's the first thing one tells after
a visit to the USA. It's not mockery, it's genuine surprise.
Joyce Reynolds-Ward
wrote:
snip
>I'll suggest that fandom excludes fat people less than mainstream
>society does--partly because almost all of it is sedentary hobbies
>(it's possible for fat people to be athletic, but it's less likely)
>and partly because there's much less prejudice against fat people.
There's also a big myth about non-athletic fat people. I've been on
the heavy side (not obese, but overweight) during some of my most
athletic periods, especially when I was swimming, and on the lighter
side when I wasn't particularly athletic (such as when my asthma was
flaring, badly).
jrw
David Allsopp
Ian McDowell <ian...@mindspring.com> writes>>I've been to two Worldcons, a couple of Baycons, and one Aggiecon.
>>I've seen a few people who might fit McCrumb's descriptions but they
>>were far from the majority.
>
>I've never been to those conventions, sadly. I have been to four World
>Fantasy Cons, three World Horror Cons, one NeCon, one Rovacon, two
>ChimeraCons (Chapel Hill, NC, back in the 80's), nine Stellarcons
>(Greensboro and High Point, NC, formerly held at UNCG but no longer
>associated with the university), and five DragonCons.
> [Snip description of size distribution among fans]
I went to my first con last year (Eboracon, UK), and the distribution of
variously-sized people seemed pretty normal.
However, at one point a pizza delivery chap arrived, with a "Pizza for
X, where is he please?" One of the con organisers said (with an
absolutely straight face) "He's a bloke with a beard and glasses".
I could see four people like that just in the corridor near the
entrance, and that's not including me.
--
David Allsopp Houston, this is Tranquillity Base.
Remove SPAM to email me The Eagle has landed.
aRJay
Cambias <cam...@SPAHMTRAP.heliograph.com> writes
Because one is exotic and foreign and expensive and therefore must be
good whilst the other is that cheap muck that "those" people eat and is
therefore horrible.
Which is which is left as an exercise of the readers prejudices and
background.
--
aRJay
"In this great and creatorless universe, where so much beautiful has
come to be out of the chance interactions of the basic properties of
matter, it seems so important that we love one another."
- Lucy Kemnitzer
Andrew Dynon
news:MPG.16ab6d401...@news.elcjn1.sdca.home.com...
Although I have found being stuck between two fat people in a theater to be
not the most pleasant of experiences.
--
________________________________________
Andrew Dynon
"If the story was beautiful, then the beauty belongs to us all; if it was
bad, the fault is mine alone, who told it."
- Zanzibar Swahili traditional story ending
Thomas Lindgren
sh...@Stanford.EDU (Shaad M. Ahmad) writes:
> No comment on the body odour issue, but I think the current research
> into the OB-1 gene and leptin suggests that our bodies are preprogrammed
> /.../
Possibly unintended, but an "obee-one" gene? One may hope it also induces
levitation, telepathy and a light saber.
Best, in utter, entire, irreproachable seriousness,
Thomas
--
ftl Thomas Lindgren
@acm.org
I'd rather write programs that write programs than write programs-[R. Sites]
Michael S. Schiffer
<3c41ed94...@news.aracnet.com>:
>...
>There's also a big myth about non-athletic fat people. I've been on
>the heavy side (not obese, but overweight) during some of my most
>athletic periods, especially when I was swimming, and on the lighter
>side when I wasn't particularly athletic (such as when my asthma was
>flaring, badly).
Similarly, I've gone through periods where I was exercising
frequently (both aerobic and weight training) and periods in which
I've done virtually nothing. My weight fluctuated maybe 5%, if that,
which is a tiny fraction of what I'd need to stop redlining the BMI
tables. (I still do it, since there's evidence that some of the
benefits of athletic fitness are independent of body weight, but no
longer with the idea that it's ever going to lead to noticeable
weight loss.)
Shaad M. Ahmad
Thomas Lindgren <***@***.***> wrote:
>sh...@Stanford.EDU (Shaad M. Ahmad) writes:
>
>> No comment on the body odour issue, but I think the current research
>> into the OB-1 gene and leptin suggests that our bodies are preprogrammed
>> /.../
>
>Possibly unintended, but an "obee-one" gene? One may hope it also induces
>levitation, telepathy and a light saber.
I'm sure it passed through their mind, Thomas; I believe it's an
abbreviation for obesity-one. The mice chaps do have a few cute names for
their genes; but when it comes to really wacky gene names it's hard to
beat the contributions made by us fly geneticists: ken&barbie, cheapdate
and male chauvinist pigmentation, for instance.
- Shaad
Mark Atwood
>
> OBSF: Some SF novel I read recently where the female protagonist
> is not even 200 pounds but the male protagonist thinks she is cute anyway.
Maybe _The Witling_ by Vinge?
The marooned female human was considered by other humans to be short,
very heavyset, and course-featured. To the natives' eyes, she was
tall, willowy, and elfin.
--
Mark Atwood | Well done is better than well said.
m...@pobox.com |
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
David Tate
> jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:
> >
> > OBSF: Some SF novel I read recently where the female protagonist
> > is not even 200 pounds but the male protagonist thinks she is cute anyway.
>
> Maybe _The Witling_ by Vinge?
>
> The marooned female human was considered by other humans to be short,
> very heavyset, and course-featured. To the natives' eyes, she was
> tall, willowy, and elfin.
In "Second Game" (and, presumably, the novel _Second Game_, which I
have not yet managed to find) by Katherine MacLean and Charles V. De
Vet, the alien women are only 'feminine' (and pulchritudinous) about
once every 7 years; the rest of the time, they are slender and
androgynous. The native males, on first encountering humans, all fall
for very large women -- all female, all the time, in their eyes.
David Tate
Joel Rosenberg
> On 13 Jan 2002 12:42:19 -0500, jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
> wrote:
>
> >In article <slrna41ns1...@comuno.freeserve.co.uk>,
> >phil hunt <ph...@comuno.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> >>
> >>It seems to me that obesity is *the same* as unsocialised behaviour or bad
> >>breath, in the effects it has on one's perceived sexual attractiveness.
> >
> > This varies considerably with fashion, even on timescales as
> >short as a decade. Look at the women in dawn-time music videos from
> >that distant era Men called the 1980s. Hollywood Wasting Disease had
> >hardly begun to spread back then (1).
> >
> > Marilyn Monroe would be considered too fat to be a lead actress
> >if she got bumped from the 1950s to the present day. She seems to have
> >enjoyed some success in her home time, however.
>
> I don't know any time in which Marilyn Monroe would be considered
> "obese".
>
Probably in the same time that people make jokes about the allegedly
large size of Jennifer Lopez's butt?
--
-------------------------------------
There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.
-------------------------------------
James Nicoll
Ian Montgomerie <i...@ianmontgomerie.com> wrote:
>On 13 Jan 2002 12:42:19 -0500, jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
>wrote:
>
>>phil hunt <ph...@comuno.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>It seems to me that obesity is *the same* as unsocialised behaviour or bad
>>>breath, in the effects it has on one's perceived sexual attractiveness.
>>
>> This varies considerably with fashion, even on timescales as
>>short as a decade. Look at the women in dawn-time music videos from
>>that distant era Men called the 1980s. Hollywood Wasting Disease had
>>hardly begun to spread back then (1).
>>
>> Marilyn Monroe would be considered too fat to be a lead actress
>>if she got bumped from the 1950s to the present day. She seems to have
>>enjoyed some success in her home time, however.
>
>"obese".
>
Well, you wouldn't think so but look at the way Kate Winslet
is treated. At 5' 6" and ~125 pounds she is compareable to Marilyn
(who was 5' 5 1/2" and between 118 and 140 pounds, depending on what
age MM you look at). Nicknames like Kate 'Weighsalot' (from Cameron
in _Titanic_) don't indicate to me a huge acceptance of non-thin
actresses in current day Hollywood. Winslet gets a lot of grief
over her weight.