#samuel delany

[samueldelany]

'Delany describes with heartbreaking passion a cornerstone of his pedagogy: the importance of inspiring confidence in his students. I want them to know they matter, he tells an interviewer, through rising tears.'

Happy 82nd, Chip Delany!

#april 1 2024 #samuel delany #82nd birthday

[jacobwren]

"Science fiction is not “about the future.” Science fiction is in dialogue with the present. We SF writers often say that science fiction prepares people to think about the real future—but that’s because it relates to the real present in the particular way it does; and that relation is neither one of prediction nor one of prophecy. It is one of dialogic, contestatory, agonistic creativity. In science fiction the future is only a writerly convention that allows the SF writer to indulge in a significant distortion of the present that sets up a rich and complex dialogue with the reader’s here and now." - Samuel Delany

#samuel delany

[dduane]

An extraordinary read about an extraordinary talent. (And always somebody you can smile and say “Hey, Chip…!” to as you pass him in the convention hotel’s bar…)

#Chip Delany #Samuel Delany

[tygerland]

Author Samuel R. Delany, photographed by Laurie Toby Edison at his Upper West Side apartment in New York City, 2003.

#black history #samuel r delany #science fiction #icons #black men #black excellence #lgbtq #gender #queer #sci fi #fantasy #society #lit #author #black tumblr #gay #pride #history #samuel r. delany #samuel delany #laurie toby edison #queer history #📚

[racefortheironthrone]

what are your main criticisms of Times Square Red, Times Square Blue?

I think Delany's whole theory about how Times Square "Red" was a place of genuine cross-class social interaction and the like is wildly romanticized bullshit that downplays and softpeddles a lot of exploitation at work in the vice industries and the reality that pretty much everyone was there to get their fix or get paid and/or both, and then get the fuck out as quickly and safely as they could. There were reasons other than Puritanism that you kept your eyes on the sidewalk when you walked through the old Times Square.

I also think as a narrative about gentrification it ignores a longer history of how the Times Square he remembers was a transitory period caused by deindustrialization and neighborhood decline from the 30s-50s; it's not what Times Square was before and it wasn't what it was after, and in a lot of ways the hyper-capitalist consumerist tourist fantasia which is where I work on a day-to-day basis is pretty similar to what it was back in the 1920s or earlier.

And this doesn't make Times Square "Blue" unique or that different than any other example of neighborhood succession - plenty of neighborhoods in NYC from the Meatpacking District to Chelsea and SoHo and Alphabet City to Williamsburg got their start as working-class neighborhoods on the decline that got Bohemianized because the rents were cheap and then got trendy and then gentrified, and that all happened without the desexualizing hand of the House of Mouse at work.

#urban studies #sociology #nyc #nyc history #times square #samuel delany

[aaronsrpgs]

"Basically, however, the critic is part of the work's audience. The critic responds to it, selects among those responses and, using them, makes, selectively, a model of the work that may, hopefully, guide, helpfully, the responses of the critic's own audience when they come to the work being modeled."

— Samuel R. Delany, The Jewel-Hinged Jaw

#samuel delany #criticism

[exhaled-spirals]

« The concept of a writer writing a vivid and accurate scene in a language transparent and devoid of decoration so that we see through to the object without writerly distraction suffers the same contradiction as the concept of a painter painting a vivid and accurate scene with pigments transparent and devoid of color, including white and black—so that the paint will not get between us and the picture. »

— Samuel Delany, Jewel Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction    

#quote #samuel delany #writing #language #english

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Lord's Prayer...translated from Aramaic directly into English.

Rather than from Aramaic to Greek to Latin to English (which most of us are used to from the King James version:

O cosmic Birther of all radiance and vibration,

soften the ground of our being and carve out a space within us where your Presence can abide.

Fill us with your creativity so that we may be empowered to bear the fruit of your mission.

Let each of our actions bear fruit in accordance with our desire.

Endow us with the wisdom to produce and share what each being needs to grow and flourish.

Untie the tangled threads of destiny that bind us, as we release others from the entanglement of past mistakes.

Do not let us be seduced by that which would divert us from our true purpose, but illuminate the opportunities of the present moment.

For you are the ground and the fruitful vision, the birth, power, and fulfillment, as all is gathered and made whole once again.

And So It Is!

[Samuel Delany]

#The Lord's Prayer #Samuel Delany #prayers #quotes #translation #Aramaic

[phenakistoskope]

story of you life by ted chiang was very reminiscent of samuel delany's babel-17, both meditate on how language influences how we think, and how this extends into our perceptions of space and time, cause and effect. personally, i enjoyed delany's novel more because it explored how language can alter our perceptions of gender and politics. chiang left things far more ambiguous, which in this particular case wasn't quite as impactful.

#also babel 17 had more alienfucking #babel 17 #samuel delany #story of your life #ted chiang #science fiction #phenakistoskope.txt

[deadassdiaspore]

#Samuel Delany #black writers #black science fiction #black speculative fiction

[samueldelany]

A character in Netflix's 3 Body Problem (based on the book by Chinese science fiction writer Liu Cixin) reading Dhalgren in the airport.

#dhalgren #samuel delany

[cremastercycles]

#samuel r delany #samuel delany

[mercedeslackeyblog]

I wish to Apologize

On a panel at the 2022 Nebulas, I had the chance to celebrate authors who wrote positive gay characters long before me.

Chip Delany is obviously a major player in that game. Because there are two Samuel Delanys--there's one from Texas--I wanted to make sure people got hold of the right one. So, in my excitement, I got caught in a mental/verbal stumble between "black" and "person of color," and as best I can remember, what came stuttering out was something like "spcolored." I'm not an amazing speaker. I stammer, I freeze up, & I get things wrong. I am sorry that I bungled a modern term while bringing attention to an amazing black creator. Too often, I am called a pioneer, but I'm not--I'm just who some readers heard of first. I wanted to make sure Delany got all the proper credit that he is more than due, and maybe new readers would be inspired to read his work. A note from Chip Delany:

#mercedes lackey #mercedeslackey #Nebulas #Nebulas 2022 #Chip Delany #Samuel Delany #apology #sorry

[tygerland]

Samuel R. Delany - Philadelphia 2019 - by Tom Kneller.

#samuel r delany #literature #scifi #black history #1960s #1970s #lit #culture #politics #science fiction #fantasy #1980s #black excellence #1990s #lgbtq #people #2000s #samuel delany #black tumblr #community #📚

[hiriaeth]

Delany wrote an excellent book on the disappearance of the erotic from mainstream venues as an extension and aim of gentrification (which is really extending the project of whiteness over space and land to cut off avenues or places of awakenings of expression that do not benefit the pathway of capitalistic breeding programs [bcse let’s be real this is what is is]).

I don’t have the time to tackle this book so many projects are falling on my lap but i thought id share as I’m taking a break from writing and research.

All pictures are from the book and they are old photos we are losing so much ground to conservatism.

#samuel delany #im reading mad men along with extravagant abjection of #I kinda need a sabbatical to keep up with this man’s work he’s so prolific #black writers

[thelastofthebookworms]

You'll find the other polls in my 'sf polls' tag / my pinned post.

That'll be it for me + SF for today but who knows about tomorrow ? If you want to make suggestions for other polls, please do.

#polls #science fiction #sf polls #a scanner darkly #philip k. dick #the demolished man #alfred bester #dhalgren #samuel r. delany #samuel delany #cryptonomicon #neal stephenson #the day of the triffids #john wyndham #roadside picnic #arkady strugatsky #boris strugatsky #stand on zanzibar #john brunner #downbelow station #c.j. cherryh #the lady astronaut of mars #mary robinette kowal