Dear Whateverians: Choose My Pose!

Posted on December 5, 2012    Posted by      99 Comments

Well, now it is on: Jim C. Hines has formally challenged me to a pose-off, and in doing so has offered me three choices of pose.

Here is the first choice:

Here is the second choice:

Here is the third choice:

Which to choose, which to choose? I can’t decide. So I’m going to let you decide for me.

T’were best done quickly, so I’m going to run this poll only until noon Eastern tomorrow, December 6. So vote this very second, and tell your friends as well.

And for those of you who haven’t contributed yet, Jim’s fundraiser for the Aicardi Syndrome Foundation is still going. And let me just say I’m pretty confident something frankly spectacular is being brewed up for the $5,000 milestone. More I cannot say at the moment. Except this: BWA HA HA HA HAH HA.

Update, 12:30pm 12/6: With more than two thirds of the vote, The Taste of Night by Vicki Pettersson is the winner. Pray for my hip.

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99 Comments on “Dear Whateverians: Choose My Pose!”

  4. Either #1 or #3. I can’t decide. But either way, YOU MUST ALSO WEAR THE SAME OUTFIT AS SHOWN ON THE COVER.

    Oh, if you choose #1, I suggest lots of stretching beforehand.

    That is all.

  7. I’m afraid you might hurt yourself with “Taste”. Voted for “Ascendancy”

    I hope your diet is going well.

  8. The Taste of Night is actually something approximating a martial arts stance, which is surprising. Usually it’s all pin-up poses with guns.

  9. I have to go for option 3) – because if you throw in a full body vanilla frosting, a merkin, an afro wig and some fake boobs you have the best Clockwork Orange homage. Ever.

  14. Taste of Night! Because I want to see you in a black slinky dress and stiletto heels.
    …wait, that didn’t come out quite right.

  17. Taste of the Night (#1) is the most obviously improbable, but I’m going with Blood Cross (#2) because it would be amusing to see guys try to, how shall I say, project as in that painting.
     
    But what I would really like to see someone try to replicate is Norman Rockwell’s most famous Thanksgiving painting, “Freedom from Want,” because I don’t think any normal human being can hold that pose with that 900-lb turkey.
     
    Of course maybe he caught her in motion, but it looks to me like the motion of dropping the entire platter on the table where there’s not quite enough space to put it down.
     
    Vonda

  24. Taste – because everyone should have as good an excuse to buy a crossbow! It’s for charity!

  25. I’d recommend trying all three poses first, on a padded floor, in private where only your family will get to laugh at you when you fall over, just to make sure you can do them without injuring yourself. Then come up with a rationale for why you should get to do the easy one, and Jim should have to do the hard one.

  28. I’d choose number one – but then, I’m also being influenced by the Hawkeye Initiative and Mr Hines original pose duplication pictures. I like the idea of using male figures to explain to (largely) male artists why putting female bodies into those sorts of positions isn’t “strong”, “assertive” or “feminist” but is instead “sexist”, “demeaning” and “cliched”.

  30. Soooo…was there supposed to be some kind of mystery which one we’d pick?

    Don’t forget to wax, handsome!

  32. There better be some nipple showing, is all I have to say. Not just a little hint of areola. NIPPLE.

  34. Oh, dear. I think #2 is least likely to hurt you, but #1 is way in the lead. So…

    Pssst! John! Look closely — that’s clearly not really her leg. It doesn’t look attached. That’s a third, prop leg, and she’s kneeling on the real one, hidden behind her arm. Do you have a mannequin around that you can dismember?

  36. Damn, I was hoping you would recreate the Felicia Day pose with Wil. You may not have the cleavage, but your thighs are just right.

  37. Wait a sec… what happened to footnote three? “Feel free to choose one of these, or even the same one, or something completely different. DO YOUR WORST, SCALZI! JIM C. HINES DOES NOT FEAR YOU!” I demand a “something completely different” option!

  41. Props are absolutely going to be needed with #1, because the balance is doubtful even with the lower CG of a female body. Which ain’t gonna help you, Scalzi.

  43. Definitely _Blood Cross_, since it’s the most difficult. (Although that may just be because one clearly sees the posture required.)

  45. Yup, gotta make you go for the difficult and ridiculous. I love Vicki, but I think her cover model is actually a shapeshifter to get in some of those poses.

  46. I’m not sure 1 is even possible. And not just because that’s an awkward and painful position. If you look closely, it seems like her hips are pushing out to the opposite side from her leg, and the leg is detached from the body! Either that or the leg is bending mid-thigh, and the thigh is about twice as long as the thigh on the other side.

    So, since that one seems to be leading in the poll at the moment, um, good luck?

  47. Definitely “The Taste of Night”!
    Why? Because I don’t think either of you middle-aged males has the flexibility to *properly* match that pose!
    As you might guess, “Sadistic” is my middle name.

    With an evil chuckle,
    – Tom –

  48. Can you do the Taste of Night pose without dislocating a hip? Because if so, I will be impressed! (And if you can’t, I will bake you a pie to send to your hospital room while you are in recovery.)

  49. This is only going to happen once because you’re both going to mess up your backs, so obviously it’s got to be #1. And if it gets up to $5,000, do we get Wil Wheaton doing #2? Pleeaase….Because the man has no butt, so that would be highly entertaining to see the attempt.

  50. I voted for ‘Taste’ because it is the least practical of all the poses. In the other two, she has both hands free!

  51. I voted for the third one because I think shaving your head in winter is a fabulous idea. You’ll look so shiny in all those holiday pictures.

  54. Voted for option #1, for the chance to see and Jim Hines in dress with a slit all the way up.

  55. Survey says Pose # 1 – The Taste of the Night. While I’m not opposed to seeing you in a dress, just the sheer ridiculousness of the way her body is angled is what got me to click on choice numero uno. Various other posters advice for some stretching beforehand is a mighty good call. I sure as hell couldn’t do that pose. Good luck with that Scalzi. :)

  58. If you go for pose 1, I think everyone who voted for that should also photograph themselves in the same pose and stick it up on flickr or whatever. In fact I think that sounds like a great idea for a flickr group.

  59. I’ll go with curtain #1, if only because it looks the most pointless and uncomfortable.

  60. Sorry – I went with the sadistic choice – 1. You can borrow Athena’s bow to fake the cross bow – just tape or tie it to a 2×4. Good luck – and may I recommend Tiger Balm for the aftermath?

  61. “and may I recommend Tiger Balm for the aftermath?”

    Beforehand to help loosen up, but the immediate aftermath should be ice for at least a day to keep the swelling down, then ice again after the surgery. Heat would be good for the physical therapy, though.

  62. Voted for taste of night, but then I realized something, to truly do that pose, you’re going to have to cut off your leg at the upper thigh then reattach it so that the outré edge of the leg is at the halfway point of your thigh. Have fun!

  63. “The Taste of Night,” but only if you have Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It” as accompianment,

  67. BitterCsiren-
    Oh yeah, I just noticed the woman on Taste of Night appears to have an extra knee in her hip.
    John, do you have an extra knee in your hip?

  69. If the idea is to show how impossible a pose is, one is my choice, followed by two. However, if the point is to have a lot of fun with props and imagery, I vote for three, as it is a possible, if uncomfortable to hold for long, pose.

  70. For all the talk of the impossiblity of ToN, if you look carefully the model has her hips rotated counterclockwise so that her left leg is slightly forward and not just sidewise.

  71. I had to go with the choice in the lead, because…that leg. That ankle. Krissy may have to wait on you hand and foot for the following few of days after the great posing.

  72. I just tried #1 (sorta), it’s a good stretch, but it won’t kill you. Someone mentioned it as a martial arts pose, looks more like yoga to me, especially the balancing hand. A good pre-stretch, reed pose, for instance, would be a good idea.

  74. Really, the Taste of Night post is the only one in the real spirit of the project. Two and Three are just cleavage and, well, what’s the point?

  75. “I suspect you’ll prove that real ankles can’t do that.”

    Of course they can. In fact I’ve splinted some that did.

  76. The Taste of Night makes my hip ache just looking at it. And since I’ve got an appointment today to have that very hip looked at, I cannot in good conscience subject you to that.
    So Blood Cross it is!

  79. The dress in #1 is a must. Surely you know someone who can lend you a dress. If you can’t find black, I’m sure we’d put up with purple, or navy, or fuscia.

  80. I picked The Taste of Night, purely because I don’t think you can get your leg to do that, and I’m a little evil that way.

  81. @Anon – footnote 3 refers to John’s counter-challenge back to Jim. John gets to pick from one of these three and then present a single pose back for Jim to reproduce, which may be the same one, one of the other two, or something completely else.

  84. These poses are fairly tame, in that they appear to be biomechanically feasible. Fair enough, as I suppose we wouldn’t want to *break* scalzi.

    I think it’s fair to mention that I got into much more ludicrous poses for “good” reasons while engaged in competitive collegiate wrestling a decade ago.

  85. I voted for #1, not because I’m a sadist… not just because I’m a sadist, but because it’s the most ridiculous pose to my eyes and needs to be mocked.

  87. I vote for THE TASTE OF NIGHT cover, because – well, you need to do your stretches anyway, man.

  89. I know A Taste of Night is winning, but that pose has been done so many times and I was really hoping something different would be done for your pose. I am sure it will look good either way but just thought I would throw that out there.

  90. You know, if you did one little teensie weensie typo, #3 would be a slam dunk.

  91. The first one is by far the most impractical, so it gets the vote!

    I would like to thank Mr. Hines for taking on these poses, particularly his re-enactments of the male ones. Hysterical.

  92. Nevermind the dress and the waxing (oy vey!), how about the stiletto heels?

    (I recommend yoga for the next several days leading up to the posing. And preemptive Advil.)

  93. @JediBear: if you think #1 is “biomechanically feasible”, you obviously haven’t looked very closely at the interaction between hip and thigh. The “thigh-hip” is something most unmodified humans lack.

    Still, I suppose that since the cover was in contention at all, Mr. Scalzi will be allowed to perform a physically-possible approximation of the pose. For which I’m happy for him (major surgery for a silly internet challenge seems a bit excessive, not to mention the difficulty of finding a donor to provide the extra half-thigh), but still just a little disappointed about. :)

  94. I didn’t vote for Taste of Night because it looks dang dangerous. I like how the first four letters of dangerous are “dang” as in da-aaaaanng, dude! Srsly pls b careful!

  95. I’m gunna go with three because one would hurt me, two would probably
    hurt me, and I’m hungry and the only thing for that is nausea, and I think
    that seeing anyone try to do the face in three gets printed on all of my
    blocks of cheddar.
    (reference to a daily comic: Guy bought an exercise machine. Something
    about, like, couldn’t open the refrigerator door. Woman said “[Oh, I won-
    dered why we still had that brick of cheese.]”
    –
    Now this is interesting, Gravatar seems to be putting in an overlay that
    that interferes with my access to my browser’s basic behavior.
    I can click thru the overlay, but I do plan to get all -remove scripts with
    text ‘facebook’- on them If I ever get bored/annoyed enough.
    – Fun thing, most pages load faster without scripts that have the char string
    ‘facebook’ in ’em, and some sites are _broken._

  97. Scalzi’s hip is not in danger. Dignity, yep. Hip, no.

    It is not his hip at risk as much as his right knee. The model’s hips in “The Taste of Night” are actually rotated a little to the left. You can see the lateral edge (side) of her right thigh and right knee (yep, I looked at the shading lines on the dress, ahem). Her leg is not poking straight out to the left at 90 deg (term = abduction), but is actually pointing forward and a little to left. This creates the illusion of pointing to the side. You cannot see the arch of her left foot at all, only the top. You would have seen some part of the arch if the leg were in the abducted position. So Scalzi can, theoretically, do this part of the pose.

    The danger is the right knee. All of John’s weight will be transferred from his torso to the ankle directly like a baseball catcher does – and along the way the knee is going to be bent (flexed) to an extreme. This one is gonna hurt. How do I know? I tried to pose in my office. No, I did not do it completely legally under the auspices of the pose-off guidelines (I did not have a slit evening gown, stilettos and crossbow handy). My anatomy & physiology students do not come to the college at 7am – so I was safe. They would have wondered about their old fart A&P teacher cross dressing and posing like a scifi fantasy cover model, but they wonder about me anyway. I had no issues with my left hip. But, my right knee made an executive decision and I had to bail out of the position. But I have issues with it anyway after playing rugby in my earlier years
    John will in all likelihood be able to do the pose with his left hip intact, but his right knee may need help (medical intervention and assistance, ibuprofen, ice and sympathy).

    Good luck John. Keep an ortheopedic surgeon on speed-dial

  98. Glad the pain is over, John. Number one is a very low variation of the taiji chan pose called “Snake Creeps Down” (there the left hand would be on the left ankle, left foot would be flat on floor pointing away from the body, right hand would be to the right in an eagle fist, hips straight ahead, and the back straighter; you’ll be able to go down into and up from both kinds of splits before you can really do this and recover correctly, which is to move your weight from the right leg to the left leg and then straighten up on the left leg, holding the right upper leg parallel to the floor, in the pose Golden Cock stands on Left Leg.) While I can describe it, I can’t do it — and probably never will.

  99. … And just back from the Nutcracker Ballet, it’s the ending position for the “Kosack Dance” (and it occurs in several other dances as a transitory position.)

    Rest. Ice. Compression (hard to do on a hip.) Elevation. Vitamin I (Ibuprofen.)

WHATEVER


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John Scalzi, proprietor – JS
Athena Scalzi, editor – AMS
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