#Something That May Shock and Discredit You

[nando161mando]

As my friend Julian puts it, only half winkingly: "God blessed me by making me transsexual for the same reason God made wheat but not bread and fruit but not wine, so that humanity might share in the act of creation."

— Daniel Mallory Ortberg, Something That May Shock and Discredit You

[catrocketship]

“As my friend Julian puts it, only half winkingly: “God blessed me by making me transsexual for the same reason God made wheat but not bread and fruit but not wine, so that humanity might share in the act of creation.”  ― Daniel Mallory Ortberg, Something That May Shock and Discredit You

hand lettering by me

[milfglupshitto]

Is there anything gayer than refusing to ask someone out, then holding them personally responsible for the silent, ever-increasing intensity of your feelings until they tell you casually they're going on a date with someone who asked them out, then exploding with despair? Almost certainly, but no one will tell me what it is.

"I would've died for you" is a complete non sequitur of a response to the sentence "I am going on a date with a boy named Blane," but it's also the only honest thing one can say in response.

Something that May Shock and Discredit You, Daniel Mallory Ortberg (Lavery)

[st7arlight]

God blessed me by making me transsexual for the same reason God made wheat but not bread and fruit but not wine, so that humanity might share in the act of creation

-Julian K Jarboe

[themournwatcher]

"I tried apologizing to my mother when I told her I was not just "figuring some things out" but transitioning. It was one thing to be a man, or wish to be a man, or live as a man, in a coffee shop with a friend or alone in my apartment or out in public, but to be a man in relation with my mother meant being not-her-daughter. A person is not-a-daughter in their own right; they are a daughter to and of someone else, and as much as I knew my gender was my own, that my vocation was assured, that self-determination mattered more to me than external validation--still if I could have transitioned while remaining her daughter, I would have wanted to do so. I wanted to promise that I would not change in relation to her, that I remained grateful for the girlhood she had given me, that her affection for my former embodiment, my former name, would not hurt me, that if I could have stayed a woman a minute longer I would have done it.

I wanted to promise that this would be the last change, that I would never make excessive demands on the people who I believed were bound to love me, believing as I did that their loving and my changing was somehow a rupture or a violation of the agreement I had entered into by being born. I thought often of Jacob and Esau. Of all the brothers in Genesis who deny and disinherit one another, they are the first to reconcile. Cain flees from the body of Abel, Isaac and Ishmael are parted as children and never meet again, but Jacob and Esau make peace. Before they make peace, Jacob changes his name."

Daniel M. Lavery / Something That May Shock and Discredit You (2020)

[goatsandgangsters]

Daniel Lavery's book "something that may shock and discredit you" is so good overall but that line "more of me afterwards, not less" absolutely knocks the wind out of me every time

[hawkeyefrommash]

"I am also firmly of the belief that Captain James T. Kirk was, and is, at every age and in every incarnation, a beautiful lesbian; I fear that now I will be called upon to explain myself and that I will be unable to do so. I can only repeat myself with increasing fervor: James T. Kirk is a beautiful lesbian, do not ask me any follow-up questions. Like Goldwater, in your heart you know I'm right. There is plenty of stupid, surface level evidence I could marshal forth in defense of my argument -- people criticized Shatner for his weight, and women are often criticized for their weight; Shatner was beautiful in a way that women are generally beautiful; James T. Kirk lives with her longterm girlfriend (Spock) and her ex-girlfriend (Bones) in a benevolent feelings-and-sex triad and generally observed the campsite rule when it came to bringing short-term partners around; James T. Kirk is vulnerable and anxious and riddled with sincerity and in love with her car; James T. Kirk wears motorcycle boots and seems to spend a lot of time on her hair, doesn't want kids and rereads Dickens and doesn't feel comfortable showing her feelings in front of anyone she's known less than ten years but that doesn't mean she won't do it -- but those things aren't really what make James T. Kirk a beautiful lesbian, I don't think."

from chapter 'Captain James T. Kirk Is a Beautiful Lesbian, and I'm Not Sure Exactly How to Explain That', Something That May Shock And Discredit You by Daniel Lavery

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel Mallory Ortberg

goodreads

Sometimes you just have to yell. New York Times bestselling author of Texts from Jane Eyre Daniel M. Lavery publishing as Daniel Mallory Ortberg has mastered the art of “poetic yelling,” a genre surely familiar to fans of his cult-favorite website The Toast. In this irreverent essay collection, Ortberg expands on this concept with in-depth and hilarious studies of all things pop culture, from the high to low brow. From a thoughtful analysis on the beauty of William Shatner to a sinister reimagining of HGTV’s House Hunters, Something That May Shock and Discredit You is a laugh-out-loud funny and whip-smart collection for those who don’t take anything—including themselves—much too seriously.

Mod opinion: I haven't read this one and I probably won't, because I personally don't care very much about people's opinion on pop culture, but I love the title.

[adfamiliares]

Daniel Lavery, The Several Mortes D’Arthur

Catullus, Carmina XIV(a)

Ada Limón, The End of Poetry

Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

on Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

[settingorange]

"[...] but that didn’t stop me from wishing all men were on bikes and beautifully lit up and riding around changing colors, and that the rest of us could all tell them how much we loved their vibes, and that I was always driving my friends home at the end of a really good night."

-Daniel M. Lavery, Something That May Shock and Discredit You

[transbookoftheday]

Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel M. Lavery

From the New York Times bestselling author of Texts From Jane Eyre and Merry Spinster, writer of Slate’s “Dear Prudence” column, and cofounder of The Toast comes a hilarious and stirring collection of essays and cultural observations spanning pop culture—from the endearingly popular to the staggeringly obscure.

Daniel M. Lavery is known for blending genres, forms, and sources to develop fascinating new hybrids—from lyric rants to horror recipes to pornographic scripture. In his most personal work to date, he turns his attention to the essay, offering vigorous and laugh-out-loud funny accounts of both popular and highbrow culture while mixing in meditations on gender transition, family dynamics, and the many meanings of faith.

From a thoughtful analysis of the beauty of William Shatner to a sinister reimagining of HGTV’s House Hunters, and featuring figures as varied as Anne of Green Gables, Columbo, Nora Ephron, Apollo, and the cast of Mean Girls, Something That May Shock and Discredit You is a hilarious and emotionally exhilarating compendium that combines personal history with cultural history to make you see yourself and those around you entirely anew. It further establishes Lavery as one of the most innovative and engaging voices of his generation—and it may just change the way you think about Lord Byron forever.

[lovrboyx]

Oddly, the same phrase came up over and over, although I don't think many of these friends had spoken to one another about it:

Something irreversible. As in, I'm afraid these kids are going to do something irreversible. But just what that thing was, and what irreversibility looked like outside of the usual irreversibility of time and momentum, I couldn't have told you, because they were never quite able to explain it to me. "Something irreversible" is to polite people what "self-mutilation" is to impolite people: a quick way to reorient the conversation around their own discomfort with bodies. In both cases it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to have a productive discussion with someone struggling with a reflexive, implicit horror of flesh. Any mention of someone else's transitioning body sends them into direct and panicked conflict with the prospect of their own transitioning body; since this is a prospect they find unbearable, it becomes immediately necessary for them to unload their own desire and disgust onto the nearest suitable target.

“Something That May Shock and Discredit You” by Daniel M. Lavery

[thirteens-earring]

[ Whenever I see a pack of young guns out on the street who seem like they’re having a good time with one another— I mean really seem to enjoy one another’s company, and know how to be in a group together well, and have figured out the line between joyful ribbing and straight-up hassling, and delight in the former and eschew the latter, the kinds of dudes who are mostly big headphones and big shoes and backpacks and ears and friendliness— part of me really believes that if I ran up to them and said hello, their square-boy, gung ho faces would light up with recognition and delight and they’d say, “Oh, hey, man! Hey, man, it’s so good to see you! We were wondering where you were at. We’re so glad you’re here, man.” And then we’d all walk around together, and maybe try to see if the Denny’s by the overpass was open twenty-four hours or if it was the other Denny’s that was open for twenty-four hours, and we’d drive around until it was time to go home. ]

Daniel M. Lavery, “I Love Your Vibe,” and Other Things I’ve Said To Men, from Something That May Shock and Discredit You (2019)

[arthropoda-artistry]

“And I’m not going to ask anyone. It’s not that I don’t trust them. It’s that I don’t know if trust is a reasonable expectation to have of another person.”

Something That May Shock and Discredit You

Daniel Mallory Ortberg

[themournwatcher]

"I am tempted always to make some force or organization outside of myself responsible for my own discomfort, to retroactively apply consistency to my sense of self as a child, to wax poetic about something in order to cover up uncertainty, to overshare in great detail out of fear that the details will be dragged out of me if I don't volunteer them first, and to lapse into cliche in order to get what I want as quickly as possible."

Daniel M. Lavery / Something That May Shock and Discredit You (2020)

[quotent-potables]

God blessed me by making me transsexual for the same reason God made wheat but not bread and fruit but not wine, so that humanity might share in the act of creation

— Julian K. Jarboe, quoted in Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel M. Lavery