Grace Lavery / Joseph Lavery & Daniel M. Lavery / Mallory Ortberg - "Straight with extra steps" couple trooning out to avoid "dwindling into mere heterosexuality"

[Bookwork]

Joe returning to in-person teaching at Berkeley was at the bottom of my list of possible outcomes. I can't even label it "victory" or "defeat." Did he talk them into keeping him or did the threat of having to pay back his sabbatical salary crush his not-the-boss-of-me delusion?

I agree he'll mostly do professoring Tuesday to Thursday and spend a huge chunk of his salary on flights elsewhere instead of paying back Lily or putting the money aside for Rocco's needs. Berkeley will, of course, provide a parade of younger women for his aged peen to lez over.

 

[Stupid Sexy Flanders]

Joe returning to in-person teaching at Berkeley was at the bottom of my list of possible outcomes. I can't even label it "victory" or "defeat." Did he talk them into keeping him or did the threat of having to pay back his sabbatical salary crush his not-the-boss-of-me delusion?

It is really hard to get rid of a tenured professor, so I think the fact that they threatened him with paying back sabbatical salary plus no more paid leave made him fold. I've said it before, but unlike Rhys McKinnon, Joe actually does seem to realise that pulling the "you can't fire me, I quit" routine is bad unless you have a back-up plan. I think Joe looked for other options, but realised that his degree is useless outside academia so leaving would mean him starting over from scratch.

We'll see if he can mend the fences at Berkley, but it wouldn't surprise me if they're building a case against and he'll basically have to be on his best behavior for the next couple of years.

 

[Free the Pedos]

Joe looking like an absolute fucking fool mincing around the sandstone of Arches National Park in $4000 worth of ugly designer shit.

He looks like he’s wearing the huge black tarps that are in style with middle school kids. You could source that whole outfit at Walmart. ( I believe he is wearing $4K worth of ugly shit, but it looks like it should’ve cost $40.)

 

[monstrous bubo]

He looks like he’s wearing the huge black tarps that are in style with middle school kids.

How dare you. That’s our old friend his Castelbajac coat from 2017, minus his Tiffany sunglasses. Any resemblance to a black tarp cinched around his belly with a scarf is purely a result of your transphobia.

Hey Joe: a 70 buck Uniqlo puffer is cheaper, warmer, and easier to clean if Bobby Joe pukes on you. Also you wouldn’t look like such a tool.

 

[Potatis Salad]

As was observed above, they’d need more time and a u-haul for that, plus for a few months (Jan-May) she’d need to source a pediatrician, baby safe rental, and other baby support stuff. My guess: Joe will commute as he did in the old days, and Lily will guest lecture online for Berkeley until her mat leave ends, and in that time she’ll try to get a permanent gig at Berkeley. If only one of the throuple had a house in the area… His classes are Tuesday/Thursday, so he can presumably cram office hours on those days.

Lily is not on mat leave, she taught in-person at Michigan this past semester (Fall 2024). And her Online Asynchronous courses next semester are also at Michigan, she is not lecturing or doing anything for Berkeley. I still think it's possible they pushed on from Moab to Berkeley and are planning to stay for the duration of the semester with just suitcases of clothes. You really don't need a UHaul full of stuff to stay somewhere for five months, even with a baby and pets. If they were planning to be in Michigan, Lily would be teaching in-person.

If they are returning to Michigan and Joe is planning to do his retarded "commute" again, Tard Baby and Lily must be absolutely dreading being alone together for half of every week.

Scouring their socials for clues, I noticed Joe replied again to the idiot who admired his hiking attire. Of course he doesn't really think he's a "ninny." He thinks he's Fashion.

 

[Stupid Sexy Flanders]

Tard Baby and Lily must be absolutely dreading being alone together for half of every week.

I can't see Joe allowing that to happen tbh. They might start putting some things together themselves.

 

[Anasa Tristis]

They're clearly staying with someone, this is not a hotel:

So LaLa photographed herself and Rocco as Madonna and Child in the center of a black sun symbol (while dressed in blood red) and put it out there on the internets? Brrr.

By accident or design? LaLa's a PhD holding Art History academic. Symbolic images are her stock in trade. Her doing that is suspect and feels weird, man. Really weird.

 

[Bookwork]

You really don't need a UHaul full of stuff to stay somewhere for five months,

Yeah, my U-Haul speculation was re: possibility that they were packing up Joe's office stuff.

If they were planning to be in Michigan, Lily would be teaching in-person.

^^^^Winning entry^^^^

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Winner for rhythm and meter. I get irrationally mad at how badly most kiwis (and even the geniuses on 4chan) can't match the things that are 90% of a poem or song you're parodying.

Most people on the Internet these days are shockingly bad at meter. It's almost like they didn't grow up writing dirty limericks...

 

[Constellationzero]

so leaving would mean him starting over from scratch.

so leaving would mean him starting over from scratch asking me if I'd like to supersize my value meal, or if I want to try the new fried mac 'n cheese bites.

 

[Anasa Tristis]

so leaving would mean him starting over from scratch asking me if I'd like to supersize my value meal, or if I want to try the new fried mac 'n cheese bites.

As delightful as that would be, Joe has plenty of academic job juice left. Getting booted from Berkley (or leaving in a righteous huff before the axe fell) would be a step down but he’d still be a catch for lesser schools looking to fill an edgelord slot in their faculty. A fast food rock bottom equivalent for Joe would be his teaching 10 week Adult Ed Creative Writing courses at the YMCA or giving talks on Victorian lit at Senior Centers. He ain’t nearly there yet.

 

[AirdropShitposts]

I took a quick peek at Goodreads after I saw this and Women's Hotel is currently sitting at 3.04 with 883 ratings. Obviously that's not the sign of a great book, but it has at least leveled off in terms of how far the overall rating will fall.

That's pretty bad actually. I noticed this just anecdotally over the years and just searched to see if anyone had actually crunched the numbers to any good sample. My suspicions were correct, the average score on Goodreads is effectively four stars: https://adamfontenot.com/post/looking_at_the_distribution_of_ratings_on_goodreads


I noticed it from looking at profiles, they display people's average score given and they're almost always easily above 3.50. Mine's the lowest I've come across that I recall and even I'm above 3.25.

The explanation is really obvious to me: books have a huge selection bias. Especially compared to something like movies they're receiving a time cost boost.

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

That's pretty bad actually. I noticed this just anecdotally over the years and just searched to see if anyone had actually crunched the numbers to any good sample. My suspicions were correct, the average score on Goodreads is effectively four stars: https://adamfontenot.com/post/looking_at_the_distribution_of_ratings_on_goodreads
View attachment 6801965

I noticed it from looking at profiles, they display people's average score given and they're almost always easily above 3.50. Mine's the lowest I've come across that I recall and even I'm above 3.25.

The explanation is really obvious to me: books have a huge selection bias. Especially compared to something like movies they're receiving a time cost boost.

Yes, I did a computation some pages back of how her rating put her in the 4th to 5th percentile of Goodreads reviews overall. In a random sample of 20 books, Mal's is probably the worst-rated or second-worst.

 

[Constellationzero]

As delightful as that would be, Joe has plenty of academic job juice left. Getting booted from Berkley (or leaving in a righteous huff before the axe fell) would be a step down but he’d still be a catch for lesser schools looking to fill an edgelord slot in their faculty. A fast food rock bottom equivalent for Joe would be his teaching 10 week Adult Ed Creative Writing courses at the YMCA or giving talks on Victorian lit at Senior Centers. He ain’t nearly there yet.

IDK. Have you looked at Kevin Allred's thread? That braying faggot got the boot from (I forget...Stanford?) and he's been reduced to making cringe online courses in BEE-YOUNCE studies that mean absolutely nothing but cringe since he's unemployed.
It was discovered by another farmer that almost all activity on the site was Kevin screeching into the void to himself.

I kind of figure Sideshow will soon be reduced to this.

 

[Stupid Sexy Flanders]

As delightful as that would be, Joe has plenty of academic job juice left. Getting booted from Berkley (or leaving in a righteous huff before the axe fell) would be a step down but he’d still be a catch for lesser schools looking to fill an edgelord slot in their faculty. A fast food rock bottom equivalent for Joe would be his teaching 10 week Adult Ed Creative Writing courses at the YMCA or giving talks on Victorian lit at Senior Centers. He ain’t nearly there yet.

I really don't think you should underestimate the absolute stain losing a tenured position is in academia. Not leaving for greener pastures, but actually getting booted from a secure job position where you barely need to perform at a minimum level to keep? You're going to be marked as poison. People like Joe are a dime a dozen in academia, so those positions aren't hard to fill.

There's a reason why Joe hasn't just told Berkley to bugger off and gone to get another job - because he can't.

 

[Bookwork]

100% speculation but perhaps there was an episode at Berkeley that had to be reviewed and Joe flounced off - or was told to = in the meanwhile. It was resolved cleanly enough for him to return to campus or he served out whatever the punishment was.

Off he goes to NYC where the better intellectuals - like himself - reside to be a much-quoted, ever-so-witty social commentator living his glamorous high-fashion throuple life and... and... visiting professor! for a few weeks ... and ... and... dang someone did him out of some other gig ... and ... and ... use baby for publicity and paternity bennies ... and ... and ... can't pay the rent so off to East Lansing! ... and ... and ... announce cookbook!

He just didn't act like a guy due to return to a tenured post. Lily, though, has acted that way, "professionally," as it were.

 

[Stupid Sexy Flanders]

He just didn't act like a guy due to return to a tenured post. Lily, though, has acted that way, "professionally," as it were.

Oh, I have no doubt that he didn't want to return. I just assume he finally looked at his options and maybe had a moment where he realised that he wasn't going to get anything as good as a tenured position at Berkley. It wouldn't surprise me if Joe was delulu enough to think that Please Miss was going to propel him into a author stardom and be able to support himself that way. But to Joe's credit I don't think he's as far gone as Rhys was, who just seemed to assume he was going to get a job at some trans sports organisation or the like.

But yeah, he had a wake up call at one point or another. Maybe Berkley wouldn't even give him a severance package but also would've required back the sabbatical money. Universities are hurting for money these days.

 

[monstrous bubo]

@Diana Moon Glampers and @AirdropShitposts thank you, you beautiful sexy number nerds. It also failed to make the top 100 books published in October 2024 added to Goodreads’ members’ shelves. It came in at 137. Also, its rating is now 3.02, because readers really love it or hate it, with little in between, e.g.



Sick burn, Lynda.

The memoir written by the unreformed omnisexual chaos Muppet Mal married is at 3.44. Let’s go head to swollen head

Tard Baby	Sideshow Joe
Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters 3.58 11,159 ratings 2,011 reviews	Please Miss: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis 3.44 401 ratings 98 reviews
The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror 3.28 6,362 ratings 1,194 reviews	Quaint, Exquisite: Victorian Aesthetics and the Idea of Japan 3.04 25 ratings 3 reviews
Something That May Shock and Discredit You 3.84 3,504 ratings 695 reviews	Closures: Heterosexuality and the American Sitcom 3.43 14 ratings 1 review
Dear Prudence: Liberating Lessons from Slate.com's Beloved Advice Column 3.78 399 ratings 73 reviews	Pleasure and Efficacy: Of Pen Names, Cover Versions, and Other Trans Techniques 3.50 12 ratings 2 reviews
Prodigal Son 2.93 30 ratings 7 reviews
The Women’s Hotel 3.02 1,069 ratings 216 reviews

For the sake of completeness, Lily’s Disordering the Establishment: Participatory Art and Institutional Critique in France, 1958–1981 got 2.50, 4 ratings, and 1 very long and interesting review which praised it. Lolz 4 Lilz.

 

[AfghanBlue]

Lmao I genuinely thought the photo of this nasty nurse was Mal, press post for her book or something

 

[Anasa Tristis]

For the sake of completeness, Lily’s Disordering the Establishment: Participatory Art and Institutional Critique in France, 1958–1981 got 2.50, 4 ratings, and 1 very long and interesting review which praised it. Lolz 4 Lilz.

Reading about LaLa's one published work revealed some clues about her character and (somewhat) answered the question: "Why would a seemingly reasonable lesbian Art History and Culture professor from MI hook up with Sideshow Joe and literally have his baby?"

Short answer: she's an uber fangirl of obscure artistic revolutionaries who valiantly fight "institutional hegemony" through their unconventional creativity. I guess the opportunity to live and breed with one (and be part of the BPT alongside his lawful wife) was too enticing to pass up. Instead of merely observing and critiquing disruptive artistic and cultural history, LaLa is livin' it. Large.

Her book is available online for free reading! https://archive.org/details/oapen-20.500.12657-39373 In the acknowledgments, after mentioning her parents (her father passed shortly after the book was published) she name drops a Yelena Kalinsky who sounds like she was her lover for 6 years. Was that who she ditched for Joe? (As of 2022, Yelena is now a therapist in Chicago.)