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

I remain so, so unconvinced that Joe is capable of fertilising anything.
I utterly doubt that baby is his.
While he did suddenly get very bloated and fat, he clearly wasn't on HRT for very long, which is something he blamed on health complications and such.
Up until then he mostly just looked like a normal dude with normal T levels so i suspect he quit the the rainbow rum some 2 - 2.5 years ago to focus on being #queer™.
 
Another day, another slight drop in Tard Baby’s Goodreads rating for The Women’s Hotel

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I seek fellow Farmers’ wisdom on these questions:
  • Can this possibly drop below 3?
  • Do we know how well it is selling?
  • Is it possible to say anything sensible at this stage about the future of TB’s literary career?
@Boston Brand I know your true love is the Man of Pig and his oeuvre, but if you have any insights on this literary cow from your industry knowledge I would be forever grateful.
 
The Oakland house has only two bedrooms and one bath. Mallory's buyer, Chloe/Yarrow-the-monster-queer-artist-BPD, would not be cohabiting with a family of three adults, one 9-month-old, and two dogs.

I suppose Chloe/Yarrow could have made her rich adoptive parents buy her something else so she could rent out 4841 Congress Avenue to show the capitalist leeches that she's as good as they are and to establish a non-parental income stream. She did not seem to know Mal when writing about the house purchase.

Since Mal signed the bottom line, 4841 hasn't been on the market, according to the real estate sites.

The house - 2,680, 7,481
Chloe/Yarrow - 2,681

Rocco's surroundings yesterday for analysis:
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Could be a rented manse or he might have been toddling around the house of fam friends. Also from Lil's IG:
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I just find it funny they are schleping back to the Bay Area. Mallory sold her house so they could rent an overpriced walk up in Brooklyn and buy dumb crap. Now they’ve had to take all that dumb crap and store it and try to find an overpriced rental in the same region.

I guess Mallory can now feel better since she is at the mercy of the evil landlords instead of being one or owning a home. Poor Lilly will probably be an evil landlord by renting her house out again to help fund a family size rental in the Berkeley area.

Does Berkeley do any subsidized “family housing” outside of grad students? I can’t imagine tenured professors would receive any such perks given their salary vs GA and other less lofty employees.
 
Berkeley has an Office of Faculty Welfare that would help darling Grace look for housing or:
In addition, there are a small number of University-operated faculty apartments for rent; most are at the Clark Kerr campus, approximately 1/4 mile southeast of the main campus. Matt can let you know if an apartment is available that meets your needs. These apartments are only offered to Senate faculty at the time of their initial hire. Faculty can remain in one of these apartments for up to two years. The apartments are unfurnished, and the lease agreement is on a month-to-month basis. Pets are not permitted in Clark Kerr housing.
But:
UC Berkeley maintains a condominium complex called University Terrace for the purpose of providing affordable homes to faculty close to campus. There are 75 condos in nine buildings, including one-bedroom/one-bath, two-bedroom/two-bath, and three-bedroom/two-bath units.

University Terrace is located at 2100 Jefferson Avenue, in a large park-like square, bordered by the streets Allston, Addison, California, and Jefferson.

Re-sales of the condos are restricted to qualified buyers, currently defined as active Senate faculty. (Several units are also being purchased by the University for rental to newly hired Senate faculty; see above.) There is a set formula for purchase prices. Typically, only two to three units become available in any given year. When a condo is available, an announcement is sent via email to qualified buyers from the Vice Provost's office, and names of faculty who respond to the email within 24 hours are entered into a lottery for the opportunity to buy the condo. In keeping with the original mission of University Terrace to provide affordable housing to faculty, the lottery is weighted to favor faculty at the lower end of the salary scale. For more information see capitalstrategies.berkeley.edu/real-estate/university-terrace
Perhaps a condo-owner-professor on sabbatical is allowed to rent their unit to high-fashion-queer-professors who burned up their sabbatical? Other than that possibility, it would seem The Laverys are flying their kite on the winds of capitalism.
 
Perhaps a condo-owner-professor on sabbatical is allowed to rent their unit to high-fashion-queer-professors who burned up their sabbatical? Other than that possibility, it would seem The Laverys are flying their kite on the winds of capitalism.

We know where Mal was living pre-Joe, but where was he living? He might still own a condo, perhaps even one in University Terrace acquired when he was just a young lecturer. He could easily justify being an evil landlord if his tenant was a struggling young kweer academic or somesuch.
 
We know where Mal was living pre-Joe, but where was he living? He might still own a condo, perhaps even one in University Terrace acquired when he was just a young lecturer. He could easily justify being an evil landlord if his tenant was a struggling young kweer academic or somesuch.
I very, VERY much doubt that Joe is a homeowner. He was living with a roommate, a ~kweer~ female hairstylist, when he and Mallory met. She sometimes pops up in their socials. I mentioned it in this post but didn't post any receipts of the roommate at that time. I'll see if I can find some now, if I do I'll edit them in.
EDIT: This is the roommate that Joe lived with when he met Mallory. I can't find them saying so in writing so you'll just have to believe me that this is her. I bet the place they're in is Joe's bachelor pad before he leeched on to Mal.
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These people are idiots with no ability to plan anything. They'll only be gone for five months, there's no way they packed up Lily's place and put all their shit in storage. If they managed to do anything with it, it's just an informal sublet. And they'll probably be staying in an informal sublet in Berkeley too.

EDIT 2: Another find in Mallory's deep Instagram history. Her confirming that she had a girlfriend:
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EDIT 3: This has got to be the girlfriend. She went to the same Christian college (Azusa) for undergrad as Mallory did. I wonder how much of a relationship this really was; I can totally see sheltered/stunted Mallory like holding hands with this chick between classes and thinking it was a relationship.
 
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Could be a rented manse or he might have been toddling around the house of fam friends.
Judging from the chipped paint, door frame rot, paint splattered hinges, etc..it’s an old house that’s not been well maintained. I’m sure the downstairs of a poorly maintained four square in that area of California costs a bundle to rent or buy. Slapping cheap white paint on wood framing, trim and doors is always a bad sign but generally points to rental property.

Ironically I can’t see wherever they live in Berkeley being any better than Lilly’s house, but it will be quadruple the cost.

Maybe the baby gets Joe some priority in university accommodations but I have a hard time believing there wouldn’t be a long waitlist for it. Since Joe can’t seem to even get along within his own dept I can’t see him doing well living in university housing schemes.

Outside of university faculty housing the only place I, ironically, could see them renting a place that could possibly accommodate three adults and a baby is Oakland. I could see them paying $4k a month to rent a house in Oakland much like the one Mallory sold.

In an alternate reality, if Mallory had her own child, with or without a husband, I’m sure the Ortbergs would be happily assisting and welcoming her and the new grandkid back in town. The baby would be getting to meet all his cousins and family.

Instead Bobby gets to hang out with the woke LGBTQ flotsam of the Bay Area that still have friendly relations with Joe and Moe. (I don’t think many of Mallory’s friendships survived Joe. I doubt Joe has ever had any real friends in Berkeley, or anywhere else for that matter. They fled the Bay Area, and didn’t want to return, for a reason.)
These people are idiots with no ability to plan anything. They'll only be gone for five months, there's no way they packed up Lily's place and put all their shit in storage. If they managed to do anything with it, it's just an informal sublet. And they'll probably be staying in an informal sublet in Berkeley too.
Agreed. It will be interesting if the plan is for all of them to live in the Bay Area for the spring semester. I’d bet Lilly’s house was spacious compared to anything they found there that was affordable for sublet.

They must own a car. I could see that being the new “attic” for Mallory. She sleeps in the car while Joe, Lilly and Rocco share a one bedroom.
 
So she'd built about $200k in equity in her time there, plus whatever she put in as a down payment (might have been as low as $20k).

If she'd used the advance to pay her mortgage she could have had a paid-off house in the Bay Area, the ultimate in creation of passive income even if you leave the area. It baffles me that she wouldn't become a landlord, and instead gave up a mortgage with (likely) a good rate to cash out and waste the money on designer clothes. Pretend to be a man all you want, Mallory, that is a Grade A certified Woman Moment(tm).
Small landlords are also so much better for renters compared to corporations. Mal reminds me of an angry teen.
 
Do we know how well it is selling?
Not much has changed on its Amazon page. 184 ratings and 3.1 out of 5 stars. Hardcover copies are marked down 25%. Used copies are being offered for $15 bucks and up on the side. On other pages I checked out, it looks like the majority of sales were for Kindle copies ($14.99!) and Audiobooks (.99!) too. Not exactly a robust royalty stream with those.

HarperVia, the publishing house, is a part of HarperCollins. Which, oddly enough, was created for sourcing and publishing international writers.
HarperVia will acquire mostly fiction in translation, with an eye for books that celebrate the universal desire for discovery, understanding and connection through exceptional storytelling. Titles will be published around the world in the English language.
LGBTQWERTY publishing is handled by HarperCollins Canada. I can imagine that Harper Collins had trouble categorizing and maybe even marketing Mal's novel. "Semi famous pooner writes mostly heterosexual historical novel!" ain't exactly a juicy LGBT+ tag line. But her novel is not "international" either. So it makes me wonder how her book ended up with them.
 
Public records shocker: Joe might have legally changed his name?! He is so deficient in life skills like paperwork and organization, and he clearly gives no fucks about maintaining his troonery. I'm genuinely surprised that he managed to get around to this, if indeed he did. I wouldn't be surprised if CA has some cucked new policy whereby public servants who troon out can change their name to "Freyja" in state databases without the support of court-ordered name change paperwork.

A search of California public records (Archive) returns data for "Grace Lavery" starting in 2021. Joe's salary decreased in 2022 and again in 2023:
Screenshot 2025-01-05 225324.png

(That $300 for "Lect-Misc/Part Time" in 2021 must be a fee he received from another UC school, he probably gave a talk or something.)

Here's Joseph Lavery's data, posted on the Farms way back when:
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Yeah, my cut at it is here. The $300 miscellany was a lecture he gave at UC Irvine. He's Grace on all the UC materials except old database entries as far as I can tell.

According to the state's website, ordinarily Joe would have to publish the name change in a newspaper four weeks in a row. I haven't been able to find that notice anywhere online, but that just means I haven't found it, not that it isn't there.
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California, though, has a Safe At Home law that for the last 25 years has allowed participants in the state's confidential address program to change their names in secret under seal with the court and not publish the newspaper notices. Good description here though it's not specific to Alameda County where Joe would have applied. I'm wondering if Joe was enrolled and that's why I can't find old California addresses for him.

The program was intended to protect victims of domestic violence, but I've seen advice posted for troons in other areas telling them how to hide name changes through such programs because omahgawd they could be genocided any second or at least the neighbors will find their old sex pest convictions.

If he got his name changed through the program, he would have been able to have his DMV and Social Security records changed over, too.

ETA - Obviously obvious, but the reason newspaper notices were required in the first place was to alert creditors. Maybe Joe shed some debt by becoming a sexxxay lady?
 
:lossmanjack:Oops lol. Thought I was contributing brand new information. Hopefully 2024 will be released soon and we'll see that his salary continued its downward trajectory. California taxpayers really should be getting a discount on Joe.

I like your refreshing the topic. I am frustrated by multiple search failures of so many kinds. Mass kiwi pounding of keyboards required.
 
she uses the word „queer” exactly three times in the entire book. Joe’s Ph.D thesis isn’t freely available, but his book Quaint, Exquisite seems to be based on it. He can’t get through the introduction to Quaint, Exquisite without sperging about queer bodies and white ethnonationalism today. That book is about late 19th Japonisme, by the way. One reviewer of Joe’s book on Goodreads said they learnt more about his neuroses than the subject.
Sorry if this has already been found but I was excited to be able to access a copy and grabbed it for your enjoyment. Now to burn my computer.
Was going to provide the thesis, but found I'd been beaten by Kitteh. Ah well. In absence of being the first to provide the file, allow me to provide some highlights from the 69 (lol) instances of the word "queer" that it contains:
"Mia Mingus", and the first evidence of Joe's love of ugliness:
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"I'm oppressed because the state won't let me fuck in public":
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Queer theory is antisocial:
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Unclear why this is an "unspeakable" question, but it's the most interesting bit of his whole thesis based on my "queer" ctrl+F skim of it. Of course, he doesn't fucking answer it:
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I wonder if this was one of the inspirations for Please, Miss? If so, I imagine Joe is devastated it has a 3.88 rating on Goodreads, compared to Please Miss's 3.45:
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Lads, is it queerto be Japanese?:
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Aesthetics and the opera are also queer. Yawn:
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Archives are queer. Double yawn:
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A dozen of the instances of "queer" are just him talking endlessly about Oscar Wilde. There's also one instance of him talking about the "queerness of the moment" in regards to Japanese public executions; some more rumination on aesthetics/ugliness as central to queerness (but in such a roundabout way it makes a boring screencap).

He seems to repeatedly conflate the use of "queer" in Victorian writing about Japan (where it clearly, given both the historical context of the word and the textual context provided in the thesis itself, means "weird") with "queer" as in the modern Western Queer Theory sense. This to me would seem like bad and lazy academics, as well as a deliberate misreading of texts. He also claims (a hundred-odd pages after doing this extensively) that he doesn't want to do this - a move I'd consider bewilderingly insane if it wasn't coming from the man who repeatedly threw tantrums over not being called a woman, and then insisted he'd never wanted to be called a woman anyways despite copious evidence to the contrary:
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The thesis has also been cited exactly twice:
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Not unusal for a thesis to be barely cited in my experience, mostly because people can't be fucked to read them and will read the papers/book based on them and cite that instead. Though I admit I'm not a Victoriana specialist thank god, so this might also be a horrendous humiliation for Joe. Who knows.

The first is a paper about, shocker, Japanese poetry in translation. Our dear Joe gets cited in a footnote alongside half a dozen other authors (in the "for further examples, see X Y and Z writers, and if you're really desperate for more see A B C and Lavery" style). The second is a doctoral thesis has something to do with "the pivotal function of animals in modernist writing"; the abstract gave me too much brain damage to dig further. Joe is again cited as a footnote to another more famous author. Poor thing.

Review: 2/10. Even as someone with a substantially higher tolerance for reading postmodern philosophical social constructionist word salad than the average farmer, this was incomprehensible and also boring. Usually the thing one gets out of postmodernist word salads, if not actual factual sense, is a sort of "play" with truth and reality, or of uncovering "hidden" or borderline nonsensical connections. Joe doesn't really even manage that, he just declares everything queer and has done with it. It's just dull.

However. Between unveiling his apparent Wilde fixation, the quotes about ugliness and queer anti-sociality, and some other bits and pieces about aesthetics as both important and inherently queer, I think the thesis does provide an interesting look into the proto-cow version of Joe. You can see where his (terrible) aesthetics, obsessions, and bewildering politics come from - or at least where they begun to simmer into the rancid soup that now slops out every time he opens his mouth.

Tangentially, I was wondering whether the book based on his thesis was any better-cited than the thesis itself, and it is - 45 citations, according to his Google Scholar profile. This would seem to be a surprising instance of Joe doing pretty well (45 citations on a book in such a niche field is pretty good). However, his h-index (a common measure of, essentially, how well you're doing as a researcher) according to the same page is... 6. With the caveat h-indexes can be hard to interpret, and what counts as a "good" h-index varies by discipline, apparently an average score for a social sciences professor is... 22. Oops.
 
Jesus h Christ that’s bad. How did he even get into Upenn and how did they let him graduate? Even for a tranny this is just plain trash, a MA level research paper can’t even get away with this. I half understand tenure at Berkeley, CA DEI tranny etc etc, right? Can’t believe academic rigor at Penn is this horrible now.
ok, I’ve not read it, so maybe I’m completely off mark. There is a queer theorist, Halperin, who wrote Saint Foucault: towards a Gay Hagiography . He said queer is defined as whatever that’s against the norm, and not a fixed positive identity such as homosexuality etc. Which is… just back to its original meaning??😂 if Joe is going that route, ok, perhaps, the japs and Wilde are quite weird and doesn’t fit the English norm. Perhaps. That is stupid but I think someone who’s not completely retarded can write a passing diss about that.

Bur that’s already too generous. I looked up Halperin, Joe does not mention him. Also, how is queer simultaneously ugly and aesthetic? From a quick google go search (yes, my deep scientific mind) of the play it seems to be satirizing the over the top art rather prevalent if not dominant during the time. So when Williams call it queer, it’s more of a the current thing is stupid and cringe, not even that these fringe homosexuals are such disgusting faggots. The opera itself, oh no, it’s embedded discourse, is actually queer, if you are going to force that sort of vapid low iq lens on it.
 
Jesus h Christ that’s bad. How did he even get into Upenn and how did they let him graduate?
I assume Joe coasted on being interested in such an autistically niche subject that very few actually read it and just from a glance it looked like it was on trend with the waffling.
 
Review: 2/10. Even as someone with a substantially higher tolerance for reading postmodern philosophical social constructionist word salad than the average farmer, this was incomprehensible and also boring. Usually the thing one gets out of postmodernist word salads, if not actual factual sense, is a sort of "play" with truth and reality, or of uncovering "hidden" or borderline nonsensical connections. Joe doesn't really even manage that, he just declares everything queer and has done with it. It's just dull.
Interesting… im gonna say Joe has gotten worse over time. Both in terms of style and substance.
His strange childish quest to maintain the rock and roll reputation of a rebel has rapidly shifted his opinions into niche twitter person speak where no one is straight, prisons must be abolished, and mental illness/schizophrenia is a spook. While his writing style has more and more come resemble the knotted entrails of a slain boar though which one sifts through like a shaman in search of occult understandings.

My notes program is going a bit funky (ˢᶜʳᵉʷ ʸᵒᵘ ᴺᵒᵗᶦᵒⁿ) but looking through some of the screenshots I made back then we have lucid well articulated gems like these.

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Even his pet interests have become less interesting with his Wilde fixation giving way to Freud and Foucault.

Edit: Found my original post where i quoted this gem
The planned Amos ’n’ Andy relaunch exposes the degree to which the spa-
tial figuration of the television, the grid, arranged social contradic-
tions, making visible to audiences conflicts that might otherwise
have remained invisibly notional.
 
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