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Something that may shock and discredit you

Summary: "Daniel Mallory Ortberg 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 Ortberg 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."--Amazon.com.

Record details

ISBN: 9781982105211
ISBN: 1982105216
Physical Description: print
xiii, 238 pages ; 22 cm
Edition: First Atria Books hardcover edition.
Publisher: New York : Atria Books, 2020.
Copyright: ©2020

Content descriptions

Formatted Contents Note:

When you were younger and you got home early and you were the first one home and no one else was out on the street, did you ever worry that the rapture had happened without you? I did. -- Chapter titles from the on the nose, po-faced transmasculine memoir I am trying not to write -- My brothers, my brothers, my brothers' keepers, my brothers, my brothers, my brothers and me -- Help me brother, or I sink -- Apollo and Hyacinthus die playing ultimate frisbee, and I died watching teenage boys play video games -- Lord Byron has a birthday and takes his leave -- Reasons for transitioning, in order -- If you can't parallel park, you have to get a sex change -- Unwanted coming-out disorder -- The stages of not going on T -- Oh Lacanian philosopher we love you get up -- The several mortes d'Arthur -- Cosmopolitan magazine cover stories for bewildered future trans men living in the greater Chicago area between the years 1994-2002 -- Marcus Aurelius prepares for the new year -- Evelyn Waugh and the opposite of communion -- Jacob and the angel wrasslin' till noon at least -- Mary and Martha and Jesus and the dishes -- Columbo in six positions -- On Wednesdays we mean girls wore pink -- The Golden Girls and the mountains in the sea -- Captain James T. Kirk is a beautiful lesbian, and I'm not sure exactly how to explain that -- Rilke takes a turn -- Duckie from Pretty in Pink is also a beautiful lesbian, and I can prove it with the intensity of my feelings -- I have a friend who thinks umbrellas are enemies of the collective good, and I have a sneaking suspicion they may be right -- Sir Gawain just wants to leave Castle Make-out -- No one understands Henry VIII like I do -- "I love your vibe," and other things I've said to men -- House Hunters -- And His name shall be called Something Hard to Remember -- Pirates at the funeral: "It feels like someone died" but someone actually didn't -- Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck, transmasculine edition -- Powerful T4T energy in Steve Martin's The Jerk -- Did you know that Athena used to be a tomboy? -- It's hard to feel sad reading Hans Christian Andersen because it's just another story about a bummed-out candlestick that loves a broom and dies -- Dirtbag Sappho -- Dante runs into Beatrice in paradise -- How I intend to comport myself when I have abs someday -- Paul and Second Timothy: the transmasculine epistles -- Something nice happens to Oedipus -- Destry Rides Again, or Jimmy Stewart has a body and so do I -- The matriarchs of Avonlea begrudgingly accept your transition / Men of Anne of Green Gables experience -- The opposite of baptism.