Danny Lavery

@dannymlavery.bsky.social

5271 Followers 137 Following

Vera said that?

Cyril Connolly’s book Enemies of Promise
dialogue from a recent walk in the woods with my two-year-old when a pair of fire trucks unexpectedly drove into the meadow
HERO program award baby. helpful effective reliable optimistic that's the Danny Lavery guarantee
residential newsletter at work mentions my book in the book club section: “We know him best as Danny, our driver, exercise leader, activities coordinator, all around good guy”
“meeting new people” books have arrived
he's strangling a diner owner
You mentioned Lewis and it reminded me of the strange Anglophilic strain running through certain parts of SoCal evangelicalism. We had a surprising number of classmates who wore Rainbow sandals to class and longboarded everywhere, while also being super into Chesterton and Belloc. Of the major evangelical Christian universities in Southern California – I don’t count Pepperdine because they don’t require faculty or students to sign a statement of faith, besides which their chapel requirement is something laughably low, like fourteen hours a semester
Walter Matthau’s face in A New Leaf is like the picture of Dorian Gray: cunning, and old as sin, depraved and loveless and sinister, monstrous and melted, withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. He looks like if a very old ventriloquist’s dummy were given the same wardrobe and chance at life as Pinocchio. But Walter Matthau’s hair in A New Leaf looks like Dorian Gray, the man: unfaded, insouciant, youthful, exquisite
And I think it’s most interesting when the justifications are dropped! What if someone’s interest in a sexual experience, that could not in real life include them, did not: Heal your trauma Help you navigate misogyny Assist in identity formation as a gay trans man Or do any good in your life aside from being you pleasure Wouldn’t it be fun to find out? It seems like people often want to introduce virtue into this conversation, like “As a woman, you ought to be more interested in f/f. Only once you have finished the broccoli of lesbianism may you enjoy the bread pudding of fake faggotry.”
You really don’t have to stop spending time on your phone this year. If you do decide to spend less time on your phone, by no means should you discuss it with others. There is a time to keep silence, and a time to speak! In a similar vein, don’t start keeping lists of all the books you read. You will not get more enjoyment from listing a book than you did from reading it. If your profile includes a sentiment like “I like older men” on hookup apps, you should be aware that at least 50% of your audience is going to read that as “I like the oldest men.” If you do not seek this outcome, find another way to phrase it.
It feels like a comrade-tinged inflection of that “aborted gf” meme: I would have been your brother-in-arms, anon, if I hadn’t been infected by the pornographic mind virus….we could have been so wholesome and sexually pure together…
cover for my next book, MEETING NEW PEOPLE. painting of a bummed out kid eating a miserable breakfast
the tour includes strong odors and birds!!!
Women’s Hotel + sequel in paperback
"“It has been a relief to me that we are setting the show slightly in the past, that we did not have to talk about any of that stuff on the show itself,” Bob-Waksberg told me when I asked him about Israel’s absence, “because the Jewish experience is so much more interesting than that.” He began breaking the show’s story in earnest in October 2023, and felt that if Israel-Palestine became a part of it, “that would be the headline.” The show only goes up to the year 2022. Of course Israel’s conflict with Gaza—and Jewish American attitudes and conversations around it—precede the current violence by decades, and Bob-Waksberg has not ruled out Israel as a topic in future seasons; he just wants trust in the show and the characters to be earned first, before these things can be isolated and misconstrued."
The last years had seen the end of the imperial postal service, among other things. This took some time to register, as no word of the end ever came. The great roads did not close but gradually emptied, depositing the last arrival unawares. The seas flattened. Ships left without returning. A certain sense of scale seemed to vanish. Durhumit and Hahhum went silent. Palaces shut down. Some of the smaller kings resumed their personhood, and whatever distant lands that made tin began closing their doors. The rain changed, but only just, and not in a manner that would have been easy to describe. Merchants ran out of a little bit of everything. Cities went defunct, self-selected for armageddon, and chose flooding. They foundered, becoming marine and salt-worn. Courts grew sullen, then slept, lapped by the moon, that sort of thing. Priests turned away women looking to dedicate their youngest sons to the gods, since they could no longer guarantee a favorable response.
big old ship has a sign reading PILOT NO TUG
flow chart asking if you’re in a flow chart (does it show steps in a process? can you see arrows visualizing a sequence? baby you’re in a flowchart)
Armistead Maupin, Rachel Ferguson, Barbara Pym, Maud Hart Lovelace, AA World Services, Luigi Villari
some of the Coyote team including me in a park
preorder code at Barnes & Noble for my next book (PREORDER25)
from The Wine-Dark Sea, he makes a “bery nicey” pun after seeing the Berenice when he needs rescuing
the Egidius lament and Genesis 24:19
15th century illustration from "The Visions of Tondal" depicting "the wall of heaven where the bad but not very bad are in temporary discomfort"
screenshot from Women's Hotel of Elizabeth Watson Perkins' record-breaking lunch cadging from like six different churches. even potted shrimps from the Universalists. it was the 50s!!
driving a very real tiny pink car with my son
the original Greek for the first few lines of Fragment 63. I don't know Greek so I can't write any more than that here. Bunch of Greek letters plus a bunch of brackets to denote where the fragments are
"Lucy Snowe" has what I'd call a "Noble Savage" view of Catholics
SISTER #1: But wouldn’t you like to be sure? SISTER #2: Yes, wouldn’t it feel nice to be sure? SISTER #1: Be sensible. Just take a look at him next time he’s asleep with a knife. A just-in-case knife. SISTER #2: You don’t have to use your just-in-case knife. But it helps knowing that it’s there. SISTER #1: I wouldn’t dream of going to bed without my just-in-case knife.
picture of IB’S Cheesesteaks
me and my son in a backpack
Wiki subheadings: Hollywood years, His architecture, Family Life, Desert rat years I and II
"It was tiring but gratifying work; counting money as it came in was a very different undertaking to counting money as it went out, and Lucianne had been making money frequently, consistently, and with tremendous relish for more than two months now. And she was in love, or something very near it, which far from making her indifferent to money, had instead sharpened her appreciation and avidity for it."
title page for the next book: "Christmas at the Women's Hotel, A Biedermeier Story"
1927 cabaret song called “i’ve danced with a man, who’s danced with a girl, who’s danced with the prince of wales”
Panel is tomorrow at noon in the Ray Stark theater at USC
little orphan annie has pluck, a red dress, a dog named sandy, and grit. anne has two parents who live with her
little room on the train just for me
Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki
Amant Mole's "St Jerome in his study"
a screenshot reading "In 1957, Strom Thurmond (R-South Carolina) gave a civil rights speech that lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes" and then a text saying "the guardian america liveblog needs better editorial oversight"
baby walks!!!!!
Fanny Price "listening again with great entertainment" during a conversation where "the two young men" (Edmund and Henry) "were the only talkers"
a line from Sayers’ “The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club” about a man named Tin-Timmy Challoner talking of “getting away south”
Hornless unicorn entry on Wikipedia with subtitle (See also: Horse)
"You may have noticed when you watch gymnastics that men don't do the Balance Beam at all...Because they'd fall off" Jeanette Winterson making wild claims about centers of gravity in her wacky diet book
Val Kilmer looking ill in Tombstone
A nightmare Hell Show me hell and give me a nightmare today and tomorrow and honestly show and give it to me forever
from LP Hartley’s “The Novelist’s Responsibility,” “In the Old Testament there are very few exclamation marks. Perhaps in those days people were not surprised by anything that happened”
From LP Hartley’s “The Novelist’s Responsibility”: “Henry James was haunted by the situation of the naïf, simple American, man or woman, coming to Europe and being taken in and exploited”
my baby riding a little toy hippo at the park
reading a book with my son
guardian thumbnail asking whether Elvis might have been a telepathic demigod with weather powers??
free ice cream for Daniel