"Never throw out a woman. You never know if she is a teabag."

March 31, 2016 10:18 AM

Inspirational advice. (SL Mallory Ortberg)
posted by lunasol (27 comments total)

What a lovely poem.

Favorite line: As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for holding the other as the world caves in on itself.
posted by echocollate at 10:28 AM on March 31, 2016 [6 favorites]

Someone had a free weekend, some good blotter, and a typewriter.
posted by hippybear at 10:30 AM on March 31, 2016 [7 favorites]

I read the first few lines and totally took this as serious. I was just closing the window when I realized that something was amiss.
posted by bongo_x at 10:32 AM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Every one of these deserves its own maudlin graphic to share on social media.
posted by redsparkler at 10:34 AM on March 31, 2016 [18 favorites]

Markovly Ortberg
posted by saturday_morning at 10:35 AM on March 31, 2016 [42 favorites]

I've been liking her more & more as the new Dear Prudence over at slate. She is common sense and then some.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:37 AM on March 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I was wondering if it was one of cortex's text bot experiments, or maybe a cut-up surrealist exercise. It's an interesting piece. If she actually did that out of her own mind, that's a very very creative language ability. It's hard to write nonsense that makes sense that is actual nonsense with poetic sense.

More than anything else, it reminded me of the lyrics to I Am The Walrus.
posted by hippybear at 10:39 AM on March 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Parse it for transposed sentence openings and it begins to make (boring) sense, for cliched values of sense.
posted by cstross at 10:48 AM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was hoping there was an acrostic hidden in there somewhere.
posted by figurant at 10:56 AM on March 31, 2016

If she actually did that out of her own mind, that's a very very creative language ability.

Given that it's Mallory Ortberg, I think she did. She is so good at taking these tropes of modern narrative and twisting them so that you see the comedy and weirdness inherent.
posted by lunasol at 10:56 AM on March 31, 2016 [13 favorites]

I'm not going to do this for the whole piece, but if you google (for example) "I’m selfish, impatient, and the right shoes.", you find that's two parts of two different quotes misattributed to Marilyn Monroe.

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."

"Give a girl the right shoes and she will conquer the world."

"Well behaved history never walks alone." is another Marilyn misquote, combined with a misquote from Einstein.

"Well behaved women seldom make history."

"The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before."

I'm guessing the piece is cut up quotes about women. And as such is awesome.
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:57 AM on March 31, 2016 [31 favorites]

Parse it for transposed sentence openings and it begins to make (boring) sense, for cliched values of sense.

Reminds me of "Julie, A Memory," a short story by Larry Brown in which he alternates sentences from different, converging narratives to create a sense of disorientation and mounting desperation that perfectly matches that of the story's subjects. It sounds gimmicky as fuck, and at first I rolled my eyes, but damn if it doesn't work.
posted by echocollate at 11:00 AM on March 31, 2016

Dang, I wish I'd thought of this because it'd be such a great Twitter bot. Exactly a regret I wanted!
posted by Metroid Baby at 11:43 AM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ah, I hadn't seen that "Hepburn" quote. That puts things in place a little more.
posted by redsparkler at 12:11 PM on March 31, 2016

If anybody can get this into the speech at a graduation ceremony in six weeks, I will send you a prize.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:36 PM on March 31, 2016 [12 favorites]

I believe that tomorrow is strong when everything is miracles.

...put the Smile Dip down, Mabel.
posted by pie ninja at 12:39 PM on March 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

the very first comment on the piece is also wonderful and supremely true:

So THIS is what that Microsoft AI would have turned into if it had learned by interacting with girls I went to high school with instead of racists on Twitter.
posted by burgerrr at 12:39 PM on March 31, 2016 [29 favorites]

redsparkler, that sourcing for the "Hepburn" quote is . . . something. (Unidentified ‘member’ of MySpace.com circa 2007–08, quoted in Richard Kennedy The Disgrace of MySpace (self-published [Lulu.com] 23 August 2008, ISBN 9781435760042), page 123.) A guy who self-published a book about how terrible girls are being on social media? That is what you call being mad online.

Internal conversation engendered by this piece:
oh man Mallory's done it again I hate this crap I see from everybody's aunt and real estate agent
but wait do I hate it because of it sucking
or because of internalized misogyny

no it's because of it sucking

ok
posted by Countess Elena at 12:41 PM on March 31, 2016 [14 favorites]

"...reminded me of the lyrics to I Am The Walrus."

If you like that, you should check out Lennon's "In His Own Write", and "Spaniard In The Works".

And Liking Mallory Ortberg on Facebook makes the smile forever.
posted by jetsetsc at 12:52 PM on March 31, 2016

Mallory Ortberg is a goddamned national treasure.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:54 PM on March 31, 2016 [7 favorites]

Like if you agree; if I don't see your name I'll understand.
posted by Zeinab Badawi's Twenty Hotels at 1:56 PM on March 31, 2016 [8 favorites]

The title is "Beauty advice from an inspirational woman", and the url slug is "Inspirational advice from a beautiful woman".

It's all in the details.
posted by kandinski at 3:23 PM on March 31, 2016 [9 favorites]

Thanks to everyone sourcing out this delicious gobstopper.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 5:03 PM on March 31, 2016

For once, it's okay to read the comments , the best being a simple "#blessed"
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:30 PM on March 31, 2016 [5 favorites]

Reminded me of a Reggie Watts lecture. In the best, most surreal way.
posted by sweetmarie at 8:29 PM on March 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

The present doesn’t often come along.
posted by boilermonster at 10:29 PM on March 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

For once, it's okay to read the comments

It's always ok to read Toast comments. Toasties are nearly uniformally awesome. It's literally the only website where I read the 1000+ open thread comments because they're just that good.
posted by Deoridhe at 1:18 AM on April 1, 2016 [4 favorites]