Welcome Distractions – April 28

If you’re in Canada, vote today.

Hey! You’re here! Thank you.

THE NEW THING IS HERE: the first edition of The Backstory, with KAPUT. The band takes us through a bunch of their influences, including a really lovely tribute to Steve Albini, some great books and music, and more. I expect to run another edition very soon.

Last week seemed to be about trans rights, and I’m here for that. Someone very close to me is transgender and it has been absolutely horrifying to see how hostile the world has become to them in the last 5 years. There’s an election in Canada today and I have cautious optimism that we’re gonna pick the guy who isn’t an asshole. Fingers crossed.

I recently heard the new houseguest song “divine creation” (a fundraiser for trans support groups), and it led me to doing a  feature on the all-trans emo band last week.

Also last week Worry Bead records announced True Names, a compilation to support the Trans Youth Emergency Project. Here’s the first single.

There are a couple of related things in the links below too.

I’ll have a lot more on this in the coming weeks. With Bandcamp Friday coming up next week, get your wallets out.

In other news:

Light reading

• David Cronenberg profile in The Walrus
• A genuinely promising sign of alien life I read this right after Monte Lin’s short story about the first human-alien contact.
• Montreal musician Bells Larsen has cancelled his US dates because of the trans panic.

“They strapped me to the surgery table like Jesus on the cross and I was like, ‘I hope this is the best day of all of your lives,’”.

• Author Lydia Kiesling on refusing to speak at an anti-trans university: Get ’em, Lydia.

“I knew if I went, even to give some fiery speech about how shitty the policy was, I would have this feeling the whole time and maybe forever after that. I knew that if I didn’t go, it was going to create a Situation.”

• Old School, New School: The legendary Bob Lefsetz mixes brilliance and incoherence in this piece about the modern music industry. I hate and love this equally.
• How “Sinners” Conjured the Magic of Its Surreal Musical Montage: Don’t click this if you haven’t seen “Sinners” (go see “Sinners” then click this)
• The Five Best Stephen King books: this is by a guy who has been writing about Stephen King for almost 30 years, so who am I to argue? (Dolores Claiborne though!)
• I Found an Entire Book That Was Written About … Me. It Only Got Weirder From There: Per usual, Scaachi Koul on AI books is funny and smart.

“The slime that A.I. produces is already offensive, but reading something trained off your life feels especially dégueulasse, like a Truman Show reboot; all the surfaces look the same but the depth is off”

What got your attention this week? Got a hot take on something? Reach out.

On the blog

Reading:

• The Man Who Nobody Killed is Elon Green’s follow up to Last Call, and it’s every bit as good
• Free taught me a bunch about Albania, and challenged my political views, and
• Seven Empty Houses is another banger collection of short stories by Samanta Schweblin

The Shortlist: Making up for lost time: there are three incredible nonfiction pieces and six more fiction stories to check out. Got time for one? Make it this one.

Read or write anything good lately? Wrote something you want to share? Let me know!

Listening:

What are you listening to this week? Share the love!

Comin’ up:

Another Backstory from another great band, and a record that was made 6 years ago, found on a hard drive and released last month. It still sounds futuristic. It’s very cool.

What are you listening to these days? Send me your faves.