Welcome Distractions
A better way to waste your weekend.
books | music | short stories | rambling
Hi! You’re here! Happy Halloween.
Having a teenager is weird. Last year we were at the pumpkin patch before Canadian Thanksgiving, I spent a ton of dough on huge spiders and other décor, and spent dozens of hours helping my kid put together a costume (Ash from the Evil Dead movies) to help hand out candy.
It’s my teenager’s last Halloween at home, and this year the enthusiasm just isn’t there. My house isn’t decorated, I don’t even have a pumpkin yet. Will I be able to find one at the store? I’ve got a lot to do today.
More importantly, every time I realize that something is the ‘last’ something, it breaks my heart again. And so often you never know the last time for something until it’s gone. I always think of the saying “the days are long but the years are short”, and it seems more true all the time.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that this year, the teenager is showing some interest in baseball! Since the Jays are in the World Series, the buzz has them wondering what they’ve been missing out on. So I’ve had some great times teaching them the game and yelling at the TV together over late night PB&Js.
And Game Six is tonight so those trick or treaters better wrap it up by the first pitch.
And now:
Off the blog: links you shouldn’t miss
Check out this humanoid ‘robot’ straight out of Samanta Schweblin’s Little Eyes. MKBHD has a very insightful take on it and the modern state of tech devices.
Macleans Magazine, which is Canada’s version of, uh, Newsweek? got busted in some extremely gross copyright infringement.
404 Media covers Grokipedia, Elon Musk’s latest waste of money, while underlining what makes Wikipedia so great.
Horror writers on the scariest books they’ve ever read. My pick would be the latest Stephen Graham Jones book.
Counterprogramming: the Comedy Wildlife photography awards.
A good Q&A with the master himself, Isaac Chotiner, that everyone who interviews public figures should read. Bonus, this brutal self-own by Bret Easton Ellis.
I’m interviewing public figures. They should have to answer for things. The worst thing that happens is they can always say, “I don’t want to answer that.” But I don’t think it’s rude to ask them.
Blog fave Emmeline Armitage mixes memoir and essay on Swimming Pools in America. This is a way better read than I make it sound. And she talks about this great Cheever story in the New Yorker.
For the first time in decades, there’s no hip hop in the Billboard Top 40. Why? Taylor Swift, rule changes, but also Kelefa Sanneh is right and hip hop is losing its cultural dominance to K-pop and other stuff that makes me feel old
Let’s Make It Harder to Listen to Music: I’m increasingly coming around to this argument. Scarcity creates value, economics 101.
Blog fave Chris Dalla Riva listened to every Billboard #1 EVER and here are some thing he learned. This list is fantastic:
Lots of people talk about the British Invasion in the 1960s. Fewer people talk about the second invasion in the 1980s. But nobody talks about the Canadian Invasion of the 2010s. Drake. The Weekend. Justin Bieber. Carly Rae Jepsen. Shawn Mendes. Even that horrible one-hit wonder Magic!
Here’s everything you wanted to know about Honeycrisp apples. It’s surprisingly absorbing stuff.
The legendary Toronto bar Sneaky Dee’s (get the nachos) got a threatening letter from the Blue Jays for using their logo on a promo. They responded in the best way (I want this t-shirt for Christmas)
In Dick’s books, the real and the unreal infect each other, so that it becomes increasingly impossible to tell the difference between them…This concern with unreal worlds and unreal people led to a consequent worry about an increasing difficulty of distinguishing between them.
What got your attention this week? Got a hot take on something? Hit reply and let me know.
On the Blog
Listening:
SKORTS is an NYC dance-rock band that you should absolutely hear right now.
The Boojums do garage-surf-rock as well as anyone, this album is straight caffeine.
Indie rocker Queen of Nothing has had an incredible year, and her latest EP is essential.
Three great EPs from Kat Koan, HUNK and garbagepink
The Setlist: 2 hours of wildly diverse music, with feature tracks from Josaleigh Pollett, plus blog faves Rosewater Park and Prom Vagabonds.
Listen on Apple Music or Spotify.
Reading:
A new short story from Karen Walker, with a title that suggests how wild a ride it is:
Gilded Rage might be a better read in 5 years than it is now - about today’s tech bros taking a hard right turn. I wanted to like it! But it wasn’t quite for me.
Great Black Hope is well-regarded but I didn’t much care for it.
The Shortlist is back! Six short stories to get your weekend going. Check ‘em out.
Something I should read or hear? Send it my way
Next week: My first video submission for a Backstory! I didn’t expect it but it’s fantastic. Plus the baseball is over, so I’ve got a stack of great books to get into.
-hugh
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