Stuff I'm Into, May 2026
Tiny distractions on the road to a thesis, featuring TWO mentions of semiotics.
The only thing I’m truly into this month is finishing my Master’s thesis. I have little time for distractions during this final stretch, but here are a few minor ones that are helping me survive.
Audio distractions
A previous era of the Hidden Cameras - the babe in the centre is one of my favourite humans, and a brilliant writer & artist, too. 1. Hidden Cameras at Longboat Hall on May 21
I remember way back in the late ‘90s when Joel Gibb was just a charismatic guy in my semiotics class (semiotics grads from the short-ish-lived University of Toronto dept. headed by professor Marcel Danesi are a special breed, real IYKYK elite secret society vibes), who talked about starting a band and brought a demo (on cassette!) to share with some of us.
And now, it’s 30 years later. What is time, etc. So many of my friends were in this band over the years that I’ve lost track. I have no clue who will be on stage for this show, and (even though I can’t afford a night off this month) I am tempted!
2. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - audiobook read by Stephen Fry
The book is as hilarious as you remember it, the voice of Stephen Fry is as comforting as a voice can be - it’s available on Audible and on Libby through the library, and I can’t recommend it more highly.
This has been a delightful bedtime listen for us and the kiddo. Our favourite passage comes from chapter nine, and we’ve listened so many times that the kid and I have it memorized:
“Good god,” said Arthur, “it looks just like the sea front at Southend.”
“Hell, I'm relieved to hear you say that,” said Ford.
“Why?”
“Because I thought I must be going mad.”
“Perhaps you are. Perhaps you only thought I said it.”
Ford thought about this.
“Well, did you say it or didn't you?” he asked.
“I think so,” said Arthur. “Well, perhaps we're both going mad.”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “we'd be mad, all things considered, to think this was Southend.”
“Well, do you think this is Southend?”
“Oh yes.”
“So do I.”
“Therefore we must be mad.”
“Nice day for it.”
“Yes,” said a passing maniac.
“Who was that?” asked Arthur
“Who - the man with the five heads and the elderberry bush full of kippers?” “Yes.”
“I don't know. Just someone.”
“Ah.”
3. Second Edition—Vin Diesel vs. Arthur Russell
A friend told me about this recording about a decade ago, and last week I was reminded of its existence thanks to, of all things, a “Facebook memory.” <Insert eyeroll emoji>
Arthur Russell is one of the only artists I can listen to while working (usually I’m strictly a silence-or-ambient-noise worker), and he’s been helping me get through this final, brutal month of thesis work. If you’ve never heard his music, you should perhaps seek out other examples. This one isn’t representative of much, but it is amusing, if you’re in the small niche of Russel + Diesel fans.
From SoundCloud:
Fragments of an aborted recording session at Battery Sound NYC in 1986 which brought together fledgling rapper Mark Sinclair--today better known as the actor Vin Diesel--and avant composer/dance music maven Arthur Russell in a project midwifed by Gary Lucas, who discovered Mark Sinclair rapping and break-dancing on the streets of the West Village, and greenlighted by Geoff Travis of Rough Trade Records and Barry Feldman of Upside/Logarhythm records.
TV distractions
1. Bodkin is this month’s go-to during brief moments of unwinding, a Netflix thriller/dark comedy for fans of Only Murders in the Building. A serious investigative journalist (Siobhán Cullen) is paired up with an American podcaster (Will Forte) to look into a cold case in a tiny, secrets-filled village in Ireland for a true crime podcast. Inevitably, they discover more than they bargained for.
2. Daredevil: Born Again Season 2
It dropped on Disney about a month ago, and I’ve been too busy to get into it, so this is just to say: it’s my most hotly anticipated season of TV for 2026, and I can’t wait to watch it in June. Are you a fan? Is this the only superhero show you like, too?
3. Man on the Inside Season 2
Another one about semiotics, oddly enough.
I watched the first season of this comedy starring Ted Danson as a grieving widower-turned private eye going undercover in a retirement residence, and I was charmed because it’s cute, and it starred the incomparable Stephanie Beatriz (the best thing about Brooklyn Nine-Nine) and also because I grew up watching endless Cheers reruns, so I’m predisposed to love anything with Ted Danson, the man’s just so charming!
But then, in Season 2, he goes undercover on a university campus, and the season is delightful because he gets to co-star with his real-life wife Mary Steenburgen, and she’s a delight and they have so much chemistry. But that’s not the point. The point is this: in the very first episode of the campus season, there’s a semiotics joke!
Danson meets two profs, of linguistics and semiotics (and the semiotician is named Jaarko Hovinen, which is a layer of the joke, because that’s a Finnish name, and Finland is a hotbed of semiotics!) and he asks them what semiotics is (not so much a joke as the literal response 99% of people will have to being told someone studies or teaches semiotics), and then the two profs get into an argument about the signifier and signified, because not even they know what it is! Joke’s on us all! Anyway, very niche humour, but I was amused.
Literary distractions
1. Becalming book launch at Flying Books (College St.) on May 14
Aga Maximowska is a local author (who I happened to go to high school with, but that’s neither here nor there), and her second novel just came out. Love to support the writers in my wider circles. I got my copy of the book already and look forward to reading it when the ol’ MA is done.
2. Antifascist Dad by Matthew Remski
A book about how to talk to kids about fascism, and what you can do about it! Highly relevant to my interests, as they say.
Matthew is another Torontonian who I’m pleased to know, and I’m very eager to read this one. You might know him from the Conspirituality podcast, or from his other writing on “spiritual delusion and possibility in the shadows of capitalism and climate change,” or from his thoughtful social media posts about all these topics, and more. Love a perspective that is not just anti-fascist, but also pro-socialist.
3. The Loaf, by Rachel Yoder
Nightbitch is one of the main texts I’m writing about in my thesis, but I’d never read anything else by Rachel Yoder. Recently, I stumbled upon this short story in Guernica, and the phrase “I am interested in large-scale bread objects” really made me laugh.
