Tuck Woodstock

Calvin Kasulke! Book recs! Midnight energy!

Added 2021-12-08 08:04:15 +0000 UTC

Hey friends,

Hope you're all hanging in there. Have you heard this week's episode yet? I literally have not — by which I mean, I did listen a zillion times during edits, but I always listen to the final cut on either Sunday or Monday and I just...... didn't this week. So, um, if there's a weird cut or blip somewhere, I hope you're enjoying/ignoring that.

ANYWAY, this week on the show, I invited my pal Calvin Kasulke on the podcast to talk about his new book, Several People Are Typing. Here's the thing about this book: it's VERY GOOD. Like, "stay up until 2am to finish the whole thing in one go; DM Calvin quotes from his OWN BOOK to be like wtf why is this so funny"-level good. And since it's written entirely in chat format, it's a very very quick read, which means that you get the dopamine of having finished a book without putting more than a few hours in. What's not to love? (Also,,,, it's gay.)

Photo ID: A photo of a Polaroid sitting on a wooden table. The Polaroid is of Calvin against a white backdrop, wearing a lopsided crown and a denim jacket and looking bemused.

Now that I'm done aggressively selling you a book (fwiw, I love all of my podcast's guest's books equally, as if they are my own precious children), let me tell about some other things we talk about! Well, actually, I'm not entirely sure what we talked about, but I know it has something to do with transsexuality and fiction and gay tacos and journalism and knockoff bodega viagra and police reporting and chosen family and sobriety and slackbot and uhhhh "GLAAD awards Travis Bickle," whatever that means. IDK, you can listen to the whole thing here or wherever your preferred podcast place is.

We also have an ~*~ international news round-up ~*~ for our This Week in Gender segment, in which I split hairs over what a mayor is and pronounce French words as wrongly as possible. So, uh, look forward to that as well.

Do you feel like this newsletter has a different energy when it's being written at midnight, or is this exactly how I always am? Hard to say.

Thanks to everyone who posted your Spotify Wrapped showing Gender Reveal as your top pod, by the way. One person also shared this message that they got, which I'm sort of obsessed with. We're related now! You can't escape!

Photo ID: A screenshot of a Spotify Wrapped slide that says "And yes, it's totally normal to consider your favorite podcast host a member of your family" with the Gender Reveal logo repeating in the background.

OMG speaking of which!!! Thanks to folks who sent me birthday season mail!! I already got two cards and BOTH of them said something like, "I'm one of the people who you transed." 2/2 baybee!!! we love to see it!!!!!

(That mailing address, again, is #188 3519 NE 15th Ave, Portland, OR 97212 but also NO PRESSURE.)

(SPOILERS AHEAD)
Next week on the show, we've got Da'Shaun Harrison talking about their book Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness. This was one of my favorite conversations of the season (I love all of my children equally!!!) and I wanted to give y'all a heads up in case you wanted to get your hands on Da'Shaun's book before you listen. (It's only 144 pages but I learned so SO so much from it! Another short and incredibly rewarding read; can't recommend it highly enough.)

OK, that's it for this week. I spent a solid two days recovering from the vaccine booster (still 10/10 recommend obviously!), and otherwise I've just been watching two episodes each of various TV shows and trying to remember how to have friendships. Anyone remember how to do human relationship???

Here's your weekly Rhubarb, taken as usual by my roommate.