Another Radical Lap

12 things I found this month.

Every last Wednesday of the month, I’ve been sharing a dozen of the best things I found out there. Writing. Music. Podcasts. Films. Gear. Recipes. The intent is to maintain a punchy counter against the algorithms, to amplify the beautiful work of others. Here’s a link to previous lists so far.

12 Things I Found in July…

1. PUNK. I played drums in a few punk bands starting in high school (think Exploited meets Pennywise meets Misfits meets Fugazi), and Dropkick Murphys was always in rotation. (The best thing about running the Boston Marathon in 2022 was them playing “I’m Shipping up to Boston” at the start.) I’ve been curious where the punk scene’s been these days on speaking up against fascism and, you know, the insufferable desperation of late-stage capitalism. That’s why I found this Atlantic interview with Dropkick’s lead singer Ken Casey refreshing. (Apparently he just played a Trump-Epstein montage during a performance of “First Rate Loser.” Gold star.)

   
   

2. FEMINISM. Marxist-feminist Silvia Federici drops serious knowledge connecting the exploitation of labor, female bodies, Earth body, and, more generally, a systems-assessment of how unchecked power and colonizer war machines prioritize witch hunts, past and present. Her book, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation, is officially on my short list now.

   
   

3. BEAR. I’ve been dreaming of bears recently. Defending their young. Bears, everywhere. It’s probably because I finally cracked the spine of Nastassja Martin’s uncanny book, In the Eye of the Wild, as I’ve traveling around the west coast on a 10-stop book tour for The Way Around. On stop two, I spoke in Vancouver B.C. at Upstart & Crow, and met a hero of mine, J.B. MacKinnon, who came to my reading (!!!). Among his many books and contributions (check out his work in Orion), I was tipped to an incredibly neat immersive storytelling project he wrote for, called Bear 71. Take a look. It’s really similar to Anna Tsing’s Feral Atlas. (Everyone read Mushroom at the End of the World, thanks.) I want to do more of this type of eco-visual narrative work.

   

   
   

4. FEET. Several years ago, I remember needing an overhaul of my sock drawer, so I took a survey from everyone in my social media feed and their favorite socks. People CAME OUT. The top three results? Injinji, Darn Tough, and Feetures. I’ve gone on to really take a liking to Feetures, though, especially their merino wool options. (This is entirely unsolicited, only tipping you as they are consistently the socks I reach for time and again.)

   
   

5. ZADIE. I only sporadically read fiction in The New Yorker these days, but when Zadie Smith comes along with a tale, you stop and you quiet the mind and you read. This one I found deeply enjoyable, albeit odd, as I’ve been thinking a lot about creating space to listen more deeply, the wisdom of defending a circumference of creative possibility for what’s next, now that my book is officially doing its thing in the world.

   
   

6. SCONES. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t fuck around with just any scone recipe. This one I’ve been using for over two decades, and it delivers every time. Times like these require baked goods, and the dippability of these triangled butter-in-scone-form are Best in Show. (Anything Cook’s Illustrated is about is, in fact, what I’m about.)
   

7. DHARMA. Do you follow Tricycle’s Daily Dharma? Every day, little snacks of contemplation. I read them before my morning sit (sporadic while on the road these days), but I’ve found great nutrition in these. Subscribe here. (Related: If you’re not following Radical Change: Engaged Buddhism, you’re not paying attention. One of my favorite Substacks out there.)

   
   

8. LOOPS. Dear friend and writer Kathleen Tarrant tipped me to On the Calculation of Volume, 1 by Danish writer Solvej Balle, and it’s been haunting me ever since. It’s essentially about a woman who’s stuck in a day, November 18, and can’t get out. It’s nothing like Murray in Groundhog Day, though. Much eerier. Ghostly even. The protagonist remains stuck in this time-loop as she watches her life, her husband, and her memories drift away like a fine mist. But there’s also inconsistencies about what resets and what changes day-to-day, which makes me wonder what will happen in the following books (the third volume comes out this…November 18, which is also, incidentally, the same day as the 1978 Jonestown Massacre?)

   
   

9. PINK. I’ve been really enjoying the sound of Wild Pink while driving up and down the west coast talking about walking in circles like a crazy person. Obviously check out their tracks live on KEXP, but perhaps start with “The Wind Was Like a Train” or “You Can Have It Back.” I’ve also been experiencing a strange screamo relapse. Sure, psychoanalyze me.

   
   

10. SHOES. I do appreciate a good weekly trainer, and, though Adidas doesn’t need any more sales or marketing from me or anyone else, the new Adidas Evo SL is perhaps one of my favorite road whips right out of the box I’ve ever owned, at a reasonable price point. 7.9 ounces, 6mm drop, full foot Lightstrike Pro. My dogs are always happy slipping in and out of these.

    
    

11. GAZA. I’ve been following Max Porter (Grief Is a Thing With Feathers, Lanny) for years, and his outspoken condemnation of Israel’s current acts of genocide in Gaza is consistently helping me orient to the dire crisis there. Mainly on Instagram, but also his 2023 talk at the Palestine Festival of Literature, “Wild West,” (related specifically to arms dealers) and his tip to the account Readers and Writers Against the Genocide, which I’ve joined.

    
    

12. INDIGENOUS. As part-time managing editor of Magic Canoe, we’re building an entirely bioregional storytelling platform, subverting the nation-state model to re-center Indigenous values, practical solutions, and multispecies migration lifeways for a livable planet and future. I’m very excited about what’s coming in the next several months. Friend and wonderful writer/editor Krista Langlois is an editor at BioGraphic, and tipped me to this clear-eyed reporting at the front lines of First Nations governance in construct a vast marine protected area in the Great Bear Rainforest, in B.C. I have plans to drop into this region this fall for some ambitious new creative work, so I can’t get enough of these stories, these “islands of coherence,” these archipelagoes of hope.