Attention Extinction Rebellion

12 things I found this month

On the last Wednesday of every month, I’ll gather the best reads, listens, quotes, and media I found over the month and share them here, with you.

I’ve benefited from these quick-hit roundups from thinkers, readers, writers, and artists I admire, so I hope this will be a source of curated inspiration for you, to cut through the noise and amplify quality over quantity, depth over breadth, art over algorithms.

Let me know in the comments if any resonate.

1. OCEAN. “When I’m working, nothing is left unturned.” This conversation between Ocean Vuong and Cathy Parker Hong on craft, tradition, and art, is an incredibly deeply moving exchange.
   
   

2. NOISE. I’m late to the game on IDLES — Anton Krupicka initiated me — but their 2024 album, TANGK, is propulsive and surprising and angry and sweet and discordant and exactly what I need right now. Start with “Gift Horse” and “Dancer.” Their Tiny Desk Concert is also pure joy.
   
   

3. GOD. Anyone in my orbit knows how obsessed I am with the subversive Trappist mystic, Thomas Merton. While researching him for a piece I’m writing on rewilding, anarchy, and small gods, I was reminded how delicious this short film by Emergence is, “On the Road with Thomas Merton.”

   
   

   
   

4. FIRE. “The current fires are reminders of the costs of forgetting,” writes Rebecca Solnit in her incisive Guardian essay on the Los Angeles fires.
   
   

5. EXCAVATION. Sugarcane is a not-to-miss documentary, exposing the shadowed underbelly of a Catholic residential school in Canada for Indigenous children. Hard watch, necessary watch, go watch.
   
   

6. FOCUS. “What if the Attention Crisis Is All a Distraction?” I haven’t read Chris Hayes’ new book on attention, but after reading this piece and listening to the interview with Ezra Klein, I might stop scrolling and pick it up.
   

   

   Plaza Libertad, Buenos Aires, December 13, 2025

7. DANCE. I’ve been listening to the rock-electronic experimental duo Darkside for over ten years, and their new album, Nothing, comes out February 28. (“Graucha Max” is the jam.) Never heard of them? This video of “Paper Trails” will make anyone fall in love. They’ll be touring North America for the first time in 11 years; you better believe I’ll be catching a live show.
   
   

8. ARENDT. When I lived in western Massachusetts, working at Orion Magazine, I befriended writer, historian, and runner, Daegan Miller. We’d often run together and sometimes drink too much beer and talk books. One evening, we dug deep into Hannah Arendt’s book, On Revolution, and I’ll never forget the discussion. (I still think Miller is one of the finest essayists in America.) In addition to editing the Elementals (AIR) book, of which I was included, he recently wrote a delicious essay, “For the Love of the Word,” a review of a new collection of Hannah Arendt’s poetry.
   
   

9. CULTURE. Hot take: Talk Easy is the best interview podcast out there, and Jia Tolentino is perhaps the best culture critic we’ve got. Smash them together and you get one hell of a conversation.
   
   

10. CAPITALISM. For those who resonated with Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing, Oliver Burkeman’s take on time management (4,000 Weeks is an excellent read) sits alongside Cal Newport as top-shelf systems thinkers who seem to be adding a critical take on time, capitalism, and protecting intimacy and deep work above all else. This conversation, “Embracing Our Limitations and Making Time for What Counts,” on Tricycle Talks really nails it.
    
    

11. TRAUMA. I’m still thinking about this no-bullshit talk hosted by SAND (Science and Nonduality), between Naomi Klein and Dr. Gabor Maté on trauma, Palestine, narrative, and identity. (The rumors are true: I’m a Klein completist.)
    
    

12. NOODLES. Radical transparency: I’m a huge Chef’s Table fan here, and their new series specifically on noodles got me through a wicked second bout of COVID last week. These mini-docs are masterful, poetic deliveries weaving craft, land, tradition, and beauty. Trailer here for a taste.