Precision Fury
12 things I found this month
On the last Wednesday of every month, I’ve been sharing a dozen of the best things I found.
Media. Music. Podcasts. Films. Gear. Though the intent is to keep them punchy-short, it’s just so fun curating these roundups, a wee counteraction against the algorithms, to amplify the beautiful work of others. Here’s a link to previous lists so far.
12 things I found this month…
DIVE. This gorgeous movie, “The Last of the Sea Women,” chronicles a group of South Korean women on Jeju Island (Fact: I was very close to teaching English here years ago) who harvest seafood – the Haenyeo. I’ve been drawn to several narratives recently of old craftspeople and the state of their endangered lifeways, including “The Shepherd and the Bear.”
RAGE. A few weeks ago, I stumbled across this rare, Japan-only track (Spotify) of Allen Ginsberg’s 1975 poem “Hadda be Playing the Jukebox,” read by Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine, in 1994, in Detroit. In it, de la Rocha’s full-tilt delivery of Ginsberg’s spell-casting release against state violence and the assassinations of the day left me speechless.
EMERALD. If you’re not already listening to The Emerald, I implore you to explore Josh Schrei’s production, particularly his most recent, “On Singing to the Beloved.” These are long incantatory audio journeys – sometimes edging on overproduced – that appraise modern life through a mythic lens. It took me a bit to get into the style, but I can say with confidence these are highly nutritious transmissions. His latest really landed, “getting to the source of longing.”
NUKES. I’ve been working my way through some seriously long masterworks — including David Duncan’s masterpiece, Sun House — as well as listening to American Prometheus (Masochistic? Absolutely.), the definitive biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, builder of the bomb, for which the film, Oppenheimer, was based. What a weirdo. I’m of the mind that we’re all living in some version of planetary PTSD shock-conformity from the 1945 atomic bomb releases. (Watch The Bomb for additional context.)
WONDERLAND. The megasite Huckberry invited me to include my take on the best trail in the U.S. An impossible ask, of course. I chose the mother of all circumnavigations, obvs. (Hint: “You can bury my ashes at Indian Bar.”) This is a strong list compiled by an absolute brain trust of wilderness lovers.
SHOE. OK, so I pledge allegiance to never overburden these roundups with material finds, but I was sent a pair of Arc'teryx’s Norvan LD 4 trail runners and have zero critiques. A truly plush, well-constructed long distance kick that’ll last. Canada gets it.
WELLNESS. There’s a specific flavor of hyper-individualized wellness evangelism in America right now that I’ve been increasingly cringey about, and this NPR podcast episode really gets at the question: “Is wellness a new spirituality?” (Spotify)
CANOE. This doubles as both an announcement and a tip: I will be taking the helm part-time as Managing Editor for The Magic Canoe, a reimagined bioregional narrative platform started by Ecotrust, in service to supporting and amplifying the diverse lifeways and watershed conviviality of Salmon Nation. Expect more from me on this soon, but remember: It’s time to paddle.
RIVER. Speaking of rivers, I’ve received and read an advance copy of Robert Macfarlane’s forthcoming book, Is a River Alive? (out May 20) and it’s most likely my all-time favorite of his books—though The Old Ways holds it down—and I’m a completist. Macfarlane is a hero who, I just found out, blurbed my book (alongside David Duncan, Amy Irvine, Chris Dombrowski, and Robert Moor), which I still can’t believe. More exciting news to announce with this budding friendship, but, in the meantime, pre-order his book. Trust me, it’ll be making a….splash.
ROHR. There are very few email newsletters I read every single morning, and Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations is one of them, from the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC). His most recent book, The Tears of Things, just hit the NYT bestseller, which is a testament to his life’s work. I’d also recommend The Immortal Diamond, the CAC’s podcast “Turning to the Mystics with James Finley,” and, of course, my man, Thomas Merton.
COMPLEXITY. I’ve only been on Substack for several months, still orienting myself to the crush of writers and ideas, but this one by friend-soul-comrade Julian Norris really gets to some foundational table-setting for understanding intersections of systems-thinking, meta-modern frameworks, complexity, animacy, etc. Such a beautiful mind, albeit heady AF.
PALESTINE. After listening to this jaw-dropping interview with Omar El Akkad and David Naimon on Tin House’s Between the Covers podcast (best literary podcast out there, fyi), I went to Fact & Fiction to find a (signed!) copy of his new book (below). I say this with all seriousness: the book made my gasp aloud on several occasions, many “Damn,” “Holy Hell,” and “WOW”s written in the margins. I can’t recommend this incisive book calling out Western moderate liberals and the geopolitical insincerity of the West, its complicity to what’s happening in Gaza and beyond. It’s March and already I’ve established this one as a Top 5 reads of the year. This is precision fury at its best.
I’ll end with my 200-word micro-distillation on the Mandorla 200. Book #115 of 200…
Are you practicing or posturing? Do you act from a place of ferocious compassion or self-interest? Empire thrums along on empty words while keeping its barbarism far from view to remain comfortable, but know that the difference between refusal now and refusal later, after missiles hit their targets, is the difference between a breathing child and a dead one, memorialized in four cold syllables: collateral. To condemn long after bankrolling genocide doesn’t put brain matter back into broken skulls: 14,000 Gazan children dead, one every half hour. Are we practicing resistance in the material, or are we tidy liberals too ensconced in a culture of self-worship and tepid scripts of civility—oh, poor oppressed! oh, poor children!—just as we turn away, a turning that requires us to unfeel? Every missing limb is now also a severed piece of my colonized soul. Look: rage over bombing hospitals isn’t complicated. Rage over systematic butchering isn’t complicated. What is complicated is a complete deprogramming from the insidious tang of American showmanship, theatrics of a free world, the say-one-thing-do-another, only-here-if-I-get-something-in-return scheme. So again: are we posturing or are we practicing? Is my love unconditional? Do my actions align with collective struggle, or is my bite all nub no fang?
The Book: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (2025)
The Author: Omar El Akkad
The Publisher: Knopf
The Tip: David Naimon, Fact & Fiction
Excited for the MacFarlane. That guy can write.
Yum!