Now Playing: October 2025

Our October 2025 edition of Now Playing features heartbreak songs, action movies, and epic video games, all from our contributors!

Monmita Chakrabarti

To get me in the right headspace for writing, I like to make playlists for my pieces. I’m currently writing about a recent friend breakup, so I'm listening to a lot of songs about that! Though I’ve found I often have to pretend songs about romantic heartbreak are about two friends. Sinead O’Conner’s “The Last Day of Our Aquaintance,” Taylor Swift’s “my tears ricochet,” and Julia Jacklin’s “End of a Friendship” are some that have been on repeat. Writing about this experience feels like sucking poison from the wound, and listening to other people who have gone through the same thing gives me the bravery to turn it into something beautiful and meaningful. What I’m saying is, more songs about platonic heartbreak! I will listen to them all!

Priyanka Champaneri

Shin Godzilla is the funniest movie I've seen in a very long time. The rapid-fire scene cuts! The endless bureaucracy! The insistence on hierarchical structures, the elaborate job titles, the wide-eyed Gojira bumbling through Shinagawa with the abandon of a dumpy-legged toddler!

I don't need a kaiju movie to remind me of humanity's blinkered belief in our own exceptionalism. Lord knows I can glean that from the news any day of the week. But how refreshing to see elected officials actually doing, you know, their jobs—relying on experts, problem solving, putting aside their egos and self-interests and fears of not winning reelection the next go around. How novel to think we might yet be capable of getting out of our own way, if only to save ourselves. How much simpler it all is when human annihilation is solely the fault of a radiation-heat-ray spewing prehistoric gorgon lizard—and not the twisted fallout from our own oh-so-Byzantine hearts.  

Mingyu Brian Chan

I am writing this at the start of fall break—I’ve just finished playing Hades 2 and I’m now replaying the original Hades, which is probably my favorite game of all time! I think I have a strong obsession with modern forms of the epic. Speaking of, the first thing I did when I came home from university was reread my physical copy of Sumita Chakraborty’s “Dear, beloved.” I consider it one of the greatest works of all time—I read it to ground myself. Otherwise, I’ve been listening to Rochelle Jordan’s new album, Through the Wall. Almost certainly my album of the year!