Five Bullets 11.1.24
Phil Lesh, Fear City, Steampunk & more.
Good Morning and Happy Friday.
This morning is a cloudy and blustery day here in New York City. We even had a few drops of rain (last month was the driest on record). The weather was unseasonably warm this week, with temperatures nearing 80 degrees.
I hope you enjoyed your Halloween, a holiday which has it’s roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain. Last night I had a chance to see Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 classic Psycho at the historic Village East, formerly the Yiddish Art Theatre, which plays movies from the master of suspense throughout October.
A few facts about the movie: Hitchcock anonymously purchased the movie rights to Robert Bloch’s novel for $9500, and the cast wasn’t told the ending until it was filmed. The movies still has a few great jump scares but this was the part I found most frightening to watch on the big screen: the camera follows Norman Bates up the stairs to his mother’s room but then shifts planes and moves upward, so we’re looking down at the staircase as if we are a disembodied spirit watching from above. Seeing the actual movement of the camera to that location instead of just a cut to a new vantage point only heightens the suspense.
This week’s bullets:
Dracula: One last link for Halloween: covered Bram Stoker’s notes for Dracula.
Movies: I loved this feature highlighting movie scenes which used newspapers to show viewers the end is near.
Music: RIP Phil Lesh, bassist for the Grateful Dead, who passed away last week at age 84. Lesh’s work with the Dead is unmatched, his bass playing incredibly inventive and original. When asked to give some advice to younger musicians, Lesh said, “Listen, listen listen…and listen some more.” Here’s some photos chronicling Lesh’s life in music.
NYC: In docuseries Fear City: New York vs The Mafia federal agents and prosecutors tell the story of how they took down the five mob families which controlled nearly every aspect of the city, from Manhattan construction and real estate to small neighborhood businesses. Criticism about the series aside, it’s worth watching for the historical context: the 1970’s and ‘80s were a difficult period in the city’s history and the end of organized crime helped shape the city we live in today.
Technology: Could Steampunk Save Us? In this essay, Joshua Rothman invites us to be mindful of technology. Behind AI chat bots or our sleek new smartphones are still a team of people working to train the bot or mine materials for phones. Rothman writes, “it’s all less perfect than it seems,” much like the aging technology powering our favorite steampunk movies and novels. This is a reminder that our digital world is “less an emanation from the future, and more like an inheritance from the past, with all the problems that entails.”
That’s all for this week. I really enjoy getting this weekly list together. It gives me a reason to explore my interests, learn more, and share it with you.
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Love the Men in Black newspaper!