Five Bullets 3.28.25
Murakami, Studio Ghibli, Quantum Computing & more.
Good morning and happy Friday friends.
This morning is a beautiful, crisp early spring morning with blue skies.
I’m a little late in publishing today and that’s because I wasn’t able to complete this week’s blog post so my three-week streak has ended. I need some more time to work on what I planned to publish this week, something I’m excited to share and have been having a lot of fun working on. I hope to publish it next week.
Here’s five bullets which captured my attention this week:
Archive: A first look at the Joan Didion archives at the New York Public Library reveals Didion’s letters, correspondence, and datebooks, but, more importantly, her commonplace books containing quotes and research, diaries, and manuscripts for books and essays. Here’s a quote from a 16-year old Didion’s school assignment: “It is extremely difficult for me to pick a specific thing I dislike in people. I dislike everything about them, especially at eight-thirty in the morning. However, after giving it considerable thought, I have come to the conclusion that I dislike people who can play the ukulele.”
Books: I read Haruki Murakami’s 2002 novel Kafka On the Shore this week, my first Murakami novel and I have some mixed feelings about it. There were some parts I liked and some I didn’t, but, like the song propelling the protagonists forward, I couldn’t stop reading. The novel is surreal, dreamy, drawing on music, spirituality, psychology, philosophy, and mythology. Murakami said, “the secret to understanding the novel lies in reading it several times: Kafka on the Shore contains several riddles, but there aren't any solutions provided. Instead, several of these riddles combine, and through their interaction the possibility of a solution takes shape. And the form this solution takes will be different for each reader. To put it another way, the riddles function as part of the solution. It's hard to explain, but that's the kind of novel I set out to write”.
Data: Q-Day refers to the moment a quantum computer becomes powerful enough to end online security by breaking all forms of digital encryption. Experts say there’s a 1 in 3 chance it happens before 2035, and a 15% chance it’s already happened. Quantum computers can explore all possible solutions to an encryption key simultaneously, doing the work of a supercomputer in a fraction of the time. When quantum computing becomes a reality will our world become more analog?
Movies: For this week’s movie club with friends we watched Studio Ghibli’s 2001 anime film Spirited Away. I’m a total latecomer to these movies and was surprised to learn that every frame was animated by hand and that creator/director Hayao Miyazaki doesn’t write with a plot instead letting the story and animation take on a life of it’s own. The bathhouse where the spirits cleanse themselves is based on the oldest onsen in Japan Dogo Onsen Honkan. I’m not sure if there’s any connection between Murakami and Miyazaki but the film’s depiction of Shintoism informed my understanding of some elements of Kafka.
Nature: This octopus hitched a ride on a shark in New Zealand. Researchers aren’t sure how the octopus came to rest there but it will probably fall off once the shark moves faster. For now though both parties seem perfectly content. In other news, researchers have recorded perhaps the first instance of a shark making noise which sounds like snapping or clicking produced by clamping their teeth together.
That’s all for this week! I really enjoy getting this newsletter out each Friday. It gives me reason to dive into my interests, learn more, and share it with you. Thanks for reading.
Have a great weekend,
Keith.