Five Bullets 7.11.25
Ringo, Ripley, Riding & more
Good Morning & Happy Friday Friends:
This morning is a mild and cloudy 73 degrees with temperatures expected to be in the mid 80s later today here in New York City. Aside from the occasional summer thunderstorm we’ve been having beautiful weather this week.
I’ve made a few changes around here lately and revised the newsletter’s design, logo and copy elements, all of which I get bored with after a few months and feel the need to improve on! This week I’ve focused on managing my time more productively by scheduling blocks for writing and using Notion to track multiple on-going projects. It’s all a work in progress toward publishing more writing!
Here’s Five Bullets capturing my attention this week:
Happy 85th Birthday to Ringo Starr! The Beatles drummer, looking dapper sitting behind his Ludwig Downbeat kit in the above 1964 photo, celebrated his birthday on Monday with a jam featuring musician friends T Bone Burnett, Joe Walsh, and Molly Tuttle. Ringo’s drumming fit the fab four’s music perfectly, always playing exactly what was needed to support the song. There’s plenty of Beatles biographies out there including one on Ringo, but I wonder if there’s an autobiography in the works. I’d love to read his story in his own words.
In true Circles In Space form I’m revisiting Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House this week. Last year, I listened to the book after watching the 1999 film remake. This week I watched the original 1963 film which is a much stronger adaptation that sticks closer to Jackson’s novel. Something I noticed - both films leave out a particularly creepy but subtle scene from the book, perhaps overshadowed by the more overtly creepy scenes. This is one reason Jackson’s novel is a horror classic.
I don’t often write about sports but July always means the return of the Tour De France! The three-week long cycling event is one of the most difficult sporting events in the world covering a distance of over 2,000 miles. The first week of the tour has been marked by lots of crashes and exciting sprint finishes while Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar battle it out for the yellow jersey and best overall time. The excitement is sure to ramp up when the riders head into the mountain stages next week. NBC Sport’s Youtube has an ad-free 30 minute video with each stage’s highlights.
If you’re into biking but not a fan of the Tour, check out Australian rider Lachlan Morton’s alt-tour. Morton rode the Tour race route in the same manner as the original tour riders - without support, eating at cafes and camping on the side of the road. Back in 2014 Morton and brother Gus, both fed up with pro-cycling, took a sabbatical to recapture the fun of cycling by biking 2,000 km across Australia.
I finished reading Blood Meridian and I’m halfway through Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 psychological thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley. I’ve seen the 2024 series and the 1999 movie so I know the story but I’m really enjoying the book. Highsmith’s writing is clean, simple and suspenseful. I wonder how she keeps all the twists and turns straight and at the same time make readers sympathize with Ripley but also shock us. The book is the first in Highsmith’s Ripley series, the last was published in 1991. Highsmith herself was known for some odd behavior, was a loner and had a penchant for snails.
That’s all for this week! Thanks for reading.