Five Bullets 8.1.25
It's a new month!
Good Morning and Happy Friday Friends.
My apologies for today’s late newsletter. It’s been a busy week and I’m still a bit jetlagged from last weekend’s trip to California. So just a quick dispatch since I don’t have too much to share this week!
First - we got a cat! He’s an Orange tabby so naturally we named him Tony (the tiger).
Last week’s film festival in Greenwood Cemetery was moved to this past Monday due to weather so I got to see my friend Sean’s documentary Shadow of a Dog plus lots of other great non-fiction short films including one on artist Martin Wong and another about the dangerous intersection at Myrtle/Wyckoff in Bushwick.
Here’s Five Bullets capturing my attention this week:
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard returns to Forest Hills Stadium for two nights this weekend! Tonight they’ll be performing songs off their new record Phantom Island accompanied by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s while tomorrow night’s show will be a straight-up rock set minus orchestra. I’ve seen the band perform at the outdoor stadium in 2023 and 2024 and if those shows are any indication, we’re in for quite a ride this weekend.
I’m reading Jonathan Lethem’s novel Motherless Brooklyn this week. I didn’t know too much about it except that Ed Norton’s film of the same name is based on the book. It reads like a noir detective novel so it took me a few pages to realize that the book is set in the late ‘90s. Lethem’s protagonist has Tourette’s and the text is filled with a plethora of word jumbles and scrambles.
Usually about once a year I re-read John Jeremiah Sullivan’s Pulphead, a collection of Sullivan’s magazine essays. I listened to the audiobook read by Sullivan this week instead which really captures his quirky humor and penetrating attentiveness. I really have to write more about Sullivan soon since I’m always returning to his writing.
I finished reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for the first time last week so I re-watched the movie on the plane. I don’t think they could’ve done the movie any better! It’s a near-perfect adaptation of the book and I’m glad I finally read the book so I could get more out of the movie. To top it off I re-watched the Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson documentary.
The screen on the chair in front of me wasn’t working on my flight back to New York so I rewatched John Wick 1 which I already had downloaded to my phone. I love this movie because it feels real - the stunts, the acting, the storytelling, the sound. Director and ex-stuntman Chad Stahelski sneaks in homages to his favorite movies in every film. In John Wick 2 (which I watched when I got back to New York), the opening scene with Wick’s 1969 Boss 429 Mustang recalls 1968 film Bullit starring Steve McQueen in a ‘68 Mustang GT.
That’s all for this week! Thanks for reading.