Five Bullets 8.2.24
Sunshine, Sphere, the Octopus & more
Good Morning & Happy Friday!
It’s another hot and humid day here in New York City which always reminds me of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s descriptions of the ‘broiling’ days in The Great Gatsby:
‘Hot!’ said the conductor to familiar faces. ‘Some weather! Hot! Hot! Hot! Is it hot enough for you? Is it hot? Is it … ?’
I’m late in publishing today because I was working on a blog post about the movie Sunshine, which, as a science-fiction fan, I had to write about.
I’m still working my way through Moby-Dick, slowly but surely. It’s a tough book to put down and pick back up again - Melville always seems to be in the middle of a long-winded discussion on one or more aspects of whales, whaling, and whalers. When I do have the time to sit and read uninterrupted, I find his writing to be almost meditative.
What are you reading, hearing, and seeing?
This week’s bullets:
Movie: Sunshine. Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland’s 2007 sci-fi/space-horror film might have slipped past your radar but it’s a wild ride. Visually and aurally stunning, suspenseful from start to finish, and creative. For a movie club, I gave it a watch and recorded my thoughts:
Sunshine
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Our sun is dying. Mankind faces extinction. Seven years ago the Icarus project sent a mission to restart the sun but that mission was lost before it reached the star. Sixteen months ago, I, Robert Capa, and a crew of seven left earth frozen in a solar winter. Our payload - a stellar bomb with a mass equivalent to Manhattan Island. Our purpose - to creat…
Music: Nick Paumgarten details his experiences at Dead & Company’s recent residency at Las Vegas’s Sphere. I came to love the Dead’s music in my 20s, having never really had any exposure to them growing up ( I didn’t know any deadheads). I love playing and listening to the Dead’s music, I’ve seen a few Dead & Co. shows, and I love jam bands, but there’s something about the Sphere which I’m not really interested in. Paumgarten’s brand of ‘ornery’ Deadhead-isms are on full display here and his writing is funny and insightful.
NYC: Max Roach Way. The corner of Greene and Marcy Avenues in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood was renamed to Max Roach Way in honor of the musician’s contributions and achievements. Roach, who was born in North Carolina in 1924, moved with his family to Bed-Stuy in 1940 where they lived at 541 Greene Avenue. After graduating from the neighborhood’s Boys High School, Roach got his first gig at age 18 playing with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. NPR’s Milestones catches up with the Roach family to discuss their father’s legacy.
Science: There’s a New Reason to Save Life in the Deep Ocean. This essay takes a look at the ocean’s twilight zone, comprised of billions of micro-organisms which are responsible for removing a third of the Earth’s carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Commercial fishing aims to capture these organisms to use as food for fish farms, endangering the complex role the Earth’s oceans play in the regulation of carbon dioxide. Fewer microorganisms could mean a sudden rise in temperatures globally and catastrophic consequences for humans and other life.
TV: American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders. The Octopus Murders takes on a behemoth of a case starting with the death of journalist Danny Casolaro. The subject matter quickly gets ‘out there’ - government conspiracies, international politics, shadowy espionage - but the filmmakers managed to stay on point, support their findings, and tell an intriguing story. If you can’t get enough, check out this podcast with the filmmakers discussing more details which didn’t make it to the documentary.
That’s all for this week! I sure love getting this weekly list together. It gives me something to work on, to explore my interests, to learn more and share it with you.