Five Bullets 4.21.23
This week: Ahmad Jamal, Crossover Artist, Around the World in 80 Days & more
Hello and Welcome Back to Circles In Space for Five Bullet Friday, where each Friday I share interesting stuff collected during the week.
If you’re new to Circles In Space, I wrote a bit about myself and this newsletter.
Good morning everyone and Happy Friday! We have beautiful Spring weather this morning - mid 50s and clear blue skies.
We’re coming up on this newsletter’s one year anniversary which I started on a whim in May 2022. I’ve learned a lot since then, covering a wide variety of interesting stuff. My capacity for consuming content and writing about it has improved and is ever-evolving. But it takes a lot of time to cover all the material I write about each week; I’m thinking about how to change up the format a bit, so that I can dive deeper into one or two topics and provide you with more thoughtful writing.
As always, I am open to suggestions - if you have an idea of what you’d like me to cover, I‘m all ears!
This week’s bullets:
Jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal passed away this week at the age of 92. Miles Davis wrote that all his inspiration comes from Jamal, who studied classical composers and brought a reverence to jazz, or American classical music, as he called the genre. Jamal said:
“Rhythm is very important in music, and your life has to have rhythms too. You can exercise properly, eat properly – but the most important thing of all is thinking properly. Things are in a mess, and that’s an understatement; so much is being lost because of greed. There are very few authentic, pure approaches to life now. But this music is one of them, and it continues to be.”
A fascinating read into ‘what makes music music, ’Crossover Artist profiles neuroscientist, professor, and musician David Sulzer aka Dave Soldier. Sulzer’s work takes him from scientific experiments with instrument-playing elephants to pushing the boundaries of sound as a gigging musician with everyone from Bo Diddley to Lou Reed. We can all name a song which prompts us to recall a memory we’d forgotten, a first kiss or where we were when we heard the song. How does the brain make these connections? What happens when a sound or piece of music becomes more than just math and frequencies? This is where Sulzer focuses his work.
Beatriz Flamini recently emerged after spending 500 days in a cave as part of a study to determine the effects of isolated underground living. Flamini was alone and out of touch with the world except for limited communications with a team of scientists. She found ways to occupy her time, like reading and exercising, and only spoke while recording videos to be used for a documentary. She said her stay was “excellent” and that she “didn’t want to come out”.
Around the World in 80 Days, starring David Tennant, is a fun and modern take on the classic Jules Verne adventure novel. While some liberties were taken with the plot and characters, the series is an engaging race against the clock with our heroes Phileas Fogg, Abigail Fix, and Jean Passepartout. Verne fans may spot a few easter eggs hidden throughout.
Maybe you’re not a Stephen King fan but The Essential Stephen King covers the gamut of King’s writing. Though King is most well-known for horror classics like Carrie and The Shining, he’s also written other fiction including the novella Different Seasons which contained Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. Also - King’s book On Writing is a must read for aspiring writers.