Friday, December 25, 2020

Senses working overtime #294

 Boxing day



Is when this edition came out. What is boxing day all about?

2 Boxing day also signifies that Christmas is over for another year

The giving of presents, the eating of food you wouldn't normally eat, the family connections, the decorations, the Christmas movies, the twinkling light displays, and the opportunity for some selfish time...all gone.


The Beatles' Get Back movie
Here's a sneak peek from Peter Jackson. It. Is. Awesome.

Austin Kleon's blog comment on the sneak peak

Watching this 5-minute cut of never-before-seen footage from Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back, I thought of the beginning of Kurt Vonnegut’s Timequake:

I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, “The Beatles did.”

Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, on the value of time

“You can do so much in ten minutes’ time. Ten minutes, once gone, are gone for good. Divide your life into 10-minute units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activity."

Overtime: Seth Godin on the year that was 2020

The seeds we plant

2020 was a terrible year for too many people. So much trauma, dislocation and illness. Everyone has their own stories, and everyone suffered (unevenly and unfairly) from the extraordinary shifts in our lives.

And yet, seeds were planted. Five or ten or twenty years from now, people will remember projects that were started, connections that were established, realizations that occurred. Doors were opened, babies were born and changes were made.

Few people celebrate forest fires, but we’re all eager to walk through the sylvan glades that follow.

If you were kept from planting all the seeds you hoped to in 2020, that’s okay. Because the best time to plant more seeds is always right now. Or perhaps tomorrow. 

Friday, December 18, 2020

Senses working overtime #293

 Beautiful photos of the Tube.


I love the London Underground and I especially love photos of it.

2 The uselessness of judging yourself 



I'm enjoying James Clear's work. This one hit home!

Why some people are always running late



I may have linked to this article before and mentioned that my wife should read it. May have.


J K Rowling - one of nine


Wish we could do #10 and cancel 2020 but it happened folks!

Overtime: MNAC (Monday Night Album Club)
Here's our 2020 selection a.k.a. MNAC IV 


Friday, December 11, 2020

Senses working overtime #292

  Morning rituals

Photo by Ekaterina Kasimova on Unsplash


The summer holidays mean a change to my morning rituals - I'm going to experiment with some of these over the coming weeks. Good for my senses.


Morning haze
This mind and body playlist  (suggested in that list from number 1 above) is very soothing. There are thousands of these on Spotify but this one stands out for me.

Mozart for morning meditation


This is one of my favourite CDs at home. Number 2 above just reminded me.

Poem Beginning With a Retweet 

If you drive past horses and don't say horses
you're a psychopath. If you see an airplane
but don't point it out. A rainbow,
a cardinal, a butterfly. If you don't
whisper-shout albino squirrel! Deer!
Red fox! If you hear a woodpecker
and don't shush everyone around you
into silence. If you find an unbroken
sand dollar in a tide pool. If you see
a dorsal fin breaking the water.
If you see the moon and don't say
oh my god look at the moon. If you smell
smoke and don't search for fire.
If you feel yourself receding, receding, 
and don't tell anyone until you're gone. 

Maggie Smith



Like millions of others, I'll be watching my DVD of this movie again in the lead up to Christmas, as the out-laws arrive.

Overtime: The morning routine (revisited with Thomas Oppong)



Friday, December 4, 2020

Senses working overtime #291

 Neil Armstrong's famous lines from the moon


2 The brain's most important job



Your brain’s most important job isn’t thinking; it’s running the systems of your body to keep you alive and well. According to recent findings in neuroscience, even when your brain does produce conscious thoughts and feelings, they are more in service to the needs of managing your body than you realize.

A sound so loud it was heard in over 50 countries


What we’re talking about here is like being in Boston and clearly hearing a noise coming from Dublin, Ireland. Travelling at the speed of sound (766 miles or 1,233 kilometers per hour), it takes a noise about 4 hours to cover that distance. This is the most distant sound that has ever been heard in recorded history.

Author Ann Hastings on the availability of satisfaction:

“Satisfaction is always available. It is just not always looked for. If, when you enter any experience, you enter with curiosity, respect and interest you will emerge enriched and with awareness you have been enriched. Awareness of enrichment is what satisfaction is.”

Declining Freemason numbers



Overtime: Paul McCartney III is about to come out so here's a press interview to whet the appetite (hopefully it's like his first solo album rather than McCartney II)


"I think it’s a fact of life that personalities don’t change much. Throughout your life, there you are."

Friday, November 27, 2020

Senses working overtime #290

 Barack's interview about his new book

The whole world loves Barack Obama (give or take 70 million Trump supporters). 

Questions to ask yourself (from James Clear)

Some questions to consider before you speak:

Does this need to be said?

Does this need to be said by me?

Does this need to be said by me right now?


Seventeen articles that (almost) redeemed 2020

Trains Planes and Automobiles



The John Hughes movie reappraised (it centres or centers around Thanksgiving - that uniquely American holiday celebration)

Resilience



Emine Saner (great name) investigates for The Guardian.

Overtime: Sugar is evil



I've cut out a lot of sugar from my diet (no between meal sugary snacks, no alcohol and so on) and this is the good stuff that is happening to my body.

Friday, November 20, 2020

Senses working overtime #289

 Truth and lies


2 Truth and lies (continued)


The best rundown of Donald and Rudy's bat shit crazy, bizarro, smoke and mirrors, snake oil, world I've read.

3 Guiliani and Trump, a.k.a. The Moon Men





Anne Tyler



Clock Dance is my latest Anne Tyler novel. It's hard to pinpoint why she's so brilliant. The writing appears to be effortless!

Overtime: Peter Gabriel



After reading a Mojo feature, I've rediscovered his 4th solo album this week (a.k.a. Security). It's even more brilliant than I remember it being.

Friday, November 13, 2020

Senses working overtime #288

Drive - James Sallis






I'm reading this novel this week. I love the way the cover changes as editions are released.


It turns out, the cover of the edition I'm reading (above) isn't the most interesting one.

Music shows of the seventies by Austin Kleon

What makes a life worth living by Walt Whitman

 
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

Overtime: Rick Wakeman - The Red Planet


Enjoying this one - the instrumental latest from prog giant - Rick Wakeman.

Friday, November 6, 2020

Senses working overtime #287

Starship Troopers



Sci-Fi covers for this week - love that Yes song - inspired by this Heinlein novel!

Ursula

"Hard times are coming, when we'll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We'll need writers who can remember freedom—poets, visionaries—realists of a larger reality." —Ursula K. Le Guin

3.1 RIP Diane di Prima


3.2 RIP Sean Connery


4 Jane Fonda's blog (is cool)


What if Trump refuses to concede to Biden?

Overtime: Black - Wonderful World


Had this clip running all week.

Friday, October 30, 2020

Senses working overtime #286

 Edgar Rice Burroughs' covers

I'm always amazed at the artwork that adorns pulp fiction novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs


Why arrogance is dangerously contagious


3 America votes and the rest of us look on in amazement!


Let's hope they make the right choice.


Overtime: Nearly 80 kph downhill...on a bike!


Overtime: RIP Nobby



Friday, October 23, 2020

Senses working overtime #285

Broooooce!


He's back with the surviving E Streeters, and back with an album, Letter To You. It's great too (got my copy yesterday).

Trump's $1 Billion debts explained, really well!


I got my copy yesterday - so exciting! I love autobiographies!

The 100 most influential animations...ever


Overtime: Bluesleep