Senses working overtime #468

1 Autumn at Maple Grove continues.

2 Reading: Scattershot - Bernie Taupin

Yes! Having finished Bleak House and the current Mojo, I'm on to this easy read (thanks to K Simms esq for the loan).

3 Listening: Fleetwood Mac - Future Games

Rediscovered this one this week. A five-star classic.

If you want a sample of the Christine McVie magic held within its grooves, try Morning Rain.

4 Listening: Mel Brooks - All About Me

5 Listening: WTWMC True Colours

Amigo Kev has this week's choice (he's gone slightly rogue and chosen 'blues'). Watch in real time as the three amigos grapple with choosing 5 songs from the 2 billion with 'blues' in the title. Choices drop from Monday onwards.

Overtime: 

Writer and designer Edith Wharton on what causes old age:

"The producer of old age is habit: the deathly process of doing the same thing in the same way at the same hour day after day, first from carelessness, then from inclination, at last from cowardice or inertia.

Habit is necessary; but it is the habit of having careless habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive... one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways."

(Courtesy James Clear)

Senses working overtime #467

1 Autumn at Maple Grove this week

Same tree at Maple Grove, different week - really! Check it out.

2 Listening: Field Music (their debut album)

If you wanted one song to try: If Only The Moon Were Up

3 Reading: Bleak House

 

I know, it feels like Groundhog Day in this edition, but now at page 603 (out of 720), I'm on the home straight. Plus, it's good!

4 Watching: 3 Body Problem

It was okay, started well and kept us watching but it could have run half the length and still been as effective.

5 Listening: WTWMC True Colours playlist

We're up to shades of red - watch how it plays out in real time this week (G 'Yee Har' K's choice).

Overtime: 

Writer and scholar C.S. Lewis on what why small choices matter:

"Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible."

(Courtesy of James Clear)

Senses working overtime #466

1 Weather this week

Looks like a colour printing gone wrong right. Maple Grove today.

2 Watching: Pain Hustlers

Emily Blunt and Chris Evans on form!

3 Reading: Bleak House

Up to page 380. Over half-way!

4 Listening: Explosions In The Sky - Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever

And if you want just one track from this instrumental post-rock album by American foursome Explosions In The Sky, try final song With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept. But the whole album is great.

5 Reading: Seth Godin - The color-coded wires

Have you ever wondered what the wiring layout behind the control panels at Abbey Road studios was like?

Neither have I.

The Beatles recorded some of their best work there, and I have no idea if it was a rat’s nest of tangled wires, or if each wire was labeled, coded and perfectly aligned.

Just as I have no idea if Eliot Peper writes his novels in Scrivener or Word.

Yes, of course, for sure, it helps if your tools are properly arranged and maintained. Yes, it saves time and effort to embrace mise en place and get your workspace right.

But making it even more right, alphabetizing the pencils and making sure your servers all have the right names–that’s simply stalling.

Overtime: Marcus Aurelius

Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust or lose your sense of shame or makes you show hatred, suspicion, ill-will or hypocrisy or a desire for things best done behind closed doors.

Senses working overtime #465

1 Autumn at Maple Grove this week

2 Listening: WTWMC True Colours

We're now doing our hair colour (silver and grey) - Kev's choice.

3 Reading: Bleak House

Up to page 274, nearly half-way.

4 Watched: The Gentlemen

We finally finished the second set of 4 episodes. I liked it, but didn't love it. The Susie Glass and Bobby Glass characters were superbly played though.

5 Reading: Fifty failures by great directors

Overtime: On failure

"When my brother and I were growing up, my father would encourage us to fail. We'd sit around the dinner table and he'd ask, "What did you guys fail at this week?" If we had nothing to tell him, he'd be disappointed. The logic seems counterintuitive, but it worked beautifully.

He knew that many people become paralyzed by the fear of failure. They're constantly afraid of what others will think if they don't do a great job and, as a result, take no risks. My father wanted us to try everything and feel free to push the envelope. His attitude taught me to define failure as not trying something I want to do instead of not achieving the right outcome."

Entrepreneur Sara Blakely 

Senses working overtime #464

1 The weather this week

Photo by Vasiliki Mastropetrou on Unsplash

Cooler and windy.

2 Listening: Howlin' Wind - Graham Parker

White Honey (first song on this his debut album) got a lotta plays this week (package arrived from Real Groovy)

3 Listening: Taylor Swift - Midnights

This was my most played album on Spotify in 2022. I'm still listening to my vinyl copy. It's still amazing.

If you just want one song - try Snow On The Beach, but really the whole album is her best yet. A five star classic. A new one is coming!

4 Listening: WTWMC True Colours

Greg 'Pretty Boy' Knowles has the latest colour choice - RED! Watch the fun unfold in real time during the week.

You can also play along! Who chooses what? Is It Kevy, GK or Wozza's choice?

5 Watching: Oppenheimer on Spotify.

We split it over two nights - 3 hours is a tough ask when you're watching in your lounge.

Overtime: Letting go

Holding onto anger and resentment is like scuba diving with an anchor. As long as you're clinging to it, you're bound to the seabed, limited in movement, unable to appreciate the coral reefs and the colorful fish that dart in and out of view.

Forgiveness is letting go of the anchor. It isn't about declaring what was done to you is okay, but about unburdening yourself so you can swim freely. Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. It's the gift of letting go of the anchors you've been carrying.

James Clear

Senses working over #463

1 The feeling this looooong week

Photo by Impresso Studios on Unsplash

2 Reading: Bleak House

Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.

3 Listening: Bob Dylan's Infidels

Jokerman retains all of its glories in 2024.

4 Watching: The Gentlemen

From Guy Ritchie on Netflix. He's toned down his OTT tendencies in this action/comedy series and gone for strong writing/characters instead and it works.

5 Austin Kleon

Overtime:  

Some people get addicted to chain-smoking their problems. They spend all day going from sorrow to sorrow. It doesn't have to be that way. You can live each day going from joy to joy—like a sunflower that turns to face the sun as it moves across the sky. It's not about having a problem-free life, but about focusing on the light. Sunflowers still have shadows, but they are always behind them.

James Clear

Senses working overtime #462

1 Feeling this week on the daily grind

2 Watching: Brené Brown TED talk on vulnerability.

3 Listening: Bob Dylan/ The Band - Before The Flood

A great double live album. If I had to choose one track from each, I'd go for Ballad Of A Thin Man and Up On Cripple Creek.

4 Watching: Damsel

We enjoyed this 2024 release on Netflix. Some genuinely exciting sequences and a good script/acting combo (Robin Wright is great as the wicked Queen in a reverse of her Princess Bride role from all those years ago). 

Worthy of your time!

5 Listening: WTWMC True Colours

Greg, Kev and I have covered songs with pink in the title, and last week it was orange. This week - green.

Overtime: Seth Godin

Holding on for dear life

That’s a cliche from the movies. Dangling from a railroad bridge, only determination and firm grip can save the hero.

In our modern world, we often end up holding on to ideas, to grievances or to our view of the world.

Ironically, the harder we hold on to the things we’re hiding from, the less dear our life becomes.

Perhaps we could let go for dear life instead.

Senses working overtime #461

1 The feeling this week

Photo by Vlad Patana on Unsplash

2 Reading: Mick Jagger - Philip Norman

3 Listening: WTWMC - True Colours

The three amigos latest playlist on Spotify is in its early stages, but is destined for greatness. We've done pink, now watch it unfold with orange this coming week.

4 Watching: Boy Swallows Universe

I really enjoyed the book, but the jury is out on the Netflix show after one episode.

We'll hang in there for another one.

Kylie Northover reviewing the series for The Sydney Morning Herald rated the series as five stars out of five, "As in the book, the mood is a tightrope walk between despair and childish optimism; the brothers’ lives are shaped by trauma, but this sprawling story is infused with humour and great warmth, even for the adults who have let them down." 

5 Reading: How risky are repeat covid infections?

Overtime: Seth Godin

Where are you?

When you’re reading a good historical novel, you might be there and then.

When you’re checking your email, you are in a conversation between and among, over there, not here.

When you’re imagining what went wrong in that conversation yesterday, you are living in yesterday.

And when you’re scripting the next conversation you’re going to have, you’re in tomorrow.

Time travel and teleportation have never been easier or more common.

What happens when we are here and now?

Senses working overtime #460

1 Feeling this week

Yes, it's...

2 Listening: Hackney Diamonds - The Rolling Stones

Been on repeat of late. Jaw droppingly good. It's not representative, but if you want one track - Rolling Stones Blues.

3 Reading: Ladder Of Years - Anne Tyler

Really loving this novel. The fantasy of walking away from your present life and starting again as a slightly different version of yourself is a potent one. 

4 Listening: War - All Day Music

I bought a couple of albums by War during the week. Played this one each night - got me back in the groove after a hectic day at school.

5 Reading (didn't watch anything interesting this week): Jimmy Carter, America's longest living president, is marking 1 year in hospice care

I am a fan of the man. He's 99 and a true legend, forget about the politics, and admire his character.

Overtime: 

"It is not too late to do what you want to do—if you stop waiting for the time to be right."

James Clear

Senses working overtime #459

1 The feeling this week

Photo by Dan Freeman on Unsplash

2 Listening: Across The Borderline (Van Dyke Parks, Gaby Moreno, Jackson Browne, Ry Cooder)

3 Watching: Argylle

After a full-on week (see #1 above), Jacky and I went to the movies to see this one. Perfect action/comedy fare for us on Friday night.

The movie features the Beatle song Now And Then quite a few times so, of course that's been back on high rotation at Maple Grove.

4 Listening: The Beatles - Now And Then

5 Reading: The Anne Tyler from last week and the latest Mojo on my coffee table (# 361)

Overtime: Work

Lettering artist and illustrator Jessica Hische on what procrastination reveals:

"The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life."

Source: Humble Pied (courtesy of James Clear)