Senses working overtime #532

1 Back to school (a sea of possibilities)

2 Reading: Bel Ami - Guy de Maupassant

3 Watched and watching: Alone Australia season 1, and season 3.

4 Listening: Queen on Fire -Live at the Bowl

5 Feeling icky: stopped watching Dance Moms

More on this on Wozza's Place next week. Watch for it.

Overtime: 

Be forgiving with your past self. What's done is done. Take the lessons with you and release the guilt.

Be strict with your present self. Win the moment in front of you right now.

James Clear 

Senses working overtime #531

1 Second week of the study break:

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

The first week of the study break kicked off with me marking students' work, this second week ended with planning my five classes for the next 6 weeks. That's a good feeling!

2 Watched: Alone UK and Alone Australia

We finished watching season 2 of Alone Australia (started while at Mabelle and Gav's gaff) and then moved onto season 1 of Alone UK. Slight change for that one with 11 ordinary Brits surviving/ lasting from 4 hours to 30ish days. Brilliant!

3 Reading: God Only Knows (The story of Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys and the California myth) - David Leaf

I've read this in an earlier edition when I borrowed a library copy years ago, but I had to buy this 2024 version while visiting Santa Rosa (Copperfields Books). Good to reread given the recent passing of Brian.

4 Listening: Procol Harum Live in Concert

5 Reading: The Visitor - Lee Child

I'm pretty sure I've also read this one years ago but that's the great thing with his books - because of the frothiness and easiness of the style, you can reread and enjoy them all over again. This is a great study break book.

Overtime:  

"Focus on the seeds, not the trees. What seeds are you planting today?"

James Clear

Senses working overtime #530

1 First week of the study break:

Photo by Matias North on Unsplash

2 Reading: Utopia Avenue - David Mitchell

The novel centres on a fictional 1960s British psychedelic rock band called Utopia Avenue. Quite apposite given my recent run down of Pink Floyd's late sixties albums on Goo Goo G'Joob. 

David Mitchell even has a scene in the book where characters watch a 1967 Pink Floyd gig. Fun.

3 Listening: Pink Floyd's Ummagumma 

Specifically, the live sides.  

4 Reading: Truman - David McCullough

5 Watched - Alone: Frozen

Overtime: 

Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day 

Thorton Wilder

Senses working overtime #529

1 Last week of term feeling:

2 Reading: Student scripts  

End of term practice tests for my three senior classes and Common Assessment Tests for my two junior classes are keeping me busy this week - more on this to come in Baggy Trousers.

3 Listening: Record package from Vinyl Countdown

('new' albums by Yes, Frank Zappa, Jimmy Buffett and Tears For Fears)

4 Viewing: Stats on three of my blogs this week

Goo Goo G'Joob

Baggy Trousers

Wozza's Place

I had a peek into some of my blog's statistics looking at who read three of them this week (Goo Goo G'Joob, Baggy Trousers, Wozza's Place). 

Overwhelmingly and interestingly, they are viewed mostly by people in Brazil, Vietnam and then the United States. Extraordinary!

Singapore remains the champ in terms of the all time stat for a few of the blogs. 

Greetings to everyone in my global readership!

5 Listening: Pink Floyd - The Division Bell

Overtime: Life - Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello  

"Think of yourself in a concert hall listening to the strains of the sweetest music when you suddenly remember that you forgot to lock your car. You are anxious about the car, you cannot walk out of the hall and you cannot enjoy the music. There you have a perfect image of life as it is lived by most human beings."

Courtesy James Clear

Senses working overtime #528

1 Winter solstice this week

Photo by Nico Drath on Unsplash

2 Watched: Star Wars: The Acolyte 

I loved this Star Wars offshoot on Disney +. It pulls together many seminal themes from Star Wars. Looking forward to Season 2.

3 Reading: Anne Tyler's breathing lessons

4 Watching: Alone - Season 10

We saw a promo for season 12 and then realised we hadn't yet seen season 10 or 11 (TV One on demand). The show gets great when it's a few weeks down and there are only 5 people left.

5 Listening: Pink Floyd - Piper at the Gates of Dawn

I've reached the Pink Floyd collection in my preparations for Goo Goo G'Joob posts. What a remarkable album Piper at the Gates of Dawn is. It still sounds like it was beamed down from a distant planet (which I guess Syd was orbiting at the time).

Only time for one track? Try their first song on their first album - Astronomy Domine.

Overtime: 

“The mind is everything in survival. If you don’t have the will to survive, no skill in the world will save you.”

A contestant on Alone.

Senses working overtime #527

1 Happy times in Denver revisited

2 Reading: Star Wars and Philosophy Strikes Back: This Is The Way - Eberl and Decker

3 Listening: Pelican albums

I have had loads of marking to do lately, and Pelican is a constant companion. I was listening to them for an upcoming post on Goo Goo G'Joob as well. Favourite album would be What We All Come To Need.

4 Watching: Dance Moms

My colleague Angel recommended this show and we've been binge watching Abby Lee, the dancers and their moms ever since. There are eight seasons!!! We have a long way to go, but Season One hooked us in.

5 Reading: The Hotel Avocado - Bob Mortimer

Overtime: Rest in peace Brian Wilson

I loved this message from Bruce Springsteen:

“Brian Wilson was the most musically inventive voice in all of pop, with an otherworldly ear for harmony. He was also the visionary leader of America’s greatest band, the Beach Boys. If there’d been no Beach Boys, there would have been no ‘Racing In The Street.’ Listen to ‘Summer’s Gone’ from the Beach Boys’ last album That’s Why God Made the Radio and weep. Farewell, Maestro. Nothing but love and a lovely lasting debt from all of us over here on E Street.”

Senses working overtime #526

1 Fun fun fun in Denver

'Our' table.

2 Listening: Pearl Jam live albums

I've listened to a load of their live albums this week for a future Goo Goo G'Joob post. They are remarkably consistent. If you want just one to try I'd recommend New York 2003 

If you just want one song (the double albums are expansive - over 30 songs) - this version of Go from Boston 2000 is incredible.

3 Reading: Human Voices - Penelope Fitzgerald

4 Watched: Sirens on Netflix

A dark comedy - weird and crazy. Had me hooked.

5 Reading: Mojo Magazine March 2025 (#376)

Overtime: 

Musician Nick Cave on cynicism and hopefulness:

"Cynicism is not a neutral position — and although it asks almost nothing of us, it is highly infectious and unbelievably destructive. In my view, it is the most common and easy of evils. I know this because much of my early life was spent holding the world and the people in it in contempt. It was a position both seductive and indulgent...

Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like... keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time, we come to find that it is so."

(Courtesy James Clear)