Senses working overtime #192

1 Slice of heaven

A celebration of my favourite format runs through my sensual highlights this week.

First up - love this image that came my Pinterest way. Mmm - smell that fresh vinyl!

2 But first, the bad news
Here's more proof that 2018 was a crap year for the high street

Amid the dire news about HMV, I'm hoping the flagship Oxford Street store hangs in there a bit longer.

Even so, it doesn't look good for the old girl. Still - maybe there's a bright side?

3 Record Collector

The latest edition had a story about albums being 70 years old in 2018. I enjoyed the piece which names 70 crucially influential albums (one per year with runners up) but noticed my interest levels dropped significantly from the 1980s onwards. 

4 Silver Lining

Isn't that a beautiful sight!

Back to the future/ back to vinyl: from places like Chaldon Books and Records and Flashback Records - there are still plenty of vinyl stockists out there. 

5 Even Sainsburys 

Yes - you know it's a movement when supermarkets like Sainsburys stock vinyl. 

Overtime In the wee small hours (1955)

Found a copy of this (one of the 70 listed in that Record Collector atricle) in a local charity shop yesterday. First part of a 10 inch brace of releases before the album came out. Probably worth a bit more than the 5 quid I paid for it.

According to wikipedia: In the Wee Small Hours was issued as two 10-inch LP discs, and also as one 12-inch record LP, making it one of the first of its kind in the pop field. It was also issued as four four–song 45-rpm EP discs sold in cardboard sleeves with the same cover as the LPs, not in paper covers like 45-rpm singles.

It's in good condition given it's a couple of years older than me - cover's a bit worn but plays well. Like me.

Senses working overtime #191

1 Merry Christmas everybody
The last set of jewels before the big day. Have a great festive season. See you on the other side!

2 This Is My Song

This peek into a recording studio and real people recording amazing stuff (like grandad/grandson duo pictured) was on the BBC this week and got me all misty eyed. Catch the next episode!

3 Springsteen on Broadway

I was watching this on Netfix while the Light Of my Life was having a bath. When she came out, she joined me and amazingly, for 2 plus hours, we were both glued to the performance (she's not really a music fan so there is no greater testimony to Bruce's electric delivery of his life story than that).

4 Roger Daltrey

Roger is hilarious! He manages to explain his upbringing succinctly, while remaining brilliantly funny. His humorous and recurring mentions of Pete's nose (as an example) are brimming with a honest love for the man - a trick that is tough to pull off.


5 Second best Christmas song of all time!



Overtime Christmas, baby please come home! 
The best Christmas song of all time!! Darlene Love!!!

Senses working overtime #190

1 Another work-heavy week

That means the interweb piles up unread and unacknowledged. Instead a steady diet of Brexit catastrophe on the BBC nightly news has been the order of the day.

2 Pointless

This precedes the BBC 6 o'clock and we've become addicted. Zander and Richard are a great comedy duo!

3 The Tattooist of Auschwitz

by Heather Morris has been my current book. Truthfully, I haven't had much of an opportunity for sustained reading so I've dipped into it over the week. Hopefully I'll be able to get into it more next week. Given it's the last week of the term that's unlikely but I live in hope.

4 Alan Parsons Project

I picked up a couple of APP records from Chaldon Books and Records a few weeks ago and these have been steady support this week. Specifically Pyramid and Tales of Mystery and Imagination.

5 Sexist advertising to be banned!

The Guardian ran this news item during the week about sexual stereotypes used to sell products, with some vintage ads that made me wonder what kind of world I'm living in these days. 

Overtime Endgames
There are a couple of Marvel products to look forward to: Captain Marvel and the latest of The Avengers mega movies.

Senses working overtime #189

1 Jerrrrrreeeeeeeey
Missing Jerry. Although he's not giving us too much thought I suspect.

2 How to emotionally detach from criticism

It's not always peaches and cream in Wozza's world. I needed an article like this one this week. Feel better having read it too.

3 Poetry corner

I sincerely hope
you have not
come to believe,
that simply because
you ran off & got
married behind
my back, you
are somehow
entitled to keep

my tape measure

Leonard Cohen (2002)

4 Smooooth
Wanna try and fall back in love with 90's smooth jazz?




5 Edwards Audio

I'm in love with my new turntable!!

Overtime Train 
This came on a compilation CD in the Purdmobile and I hit repeat. Been singing it all week!

Senses working overtime #188

1 H D T
Loads of heavy hitters in this edition of JFTT. We've got the Fabs, 'Trane, the Band, poetry corner, and kicking us off this week - Henry David Thoreau.

Let's get this arty party started!!

Austin Kleon has a nice piece in his blog about Thoreau (and I want to tell him to read Walden: Life in the Woods!). He also explains why he put stickies over the eyes.

2 The Biblio-Mat

Ingenious device and a great idea to dispense old books to a good home. Love it!

3 The Beatles by The Beatles

This album is always in my top 5 of all time (usually sits at number 2 behind John Lennon/The Plastic Ono Band). There have been reams written about the album but this was a nice podcast style interview with Giles Martin that you might like.

4 The Band's It Makes No Difference

Excellent piece from The Immortal Jukebox on The Band and that song.

5 Poetry corner

We asked the captain what course
of action he proposed to take toward
a beast so large, terrifying, and
unpredictable. He hesitated to
answer, and then said judiciously:
"I think I shall praise it."

Robert Hass (1979)

Overtime The church of John Coltrane

Senses working overtime #187

1 William Goldman - Titan.

My wife and I were travelling on a train in to London last Saturday. I buy the Guardian and read it during the journey. I turned a page and gasped.

William Goldman had passed away.

I've written one fan letter in my life so far and it was to William Goldman after I read his close to autobiographical novel The Color Of Light.

I have read everything I could get my hands on over the years. Watched and collected his movies.  Worshiped his style.

He's a genius. A titan.

2 Forever Young - Bob Dylan

“Forever Young, I wrote in Tucson, … I wrote it thinking about one of my boys and not wanting to be too sentimental. The lines came to me, they were done in a minute. I don’t know. Sometimes that’s what you’re given. You’re given something like that. You don’t know what it is exactly that you want but this is what comes. That’s how that song came out. I certainly didn’t intend to write it – I was going for something else, the song wrote itself – naw, you never know what you’re going to write. You never even know if you’re going to make another record, really.”

3 Blue Note covers. Yeah man.


4 Keepy Uppy - venue for footie activity criticised!

Hilarious!! Sounds a lot like school, doesn't it! The chamber for the House of Commons looks like a good spot to me.

5 Personalised Netflix thumbnails.



Overtime Yeah!!
After a crunchy week at work I needed to read this before heading into the weekend - which is why I'm dispatching this bulletin early - before Friday goes to bed, Shock. Horror.

Now read this and then have a great weekend!!

“Be yourself, everyone else is taken”

I don’t agree with Oscar Wilde on this one.

In fact, almost no one else is taken. You definitely can’t (and shouldn’t) be someone who already exists, but the number of slots left is infinite.

Each of us can work to become the person we seek to be. A better version of the person we are right now.

Doing work we’re proud of for people we care about.

Senses working overtime #186

1 A sombre week

Just when you thought the odious Donald Trump couldn't plumb any new depths of insensitivity, he did.

2 The horror, the horror




3 Michelle Obama

The Guardian featured some extracts from her autobiography recently. They were as impressive as she is. Class. All class. And yet - down to earth!

4 Seth is wise Part 1,467

One by one, the urgent goes away

Those emergencies from a year ago (and a month ago), they’re gone.

Either they were solved, or they became things to live with. But emergencies don’t last. They fade.

Knowing that, knowing that you will outlast them, every single one of them, does it make it easier to see the problem, not the panic?

5 Poetry corner - a modern ode to autumn

November

Show's over, folks. And didn't October do
A bang-up job? Crisp breezes, full-throated cries
Of migrating geese, low-floating coral moon.

Nothing left but fool's gold in the trees.
Did I love it enough, the full-throttle foliage,
While it lasted? Was I dazzled? The bees

Have up and quit their last-ditch flights of forage
And gone to shiver in their winter clusters.
Field mice hit the barns, big squirrels gorge

On busted chestnuts. A sky like hardened plaster
Hovers. The pasty river, its next of kin,
Coughs up reed grass fat as feather dusters.

Even the swarms of kids have given in
To winter's big excuse, boxed-in allure:
TVs ricochet light behind pulled curtains.

The days throw up a closed sign around four.
The hapless customer who'd wanted something
Arrives to find lights out, a bolted door.

Maggie Dietz (2016)
via Megan

Overtime: Bless you Stan Lee

Without him, no Fantastic Four. No Thor. No Spidey. No fun. No youth. Thank you Mr Lee. Rest in peace. Excelsior!

Senses working overtime #185

1 London Bridge station

Our train from Caterham's final destination. Great twitter account

2 Poetry Corner

from Triangles of Power Got a slice burned the roof of my mouth. Knew I would it was delicious. Eileen Myles (1991)

3 Life hacks - eating a burger the right way

I flip my burger depending on its quality - find out about why and more life hacks here.

4 White House releases doctored video
Shameful behaviour that shouldn't be allowed to stand. The video analysis here makes me feel sick.

5 Advice from Haruki Murakami
Great advice from a novelist I have a lot of time for.

Overtime - with Trump and Brexit dominating headlines - this is still as relevant as it was back in 1971.

Senses working overtime #184

1 Getting Stuff Done (GSD)

Photo by Jeff Sheldon on Unsplash

This has been a week of GSD - now it's the weekend and time to reflect on what that really means.

2 GSD - the flipside

“You just have to determine to settle for nothing less than being fully alive, to show up, be who you are, and share your gifts.” ~Gabrielle Roth

Loved this piece - things don't happen unless you take action!

3 The Bodyguard
My wife and I missed this when it played on BBC1 on Sunday nights recently, but we've caught up with the rest of the country via  the BBC's iplayer. 

4 New targets
I like this idea, highlighted by Austin Kleon

5 Where Eagles Dare
Finished Geoff Dyer's book after watching the film again.

Overtime:  Another sword, another lake

Loved this Guardian story - the little girl who pulled a sword from a lake.

Senses working overtime #183

Half term happy holidays!

Yes - the October half term saw us in France (Paris), Wales (Tintern Abbey and the Brecon Beacons National Park), as well as our home in Caterham.

It's been a sensual assault on all sides. Tough to pick five (and a bonus) but here we go...

1 La Guerre des étoiles

The LOML was keen to find a print like the one she found a few years ago (an equine school etching) from a place beside the Seine. No luck, but I found this Star Wars poster.

It;s hilarious!! Check out Luke (with a six pack) and a chesty Princess Leia!! Those flirty French!!

2 And it stoned me to my soul

After the Euro trash assault on the senses (Av. des Champs-Élysées is not for the faint hearted), I needed something altogether grounded - so we headed to Wales.

Tintern Abbey did the trick, and some.

3 Caves at Dan-Yr-Ogof

Admittedly, the  halloween inspired trappings in the caves were ott, but it was still fun and the scenery was spectacular.

4  Waterfall in Wales (before dinner)

5 Paris Disneyland

Senses assaulted left and right in France earlier this week: smells - too many smokers and vapers; sights and sounds of the big halloween parade; body spam; taste - American hotdog!

Overtime - NoSound (sol29)
The beautiful music from NoSound soundtracked our journey around the Brecon Beacons. Perfect fit!

Senses working overtime #182

1 I love the London Underground!

The London Underground map as it was in 1909! More here.

2 MCU (that's Marvel Cinematic Universe to you)

 

3 Poetry corner

Imaginary Conversation

You tell me to live each day
as if it were my last. This is in the kitchen
where before coffee I complain
of the day ahead—that obstacle race
of minutes and hours,
grocery stores and doctors.

But why the last? I ask. Why not
live each day as if it were the first—
all raw astonishment, Eve rubbing
her eyes awake that first morning,
the sun coming up
like an ingénue in the east?

You grind the coffee
with the small roar of a mind
trying to clear itself. I set
the table, glance out the window
where dew has baptized every
living surface.

Linda Pastan (2015)


4 All those books I've bought but not read...
There's a word for that apparently - tsundoku

5 How The Beatles logo came about
Roll up, roll up, read all the news about it, oh boy!




Overtime: Lee Mack