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 #410

1 Alone Season 9

We've started Season 9 of this gritty visceral show this week.

2 Birnam Wood update

I haven't had too much time to get into the book this week - loads happening - like Graduation Day, but you can read my first impressions here.

3 Lindsey Buckingham

I've had this one on repeat all week.

4 Friedrich Nietzsche on how art can help you grow as a person

5 The Wisdom of Søren Kierkegaard: Life Lessons And Principles From His Greatest Work

Overtime: A question worth asking:

‘Is this dead time or alive time?’ I like to carry this stoic question with me through my day. It breaks me out of the unhealthy mindset of choosing between busyness and boredom, and helps me think about whether I’m actually spending my time well. 

Thomas Oppong

Senses working overtime #409

1 Alone

We've started season 8 this week. I'm recommending this show to workmates - such a great exploration of people's primal needs.

2 Books

Just finishing The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood) and starting Birnam Wood this week. I'd never read the Atwood book - probably more famous now as a TV series - which I haven't seen either. Birnam Wood looked interesting, and its procurement is explained here.

3 Albums

This week's album clubs threw up Bonnie Raitt's - Slipstream and Silver Mt. Zion's He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts Of Light Sometimes Grace The Corner Of Our Rooms, for my listening pleasure. Eclectic is the word.

4 FOBO

5 The decoy effect

Overtime: The persistence of rivers

Farmer and writer, Wendell Berry, on the persistence of rivers:

"To a river, as to any natural force, an obstruction is merely an opportunity. For the river's nature is to flow; it is not just spatial in dimension, but temporal as well. All things must yield to the impulse of the water in time, if not today then tomorrow or in a thousand years. If its way is obstructed then it goes around the obstruction or under it or over it and, flowing past it, wears it away. Men may dam it and say that they have made a lake, but it will still be a river. It will keep its nature and bide its time, like a caged wild animal alert for the slightest opening. In time it will have its way; the dam like the ancient cliffs will be carried away piecemeal in the currents."

Senses working overtime #408

1 How Two Jewish Kids in 1930s Cleveland Altered the Course of American Pop Culture

2 Some ways towards excellence but with less angst

3 R.I.P. Wayne Shorter

4 R.I.P. Tom Verlaine

5 National Geographic's photo of the year

Overtime: Alone

We were clued into this by Samantha when we visited at Christmas. It's now on TV One On Demand starting at Season 7 (the one she was watching). Well worth your time!