Senses working overtime #487

1 Spring is in the air at Maple Grove

2 Reading: Right Thing, Right Now - Ryan Holiday

3 Listening: Garden Fresh - John Hanlon

John Hanlon is one of my favourite NZ artists. This was his break through album in NZ (1974) and still sounds pretty great to me.

4 Reading: George Orwell on Charles Dickens (Selected Essays)

Still reading through this collection of essays. I'm up to this one on Charles Dickens from 1940. First sentence:

Dickens is one of those writers who are well worth stealing.

5 Listening: Austin Kleon's Playlist

Austin created and shared his playlist of songs that inspired The Beatles White Album (so named - actually it was just called The Beatles - and officially my favourite album of all time). Nice concept!

Overtime: 

"It's nice to have a little help, but we often resent when someone else tries to do it all for us. Each individual wants to make their own dreams a reality. If someone hands you the whole thing on a silver platter, they gift you the result, but rob you of the accomplishment.

Remember this not only when chasing your dreams, but also when supporting others. Help along the way, but let them run their own race. Your job is to live life with them, not live their life for them."

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 #393

1 Ten ways to calm anxious thoughts and soothe your nervous system

2 How the philosophy behind the Japanese art form of kintsugi can help us navigate failure

3 A technique to get unstuck

4 The virtue of owning books you haven't read

5 Lox

A word that has not changed in 800 years. Love this!

Overtime: Contentment 

"If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."

William Morris (via James Clear)

Senses working overtime #371

1 Collage - Austin Kleon

2 The case for fewer friends

Photo by Nicole Herrero on Unsplash

3 Why we need rituals, not routines

Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash

4 Dr Jill Biden

5 Mall walkers

Overtime: 

Sasha Aickin, former CTO at Redfin, shares some financial advice from his grandmother:

"When you buy something cheap and bad, the best you’re going to feel about it is when you buy it. When you buy something expensive and good, the worst you’re going to feel about it is when you buy it."

Senses working overtime #366

1 Twenty-five iconic book covers

2 The 103 bits of advice I wish I'd known by Kevin Kelly

Photo by Frame Harirak on Unsplash

(Courtesy of Austin Kleon)

3 Poetry corner

Islands O for God's sake they are connected underneath They look at each other across the glittering sea some keep a low profile Some are cliffs The bathers think islands are separate like them Muriel Rukeyser (1974)

4 Medieval peasants are hip!

5 The secret world beneath our feet

Overtime: Walking every street

Senses working overtime #357

1 Time for yourself is crucial

Photo by Malvestida on Unsplash

The Guardian advocates 20 minutes a day.

2 Why has Putin invaded Ukraine and what does he want?

3 Zelensky

4 What makes a great opening line?

5 Ninety per cent of your worries are optional

Overtime: You say "Yes" and you never do it.

Overtime: 

You are in the present moment. The present moment seems like a little dot. But that dot carries the human history of past present and future and all of the people and things you love.

Yoko Ono.

Senses working overtime #355

1 Obi-Wan Kenobi

2 The four Buddhist mantras for turning fear into love

3 Francis Coppola at 82

4 Why are letters shaped the way they are?

5 The comedy of survival - Austin Kleon

Overtime: Begrudgingly - Seth Godin

Social niceties are easy to do half-heartedly.

But they’re not for us, they’re for the other person.

When you show up begrudgingly, it’s not half-hearted, it’s cold hearted.

A handshake, a greeting, the way we sit in a meeting or wear a mask–it’s a chance to connect and to make a difference for the person we’re with.

All in, or not at all.

Senses working overtime #349

1 Macca and Joko

2 WTWMC Body Parts!

The Three Amigos (Kev, Greg and me) have finished our latest Spotify playlist - 45 songs with a body part in the title from 1951 to 2021, which you can enjoy (and even like) here.

3 Janet Jackson (remember her?)

4 Songs as shelters in time - Austin Kleon

5  In praise of Ginger Baker

Enjoying playing this double LP compilation LOUDLY today!

Overtime: RIP Ronnie Spector - a unique voice; RIP Michael Lang 

Senses working overtime #347

1 Top photos from 2021

Finally, these last two kind of sum things up well

2 The joy of reclaiming long lost positive words

Some of our happiest words are such because they make us smile, and often involve a bit of fun at our own expense. Who can resist such nicknames as “cacklefarts” for eggs, or “bags of mystery” for sausages (because you never quite know what’s in them)? Even the prudish Victorians knew hankies as “snottingers”, and umbrellas as “bumbershoots”.

3 Omicrom variant - 2022's hero or villain?

A woman draws on the National Covid Memorial Wall on the embankment in London.

4 Poetry corner (for new year's day 2022)

from What I Want Yes, that's what I want right now, Just that sensation Of my mind's gradual Deceleration, as if I Took my foot off the gas And the Buick rolled to a stop. Alicia Ostriker (1992)

5 RIP painter Wayne Thiebaud (pronounced T-Bow) aged 101

Overtime:  Austin Kleon's quotes.

Senses working overtime #345

1 Keanu Reeves knows the secrets of the universe

2 Unmarked Keys - Seth Godin

3 Jennifer Lawrence

4 Gratitude - Henry David Thoreau

Source - Austin Kleon's zine

5 Too much culture?

Overtime: 

The neurologist Oliver Sacks published a handful of essays before his death that were collected in Gratitude. He wrote:

I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and travelled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

Source -  Austin Kleon