Senses working overtime #338

1 The most brilliant bookshops in the world

Hastings' Little Red Bookshop doesn't make this article but there are still many amazing places featured like the one pictured in China.

2 Aubade on a ghost hunt - Traci Brimhall

We prefer to do it with the lights on, 
the Victrola scratching How long can it last?
against the tremble of curtains. Patient,
we learn the walls, their glossary of knocks,
translating harlequin and dust. What we
know lives here—lonely bone star blossom
of the spider plant, lost bee on the sill,
the recorder’s static alive and puckering.
I tell you our future is the guttering candle
in the basement birdcage. Prove it, you say,
and I set both its shadows swaying. Our history—
the attic window, how the unseen surprises
the photograph. You ask what is there
to be afraid of. I ask the past to make itself
known to me. We only have to make it through
the night, so we close the dolls’ eyes. Danger
midwifes the heart’s spring. We are cabbage roses 
grooming the parlor air with unsexed pistils. 
I have this kiss and its sleepless itinerary. 
Your lip, pink logic and cushion. The door 
tests its lock, and I let you ruin each light
orb and whisper with physics. If we’re sure
something is here, then we have to find out 
what it wants. A voice on the recorder, sweet
as gravecake—don’t go. We can admit it wasn’t
proof we came for, it was the question.

3 Music that gives you chills

Plus, they've made a Spotify playlist for you to check out. Very kind.

4  How to retrain your frazzled brain and find your focus again

5 Valarie Kaur on listening

“Deep listening is an act of surrender. We risk being changed by what we hear.

When I really want to hear another person’s story, I try to leave my preconceptions at the door and draw close to their telling. I am always partially listening to the thoughts in my own head when others are speaking, so I consciously quiet my thoughts and begin to listen with my senses.

Empathy is cognitive and emotional—to inhabit another person’s view of the world is to feel the world with them"

I'll be on the lookout for her book - See No Stranger

Overtime: Aphorisms

Great selection here, like this one 'Love is not enough, but it sure helps'.

Senses working overtime #150

1 Brain fog

Photo by Ahmet Sali on Unsplash

I have no idea why Thomas Oppong used that image for his piece on reducing brain fog, but he did. Something subtle at work I guess that escapes me right now. There's a whiff of inappropriateness to the image and that's unusual for Thomas. He always uses Unsplash free photos and they usually have something oblique to add to his piece.

So this is odd. To balance it out I offer the final image to this week's JFTT edition.

Anyway, his piece is good, so, yes, worth your time. Check it out here.

2 RIP Russ Solomon

Another week, and another hero down. Celebrate the life of Russ Solomon. Who is he? Read this.

3 Clever golden arches campaign

Here's the deal.

4 Lost in Space
Netflix look like they got the mix right, even if the promo is too long. Less is more people!!




5 Quotenik
I'm a quote fiend so I loved this repository! Love this quote of the day:

Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours.

—

Jane Kenyon

“Everything I Know About Writing Poetry,” in A Hundred White Daffodils (Saint Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 1999), 141.

Overtime
International Women's Day came and went during the week and the world spun on in its eccentric way for men and women.

Photo by Oladimeji Odunsi on Unsplash

I love this image. Strength and beauty and the enigma that is to be a women - all there! Thanks Oladimeji.

Celebrate!