Senses working overtime #460

1 Feeling this week

Yes, it's...

2 Listening: Hackney Diamonds - The Rolling Stones

Been on repeat of late. Jaw droppingly good. It's not representative, but if you want one track - Rolling Stones Blues.

3 Reading: Ladder Of Years - Anne Tyler

Really loving this novel. The fantasy of walking away from your present life and starting again as a slightly different version of yourself is a potent one. 

4 Listening: War - All Day Music

I bought a couple of albums by War during the week. Played this one each night - got me back in the groove after a hectic day at school.

5 Reading (didn't watch anything interesting this week): Jimmy Carter, America's longest living president, is marking 1 year in hospice care

I am a fan of the man. He's 99 and a true legend, forget about the politics, and admire his character.

Overtime: 

"It is not too late to do what you want to do—if you stop waiting for the time to be right."

James Clear

Senses working overtime #256

Coming to you from Sunday!

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

The lock-down has meant that every day feels like the Sundays I experienced growing up in the sixties and seventies in Nu Zild: no shops open, no mobility outside of the local area I lived in (only so far I could go on my Raleigh bike), no mail, no sport. 

All I had was: local exploration, reading, and listening to music!! 

Hey - exactly what I am doing now in lock-down!

1 Groundhog Day

This great movie is relevant, again, and again.

2 Kenny Rogers

One of my first albums back in the early seventies was Kenny Rogers and The First Edition's Greatest Hits. I remember looking at it for a while in the shop and saving up for it, slowly. When I finally bought it, costing me $5.75 of hard earned pocket money, I played it a lot. 

This interview was suggested by Austin Kleon and it's a great view of KR.

Rest in Peace Kenny. 

3 The semiotics of face-masks

Seth Godin sums it up for us!

4 Stages of grief and the world as it is - Austin Kleon

“We’re feeling a number of different griefs. We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realize things will be different…. Understanding the stages of grief is a start. But whenever I talk about the stages of grief, I have to remind people that the stages aren’t linear and may not happen in this order. It’s not a map but it provides some scaffolding for this unknown world. There’s denial, which we say a lot of early on: This virus won’t affect us. There’s anger: You’re making me stay home and taking away my activities. There’s bargaining: Okay, if I social distance for two weeks everything will be better, right? There’s sadness: I don’t know when this will end. And finally there’s acceptance. This is happening; I have to figure out how to proceed. Acceptance, as you might imagine, is where the power lies.”

5 Tips on living with yourself from an expert with 50 years experience  

Billy Barr lives in Gothic, Colo., a silver mining town
 that was abandoned more than 100 years ago.

This is a good list of 5 tips from Billy Barr, a guy who knows what he's talking about!

Overtime: This week's sign off from Warren Ellis:

Go sit by a window, or stand by your front door, for five minutes.  Take in some light and some air and just be there for five minutes.  Be at peace, take some slow breaths, and relax, just for five minutes. Little steps.  Day by day. You know how to do this. Look after yourself first. Hold on tight.  See you next week.

Senses working overtime #197

1 Oh January - boy did you suck!!

Good riddance. And I'm not the only one out there feeling like that. So here's to February! Thanks to Austin Kleon.

2 Groundhog Day
Hail to you Bill! Yes, it's rolled around again. celebrate with the movie.

3 Woody

I ordered a book online recently. It arrived. And along with it was a free copy of Woody Woodmansey's autobiography - Spider From Mars. It's not that great. I never would have read it but, hey - it's a free book! 

Half way through and it's okay - the usual and averagely written at that. No fault of Woody - he's a drummer. It's mostly about Bowie obviously. More particularly - a band member's take on Bowie and that has limited appeal to me. But, hey, it's a free book! It's a harmless drudge.

4 On yer bike!

I've been very disappointed by the decision not to back the Mayor London's plans to pedestrianise Oxford Street. Oslo hasn't looked back and the fact it hasn't happened in London is a profoundly short sighted decision.

5 Rejection
James Whatley recommended this Ted Talk on dealing with rejection - good enough for me! Spend a great 15 minutes!

Overtime Airport!!

Another JW link (chur bro): the new airport in Beijing in a photo essay. Yes, that's a person on the roof in the middle of that picture. As Bill Murray would say: Raz-zil Daz-zil.

Senses working overtime #145

1 Street art from Argentina

More here.

2 Happy happy joy joy

Everything you wanted to know about happiness in one great graphic. Here's a mere snippet:

3 French illustrations

More oh la la...here and here

4 Hogarth self portrait
Excellent bit on a man and his dog - in this case satirist William Hogarth and his pooch.

5 Your train is delayed. Why? 
This is great - a doco that The Lunch Room suggested (The Lunch Room is also a nifty newsletter you should check out).

Overtime

In Groundhog Day, Phil Connors asks his bowling buddy,“What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?”

And his buddy, who’s a little drunk, looks at him and says, “That about sums it up for me.”

Great piece on one of my favourite movies by Austin Kleon.

Senses working overtime #104

1 The Tao of Groundhog Day
Great piece from The New Yorker on one of my favourite movies - made into a stage show. 
 

Andy Karl in the Bill Murray role - on stage!

2 Floating in space
A cool portrait of Italian astronaut Maurizio Cheli’s life in zero gravity.

3 Questions 67 and 68
Thomas Oppong writes thoughtfully on asking questions. Ask - Why shouldn't I read it?

4 Sit-com heaven

Clearly, some people have too much time on their hands. This exhaustive run down on New York sit-com apartments is fun and it includes Seinfeld's one bedroom apartment, so, like, yeah...

5 Reading books you hate
Interesting. I'll maybe give this a go - picking a book that is the opposite of my (ahem) taste. The article hasn't convinced me entirely but I have set myself a challenge of 50 books in 52 weeks so I can afford to do this once.

Now...what exactly is the bizarro world opposite of books I normally read?

Overtime
Stephen King on the rise of Trump. Great great piece. best thing I read all week!

Senses working overtime #99

1 It's Groundhog Day...again

Wahoo - one of our favourite films of all time has been made into a musical!

2 Thor Part 3

Not sure about this new look Thor with short hair. I'm not a fan of the films but I LOVED the comics when I was growing up.

3 King Kong reboot

Here we go again. Interesting reading - the new version of Kong and the on-going appeal for this beast of a story (laugh it up Fuzzball).

4 Honeybees go 'whoop whoop'

Fascinating stuff! Apparently bees make that sound when they bump into each other. This article explores what they are communicating.

5 Planet Earth 2

In keeping with the animal kingdom theme for a lot of this edition - here's how the genius BBC team filmed that thrilling iguana chase on Snake Island.

Overtime

MTM - This one is for my dad who loved Mary Tyler Moore! Here she is in five performances that sum up her talent.