Senses working overtime #524

1 Frosty feeling this week:

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

2 Reading: Iron John (A Book About Men) - Robert Bly

Re-reading this about 35 years after I read it for the first time. I found a copy while shopping with Chris and Asher in Denver. It was in a secondhand tool shop of all places.

In the meantime I lost my own father (2009) and have watched my children (including two sons) grow up and out into the world. 

All along the way I've continued to teach, currently I'm in an all boys' school again, so reading Iron John again is fascinating on whole other levels. More in Wozza's Place and Baggy Trousers in due course.

3 Listening: Ozric Tentacles - Strangeitude

4 Watching: Shutter Island

Watching this as part of my Year 13 class programme. What is sane? What is insane? What is real? What is not real? What is normal? What is abnormal? Who do you trust? Who don't you trust?

5 Reading: Penelope Fitzgerald - Human Voices

Overtime: Jeanette Winterson (author)

I have noticed that doing the sensible thing is only a good idea when the decision is quite small. For the life-changing things, you must risk it.

Senses working overtime #431

1 The feeling this week

2 Listening: The Album Years 

I'm not usually a podcast guy but this one from Steven Wilson and Tim Bowness who together make up No-Man, is terrific. 

Each episode centres on a specific year and they discuss a selection of albums from that year.

I'm still reading Wilson's Limited Edition Of One - it's one of those books you don't want to finish!

3 Watching: FIFA Women's World Cup 2023

We're at the quarter final stage now. Without participation from the USA.

The seismic reverberations of that USA/ Sweden game will be felt for a long while.

Come on Sweden!! Amanda Ilestedt has been immense so far. Blackstenius and Hurtig have also made a big impact. Yes, they all play for Arsenal F.C.

4 Listening: my favourite album by The Band - Northern Lights-Southern Cross

5 R.I.P. Robbie Roberston

Overtime: Writer Jeanette Winterson on the process of life:

“We live in a society that peddles solutions, whether it’s solutions to those extra pounds you’re carrying, or to your thinning hair, or to your loss of appetite, loss of love. We are always looking for solutions, but actually what we are engaged in is a process throughout life during which you never get it right. You have to keep being open, you have to keep moving forward. You have to keep finding out who you are and how you are changing, and only that makes life tolerable.”

Senses working overtime #326

1 Tittenhurst Park

I am quietly obsessed with the Beatles' photos from John's country pile - Tittenhurst Park. New shots keep cropping up all the time.

I love this one for John's cheeky laugh.

2 The Rock in Jungle Cruise

3 The end of the office - Seth Godin

4 Steven Gardiner

5 Less - Andrew Sean Greer

Julie lent me this book and it's taken me a while to embrace it. This quote (courtesy of James Clear) helped me with that:

Writer Jeanette Winterson on the connection between art and an open mind:

"Most of us spend a lot of time censoring everything that we see and hear. Does it fit with our world picture? And if it doesn't, how can we shut it out, how can we ignore it, how can we challenge it? We are continually threatened in life, it's true. But once you are alone with a book, and it's also true with a picture or with music, all those defenses drop and you can enter into a quite different space where you will learn to think differently about yourself."

Overtime: Positive News!