Senses working overtime #494

1 Maple Grove: The roses are in bloom

2 Listening: WTWMC - Beasties

It's a cracker! 90 songs on the playlist, 15 to go next week.

3 Reading: Kaliane Bradley's The Ministry of Time

Thanks to Julie for the loan!

4 Watching: The Resident

A medical drama on Netflix - it's another one where I look away during the lurid operation scenes, but Jacky loves it.

5 Listening: Isis - Panopticon

Overtime:  Seymour Chwast

Graphic designer and illustrator Seymour Chwast reminds us that working harder may not be the answer:

"If you dig a hole and it's in the wrong place, digging it deeper isn't going to help."

(Courtesy James Clear)

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 overtime #479

1 New listing: Maple Grove

Yes, we have decided to sell Maple Grove, so we have listed it with Property Brokers (Waipukarau). Tough decision but we are looking for a fresh start in another location.

2 Listening: WTWMC - True Colours

The amigos have just completed White, Blue is happening next week.

3 Listening: Strawbs - Hero And Heroine (1974)

I found a secondhand copy of this at My Music Taupo. It's brilliant! More info about it here.

4 Watching: UEFA Euros 2024

Two semi-finals and two amazing, cracking, breathtaking goals. One by Lamine Yamal and one by Ollie Watkins.

Final is Monday morning NZ time. Come on England!

5 Reading: The best movie soundtracks of all time!

Overtime: Projects and the long haul - Seth Godin

Rome was built in a day.

It wasn’t finished in a day. In fact, it’s still not finished.

But the day someone said, “this is Rome,” and announced the project, it was there.

Sometimes we get hung up on the beginning, unwilling to start Rome unless we’re sure we can finish it without incident.

Sometimes we get hung up on the finishing, starting things all the time but blinking in the face of Resistance and wandering away. The long haul is simply your list of completed projects. A career is not a series of tasks. It’s the chance to build things.

Senses working overtime 474

1 Autumn sunset at Maple Grove

The view from my music room.

2 Reading: The Lyrics - Paul McCartney

Closest thing we are likely to get to an autobiography, it says on the cover, and I actually believe it.

3 Watching: Unfrosted (on Netflix)

Jerry Seinfeld is a comic genius. He can do no wrong in my eyes. This is a beauty! Lovingly put together - the art direction, script, acting, cinematography are all class. It zips by too. Who doesn't love Jerry??

4 Reading: The Ultimate Music Guide to Paul McCartney

I picked this up a while ago from a weird novelty store in Wellington which had masses of old back copies of music magazines. Great companion to The Lyrics.

5 Listening: Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel

Talk about classy - Peter Gabriel oozes classiness. Great cover and Here Comes The Flood (especially) has been on heavy rotate.

Overtime: 

Something will happen. 

(Paul remembers one of The Beatles saying this after their van ran off the road and they wondered how they were going to get back up onto the road)

Senses working overtime 473

1 Autumn at Maple Grove

Jerry and Gracie, Maple Grove, June first, 2024.

2 Reading: Patti Smith - Devotion

3 Reading: Paulo Coelho - Maktub

Loving this book. 

This resonated this week: Everything always turns out well in the end. If things aren't going well, that's because you haven't yet reached the end.

4 Listening: Donovan - The Hurdy Gurdy Man

From 1968 and tinged with Rishikesh and Fabs dust. Jennifer Juniper sums up that heady mix well.

5 Watching: Bodkin

Overtime: Seth Godin

The third impossibility

The first was radio and television. Humans around the world spending a significant portion of their waking hours consuming audio and video recordings of other people.

The second was the internet. Five to ten hours a day interacting, in real time, with other people, many of them strangers.

And the third is AI. We’re about to spend almost all of our time interacting with software that appears to have an understanding of us and the world around us. All the time, in real time.

Senses working overtime #471

1 Smelling: The great outdoors at Maple Grove...

...as I harrowed the paddocks and collected firewood from the woodshed.

2 Reading: The Road To Woodstock - Michael Lang

3 Listening: Captured Angel - Dan Fogelberg

If you want just one song try Aspen/ These Days.

4 Watching: Monk 

We're still enjoying this series - up to the end of Season 2 now.

5 Tasting: Ross' cheesecake explosion

My brother and his family are on an American adventure, including a visit to The Cheesecake Factory in Atlanta.

Overtime: 

The more a man finds his sources of pleasure in himself — the happier he will be. Therefore, it is with great truth that Aristotle says, 'To be happy means to be self-sufficient'.

Schopenhauer in his essay, The Wisdom of Life.

Senses working overtime #329

This week I've been outside our property once (Friday afternoon for a 30 minute walk to buy some groceries at the local 4 Square) so my senses have been stimulated by rural things or else by things happening in my music lounge where I've set up an office, or elsewhere inside Maple Grove

With that in mind - here are this week's jewels:

1 Frosty mornings from a window 

 

Most days this week started with a lovely frost and then were followed by days full of brilliant sunshine. Spectacular late winter scenes ensued!

2 Equaliser 2

Post Olympics' TV has been pretty barren of thrills and spills. Stallone's Rambo Last Blood was unrelenting graphic violence and pretty yucky. But Denzil's second go around as The Equaliser was on the money - stylish, violent yes - but not OTT, with interesting characters and storylines. Worth our time!

3 Iron Butterfly

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida was the standout song on my songtrack this week - just the right amount of heavy/spaced out dumbness required for Lockdown. The live version on the pictured album is particularly spaced out. Jacinda would like it!

4 How Do You Live?

Finished this one and moved on to finishing off Mark Manson's counterintuitive approach to living a good life and my copy of The Arabian Nights.

5 Sunset - Effie Lee Newsome 

Since Poets have told of sunset,  What is left for me to tell? I can only say that I saw the day Press crimson lips to the horizon gray,  And kiss the earth farewell.

Overtime:  RIP Don and Charlie

Not a great week for rock fans. First Don Everly and then Charlie Watts left Planet Earth behind.

First album I reached for was Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out. Not only is Charlie the cover model but Mick's classic throwaway line is on it - Charlie's good tonight, inne!