Senses working overtime #319

1 Supporting England

2 The benefits of coffee

3 I'm so tired

Photo by Kate Stone Matheson on Unsplash

Sleep is important.

4 June Sunset - Sarojini Naidu

Here shall my heart find its haven of calm,
By rush-fringed rivers and rain-fed streams
That glimmer thro' meadows of lily and palm.
Here shall my soul find its true repose
Under a sunset sky of dreams
Diaphanous, amber and rose.
The air is aglow with the glint and whirl
Of swift wild wings in their homeward flight,
Sapphire, emerald, topaz, and pearl.
Afloat in the evening light.

A brown quail cries from the tamarisk bushes,
A bulbul calls from the cassia-plume,
And thro' the wet earth the gentian pushes
Her spikes of silvery bloom.
Where'er the foot of the bright shower passes
Fragrant and fresh delights unfold;
The wild fawns feed on the scented grasses,
Wild bees on the cactus-gold.

An ox-cart stumbles upon the rocks,
And a wistful music pursues the breeze
From a shepherd's pipe as he gathers his flocks
Under the pipal-trees.
And a young Banjara driving her cattle
Lifts up her voice as she glitters by
In an ancient ballad of love and battle
Set to the beat of a mystic tune,
And the faint stars gleam in the eastern sky
To herald a rising moon.

5 Two-Gun Kid

This pin-up is crazy good!

Overtime: The Water Is Wide - Dylan and Baez

Sublime. I listened to this version from The Rolling Thunder Revue tour three times on repeat each day this week!

It doesn't need any visuals - it does it all.

Senses working overtime #314

1 Hot jazz!

My love affair with vinyl continues unabated! This week I bought John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band - the new 2LP re-released set. The packaging is superb and the album still gives me tingles (and tears - the bit where he declares that he 'just believes in me, Yoko and me' - the bare honesty gets me!).

For me, it's my favourite record of all time with my favourite cover of all time, so how could I not shell out $99.95 for it even though I obviously have my original vinyl copy and two different CD copies.

2 Not worried, now that I've been vaccinated

I've now had my two doses of the vaccine and I am relieved to think that my chances of any serious covid-19 infection are extremely low. Really.

3 Photography at the centre of the art world?

4 Ballad - Diane Seuss

5 Experience: I've had the same supper for 10 years

Loved this story (and the subject).

Overtime: San Francisco's street signs.

Overtime: Marvel lettering (both of the overtimes from Laura Olin's newsletter)

Senses working overtime #282

1 Mount Tamalpais

During 2013 I went for a bike ride with Mike Rowbotham up Mount Tamalpais. I'll never forget it! Great views (SF far to the distant right), great homemade lemonade and music at the top.

2 Logical fallacies

3 Trump v Biden

The first 'debate' analysed well by The Washington Post and Vox. Why do they persist in calling these food fights 'debates'? The NZ version was no debate either. Bizarre.
4 Marvel's 616

5 Why many Netflix shows are canned after two series.

Overtime: Bill Withers 

A great piece from Rolling Stone, written while Bill was still around.

+

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's advice for living.

Senses working overtime #182

1 I love the London Underground!

The London Underground map as it was in 1909! More here.

2 MCU (that's Marvel Cinematic Universe to you)

 

3 Poetry corner

Imaginary Conversation

You tell me to live each day
as if it were my last. This is in the kitchen
where before coffee I complain
of the day ahead—that obstacle race
of minutes and hours,
grocery stores and doctors.

But why the last? I ask. Why not
live each day as if it were the first—
all raw astonishment, Eve rubbing
her eyes awake that first morning,
the sun coming up
like an ingénue in the east?

You grind the coffee
with the small roar of a mind
trying to clear itself. I set
the table, glance out the window
where dew has baptized every
living surface.

Linda Pastan (2015)


4 All those books I've bought but not read...
There's a word for that apparently - tsundoku

5 How The Beatles logo came about
Roll up, roll up, read all the news about it, oh boy!




Overtime: Lee Mack

Senses working overtime #117

1 The story behind this picture

is a click away.

2 You are a Moonchild

Great images have been released. More here from the Apollo missions.

3 Great car chases

Here's your top 10!

4 Stan the man
Stan Lee. 94. Going strong! Marvellous! Excelsior!!

5 Mad Men

One of my favourite shows of all time! Why it was both promise of better TV to come and dead end.

Extra Texture - memories are made of this
Nice piece about how our brain is made up of memories, and how similar humans are to sea slugs!

Senses working overtime #57

1 Innovation

Excellent article from the New York Times on innovation. It's a longish read but what the hell! Do yourself a favour.

2 Cool
I was never a cool kid, never hip, so this piece from a kindred spirit struck a nice chord.

3 Bad Robot
Actually this JJ Abrams company isn't in the run down but there are some great stories in this list of TV Production company names.

4 Stanley is 90 and an inspiration
Great story from the New York Times about Stanley Turkel, how he spends his Sundays and living well.

5 DC vs Marvel

I am a fan of some DC comics - okay, pretty much only Sgt Rock. Batman and Superman don't do it for like Marvel comic characters like Sgt Fury, The Fantastic Four, Thor, Spiderman, and The Silver Surfer.

This article goes some way to explain why DC lags behind.

Overtime: Commander Cody
My favourite song of the week. It's so good here's three versions:

 

Senses working overtime #40

My last weekend round up from London town before heading back down under. Jacky and I have had an amazing holiday in England and Wales. But all good things...end in a senses working overtime list.

So - 'ere me go 'ere we go 'ere we go...

1 Comics

While here I bought some comics. Yes I did. Fantastic Four, Star Wars and Thor. I bookmarked this article a while ago - helps me justifying my ongoing love affair with comic books.

2 De-vices
Everywhere I go I walk into people who are busy on their devices. What the hell are they always looking at??? Don't they know what all these devices are doing to them?

3 REALLY Old stuff
I have probably posted on this before but what the hell. I love this story of the Mexican church that emerged after being buried by water, or something. Read it again!

4 Roger Dean

I love prog rock and I love Roger Dean's amazing covers. Most of my purchases while here have been prog orientated - Riverside, Lunatic Soul, Steven Wilson and so on. Love prog!

5 James Bond

We saw Spectre while we 'ere innit. I really liked it! Good Bondage fun. This interactive map is also fun and I also may have posted on it before but who cares. It's great fun!

Overtime: some photos for y'all to enjoy! Love Bill Murray!!

Senses working overtime #4

1 It's been another Murakami week: currently I'm in Book 3 of Murakami's 1Q84. Here's a great passage describing a peripheral character Ushikawa

The man's grey suit had countless tiny wrinkles, which made it look like an expanse of earth that had been ground down by a glacier. One flap of his white dress shirt's collar was sticking out, and the knot of his tie was contorted, as if it had twisted itself from the sheer discomfort of having to exist in that place. The suit, the shirt, and the tie were all slightly wrong in size. The pattern on his tie might have been an inept art student's impressionistic rendering of a bowl of tangled, soggy noodles. Each piece of clothing looked like something he had bought at a discount store to fill an immediate need...It was not just that he had terrible style: he also gave the impression that he was deliberately desecrating the very idea of wearing clothes.

2 This is cool - Ed Sheeran is maybe...maybe the nicest guy in the world and he has created this video for Photograph. Tracing his evolution from his baby pictures to now is a great idea. I couldn't help think how much they reminded me of our kids videos. Nice one Ed!



3 Best read of the week outside of the wonderful 1Q84 has been an article I found on Medium about the latest Avengers movie from the Marvel comics people. I especially liked the discussion of story arcs and any article that references Joseph Campbell has got me salivating.

4/5 Been dipping into Spotify a lot this week but the Purdsmobile has also been rocking to Queen. The first two albums in particular have some wonderful prog exploration going on. Given they were finding their way there is a lot of wonderful stuff on those albums that never emerged from that point on. 

So here are two tracks - one from each album.





Overtime: Can't go past Blues Boy King this week. Let's celebrate a wonderful life with some of that sweet B.B. tone:

Senses working overtime #2

1 Read this for a refreshing look at the impact of connecting with the world via the interwebs various social media outlets https://medium.com/message/nobody-famous-37790cb4d014?sectionName=suggested

"Once we realize that, a few unusual accidents aside, our social networks have the same foibles and biases as the rest of our culture, that leaves a basic question: Is there any value to any of this?
Yes. First, there is the privilege of getting to connect to an extraordinarily large group of people, and get a small window into their thoughts and desires. Hearing an unfiltered stream of people shouting their wishes into the vast expanses of the Internet has permanently made me more aware of the humanity of the strangers who tweet at me every day."

2 Sound At the moment we have Rialto channel on a special deal and I'm enjoying watching Jools Holland's Later again. Series 44! Heard this by Agnes Obell and loved it!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNsacakNkJ4




3 Sight We live in the Marvel universe. Okay - well I do anyway! My comic obsession started with a preteen attachment to The Fantastic Four, Thor, Spiderman, Sgt Fury and Tarzan. It still has its hooks in me.

All of which makes me a sucker for this mash up. Love it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXyGOecaaWg&list=PL8BDEC7368DD28E02

4 Read this - More from Murakami as he's building a picture of his character Aomame:

She had few possessions. She enjoyed reading books, but as soon as she was through with them, she would sell them to a used bookstore. She enjoyed listening to music, but was not a collector of records. She hated to see her belongings pile up. She felt guilty whenever she bought something. I don't really need this, she would tell herself... 

what did it mean for a person to be free? she would often ask herself. Even if you managed to escape from one cage, weren't you just in another, larger one?

Sensing a theme?

5 Smell You're right - I haven't had an entry on this sense yet...but I love the smell of teen spirit and the whiff of right-here-right-now that comes from Ed Sheeran. Here he is in wondrous mode on Don't with another of my favs - John Mayer.




Overtime - For those with a mature attention span - I love Macca in this interview setting. Not your normal journalist questions and the old stories take on different twists.