Senses working overtime #525

1 The feeling this week

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

Jacky was unwell and even needed some brief hospitalisation, so this was a testing week. Everything took on a slightly surreal tinge.

2 Reading: Iron John - Robert Bly

Iron John is caged

I took Iron John with me to Palmerston North hospital and it was pretty fitting. Sitting in a sort of daze reading the Iron John fairytale and Robert Bly's reading of the story was somehow spot on for the circumstances.

3 Listening: Van Dyke Parks - Discover America

4 Watching: A Man On The Inside (Netflix)

I needed something gentle and undemanding to watch this week. Jacky didn't like it, but I found it soothing.

5 Listening: Pearl Jam - Vs

I also needed something loud and anthemic. I love this album!

Overtime: 

If you're not sure where you're going, you'll probably end up somewhere else.

Peter Laurence

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 #342

1 RIP Robert Bly

My favourite poet of the 20th Century has died aged 94. I fell in love with his deep image poetry while studying at Auckland University under the tutelage of Wystan Curnow and Roger Horrocks. 

His legacy is immense.

2 Twenty bad movies, that are actually good (apparently)

3 Poetry corner

In the Discount Lot

Angela C. Trudell Vasquez

Outside the grocery store laden with the sweat of tanned field workers we stand          little girls in winter coats our hands hold signs leaflets our dark long hair waist length one straight, one curly we say to the people who walk up to the glass door don’t buy the lettuce here— they aren’t good to their workers I don’t recall anyone said anything back or who stood with us I remember my sister next to me,      us in our Sunday velvet best she     beret and red plaid jacket me     white rabbit skin muff little brown girls with picket signs rosy cheeks, big black eyes legions of ghosts above              behind angels wing over us ancestor feathers beat in the invisible breeze each time someone enters or exits the building— with a bag full of groceries oranges and eggs celery and grapes.

4 Return of Seth's wisdom

Pushing, pulling and leading

Tug boats don’t usually tug. They push.

That’s because pushing is more mechanically efficient than pulling. When we pull, there’s tension and slack in the ropes, and the attachment between the puller and the pushed keeps changing.

But the metaphor gets far more interesting when we think about leading instead.

One bird at the head of the flock can lead 100 others if they’re enrolled in the journey. That bird would never be able to pull (or push) even one bird, never mind all of them.

5 George Harrison on the true experience

Overtime: Perfecting the New York Street

Senses working overtime #220

1 Horses, horses

Cutest baby photo of the week belongs to young Asher Purdy-Hodge!

2 The 1967 All Blacks

Been reading this during the first week back at school. I'm not really into rugby books but this one was cheap ($8) and I was ten when the team in question was in the news. Yes, I remember the players.

The book is okay but typos and a lack of piercing analysis meant I was as engrossed as I'd hoped.

This review sums things up well.

3 Doc Martin

It's a very old fashioned show in many respects, but Jacky and I have been enjoying it. We're up to season 3 on Netflix.

4 Poetry Corner

Driving toward the Lac Qui Parle River

BY ROBERT BLY

I 

I am driving; it is dusk; Minnesota.

The stubble field catches the last growth of sun.   

The soybeans are breathing on all sides.

Old men are sitting before their houses on car seats   

In the small towns. I am happy,

The moon rising above the turkey sheds.

    II 

The small world of the car

Plunges through the deep fields of the night,   

On the road from Willmar to Milan.   

This solitude covered with iron

Moves through the fields of night

Penetrated by the noise of crickets.

    III 

Nearly to Milan, suddenly a small bridge,

And water kneeling in the moonlight.

In small towns the houses are built right on the ground;   

The lamplight falls on all fours on the grass.

When I reach the river, the full moon covers it.   

A few people are talking, low, in a boat

Robert Bly, “Driving toward the Lac Qui Parle River” from Silence in the Snowy Fields (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1962). Copyright © 1962 by Robert Bly.  

5 Lost and Gone Away - Lynn Jenner

Enjoying this one from NZ writer Lynn Jenner.


Overtime: Red House
Love this version by the G3 amigos - Johnson/Satriani/Vai