Senses working overtime #462

1 Feeling this week on the daily grind

2 Watching: Brené Brown TED talk on vulnerability.

3 Listening: Bob Dylan/ The Band - Before The Flood

A great double live album. If I had to choose one track from each, I'd go for Ballad Of A Thin Man and Up On Cripple Creek.

4 Watching: Damsel

We enjoyed this 2024 release on Netflix. Some genuinely exciting sequences and a good script/acting combo (Robin Wright is great as the wicked Queen in a reverse of her Princess Bride role from all those years ago). 

Worthy of your time!

5 Listening: WTWMC True Colours

Greg, Kev and I have covered songs with pink in the title, and last week it was orange. This week - green.

Overtime: Seth Godin

Holding on for dear life

That’s a cliche from the movies. Dangling from a railroad bridge, only determination and firm grip can save the hero.

In our modern world, we often end up holding on to ideas, to grievances or to our view of the world.

Ironically, the harder we hold on to the things we’re hiding from, the less dear our life becomes.

Perhaps we could let go for dear life instead.

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 #188

1 H D T
Loads of heavy hitters in this edition of JFTT. We've got the Fabs, 'Trane, the Band, poetry corner, and kicking us off this week - Henry David Thoreau.

Let's get this arty party started!!

Austin Kleon has a nice piece in his blog about Thoreau (and I want to tell him to read Walden: Life in the Woods!). He also explains why he put stickies over the eyes.

2 The Biblio-Mat

Ingenious device and a great idea to dispense old books to a good home. Love it!

3 The Beatles by The Beatles

This album is always in my top 5 of all time (usually sits at number 2 behind John Lennon/The Plastic Ono Band). There have been reams written about the album but this was a nice podcast style interview with Giles Martin that you might like.

4 The Band's It Makes No Difference

Excellent piece from The Immortal Jukebox on The Band and that song.

5 Poetry corner

We asked the captain what course
of action he proposed to take toward
a beast so large, terrifying, and
unpredictable. He hesitated to
answer, and then said judiciously:
"I think I shall praise it."

Robert Hass (1979)

Overtime The church of John Coltrane