Senses working overtime #252

1 Autumn

Autumn has arrived in New Zealand. Finally! 

For many of us, THIS is the best of seasons, with the change of colours, the cooler days, the rain (finally) after the Hawke's Bay many days of drought, the changing leaves in the vineyards as I pootle homewards are fun to follow, the shorter days/longer shadows combo, and yet it's not yet cold enough for fires or special heating and the extra layers of clothing are not quite yet a necessity.

I love autumn!

2 Seth's message for the week

Wasting it

When you bought your first smartphone, did you know you would spend more than 1,000 hours a year looking at it?

Months later, can you remember how you spent those hours?

When you upgraded to a new smartphone, so you could spend more hours on it, did you think about how you had spent so much of your ‘free’ time the year before?

If we wasted money the way we waste time, we’d all be bankrupt.

3 Poetry corner

Spiderweb From other angles the fibers look fragile, but not from the spider’s, always hauling coarse ropes, hitching lines to the best posts possible. It’s heavy work everyplace, fighting sag, winching up give. It isn’t ever delicate to live. Kay Ryan (2010)

4 The Immortal Jukebox

Great piece on Ry Cooder's version of I Think It's Gonna Work Out Fine (from Bop Till You Drop)

5 Brevity is great in an email

Photo by Webaroo on Unsplash

I'm winning the email war (for now - don't get cocky Wozza) thanks to this article.

Overtime: Extra Seth

The paradox of selfishness

Often, we choose to be selfish because we feel insufficiency.

“I don’t have that much, how can I possibly share it?”

The insecurity that comes from feeling like our foundation is weak or our future is uncertain can cloud our instinct to be generous. Like a drowning person, we cling ever tighter to the life buoy.

You see where this is going…

The single best way to find sufficiency and confidence and trust and forward motion is to do precisely the opposite of what our instincts might tell us.

In an economy based on connection, trust and attention, the posture of generosity is not only the highest-yielding strategy, it’s also the right thing to do.

Ideas shared go up in value. Doors opened turn into new opportunities for all.

Senses working overtime #224

1 Fathers' Day ideas part 2

2 Van the man's Tupelo Honey

One of my favourite ever songs gets the Immortal Jukebox treatment to great effect.

3 Ageing

Ageing, according to Suzanne Moore (and Ursula Le Guin, pictured above), via The Guardian.

4 Advice (Via Joseph Campbell)

Photo by Dyaa Eldin on Unsplash

A bit of advice given to a young Native American at the time of his initiation: As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. Jump. 

It is not as wide as you think.

5 James Acaster




I love his stand up routines and he's a brilliant guest on WILTY.

Overtime: Magna Carta

Speaking of seasons, here's an excerpt from Seasons (to celebrate the approach of spring!)

Senses working overtime #221

1 Happy 200th to Herman Melville

You can also celebrate Rockwell Kent's drawings here.

2 Money Honey
Ry Cooder's version is the boss. Great story about this song's evolution.

3 I should be so lucky

Interesting - How to be lucky!

4 Walking! A celebration.

I love to walk. Turns out it's healthy for me. And it makes me happier! Who knew??

5 Advice from Uncle Seth

People don’t change

(Unless they want to)
Humans are unique in their ability to willingly change. We can change our attitude, our appearance and our skillset.
But only when we want to.
The hard part, then, isn’t the changing it. It’s the wanting it.

Overtime: Moonlanding
The media has been celebrating the Apollo 11 mission recently. Quite rightly too. Here's a great Vox summary.

Senses working overtime #216

1 Vinyl 
This week's vinyl obsessives picture for your delight

2 Purpose

Photo by Michael Heuser on Unsplash

Nice indication that having a purpose in life allows you to live longer. Cool cool.

3 Earl

 Thom Hickey, the author of TIJ, in the foreground (probably)

Great Immortal Jukebox post on Earl Bostic which actually tells you more about the writer of Immortal Jukebox, Thom Hickey, than Earl, and that is super fine with me.

4 Seinfeld night!

Great look at two iconic Seinfeld episodes that eviscerate Los Angeles. 

5 The Rise Of Skywalker

Wahoo. Can't wait! JJ Adams is on board. If it has his visual panache and The Last Jedi's intellectual heft it will be the perfect end to the latest (last?) trilogy.

Overtime: Genius sign off from Warren Ellis:

Take a breath. Feel your feet on the ground. You're standing on a ball that's spinning at a thousand miles an hour. And the ball is moving through space at sixty seven thousand miles an hour. You're doing all that without even trying. Whatever the next week brings, it's not going to be too much trouble for someone moving at sixty seven thousand miles an hour while spinning around at 1000mph, is it? You can do anything. See you next week, speedy.

Senses working overtime #209

1 Baby, you're a star (Prince)
That 'you' would be music in general: I can't live without music as this selection shows.

I'm not sure if I like this new storage trend for vinyl, replicating the shopping experience. Maybe. Maybe.

2 Yesterday
I saw the shorts of this movie recently and made a mental note to catch it if I can.




3 Here today

This Netflix Joko doco travels some familiar ground (regardless of what this piece would have you believe) but it's still a must see!

4 Good work if you can get it

The world's richest musicians. Where do you think Macca featured on that list? Check your answer here.

5 Waterloo Sunset
The Kinks masterpiece goes under the Thom Hickey microscope on his great blog - The Immortal Jukebox.

Overtime: Hall and Oates

Been spending a lot of time in the Purdmobile this week (my new work car has been christened 'Sid'). Radio Wozza threw up a few Hall and Oates classics along the way and this one had me bopping and pounding the wheel like a maniac, maniac. A perfect road trip song:

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

Senses working overtime #163

1 Project Omaha

Warren Ellis teased with this image - won't tell us anything about it (what's happening? Where is it?) and I don't care - I just love the mystery attached to this great image.

2 Poetry corner

Instructions on Not Giving Up More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees that really gets to me. When all the shock of white and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath, the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin growing over whatever winter did to us, a return to the strange idea of continuous living despite the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then, I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all. Ada Limón (2017) via Eva

3 King James

I'm a Golden State Warriors fan but, sorry, how can anyone not admire LeBron James? Great story!

4 King Thom

I've mentioned it before but The Immortal Jukebox blog by Thom Hickey is a real winner! Here he is on Sandman!

5 The Truman Show re-examined

Nice piece about life and that movie and what it may mean for us in 2018.

Overtime: Sit com lighting