Senses working overtime #168

1 Perceptive essay on Star Wars anyone?

This one is worth reading (thanks James for the heads up)

2 Romelu Lukaku

Excellent autobiographical piece by the Belgium striker.

3 Goodbye CDs and downloads, welcome back - vinyl!

I have a lot of CDs, but I have even more records! I'm not sad about the prospect of buying less CDs and more vinyl!

4 Open offices? Hmmmm...

Interesting article.

5 Margalit Fox
Terrific piece on her retirement as an obit. writer.

Overtime - Candelas (thanks to Eleri)

Senses working overtime #167

1 Be still my beating heart! Is this the best FIFA World Cup ever?

Answer: maybe it is - plenty of thrills and spills and against all odds VAR is actually working in a seamless way; plus - mos def if England win the whole thing for a second time!

2 Trajan and movie posters



3 Poetry corner

Short Talk on Major and Minor

Major things are wind, evil, a good fighting horse,
prepositions, inexhaustible love, the way people
choose their king. Minor things include dirt,
the names of schools of philosophy, mood and
not having a mood, the correct time. There
are more major things than minor things
overall, yet there are more minor things
than I have written here, but it is
disheartening to list them. When I
think of you reading this I do not
want you to be taken captive,
separated by a wire mesh lined with glass
from your life itself, like some Elektra.

Anne Carson (1992)

4 More great shots from Russia (with love)

5 And this one is sublime!

Overtime: Football can be played anywhere!

Check out more of these wonderful photos of the world's most popular game.

Senses working overtime #166

1 The Black Monday Murders

As featured on Warren Ellis' newsletter. This is a page from The Black Monday Murders comic by Jonathan Hickman and Tomm Coker and Michael Garland. 

Extraordinary image - the light giving the finger must have been deliberate, the table that looks like a sinister beetle is very cool and the figures presented at the desk and doorway are intriguing.

2 Mexico!!

Great feel good story - how the Mexicans are thanking South Korea for their World Cup miracle against the world champions!

3 Big Big Train
Brand new from the wonderful Big Big Train:




4 Poetry Corner

In Time The night the world was going to end when we heard those explosions not far away and the loudspeakers telling us about the vast fires on the backwater consuming undisclosed remnants and warning us over and over to stay indoors and make no signals you stood at the open window the light of one candle back in the room we put on high boots to be ready for wherever we might have to go and we got out the oysters and sat at the small table feeding them to each other first with the fork then from our mouths to each other until there were none and we stood up and started to dance without music slowly we danced around and around in circles and after a while we hummed when the world was about to end all those years all those nights ago W.S. Merwin (2001)

5 The Moon
I find the moon endlessly fascinating. 1969 left a deep impression on me. 

Feast yer eyes on these newly released high resolution images:

Overtime: Hi-Revving Tongues
I 've just bought a new compilation of New Zealand's Hi-Revving Tongues. Now billed as Nu Zild's first psychedelic band from the late sixties.

They had a big hit, also in '69, with a cover of Rain and Tears but I prefer this guitar and organ fueled masterpiece from two years earlier.

Oh, okay then. Here's their cool cover hit as well...

Senses working overtime #165

1 Poetry leads off SWO  #165, shock, horror!

Photo by Edgar Chaparro on Unsplash

Crossing

The water is one thing, and one thing for miles.
The water is one thing, making this bridge
Built over the water another. Walk it
Early, walk it back when the day goes dim, everyone
Rising just to find a way toward rest again.
We work, start on one side of the day
Like a planet’s only sun, our eyes straight
Until the flame sinks. The flame sinks. Thank God
I’m different. I’ve figured and counted. I’m not crossing
To cross back. I’m set
On something vast. It reaches
Long as the sea. I’m more than a conqueror, bigger
Than bravery. I don’t march. I’m the one who leaps.

Jericho Brown (2018)

2 Shetland

Jacky and I have been getting more and more absorbed in this show. After the mesmerising Scottish accents and the slowish pace have been assimilated, it's an ever growing joy with great characters and storylines! 

Warmly recommended!!

3 Magic 
My ipod is getting a break from booming out Radio Wozza so I've momentarily returned to the radio. Given we're in a mountainous area the signals of all but one radio station waft and wane. Never fear - Magic comes in loud and clear via Rodney (a district dahn sarf a bit). Its playlist is drawn from the 50's, the 60's, and the 70's.

Sadly the adverts are mostly aimed at an older demographic, but the sounds are grrrrreat!

Here's one I heard this morning that instantly brought a smile to my face...




4 FIFA World Cup 2018 (part 1)
Hey, I held off until number 4! C'mon!!

Here's your complete guide to all 736 players who started the World Cup (you'll need to minus one Croatian who's been sent home). 

Check out Messi's rating - sure to take a tumble as I write!

5 FIFA World Cup 2018 (part 2)

The good and the bad summarised from week 1. Bring on week 2!

Overtime - Worry? What me?

This article with its seven mindfulness tips will come in handy as I run through my prep for flying in August to the UK.

Senses working overtime #164

1 Burning down the house

Alex Prager's hyper-real photography is startling! More here and also some Tish Murtha photos as part of a Guardian arts review.

2 It's only every four years Jacky!

This is what my wife hears every four years when I disconnect from life to luxuriate in 64 games of FIFA World Cup action.

There are many pundits out there predicting all sorts of outcomes (Germany, Spain, Brazil are usually involved), but I loved this primer from the BBC.

3 RIP Danny Kirwan

Unsung hero of Fleetwood Mac (version 2.0).

'He subsequently drifted away from music altogether, spending 10 years living rough and in a basement flat in Brixton, surviving on social security and royalty payments from his Fleetwood Mac work.'

But boy, could he play guitar!

4 Don't tell Dad

This week, I've been enjoying Peter Fonda's autobiography - Don't Tell Dad. It's pretty straight forward in a linear way but it's quite absorbing!

5 Blackberry Smoke
Loving this song! Righteous anger!! Love it!



Overtime: Hahei Beach, Coromandel, NZ

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

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

Senses working overtime #162

1 Solo

I enjoyed this rollicking adventure and addition to the stand alone Star Wars back story collection. Here is some great concept art.  

2 More Solo

Watching the movie, you'd never know there were problems making it. But there were. Here's the inside skinny. Opie Taylor did good!

3 Poetry corner

All the warm nights
sleep in moonlight

keep letting it
go into you

do this
all your life

do this
you will shine outward
in old age

the moon will think
you are
the moon

Swampy Cree narrative poem
trans. Howard Norman (1972)

4 The Return of Thomas Oppong Part 1

He's never been away, just hasn't appeared in this column for a spell. He's still awesome too. Here he is on deep thinking.

5 The return of Thomas Oppong Part 2

Reading and why it is such a huge part of my daily life, by Thomas.

Overtime: Roy of the Rovers

My favourite image of the week is this one, that I used on my Wozza's Place blog. 

The story, the grace, the colour, the drawing of the keeper, the image of Roy bleeding from the panel and the fantasy wonderland of it all - I have gazed at it a lot this week!