Fear is an initial reaction that is out of our control. But that staying afraid is a choice. If you're having trouble dealing with things right now - read this! 2 Poetry Corner Who Else
i tell the same stories again and again because who else is going to and what are the builders making
apart from a racket the black mould in my room makes it feel like the wall is learning something
i tell my computer i'm not a robot when it asks because who else is going to
i can't believe you thanked me for sleeping in your bed
if a tree falls in the forest that's fine
Crispin Best (2019) 3 The real Lord Of The Flies
Still from the movie version of LOTF
Excellent piece from the Guardian. 4 Music is love
Why some people, like me, love music, and others don't. 5 Schitt$ Creek
Moira Rose arrives for her Merlot Carpet appearance
We're really enjoying this show - Season 6 has just hit Netflix NZ and we are bingeing on Moira and the clan. BTW, Moira Rose is the real star turn of this cast: the outrageous wardrobe and wigs; the language; the vocal inflections - brilliant! Overtime: Pat Metheny I've had his American Garage album on repeat for a few days now. Here's a taste - the title track (side 2, track one).
Came across these shots this week from when we were in Al Ain. Some spectacular sunsets in that part of the world. They really impress themselves on the senses. 2 Poetry Corner
Thanks
Listen with the night falling we are saying thank you we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings we are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and say thank you we are standing by the water thanking it standing by the windows looking out in our directions
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging after funerals we are saying thank you after the news of the dead whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators remembering wars and the police at the door and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you in the banks we are saying thank you in the faces of the officials and the rich and of all who will never change we go on saying thank you thank you
with the animals dying around us our lost feelings we are saying thank you with the forests falling faster than the minutes of our lives we are saying thank you with the words going out like cells of a brain with the cities growing over us we are saying thank you faster and faster with nobody listening we are saying thank you we are saying thank you and waving dark though it is
We spend our days guessing how an action will impact the future, and we’re often wrong.
And we spend the rest of our days hoping we were right or worried that we weren’t. We try to control the future by telekinesis and anxiety in equal measure.
When the future doesn’t cooperate, we spend even more time trying to change the next bit of future so that it ends up more closely matching the future we were hoping for.
What if, instead, just for a little while, we simply did our best?
And let the future take care of itself.
Because even if we don’t fret, the future is still going to take care of itself.
All that’s on us is to do our best work. Paying attention to models and the community and the people we serve.
5 Lene Marlin
I love Lene Marlin's stuff - been listening to Twist The Truth a lot this week. Overtime: The return of Zuni
Her version is brilliant - makes me feel great when things aren't going so great. God bless you, Zuni.
I love this photo so much - taken while we lived in Cambridge (Alpha St.) purely for the fact that we are all genuinely smiling at something Nita (the photographer) has said. 2 Goin' back 2 The nostalgia thing is an impulse right now. Interesting that my Facebook friends appear to be responding to a challenge (from someone somewhere) to post pictures of themselves as young children. I think The Byrds nail the reason why.
3 She has always been ahead of her time
Mask Piece I
Make a mask larger than your face. Polish the mask every day. In the morning, wash the mask instead of your face. When somebody wants to kiss you, let the person kiss the mask instead.
Yoko Ono (1961)
Mask Piece II
Make a mask smaller than your face. Let it drink wine instead of you.
I just noticed something about the ubiquitous sign at every diner.
On one hand, it means, “the special that was assigned to today.” It’s possessive.
But on the other hand, it could simply mean, “today is special.”
Because both are true.
Plan accordingly.
(Seth Godin) Overtime: The Warren Ellis sign off- And that's it from me. Remember to be kind to yourself this week, because you do actually deserve it and you need to quit arguing with yourself about that. The days are still passing, you're still moving forward, and the good times are ahead. Hold on tight. Be well.
Like a lot of us I've been working from home (full tilt too as it happens) and I mistakenly thought that would give me an opportunity to read more of A Tale Of Two Cities but that time was swallowed up by urgent and important school stuff. So I'm slowly edging forward - right now on page 241 (of 307 in this edition). It's grim - Paris in the revolution was no picnic! But I am loving the language and the removal to a traumatic time in the past as an antidote to the traumatic times of the present. Although, it's ANZAC day in NZ and Australia today - a day to remember another traumatic time in our past. Interesting species aren't we? 2 Poetry corner (returns)
Ha, This One's About Insomnia Too
My bed is a godless church yet I still pray there every night. Am I a fool? I can almost hear other worshippers in their far- off corners, the small breath of their hands unclasping.
A lot of the family are binge watching franchise movies (we've just finished the five Bourne movies frinstance). Might be a good opportunity to go back to 1977! I might have a copy of the original on VHS.
2 Being Bill
Love Bill Murray? Everybody does! 3 Famous art museums you can visit...
Great piece, pithy and well written, by a younger brother (age 62) about his attempt to reconnect his brotherly bond with his grumpy older brother (64) on a tramping adventure! Excerpt:
I told Don on the phone that the hike would cement our brotherly bonds and reconnect us to the wilderness where we had spent significant chunks of our young adulthoods. I told him we might find something like peace in alpine meadows and under starry skies. I told him the trip could be life changing, that it would provide us both a much needed reset.
“No thanks,” he said. Don had never been one for big speeches.
“Why not?”
“What’s the point?”
“Fun? Exercise? Living in the moment? Leaving our comfort zones? Getting some clarity and perspective? Rediscovering purpose and connection?” I’m a talker.
“Spare me the inner-life mumbo jumbo,” he said. “You have the luxury of dabbling in that stuff, since you haven’t had a real job in decades.”
5 Seth Godin's message The boat is really, really big and we’re all in it.
This is a slog, and there will be another side. It is unevenly distributed, it’s a tragedy and it’s a challenge. But we’re in it together and with care and generosity, we can find perspective, possibility and hope.
Overtime: Warren Ellis' sign-off Don't be like me. Get some rest, eat properly, sleep when you can, and turn your phone off once in a while. Nothing wrong with shutting the rest of the world off when you need to. I'll keep an eye on it for you while you're gone. Take a breath, go and look at the sky, hold on tight. You're doing fine.
The lock-down has meant that every day feels like the Sundays I experienced growing up in the sixties and seventies in Nu Zild: no shops open, no mobility outside of the local area I lived in (only so far I could go on my Raleigh bike), no mail, no sport. All I had was: local exploration, reading, and listening to music!! Hey - exactly what I am doing now in lock-down! 1 Groundhog Day
This great movie is relevant, again, and again. 2 Kenny Rogers
One of my first albums back in the early seventies was Kenny Rogers and The First Edition's Greatest Hits. I remember looking at it for a while in the shop and saving up for it, slowly. When I finally bought it, costing me $5.75 of hard earned pocket money, I played it a lot. This interview was suggested by Austin Kleon and it's a great view of KR. Rest in Peace Kenny. 3 The semiotics of face-masks Seth Godin sums it up for us! 4 Stages of grief and the world as it is - Austin Kleon “We’re feeling a number of different griefs. We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realize things will be different…. Understanding the stages of grief is a start. But whenever I talk about the stages of grief, I have to remind people that the stages aren’t linear and may not happen in this order. It’s not a map but it provides some scaffolding for this unknown world. There’s denial, which we say a lot of early on: This virus won’t affect us. There’s anger: You’re making me stay home and taking away my activities. There’s bargaining: Okay, if I social distance for two weeks everything will be better, right? There’s sadness: I don’t know when this will end. And finally there’s acceptance. This is happening; I have to figure out how to proceed.Acceptance, as you might imagine, is where the power lies.” 5 Tips on living with yourself from an expert with 50 years experience
Billy Barr lives in Gothic, Colo., a silver mining town that was abandoned more than 100 years ago.
This is a good list of 5 tips from Billy Barr, a guy who knows what he's talking about! Overtime: This week's sign off from Warren Ellis: Go sit by a window, or stand by your front door, for five minutes. Take in some light and some air and just be there for five minutes. Be at peace, take some slow breaths, and relax, just for five minutes. Little steps. Day by day. You know how to do this. Look after yourself first. Hold on tight. See you next week.
