Senses working overtime #293

 1 Beautiful photos of the Tube.

I love the London Underground and I especially love photos of it.

2 The uselessness of judging yourself 

I'm enjoying James Clear's work. This one hit home!

3 Why some people are always running late

I may have linked to this article before and mentioned that my wife should read it. May have.

4 Fascinating man who first discovered something strange in Loch Ness

5 Nine cancels in 2020 

J K Rowling - one of nine

Wish we could do #10 and cancel 2020 but it happened folks!

Overtime: MNAC (Monday Night Album Club)

Here's our 2020 selection a.k.a. MNAC IV 

Senses working overtime #292

  1 Morning rituals

Photo by Ekaterina Kasimova on Unsplash

The summer holidays mean a change to my morning rituals - I'm going to experiment with some of these over the coming weeks. Good for my senses.

2 Morning haze

This mind and body playlist  (suggested in that list from number 1 above) is very soothing. There are thousands of these on Spotify but this one stands out for me.

3 Mozart for morning meditation

This is one of my favourite CDs at home. Number 2 above just reminded me.

4 Poem Beginning With a Retweet 

If you drive past horses and don't say horses
you're a psychopath. If you see an airplane
but don't point it out. A rainbow,
a cardinal, a butterfly. If you don't
whisper-shout albino squirrel! Deer!
Red fox! If you hear a woodpecker
and don't shush everyone around you
into silence. If you find an unbroken
sand dollar in a tide pool. If you see
a dorsal fin breaking the water.
If you see the moon and don't say
oh my god look at the moon. If you smell
smoke and don't search for fire.
If you feel yourself receding, receding, 
and don't tell anyone until you're gone. 

Maggie Smith

5 Christmas Vacation

Like millions of others, I'll be watching my DVD of this movie again in the lead up to Christmas, as the out-laws arrive.

Overtime: The morning routine (revisited with Thomas Oppong)

Senses working overtime #291

 1 Neil Armstrong's famous lines from the moon

2 The brain's most important job

Your brain’s most important job isn’t thinking; it’s running the systems of your body to keep you alive and well. According to recent findings in neuroscience, even when your brain does produce conscious thoughts and feelings, they are more in service to the needs of managing your body than you realize.

3 A sound so loud it was heard in over 50 countries

What we’re talking about here is like being in Boston and clearly hearing a noise coming from Dublin, Ireland. Travelling at the speed of sound (766 miles or 1,233 kilometers per hour), it takes a noise about 4 hours to cover that distance. This is the most distant sound that has ever been heard in recorded history.

4 Author Ann Hastings on the availability of satisfaction:

“Satisfaction is always available. It is just not always looked for. If, when you enter any experience, you enter with curiosity, respect and interest you will emerge enriched and with awareness you have been enriched. Awareness of enrichment is what satisfaction is.”

5 Declining Freemason numbers

Overtime: Paul McCartney III is about to come out so here's a press interview to whet the appetite (hopefully it's like his first solo album rather than McCartney II)

"I think it’s a fact of life that personalities don’t change much. Throughout your life, there you are."

Senses working overtime #290

 1 Barack's interview about his new book

The whole world loves Barack Obama (give or take 70 million Trump supporters). 

2 Questions to ask yourself (from James Clear)

Some questions to consider before you speak:

Does this need to be said?

Does this need to be said by me?

Does this need to be said by me right now?

3 Seventeen articles that (almost) redeemed 2020

4 Trains Planes and Automobiles

The John Hughes movie reappraised (it centres or centers around Thanksgiving - that uniquely American holiday celebration)

5 Resilience

Emine Saner (great name) investigates for The Guardian.

Overtime: Sugar is evil

I've cut out a lot of sugar from my diet (no between meal sugary snacks, no alcohol and so on) and this is the good stuff that is happening to my body.

Senses working overtime #289

 1 Truth and lies

2 Truth and lies (continued)

The best rundown of Donald and Rudy's bat shit crazy, bizarro, smoke and mirrors, snake oil, world I've read.

3 Guiliani and Trump, a.k.a. The Moon Men

4 Willie Nelson understands

5 Anne Tyler

Clock Dance is my latest Anne Tyler novel. It's hard to pinpoint why she's so brilliant. The writing appears to be effortless!

Overtime: Peter Gabriel

After reading a Mojo feature, I've rediscovered his 4th solo album this week (a.k.a. Security). It's even more brilliant than I remember it being.

Senses working overtime #288

1 Drive - James Sallis

I'm reading this novel this week. I love the way the cover changes as editions are released.

It turns out, the cover of the edition I'm reading (above) isn't the most interesting one.

2 Music shows of the seventies by Austin Kleon

3 What makes a life worth living by Walt Whitman

4 Faking optimism is hard. But Then. It works!

5 The Thing Is - Ellen Bass

 

to love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you’ve held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weights you down like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief,

you think, How can a body withstand this?

Then you hold life like a face

between your palms, a plain face,

no charming smile, no violet eyes,

and you say, yes, I will take you

I will love you, again.

Overtime: Rick Wakeman - The Red Planet

Enjoying this one - the instrumental latest from prog giant - Rick Wakeman.

Senses working overtime #287

1 Starship Troopers

Sci-Fi covers for this week - love that Yes song - inspired by this Heinlein novel!

2 Ursula

"Hard times are coming, when we'll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We'll need writers who can remember freedom—poets, visionaries—realists of a larger reality." —Ursula K. Le Guin

3.1 RIP Diane di Prima

3.2 RIP Sean Connery

4 Jane Fonda's blog (is cool)

5 What if Trump refuses to concede to Biden?

Overtime: Black - Wonderful World

Had this clip running all week.