Senses working overtime #484

1 Reading: Mojo magazine (issue 366)

2 Reading: Monument Rock - Louis L'Amour

3 Listening: Saxophone Colossus - Sonny Rollins

4 Watching: Season 7 of Monk

It's a perfect, gentle, easy to watch evening show after a day at work.

5 Listening: WTWMC - Motorvatin'

Overtime:  

“The most important decision you will ever make is to be in a good mood.”

Voltaire

Senses working overtime #483

1 Listening: The Chills - Brave Words

The soundtrack for thousands of Kiwis these last few weeks has been albums by The Chills to remember Martin Phillipps. The three amigos have been playing and reviewing Brave Words.

My review is here.

 

2 Watching/ celebrating: Ellesse Andrews

She is an amazing athlete, yes, but she's also a very humble and joyful person. I love her post medal reactions.

3 Watching/ celebrating: Maddison Wesche

In the women's shot put final, Maddi won a silver medal, which was great, but it was her smiling reaction to the competition that was even greater. Big fan!

4 Watching: Martin Phillipps  

The documentary The Chills: The Triumph & Tragedy of Martin Phillipps is on my purchase list. In the meantime this overall/interview is well worth your time. And this live performance on KEXP is just stunning!

5 Reading: Daily Stoic on the Olympics

As the Stoics would remind us, it’s not winning that counts. That there is sometimes another plane of greatness that an athlete can win—by the injury they overcome to finish, by the political gesture they make on the medal stand, by the way they treat a competitor. We tell the story of the Japanese equestrian Shunzo Kido in the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. He was competing in the 22.5-mile, 50-obstacle race that he didn’t normally run after a teammate was injured and had to drop out.

Improbably, with no proper training for himself or his horse, Kido was in the lead, clear of the pack after jumping over the second-to-last obstacle. But what Kido did next was even more improbable. He pulled up the reins and dropped out of the race. Out of nowhere, he gave up the chance of gold and glory for himself and his country.

Why?

He could feel the horse struggling and sensed that even just a few more seconds at full speed would kill the horse as it crossed the finish line. As the plaque on the Friendship Bridge along the Mount Rubidoux Trail commemorating his unprecedented display of sportsmanship reads, “Lt. Col. Shunzo Kido turned aside from the prize to save his horse. He heard the low voice of mercy, not the loud acclaim of glory.”

Overtime: (A pre Olympics) Ellesse Andrews

“Now I have a bit more experience behind me and it’s a cooler place to be coming from. I’m a different person now than I was at the last Olympics, and that’s just from having more experience and growing up a little bit.”

Senses working overtime #482

1 The feeling this week:

Photo by Paola Andrea on Unsplash

2 Reading: Mother's Day - Laurence Fearnley

3 Listening: Washington County - Arlo Guthrie

Gabriel's Mother's Highway Ballad #16 Blues is a wonderful song.

4 Listening: WTWMC - Motorvatin'

The three amigos are now compiling a playlist of songs of a vehicular nature. 

5 Reading: Sylvia Plath

Poet and novelist Sylvia Plath reminds us that choosing a path means ignoring the rest, but not choosing means squandering them all:

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

Courtesy James Clear's newsletter

Overtime: James Clear

When you're younger, it's easy to underestimate how fleeting the days can be. Each choice matters. Each day matters.

When you're older, it's easy to underestimate how much opportunity you still have. Don't talk yourself out of it. It's never too late to start.

Senses working overtime #481

1 Feeling balanced this week:

Photo by Deniz Altindas on Unsplash

2 Reading: All You Need Is Love - Peter Brown/ Steven Gaines

A collection of interviews the two did back in the day (mostly with others, rather than the fabs) while researching for their book The Love You Make.

3 Listening: Alice's Restaurant - Arlo Guthrie

The title track takes up side one and it never gets old.

4 Listening: WTWMC True Colours

Yes!! We. Are. Done. 

The playlist boasts 240 songs with a colour in the title. I feel it is our best effort yet. You be the judge.

5 Rest in peace: John Mayall

Mayall's breakthrough. He's far left next to Slowhand

Remember him this way - Room To Move

Overtime: Joy

If we want to turn sadness to joy and suffering to pleasure, we must always consider the interest of others before our own; in all matters we must be optimistic and never pessimistic. This will naturally change our mood for the better.

Venerable Master Hsing Yun

Senses working overtime #480

1 The feeling this week:

Photo by Lesly Juarez on Unsplash

2 Re-reading: American Blood - Ben Sanders

I had a hankering to re-read this one. Originally Greg S recommended it to me in 2016. It's even better the second time around, nine years later.

3 Listening: Who Will Save The World? The Mighty Groundhogs

Love this album, and what a great cover! Doesn't make RS's list (see number 5) but it absolutely should.

If you want one track, try Bog Roll Blues.

4 RIP: Bob Newhart

Bob and Ginnie 1983 - They married in 1963

He was one of my favourite comedians and he felt like a great human being as well. He was married to Ginnie Newhart for 60 years (she passed away last year). 

That is something!

The secret? Laughter! 

No matter how intense the argument you’re having, you can find a line, and then you both look at each other and start laughing. It’s over, you know? I think that sense of humor is very important to the longevity of a marriage - Bob Newhart.

5 Reading: RS - 100 best covers

Where do you reckon they put this one? Nope, guess again.

Overtime: Bob Newhart and Dean Martin

Senses working overtime #479

1 New listing: Maple Grove

Yes, we have decided to sell Maple Grove, so we have listed it with Property Brokers (Waipukarau). Tough decision but we are looking for a fresh start in another location.

2 Listening: WTWMC - True Colours

The amigos have just completed White, Blue is happening next week.

3 Listening: Strawbs - Hero And Heroine (1974)

I found a secondhand copy of this at My Music Taupo. It's brilliant! More info about it here.

4 Watching: UEFA Euros 2024

Two semi-finals and two amazing, cracking, breathtaking goals. One by Lamine Yamal and one by Ollie Watkins.

Final is Monday morning NZ time. Come on England!

5 Reading: The best movie soundtracks of all time!

Overtime: Projects and the long haul - Seth Godin

Rome was built in a day.

It wasn’t finished in a day. In fact, it’s still not finished.

But the day someone said, “this is Rome,” and announced the project, it was there.

Sometimes we get hung up on the beginning, unwilling to start Rome unless we’re sure we can finish it without incident.

Sometimes we get hung up on the finishing, starting things all the time but blinking in the face of Resistance and wandering away. The long haul is simply your list of completed projects. A career is not a series of tasks. It’s the chance to build things.

Senses working overtime #478

1 Mood this week: Taupo 

We've spent most of this week and weekend in Taupo - buying a car from there and having a mini-break, so this week's senses are informed by the place.

It's the blue lake in the middle of the North Island of Nu Zild.

Taupo runs deep in the family: family holidays at Te Rangiita, mum's vision of the Taupo house; Rainbow Point ice-creams; the Lion walk; Huka Falls; Craters Of the Moon; trout fishing with dad at Te Rangiita; boating with my brother up the Taupo-Tauranga river.

Township on the lake and start of the Waikato River

2 Listening: Taupo - Brian Smith

3 Serenity

Taupo has always been a great place to go to let go of stuff. So much serenity.

4 Reading: Wordsworth excerpt from The Prelude book 1

One evening (surely I was led by her)
I went alone into a Shepherd’s Boat,
A Skiff that to a Willow tree was tied
Within a rocky Cave, its usual home.
‘Twas by the shores of Patterdale, a Vale
Wherein I was a Stranger, thither come
A School-boy Traveller, at the Holidays.
Forth rambled from the Village Inn alone
No sooner had I sight of this small Skiff,
Discover’d thus by unexpected chance,
Than I unloos’d her tether and embark’d.
The moon was up, the Lake was shining clear
Among the hoary mountains; from the Shore
I push’d, and struck the oars and struck again
In cadence, and my little Boat mov’d on
Even like a Man who walks with stately step
Though bent on speed. It was an act of stealth
And troubled pleasure; not without the voice
Of mountain-echoes did my Boat move on,
Leaving behind her still on either side
Small circles glittering idly in the moon,
Until they melted all into one track
Of sparkling light. A rocky Steep uprose
Above the Cavern of the Willow tree
And now, as suited one who proudly row’d
With his best skill, I fix’d a steady view
Upon the top of that same craggy ridge,
The bound of the horizon, for behind
Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.
She was an elfin Pinnace; lustily
I dipp’d my oars into the silent Lake,
And, as I rose upon the stroke, my Boat
Went heaving through the water, like a Swan;
When from behind that craggy Steep, till then
The bound of the horizon, a huge Cliff,
As if with voluntary power instinct,
Uprear’d its head. I struck, and struck again
And, growing still in stature, the huge Cliff
Rose up between me and the stars, and still,
With measur’d motion, like a living thing,
Strode after me. With trembling hands I turn’d,
And through the silent water stole my way
Back to the Cavern of the Willow tree.
There, in her mooring-place, I left my Bark,
And, through the meadows homeward went, with grave
And serious thoughts; and after I had seen
That spectacle, for many days, my brain
Work’d with a dim and undetermin’d sense
Of unknown modes of being; in my thoughts
There was a darkness, call it solitude,
Or blank desertion, no familiar shapes
Of hourly objects, images of trees,
Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;
But huge and mighty Forms that do not live
Like living men mov’d slowly through the mind
By day and were the trouble of my dreams.

5 Going back

Wozz and Ross

Te Rangiita fishing

Happy boating memories

Overtime: Enlightenment - Van Morrison

I'm in the here and now, and I'm meditating
And still I'm suffering but that's my problem
Enlightenment, don't know what it is
Wake up