Music I have been revisiting
I grew up listening to my parents’ and their friends’ music. Many tracks evoke memories of road trips and some of the beautiful feelings that friendship provides. Roxy Music was a favourite of my namesake, Chris. Chris drove like a banshee and had, whether he knew it or not, a home that evoked hygge in Zennor, a tiny hamlet in West Penwith near the southwestern tip of England. The track that reminds me of Chris the most is “More Than This” by Roxy Music. However, I think the most outstanding Roxy Music track was “Dance Away”, or is it “Avalon”? Dance Away is a story of unrequited love, the best line being “Dressed to kill, but guess who’s dying”. Avalon describes being entranced by a woman (Avalon) dancing at a party: “Now the party's over, I'm so tired, Then I see you coming, Out of nowhere”. Please listen to them both and let me know.
In support of zero-inbox
I am wondering today if I have more than a bit of OCD. For many years, I have practised the fine art of zero-inbox. I have five email addresses in use today, and right now, only three emails reside in their inboxes. Zero-inbox is an approach to email management that only keeps emails that require me to take action in the inbox. Everything else is either deleted – I have read it, don’t need to act upon it, or I have taken the action, and I see no purpose in hanging onto the message. Or messages are archived - those I have read and acted upon, and I can see value in accessing them in the future. These three simple approaches keep me organised. The inbox then acts as a mini to-do list. Those emails residing within it need my attention.
I am assisting a friend who manages a non-profit, and we are sharing an inbox. It has over a dozen emails in the inbox, none needing action. My fingers are itching to move them into an archive.
Storm Isha
Today, England is hammered by a major storm, with gusts of upwards of seventy miles per hour and torrential rain forecast. It’s a day for log fires and good reads. As the storm was building yesterday morning, I took an early morning drive to the south coast to capture the sunrise. I went to the small town of Portwrinkle. The beach is called Fennygook Beach, named after a smuggler who is reputed to haunt the beach still.
I arrived in the dark, well before the blue hour. I sat listening to an audiobook while waiting for the light. Walking down to the beach, I used a headtorch to light my way across the sand and rocks to find an interesting foreground for the photographs. During the blue hour, my camera exposed the images for over twenty seconds. As the colours changed from blue to red, the exposure time dropped to around one second. Seeing the effects of rough, breaking waves on the images was fascinating. The most prolonged exposures create a soft milk look.
A quote I read recently
His deepest need was that people should like him. An admirable trait that; in a spaniel. Or a whore.”
― Michael Dobbs, House of Cards