The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and vinyl (Dave Berry)

Vinyl is in mt DNA

Wie geht's?

Just lately I've been buying care packages of records every couple of weeks from my regular haunts. The latest this week came from Marbeck's Records.

I mentioned this in the staff room when someone asked what I was looking forward to most this week. "Records from Marbecks", was my instant reply.

"Oh Marbecks", they said. "Why is that a highlight?"

So, I said, "Do you really want to know?"

And they said, "Yeah, it's a slow morning".

So I embarked on an explanation that took in my mother working at Auckland's Lewis Eady's in the record department and having to walk down to the Queen's Arcade where Marbeck's has always been, to see Mr. Marbeck about record orders; my own time working for the Marbecks family with Roger Marbeck in the jazz and pop side, during my university days; my taking my pay in records; our two growing families being close while our kids came along and grew up, and our taking holidays together; to today where I am still happily buying online from the greatest NZ record store. Not much has changed.

For the record (ha ha) the package included some Van Dyke Parks and War albums (a couple from when they'd finished their association with Eric Burdon).

Long live Marbecks Records!

Love and peace - Wozza

Smoke and dust, the stuff of simple myth trying to be legend (Marcus Aurelius)

Photo by Christian Sterk on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

I rarely get deep and meaningful on this blog but I do start each day from that position. As part of my morning routine I read the daily entry in three deep and meaningful and cool books.

As long-time readers know, one is Venerable Master Hsing Yun's 366 Days With Wisdom. The other two are The Daily Stoic and 365 Days With The Saints.

Interestingly, they often coincide in their foci. Seldom all three, but very often two of the three focus on the same theme or idea.

Today Yun and the stoics were looking at the concept of legacy.

Marcus knew that no matter what we do when we're alive, it's like building a castle in the sand, soon to be erased by the winds of time.

Happily, Hsing Yun points out that a legacy is not necessarily something visible, solid or valuable to be left behind but by living well and enjoying the brief time we have and not being enslaved to emotions that make us miserable and dissatisfied, we can still leave behind our humane spirit and wisdom to our future generations (as Marcus has done, and, maybe, just maybe, this weblog).

Love and peace - Wozza

I don't want to settle down, all I need is the right reaction (Dragon)

Wie geht's?

I've seldom been so happy to finally finish a book. In fact I feel a bit giddy with the feeling (or that could be the two Export Ultra low carb lagers I've just had to celebrate).

Yes, I finally put Roderick Random in the finished pile, ready to take back to a secondhand book shop.

Frankly, it's been a struggle re-reading this after 40 years, but I stuck with it. So much goes on in the novel - he's up at the end, but mostly he's either down, or really down throughout the 468 pages of small print.

I'd also forgotten there was an episode involving Random profiting from being on a ship transporting slaves towards the end of the novel, before he is reunited with his long-lost father. 

It's a gulp moment that must have generated a lot of heated discussion back in 1980 at Auckland University's MA common room. Sadly, I don't remember the nitty gritty of that phase of my education too well.

Tobias Smollett's The Adventures Of Roderick Random was first published in 1748, well before the odious practice ended, or even peaked. I'm sure this fact figured in our university tutorials in 1980.

It's a curious part of the adventure because, as well as sharing in some of the profits Random (Smollett) sniffily calls it 'the disagreeable lading (i.e. loading) of Negroes, to whom. indeed, I had been a miserable slave since our leaving the coast of Guinea'. So, Random and Smollett don't redeem themselves at all.

Anyway. On to Anne Tyler and some palate cleansing.

Love and peace - Wozza

Win the rat race, you're still a rat.

Wie geht's?

Rinse and repeat.

Recently, that's how a colleague described the cycle of weekly morning routines>work>evening routines>sleep>morning routines>work>evening routines>sleep>...

It's a cycle (some may want to refer to this as a treadmill) that we all fall into some extent unless we've won Lotto, are Taylor Swift, or happily living without the need to pay for rent/ mortgage/ transport/ clothes/ food etc.

The trick to life, as James Taylor knows (Tay Tay is named after him), is to enjoy the passage of time. Even through the brainless drudge.

Actually, enjoying the routines and rituals of daily life comes relatively easy to me. As I've previously indicated, I don't mind mowing lawns, ironing shirts, or emptying dishwashers (I draw the line at vacuuming though). 

To me, that's good thinking time. My brain isn't mindful of the task especially. Instead, it wanders lonely as a cloud.

Okay. Blogpost done. What's next?

Love and peace - Wozza.

If things start happening, don't worry, don't stew, just go right along and you'll start happening too (Dr Seuss)

Photo by Sergey Vinogradov on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

All good? Great.

Me? Somehow, I picked up a cold in the middle of summer. I've tested each day for covid and it's negative. So, a common garden variety old fashioned cold it is. A non-covid style virus in other words.

It has had all the hallmarks of an upper respiratory tract virus: sore throat for a couple of days, sneezes, runny nose (onto my second tissue box), headache and zero energy.

A classic seven dayer (sore throat started on Saturday so Thursday was day 7), it made me wonder where all that river of clear fluid comes from.

By the way, the medical term for a runny nose with thin, clear fluid is rhinorrhea.

According to Doctor Google - A runny nose happens due to an increase in the production of nasal mucus. While a runny nose can have many causes, it often occurs due to inflammation of the tissues inside your nose. This is known as rhinitis.

Why does this happen? Well, the virus attacked the tissues of my nose and throat. In response, my nose produced more mucus to help trap and wash viral particles away. This caused a persistent runny nose with clear fluid.

Two boxes of tissues later (the dry-me-up meds didn't seem to help much) and seven days later it's dried up.

Someone obviously passed the virus to me at school. The incubation period for the common cold is typically between 1 and 3 days. This is the time period between exposure to the virus and when you begin to notice symptoms, and I spent all of last week at school.

In this instance, my immune system didn't kick in for some reason.

One of the amazing aspects of the immune system is that it is compensatory, meaning that when one part is weak or non-functional, typically another part can step in. Think of it like a trip to the grocery store. If you need to go to the store, but your tire is flat, you may go by another method of transportation — another motor vehicle, a bicycle or walking. The substitute may or may not be as efficient, but it still allows you to complete your task.

That didn't happen this time though. The virus slipped past my defenses and whammo! 

Meh. Just one of those things I couldn't prepare for (there's no vaccine for the common cold), or control (I'm no bubble boy).

Love and, sniffle sniffle, peace - Wozza

Is it really the same? (Keith Jarrett)

Dr Shaun Murphy

Wie geht's?

Netflix' The Good Doctor continues to grip our attention. Autism is a fascinating topic and a fresh one for a TV show, especially a medical drama.

We binge watched on Sunday when it was unseasonably cold and wet outside. It's easy to continue to talk like Dr Murphy after a show and then start thinking.

I sometimes think everyone is on the spectrum in some way. A good test for yourself is here . Thanks to my dad, I certainly often reflect on my own tendencies in this direction (I scored 24 out of 40).

He was a very precise person - a place for everything, and everything in its place. His work benches and materials where he did his electronics hobbies were carefully ordered and precisely labelled.

When I look at my record collection I can see where I got my need for order from (interestingly, his own record collection was just a willy nilly pile of records, but he did look after them well).

Like him I'm into rituals and routines. I've written about this before. When I mow our lawn I subconsciously follow the same pattern each time, when I iron shirts, when I brush my teeth, when I wash dirty records...I could go on.

Although, in many ways, I'm not like my father at all. My work benches are often piled up with stuff, I wear work clothes to mow the lawn and so on while dad never owned any. His chemist brain measured everything carefully, I'm much more slap dash, like my mum (she never measured anything when she was cooking and it always turned out amazingly well). 

Some things bug me - crooked pictures, dirty dishes in the sink, clutter accumulating on the kitchen bench, but it's all small stuff. Generally, I like to think I'm pretty cruisey.

But I did score 24 out of 40.

Love and peace - Wozza