{"id":573896924,"date":"2024-05-21T03:22:31","date_gmt":"2024-05-21T07:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/?p=573896924"},"modified":"2024-05-24T16:31:58","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T20:31:58","slug":"still-a-new-sensation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/blog\/2024\/05\/21\/still-a-new-sensation\/","title":{"rendered":"Still a new sensation"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had a nice chat this morning with a lady from the next town over. She told me about an ice cream place she takes her children near me. I told her of an ice cream place nearer to her. On Saturday a man came by to upgrade our modem. He was a local fellow, too. He told me all about the little towns around us where he grew up. How they’ve changed, what they offer, the people that call them home. <\/p>\n

I mention this because, even though they have little in common and there’s no through-line between the two experiences, it can be delightful meeting people who are proud of where they’re from. <\/p>\n

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It’s another day to marvel at how well the plants flourish. On the southern side of the house, sheltered from the morning sun, but thrive in the western sun. I caught this in the early afternoon. Sometimes the flowers outside can distract you from the task of making lunch inside. <\/p>\n

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This evening we were out in the yard, admiring our recent landscaping and lawn maintenance, and I noticed the moon was on it’s way up in the east. For some reason, my lovely bride didn’t think I could take a photo of it. I said I could, if she did a handstand. <\/p>\n

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And so the neighborhood watch may now revise down their estimation of our age. A plus! Also, I got the moon in my photo. Count your wins, all of ’em, big and small. <\/p>\n

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Let us return to the Re-Listening project, because I am several records behind. That has been the status quo of this project for almost a full year now, so there’s no need to jump up and down. We’ll catch up eventually. (My CD collection is, after all, finite.) The Re-Listening project, if you’ve not noticed it’s occasional appearance here, is the one where I listen to all of my old CDs in the car, in the order in which I acquired them. (More or less.) There’s a small period where those details are hazy, and it doesn’t really matter. This whole exercise is simply an excuse to listen to some music and, when I get around to writing about it here, share some music, fill some space, and maybe bring to the fore some old memory that is tied to a song, an album, a performer or an experience. <\/p>\n

Let’s see which one we get to in this installment!<\/p>\n

In 1987 Australia’s INXS followed up on their American breakthrough, taking the world by storm on their sixth studio album. “Kick” was certified six-times platinum, peaking at number three on the Billboard 200. The band wanted every song to potentially be a single, and if you listen to the whole thing through your late 1980s prism, they got pretty close. There were four top 10 singles, including a number one, and they’ve all become new wave, pop rock classics. <\/p>\n

I picked this up in 2004 or thereabouts, and the circumstances behind that are forgotten and it was probably altogether unremarkable. But I never had it, I needed it, and that’s enough. <\/p>\n

“New Sensation” was the third single, released in March 1988, and I was still trying to do the coolest things with this song at my campus station in the 1990s and in commercial radio just after the turn of the century. <\/p>\n