Lately, we’ve been seeing stones and pebbles used to fill odd spaces. Here they patch missing wood in an old floor. We don’t know what these green stones in a little entrance garden in New York City were meant to disguise: perhaps access to a pipe…or maybe they are just there because the owner thought…
Read Moresurvival guides + other apps/books for the great outdoors
Mashable recently posted a great round-up of iPhone Apps for the Great Outdoors. You can download guides to trees, wild mushrooms, birds, and butterflies, not to mention ‘scat and tracks’ and the constellations overhead. Given our survivalist ‘what would I do if?’ sort of mentality, we love the US Army Survival Guide ($1.99) which blends…
Read Morewhat is the most powerful word in the english language?
An intriguing question came to us in an email one recent morning, via a TED-minded LinkedIn group. We thought we’d pass it on and see what you think… What is the single most powerful word in the English language? There are so many wonderful words: IMAGINE, WE, LOVE, JOY…Our vote (subject to change) is YES.…
Read Moreroald dahl’s ‘revolting recipes’ and other kid’s food books
Over the years we’ve collected a pile of favorite books to give to kids we know; many of the books, curiously, are about food, maybe because kids (and we) find it so much fun to mess around with. We’ve just added Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes to the list; it’s got some mighty compelling recipes, like: …Stink…
Read Morefree, open university courses
We were looking at the recent redesign of Yale Undergraduate Admissions website, masterminded by our dear friend Pamela Hovland, when we stumbled upon an unexpected trove at a distant constellation of Yale’s site that is not part of the redesign: Open Yale Courses. These are free for-real Yale courses that have been recorded and archived…
Read Moredormant websites as messengers + creating systems that work for your unique self
We spotted this very odd picnic table on Planetargonautes, a French blog whose most recent post was in January, 2010. We poked around its eclectic archive, around the several years of stuff, using our basic French reading skills to navigate the author’s charming, rather ‘out there’ writing. (Using a language translator turns it into a…
Read Morerough painted brick walls
We’re always amazed at the way we can start thinking about something and then, like magic, we find more examples, or pictures or casual mentions of the idea. It’s a kind of radar (or perhaps just a shift in our vision); we don’t know how it works or how to control it but it is…
Read Moreshare your improvs on our facebook page
We get so many emails from readers telling us about their own improvisations that we decided to create a special ‘improvised life’ Facebook page, where you can share your ideas, improvs and sightings. Write on our wall, and upload photos or video. You can also comment on posts and keep up with our tweets. Or follow…
Read Moreserendipity (free) at issey miyake
I wandered by the Issey Miyake store the other day and was drawn inside to look at the wonderful clothes. I walked around imagining myself in strangely beautiful outfits, and a tall salesman named Jeremiah came over. “How do you like the collection?” he asked. “I love it, totally beautiful” I said. “And the music. What…
Read More‘the furniture doctor’ and other hot tips for second-hand
Over the years, I’ve furnished my living spaces with second-hand furniture, scavenged from flea markets, thrift stores, Ebay, and occasionally, found on the street. Early on, I didn’t really know what I was doing; I just bought stuff whose look I liked, that I could use, that seemed well-made. I’d clean the wood with Briwax,…
Read Morewhat a painted slab of plywood can do (d-i-y)
In 2009, artist Lee Walton exhibited his “destination specific” sculptures: brightly colored, asymetrically-shaped slabs of plywood, dated, with directions for being taken taken out of the gallery and “displayed elsewhere”. He drove one to a field and leaned it against a tree stump. From a distance: a winter field with a surprising blast of red.…
Read More‘wing it!’ (moist von lipwig)
Moist von Lipwig is a character from Terry Patchett’s young adult novels Going Postal and Making Money. He is a sweet con man who always finds ways to turn the most dire situations to everyone’s advantage. The real beauty is his game attitude, even when the shit is hitting the fan. Although he’s only a fictional…
Read Moreidea maps on a ‘whiteboard’ wall
We love maps of ideas and are inspired by this photo published in last weekends in Sunday New York Times Business Section. It got us thinking about how to create a good-looking erasable wall without having to use chalk. (Chalkboard paint is GREAT in many places, but we wondered about other options.) We thought of the “whiteboard” often…
Read Morethe art of temporary shelter
Here is the challenge: Build a structure that is… …temporary …has at least two and a half walls …is big enough to contain a table …has a roof made of shade-making organic materials through which one can see the stars… … What would you build? These are some of the Talmudic constraints that twelve design…
Read More‘where good ideas come from’
Steven Berlin Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation is so full of smart thinking, fat salient bits, illuminating stories and revelations…so full of deep understanding of the true flux-and-flow of ideas and innovations, and so compellingly written, that we are knocked out. We’ve dog-eared and marked-up our advance copy to…
Read Morevintage blueprints as wallpaper
When I was a kid, the foyer of my family’s GreenwichVillage house was papered with blueprints of the building, the inspiration of our friend David Barrett, an interior designer, who always had amazing ideas. In those days, house plans were really blue, with white type and design, and came in big glossy folded sheets or…
Read Moreannals of bad design: stove window
We’ve just added this image to our file called “Bad Ideas”: ideas that look great, but practically speaking, are impossible to maintain. Most seem like a good idea for about a minute, until you try imagine the harsh realities of living with the them (which is our test for anything we put in our home…)…
Read Morethe perfect cocktail party opening line
Cocktail parties in a room full of strangers make us nervous. What should we say? After all these years, and with a million ideas in our heads, we’re still not good at breaking the ice. Then a complete stranger at a party inadvertently taught us how… . “What are you grooving on right now?” he asked…slightly…
Read Morewylie dufresne on failure and experimentation
Big Think recently filmed a series of interviews with Wylie Dufresne, inspired chef of WD-50 in New York City; our favorite segment is called “Why You Should Play With Your Food” . We’ve followed Wylie for years, delighting in the products of his rigorous experimenting in molecular gastronomy, like freeze-dried polenta, deep-fried mayonnaise and hollandaise, smoked…
Read Moregiant wooden trivet (a gorgeous rough board, d-i-y)
Danielle over at Style Files posted this wonderful giant trivet – a beautiful plank of rough-cut wood – that she saw VT Wonen, a Dutch magazine. She calls it a “pan coaster”… …a good idea flies from one place to another on the internet… (The black-satin cast-iron pots and pan are from Le Creuset. Search…
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