Like the website Knock-Off in Style, we love the challenge of finding an affordable version of some great piece of design – not necessarily a “knock-off” but an object of similar lines and intention, that is cheap. We’ve loved this wool Ikea PS Stuga rug (9′ x 9′, $299) from the moment we saw it, but think it’s even more of a value since we saw this printed dhurrie by John Robshaw (6′ x 9′, $795) featured on Better Living Through Design: read more…
The New York Times recently reported that the Finnish technology firm Nokia had developed a prototype for the an internet-ready touch screen years before the iPad. The company didn’t pursue developing it for the market because they got cold feet, worrying it would be an expensive flop:
“It was very early days, and no one really knew anything about the touch screen’s potential,” Mr. Hakkarainen explained. “And it was an expensive device to produce, so there was more risk involved for Nokia. So management did the usual. They killed it.”
Yikes! Nokia did the very thing that famously puts the kibosh on innovation: taking what seemed like the safe route at the time. It called to mind two quotes we had in our files, both from a site of “space quotations/rocketry quotes“. (Rocket launches and space travel would never had occurred if safety was the main concern.) read more…
One of the blogs we love to check into is Anonymous Works, which features creative, often odd works made by anonymous souls, that are for sale at various sites. Many of its images, like this basket made by cutting and twisting a paint can, make us go “Wow, a human being made that!” and tap into the wonder read more…
via Desire to Inspire
At first glance, this attic bedroom seems utterly cozy and charming, until we imagined ourselves lying in bed with the light on, and the light bulb glaring in our field of vision, since we’d be looking right into the underside of the light (hot, too!) We’re wondering if the designer was so smitten with the light that she forgot to think through just exactly how that light would work from every angle…
We think the gradated paint on the vertical back posts of these wooden chairs gives them great character and charm. You could order them done from Colonel, OR buy some nice-looking chairs at an unfinished furniture store and d-i-y, using a slightly darker shade of paint from one post to the next.
via Hunter Gatherer
Sofia Robledo
Holton Rower and his daughter Sofia are in Russia on Patch Adams’ Clown Tour. Patch is the famous radical-thinking medical doctor and founder of the Gesundheit Institute who believes in laughter, joy and creativity as immune boosters. Every year he takes a group of folks to Russia for two weeks, to spread clown medicine in hospitals, orphanages and nursing homes. “No experience necessary.”
Holton and Sofia decorated the walls in old people hospital with blue tape they brought with them from New York…one of the best applications we’ve seen for Tape Paintings.
It occurs to us that blue painter’s masking tape 
Patch’s real story is a far cry from the treacly Robin Williams movie about him. Check out this bit of Patch telling about the transforming and completely unexpected event of his life: read more…
Warren Ellis posted a compelling chunk of Pitchfork’s long interview with musician Brian Eno about the value of “structuring ideas” in improvising. (We’ve added a paragraph from earlier on in the interview…) To listen to Eno’s ‘In Dark Trees’ while you read, click here:
“… we have two different ways of working. One is completely unstructured where somebody just starts playing and somebody joins in and then the other person joins in, and something starts to happen. That’s occasionally what happens. What more often happens is that we settle on some sort of– a few sort of structural ideas, like, “Okay, when I put my finger up, we’re all going to move to the extremes of our instruments. So, that means you can only play either very high or very low or both. And we’re going to stay there until I take my finger down.”
The problem with improvisation is, of course, that everyone just slips into their comfort zone and does sort of the easy thing to do, the most obvious thing to do with your instrument. Luckily neither Leo [Abrahams] nor Jon [Hopkins] are that kind of person. They like going somewhere they haven’t been before. So, I try to make up rules that encourage that. And then of course these improvisations were done to multi-track– we’re working, actually, on Logic– so, sometimes what we would is we would improvise together for a while then we would listen back and find a section, which may be only a minute long, perhaps, and we’d say “Okay, let’s play over that one minute. Let’s maybe put that one minute down five times and use that as the basis over which we work.” We’re improvising, but we’re using some sort of structuring ideas as well. read more…
Michel Arnaud
A couple of weeks ago, we imagined what it would be like to apply Austrian artist Otto Zitko’s beautiful scribble scrabble to a REAL living space. We just stumbled on just that: the interior designer team of William Diamond and Anthony Baratta commissioned Zitko to do his thing on the walls and ceiling around a rather grand staircase. We found it in 1st Dib’s excerpt of All-American: The Exuberant Style of William Diamond and Anthony Baratta
Related post: scribble scrabble wigwag walls (a perfect playroom for kids or adults)
There are many wonderful things in the latest issue of Canal House Cooking. The self-published cookbook by Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton are like a grown-up’s kids-book, with photos, illustrations, writing and recipes that will take you away from wherever you are, and into a very magic (and attainable) world. There are also treasures you won’t find anywhere else, like Gabrielle Hamilton’s essay about Christmas Eve (she’s Melissa’s sister and chef of Prune in NYC), and Melissa’s drawing (in pastel?) of a ham. Frank Stitt‘s primer on Grower Champagnes – artisanal champagnes made by small producers whose name is on the label – is a revelation. But our favorite bit of all was this excerpt from Melissa’s and Christopher’s forward “An Open Door Policy”… read more…
Deborah Kass
Thank you for bearing with’the improvised life’ going “dark” for a bit. We appreciated the very warm words and wishes we received and took them with us, heartened. We’re back, changed by having spent time with someone whose long life is winding down; we find ourselves viewing things through a different lens. Instead of jumping back into work and obligations with a vengeance as we normally do, we did the opposite and went to lunch with a friend, and then walked in the beautiful chilly day to see the Houdini show at the Jewish Museum, wondering what would happen if we didn’t do things in the usual way?
The Houdini show, full of Houdiniana and interesting Houdini-inspired artworks like Matthew Barney’s Ehrich Weiss Suite, sent us poking around the Jewish Museum’s website. That led to our discovery of Deborah Kass‘ work, whose paintings from a series called Feel Good Paintings for Feel Bad Times seem right on point… read more…
Wabi sabi is a Japanese way of appreciating the beauty of impermanence and imperfection. Plum blossoms, the theme of many great Japanese poems and paintings, are a perfect expression of wabi sabi: they are beautiful, fragrant and hardy, but they only last for a few days. When you focus your heart on plum blossoms you feel wistful and serene at the same time: wabi sabi.
The Japanese tea ceremony originally strove for utter perfection, using only the most exquisite Chinese porcelain and being performed only in the most elegant surroundings. But then a Zen monk named Rikyu made the ceremony wabi-sabi, holding it in a small farmer’s mud hut, using roughly-made utensils. Since then, the “perfect” Japanese teacup always has an intentional nick or flaw in it somewhere, to remind us of wabi-sabi.
We found wabi-sabi summed up wonderfully on Wikipedia (which has some essential qualities of wabi sabi): “Wabi-sabi…nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.” Its principles are derived from the natural world, and as such, traditional norms of beauty don’t apply; what many consider to be rough, or ugly or unkempt can be wabi sabi. “We do love things that bear the marks of grime, soot and weather, and we love colors and sheen that call to mind the past that made them.” wrote Tanizaki Junichiro.
Recognizing that we live in a world where perfection is impossible, wabi sabi is a way to engage the world as we find it. It also happens to be at the heart of the improvisational spirit, many improvisational activities, and of ‘the improvised life’.
Maria Robledo
We LOVE Isabel Rower’s brilliant idea to put posters on the ceiling… read more…
