January 2012

portable rubber stamp for instant business cards + signs

Inspector Stamp Card

We are big fans of impromptu business cards as well as interesting signs posted on public walls, or, well, anywhere. So we’re smitten with the possibilities inherent in Printery & Bindery’s compact, portable self-inking rubber stamp, with a ring to affix it to your key chain, for anywhere stamping. You could have it made up to print your essential info for instant business cards, OR design a sign you want to stamp around town…like  CREATE! or JOY! or BE YES!. At $23, they’re a bargain (and a gift we’d want to get).

via Swiss-Miss

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business card stamp
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01.04.12 | comments | in cheap + great, gifts, resources, stores, strategies, tools |

five futuristic inventions at work now, full of crazy hope

photo: stefano boeri architetti

We’re just a few days into 2012, but apparently the future is already here. Our resident futurist, Stuart Mason Dambrot, sent us a bunch of amazing and fun science and technology finds, making us wonder what the next year has in store for all of us.

We’ve talked about vertical gardens, but a vertical forest takes the idea to a whole other level. This 27 story forest designed by Stefano Boeri is currently under construction in Milan. We wonder about the ecosystems that will develop in a man-made vertical forest?… read more…

01.04.12 | comments (4) | in inspiration, nature, paths + processes, technology |

find us + a lot of other cool stuff at ‘elephant journal’

Waylon Lewis, creator of the megablog Elephant Journal has long been a champion of ‘the improvised life’. We were thrilled when he invited us to post regularly over there…our first post ran yesterday. Elephant is, well, like an elephant: BIG. It’s worth scanning the homepage of this online ‘guide to a mindful life’ to find nuggets that resonate with your interests. We’re happy to link our growing community to Elephant’s. (Who knows what might happen.)

Thanks Waylon! 

01.03.12 | comments | in community, resources, resources blogs + sites |

the virtues of late gifts and celebrations (+ a perfect gift)

We’ve been so busy, we haven’t given all the gifts we’ve had in mind to give to friends and family. Our fridge is still stockpiled with mason jars of Prunes in Armagnac we plan to give friends we meet up with in the next few weeks. And our favorite gift for this year, the extraordinary book Tantra Song by Franck Andre Jamme, sold out of its first printing after we’d gotten to send only two copies out. So we’re going to wait a month or two until it’s back in stock, THEN we’ll give it as a Christmas – or anytime – gift. The book is a rare collection of powerful modernist Tantric paintings from Rajasthan, done on salvaged paper: “things of beauty used to awaken heightened states of consciousness.”  The book, and the story behind it ia SO remarkable that it is a well-worth-waiting-for-bargain at around $25. (It will be available here from Amazon, or through the publisher.)

We’re just following our Philosophy of Late Celebrations: read more…

01.03.12 | comments | in art, celebrations, cheap + great, gifts, inspiration books + zines, paths + processes, people, principles |

erato’s a capella song with plastic container percussion

(Video link.) A longtime reader of ‘the improvised life’ sent us this swell video as a New Year’s greeting:

“3 girls singing at a kitchen table, with empty cottage cheese containers providing the rhythm section”

It seems to us like a perfect, charming New Year’s reminder of just what we can do with the most ordinary of things, of the possibilities that lie in every moment.

(The three girls are members of Erato, a Swedish student vocal group.)

Related posts: found instruments and seaweed scarves, via fast forward
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01.03.12 | comments (4) | in copy this!, music, projects + play |

‘halo everybody’!! via alexander calder (and us)

Alexander Calder's holiday card 1930

archive of american art, smithsonian institution

We thought Alexander Calder’s homemade holiday card from 1930 a fitting way to start the New Year…

Like the guys in the picture, we’re back, full of beans and mischief…

We’ll start posting full tilt again tomorrow…

via The Archive of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

 

 

01.02.12 | comments | in inspiration |

2012 ‘a new year, new world’

Alexander Louisa Calder's New York Times New Year's Wish Ad 1966

In 1966, Alexander Calder and his wife Louisa published this full-page ad in the New York Times; it is a fantastically bold and hopeful statement. Every New Year’s Day, we remember that ad, finding it about the most perfect wish for the New Year.

Related posts: a new year’s wish spirals on

a new year: 20 seconds old…
a new year’s call from the future
neil gaiman’s benediction for new year’s (or any other time)
what are your new year’s…wishes? 

01.01.12 | comments | in art, people, principles, quotes, signs |

 
 
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