March 2012
"rite of spring" by george booth/the new yorker
When we saw the cover of this week’s New Yorker, we laughed out loud. THAT’S US!! we thought. We may be making a Pollack-esque painting inadvertently on the side of the house, but we’re DEFINITELY out of control and off balance. We’re juggling too much while trying to hold up our pants and keep from falling off the ladder.
The clear message: We need some time off. So ‘the improvised life’ is going quiet for a week or so until we get our bearings,our health, and a mighty ‘improvised life’ project (which we’ve been working on for months) on track. (In other words, we’re gonna try following our own advice!)
Stay tuned! (There’s a lot stored in our attic/archive that we bet you haven’t seen!) We appreciate your bearing with us.
Related posts: recharging y(our) inner batteries
late night forager: seven layer cake for one
the potato chip improvisations + recipe: real onion dip
when is enough plenty?
we test drive the pomodoro time management technique
how to do more in less time: pulse and rest
03.27.12 |
comments (7) |
in health, inspiration blogs + sites, paths + processes, people, principles, rules for living, strategies |
We’ve been so impressed with Jim Denevan’s amazing sand and snow creations, that we forgot he’s also is the mastermind of a fantastic traveling food project. Outstanding in the Field is a “roving culinary adventure” meant to connect people to the land where their food originates and the people who work hard to produce it.
Outstanding in the Field creates pop-up food happenings at farms and ranches (and other scenic delights) across the country. They set up a long table that sits over 100 guests, and local chefs work their magic to prepare four-course meals using entirely local meat and produce. There is nothing like the experience of sitting down to eat on the land from which your food has come. Their 2012 schedule has just been announced, so you can check and see if they will be coming to a town near you. read more…
03.26.12 |
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in celebrations, community, entertaining, family + friends, food, nature |
Recently, a reader sent us link to an interactive wine-and-food-pairing website called Italian Wine Pairing 101 wondering what we thought about it. You choose a food group – say beef, or shellfish or fruit tarts – then recommended wines appear in a list below. (It’s one of many food-and-wine pairing charts and sites on the internet.) So we asked our very astute food and wine contributor Anthony Giglio to give us his take on it. As usual, he gets to the deep and essential heart of the matter (bold-faced below).
The opening line gives anyone who knows grapes pause: ‘Italy produces the most wine in the world. But Italian wine can be intimidating for beginners due to the unfamiliar names — it’s more Nebollio (sp) & Verdicchio than Merlot and Chardonnay.’ [More succinctly, it's place names more than grape names that confuse...]
The simplicity of matching is safe and could certainly work — if one has a really open mind (keep reading). read more…
03.23.12 |
comments (1) |
in celebrations, entertaining, food, learn, resources, resources blogs + sites, resources books + zines |
We’ve been mulling the idea of using a pegboard on the inside of a tool closet door, the cleaning closet door (to hang mops, brooms, vacuum cleaner hose) and perhaps even in a walk-in clothes closet where it would be useful for hanging jewelry for jewelry, belts etc. We can’t stop thinking about Julia Child’s famous kitchen (you can take a virtual tour of the Smithsonian’s re-creation of it) with it’s charming/homely blue pegboard that hung many of her copper pots and tools. When painted, a pegboard’s polka dot grid can make a pleasing visual, witness the non-utilitarian pegboard headboard we posted a while back.
As is happening more and more, as soon as we started thinking out our options, an answer appeared. This one came as a great how-to found in Kate Payne’s Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking. She takes you through hanging up a kitchen pegboard step-by-step, and has some indispensable lessons learned. read more…
03.21.12 |
comments (1) |
in cool spaces, copy this!, d-i-y, how-to, inspiration, kitchen, resources blogs + sites, solutions, storage, walls + windows |
(Video link here.) This morning we received an email from a reader with a Vimeo link and these few intriguing words:
This man is the epitome of the improvised life daily and he has achieved this with a grace that makes me rethink my own daily life.
So we watched and were knocked out, and felt the same way.
Ethiopia-born Sentayehu Teshale is so natural in his moves that we hardly knew he’s handicapped; in fact, he seems to reject the very idea of disability, redefining his feet as his hands. Listening to his words, we thought “This is the thinking of a true creative.”
First I imagine something, then I store it in my mind and wherever I go I see it. It may take a long time to make it but because it stays in my mind, I’ll eventually make it.
Teshale envisioned a completely different life for himself than his circumstances seemed to dictate —he was told he should be a beggar — and then created it, along with many beloved objects.
Related posts: howard rheingold: on becoming (“life…forks every day, in every moment”)
‘nothing is impossible’ defies ‘disability’
the scar project
‘what’s not wrong?’ and other ways to start your day
design as resourcefulness and self-reliance
03.21.12 |
comments (5) |
in furniture, identity, paths + processes, people, principles, video |
Lately, we’ve stumbled on some cool ways to bring color to shelves. We saw BM’s Junior line of furniture and thought: why don’t we just paint the backs of our shelves in color blocks to wake them up a bit? And then we saw the reverse in action: just the edges painted a color… read more…
03.20.12 |
comments (3) |
in copy this!, d-i-y, furniture, storage |
piotr redlinski for the new york times
The most inspiring article in last weekend’s New York Times was about Chris Hackett and his workshop in Gowanus, the epicenter of Brooklyn’s burgeoning underground of artists, inventors, chefs, carpenters, urban gardeners, hackers, fabricators, scavengers, repurposers, live-free-or-die,and prepare-for-the-shit-to-hit-the-fan proponents.
On Chris Hackett’s personal periodic table, the world’s most interesting, and abundant, substance is an element he calls obtainium. Things classified as obtainium might include the discarded teapot that he once turned into a propane burner, or the broken beer bottle he used to make a razor, or the 9-millimeter shell casings he acquired some time ago, melted in a backyard foundry (also made of obtainium) and cast into brass knuckles for a girlfriend.
Hacket has been described as a “ master improviser…It’s almost like he thinks with his hands”, and his workshop, an obtainium mine, rich with materials for making: read more…
03.20.12 |
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in cool spaces, identity, inside, materials, paths + processes, people, principles, reclaim, reimagine, repurpose, why not? |
