The kid in us demands that we celebrate Halloween despite all that’s happened recently, even if it’s only in our imagination. Speaking of our inner children, here’s Saturday Night Live’s Stuart Smalley’s crazy-funny Halloween affirmations (video link here — turn the sound off while you wait out the ad):
Read Moresimple, inspired, black-and-white grease paint masks
Make-up artist Valeriya Kutsan has made an inspiring series of masks using only two elements: black and white grease paint. The one is our favorite. Though this one is pretty swell:
Read Morefallen trees become cool park furniture
Ever since we saw Brazilian sculptor Hugo Franca‘s wondrous furniture hewn from fallen trees, we view the occasional fallen tree the many trees blown down by Hurricane Sandy in our nearby park as POSSIBILITY. Franca has turned the big trunks into places for people to lounge, read, hangout, play in Sao Paulo. We want to “beam”…
Read Morehurricane sandy: strange beauty amidst destruction
This morning, I went into Marcus Garvey Park to check out the damage Hurricane Sandy did to the huge old trees. They mean a lot to this part of Harlem, as most of the neighborhood hangs out under during the temperate months. Several trees were down, whole root systems turned on end, including one oak…
Read Morehurricane sandy + venus over nyc, from minnesota
Today, hurricane Sandy continues, in a different way, as we assess damage around the city, check on friends, re-orient ourselves to a changed New York. Social media has been essential, tweets and texts keeping us connected with power out and folks displaced. Throughout it all, heartening emails from readers made us feel the very far-reaching…
Read Moremanny howard’s dinner party, a hurricane sandy antidote
Yesterday had us jumping all over the web checking out reports of Hurricane Sandy, including the startling report on Manny Howard‘s startling FB page about a Brooklyn chicken coop being mauled by the storm. (As you may remember from My Empire of Dirt: How One Man Turned His Big-City Backyard into a Farm, Manny’s fledgling chicken coop was…
Read Morebearing witness to sandy, ‘stormatron 5000’
(Video link here.) We fully intended to spend the day working but have found it nearly impossible. We can’t help but be focused on Sandy, which comedian Louis C.K. called “monster sandy franken storm Paul Bunyon shitcloud might start throwing trees at babies in Manhattan”, “the stormatron 5000″. We’re hunkered downwith candles, flashlights, battery-powered radios, a…
Read More‘improvised life’s emergency pantry
The wind has picked up in the huge trees in the park across the way. TV news is reporting mandatory evacuations around the city, as the confluence of full moon, the jet stream and hurricane Sandy’s massive size threatens major flooding and power outages. The sky is straight our of a Ghostbuster’s movie; we’re waiting…
Read Morerandom acts of kindness
At the Corner Perk Cafe in Bluffton, SC, an anonymous donor pays for the coffee of anyone in line behind them until the funds run out. Two years ago this idea caught on and now people donate regularly, or even stop by to donate without buying anything. It made us wonder about the principle of…
Read Moreleap for joy (our daily email is working again!!)
In our entire collection of leap pictures, this is probably the most wholehearted. Talk about “taking a leap” or… …a “leap of faith”!! It expresses how we feel now that our Email Subscription Service is working again. Hurrayy!! And thank you to our many subscribers who bore with us, and sent us encouraging notes. via…
Read Morerenovation lesson: going cheap can cost time + money
Once we had a rough plan and sketches for the Laboratory renovation, we needed to take them to the next level: real, accurately measured, to-scale architect’s plans. How do you afford an architect on a very tight budget, we wondered. This is where we made the first of MANY mistakes during the renovation. We hired…
Read Mored-i-y bench made of stump, slab, stone
While walking in the woods upstate last week, we came across this ad hoc bench positioned across from a massive, ancient tree. The bench had been forged out of the forest’s own materials, without nails. We love the asymmetry of the stump pillar on one side, and the pile of flat rocks on the other,…
Read Morejane hammond’s leaf sculpture will shift your view of fall
Some time ago, Marella Consolini of the Chinati Foundation alerted us to the poignant sculpture of artist Jane Hammond. Since it is about fall and leaves, it seems the perfect time to post it. Called Fallen, Hammond’s installation comprises leaves: “each unique handmade leaf has been inscribed by the artist with the name of a…
Read More‘a pencil and a dream can take you anywhere’
Spotted on Elephant Journal founder Waylon Lewis’ facebook. ’nuff said. Thanks Waylon! Related posts: xusing your car to speak your heart public signs that inspire creativity: why not?! gandhi: ‘our beliefs become our…destiny powerful words: devise, invent, create, change…
Read Moremarble tables with a rough, unfinished edge
We were instantly smitten with this kitchen, for its spareness and simplicity (on the upper East side of Manhattan no less), but especially for the marble slab table with a rough, unfinished edge. Such a simple detail to leave undone, yet the effect is bold and surprising. It could be done with any stone surface.…
Read Moreplease let us know if you are receiving your daily email
It appears that our Daily Email may not have been reaching ‘improvised life’s’ subscribers since we started posting yesterday. Please shoot us an email and let us know if you’ve received it or not. If not, we really apologize. We’ll work hard to get the problem with our email service fixed. In the meantime, please come…
Read More“build or destroy” (patrick martinez’ neon signage)
Patrick Martinez’s neon sign made us think. We believe strongly in building… …but if you aren’t building… are you destroying? OR…
Read Moretin-patched wood floor: kintsugi in action
Not long after we posted about kintsugi, the artful repair of damaged things, we came across these photos of a worn wide-plank Douglas Fir floor patched with tin in Mindy Marin’s renovated barn Bluewater Ranch. A perfect example of modern-day kintsugi: the undisguised tin becomes part of the design on floors whose age and wear makes them…
Read MoreHow to Disappear Ugly Power and Electronics Cords
After we set up our office’s wonderful 15-foot desktop, we were dismayed to see the ugly cords dangling underneath – power strip, hard drive plugs, usb hub etc. Because of where our electrical outlets are placed, and the fact that we need to be able to access the various cords, we couldn’t simply hide the…
Read Morefinding a clear work space + e.b. white on “stuff”
We were so intrigued by Charlotte’s Web author E.B. White’s utterly simple, focused work space, that we browsed some of his essays. We were heartened to read of White’s eloquent struggle with “stuff” in “Goodbye to Forty-eighth Street”:
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