(Video link HERE.) I LOVE this video! Filmmaker/designer Casey Neistat describes his great Intuitive Categorization Method for organizing his tools and little stuff. I’m loving it especially because it showed up right on time, in time, this morning.
Read MoreMusic for Monday Morning (Jun Miyake)
(Video link HERE.) …perfect music for getting going on a Monday morning, as well as people dancing, leaping and gliding around in the most wonderful way (until the dark end). You can jump in anywhere to get a hit of LEAP energy. Not content to just click one link, we can’t help but follow trails. The…
Read MoreA Song for a Summer Weekend
We know a number of people taking “stay-cations”, enjoying the city as though they were visiting it anew, filling themselves up with wonderful art, food, happenings, and not dealing with traveling for one reason for another. We’re going to do the same in a week or so, just so we can WANDER, without a…
Read MoreHelp Us Find Out If $18 really IS a Lucky Number
When we launched our new Friends with Benefits subscription programs, a number of people asked if we chose $18 as amount for a yearly subscription because 18 is a lucky number. “No, we didn’t.” we said, Tell us more!”.
Read MoreReminder: Most of the Stuff You Worry About…
…never happens. But as we’ve experienced lately, some difficult stuff DOES happen. We couldn’t have predicted it, or prevented it. It’s LIFE. The best we could do is remember that there are answers and solutions in every moment, there to find. We think of artist/scientist Thomas Ashcraft’s great sign:
Read MoreDIY or Buy: Attention Grabbing Geometric Headboards + Panels
These distressed, pastel painted wood panels from Urban Outfitters are enchanting, but why not use the idea as a springboard for a summer DIY project to install anywhere in the house or garden?
Read MoreFor Sale: Rare French Dining Table (Long, Narrow, Curiously Modern)
We’ve had this fab, rare, 19C French dining table in storage, hoping that we’d have a place for it in the Laboratory. Unfortunately, it’s eight-foot length just won’t work in the configuration of our space. We’ve decided to sell it, for a steal. The buyer would arrange for an pay for shipping from Seattle (or pick it…
Read MoreMaking Music with…Rain
(Video link HERE.) Recently we stumbled on this video of music made with rain drops. Rain as percussion instrument: MUSIC. It’s pretty swell, and very carefully thought out, with its haute technology and count of rain drops. We love Fast Forward’s Rain Music for it’s utter in-the-moment directness and accessibility. (Video link HERE.)
Read MoreAnthony Giglio Kills at the Moth!
Anthony Giglio is journalist, sommelier, and author of Food & Wine Wine Guides, Cocktails in New York and Mr. Boston’s Official Bartender’s Guide. He is wine blogger for Details and Improvised Life’s deviser of brilliant, simple strategies for celebrations both grand and low-key. Of late, Anthony revealed yet another side of himself: a superb storyteller whose personal stories move and transform. He brought…
Read MoreBack to Basics with Homemade Household Products
Here’s something to put up on your refrigerator door: a chart showing 72 practical uses of common “core” ingredients that make up our (far more expensive) store-bought soaps, lotions and surface cleaners. The idea is that all of the countless “new and improved!” drugstore potions lining our cabinet shelves are really just permutations of six or seven simple active components
Read MoreStylish Repurposed Tables from RioEtc
When we start poking around the google translate version of rioetc.com.br, a site meant to show the stylish side of Rio, we found, over several separate posts some compelling mashups of tables. The first, the coffee table, above, which appears to be made of mismatched crates, some with wheels, some not, and a cubist hunk of…is…
Read MoreMaira Kalman on Daydreaming, Eccentricity, and Not Knowing What is Going On
(Vido link HERE.) Portraits in Creativity is a series of short-form videos by renown creative director Gael Towey about the bravery and processes of artists and artisans. Who could better start off the series than the great, wise, observant Maira Kalman? Kalman’s drawing and writing gets to the essence of “not knowing what is going on” and celebrates…
Read MoreSchool Girl Parcour
(Video link HERE.) In the annals of “breaking stereotypes” is this thrilling, mind-boggling, closer-than-bird’s-eye view of two Japanese schoolgirls doing seriously Ninja Parcour — usually the realm of young men — all around the city of Atami. YES!!!!!!
Read MoreGo DIY (or buy) and Fly a Kite!
Fredericks & Mae’s beautiful Floralia – Fighter kite is meant to hang a wall to IMAGINE flying in air. But for us, it is inspiration for diy kites you can fly, like the one we saw the other day being flown from a Harlem rooftop. Made by Joel has a great tutorial, one of many kite plans we found online.
Read MoreAmazing Makeshift, Human-Powered Mobile Home
Liu Lingchao built a makeshift dwelling to house himself as he walked back to his hometown in China. He has carried it on his shoulders daily for five years as he walks home.
Read MoreHouse Tour with Life Lessons: Tom Fallon’s Shelter Island Cottage
When our friend Tom Fallon’s Shelter Island cottage was featured in Hamptons Cottages & Gardens, we realized just how many lessons about home design and LIFE we learned from him over the years. Here they are, with pictures by Jason Penney.
Read MoreMay the Mistakes I Make Light the Way
We were really struck by this sign we found on Hedviggen. Burning bridges is a pretty intense thing to do, and it made us think hard about that idea, of being able NEVER to go back because of a bridge we’ve burned. We do believe that in just about any action, there are always possibilities…
Read MoreDo a Wheelie!!
We LOVE everything that is in clear defiance of age (or any other) limiting stereotypes. You GO girl/woman/lady/man/daddy/mister/ms/miss/mama….! via Pinterest
Read MoreIndustrial Materials for DIY (Incl Vibration Fixes)
We have a thing for industrial materials: the mysterious raw materials used by various industries that were traditionally off-limits to the public. Years ago, we learned that if we could find a source, we could buy them like anyone else. Recently, we had an adventure and lesson in the vast possibilities of rubber products (and made some big discoveries we didn’t expect).
Read MoreSculptural, Dimensional Textiles—for Couture or DIY
We love designer Zita Merényi’s Provo-CUT collection of seared-and-soldered neoprene garments. Forgoing traditional draping and stitching, these pieces are instead constructed panel-by-panel, pleated together, and heat-joined into dimensional, puffy, future-ish jackets and cloaks punctuated by thick, raw seams and unlikely openings. The gist: synthetic fabics melt, so heat, not thread can be used to join the seams.
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