“Read a Valentine heart shape from top to bottom. and it says the two can become one.Read it from bottom to top, and it says the one can become two with the two still connected.
Read a Valentine heart shape as a whole, and it says wholeness is a place to live with room inside for the liquid of life and many adventures. read more…
celebrations
happy valentine’s day ’12 from ‘the improvised life’
last-minute valentine’s cards and gifts
Early this morning we received an email from a friend who was about to make chocolate truffles for her Valentine, and wasn’t sure how to transport them. The email was sent in the wee hours of the morning, and we realized that for many, today means a last-minute scramble to get ready for Valentine’s day – TOMORROW. So here are some suggestions we’ve found in our morning surfing, or that we include in our personal arsenal.
We love the cut-and-fold d-i-y cards Made by Joel came up with. They are meant as a kid’s project but we think they’d make a swell grownup valentine: the template ever-inventive Joel Henriques generously included as a pdf has an appealing abstract look that is great unto itself… read more…
brown sugar butter cookies with thyme-rosemary-lavender salt
photo: sally schneider
Just before Christmas, I posted my best-ever butter cookie recipe: Ethereal Brown Sugar Butter Cookies, along with many variations. The versatile cookie dough recently inspired yet another improvisation on the basic theme. Actually, it’s an improvisation on my Tuscan Herb Salt Recipe, that I then used on the butter cookies, to make a double-improvisation: Brown Sugar Butter Cookies with Thyme-Rosemary-Lavender Salt…
I used the essential Herb Salt method to make a fragrant salt using classic Herbes de Provence: rosemary, thyme and lavender (instead of the usual garlic, rosemary and sage). After I cut out the raw cooky dough, I sprinkled each disk with some of the aromatic salt, hoping that the combination would make for a subtle, surprising and delicious cookie. It did, and has become a new favorite.
That’s what happens when you start improvising: one idea links and layers with another, until you have improvisations made of improvisations…
The basic method is simple… read more…
honoring martin luther king jr
photo: library of congress
“Monday’s a holiday” we were told. “What holiday?” we asked. Since we work for ourselves, we’re not really in sync with regular work days.
It’s “Martin Luther King Jr Day.”
Even though we’re working today, we’re thinking a lot about this great man, and all this country would not have were it not for his efforts…and what we would not have; his teaching and activism and way still reverberate… read more…
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
We’re just following our Philosophy of Late Celebrations: read more…
fantasmagorie for new year’s eve
The treasures to be seen on YouTube continue to astonish. For this lazy New Year’s weekend, we offer Émile Cohl‘s Fantasmagorie; created in 1908, one of the first animated films.
To make this film, Cohl placed each drawing on an illuminated glass plate and then traced the next drawing-with variations-on top of it until he had some 700 drawings… the characters in the film look as though they’ve been drawn on a chalkboard, but it’s an illusion. By filming black lines on paper and then printing in negative Cohl makes his animations appear to be chalk drawings.
It is charming, odd, fabulous and at the .47 second mark seems to be secretly giving a New Year’s message.
via OpenCulture
Related posts: weekend road trip: ‘address is approximate’
dept of mindshifts: pencilhead ‘right here, right now’
teeny video: what having a new idea is like
holiday wishes from ‘the improvised life’
archives of american art, smithsonian institution
A 1957 homemade holiday card by artist Alexandra Darrow, known for her Works Progress Administration murals of the 1930′s.
…And we’re wishing you fatso joy and blessings…
(We’ll be back on January 1st.)
j.s bach does Christmas: live-stream and free downloads
Ever since we discovered radio station WKCR’s annual Bach Festival years ago, we’ve can’t get through the holiday season without a big dose of the great composer. The festival features music of Johann Sebastian Bach exclusively from 3pm on Thursday 12/22 till midnight on Saturday 12/31, streamable live at the top right of their site…full of fat joy for a week, whenever you want it…
like….right….NOW!
If you are a serious Bach-o-holic, you can also download James Kibbie’s recordings of Johann Sebastian Bachs complete organ works, organized into 13 different groups for download, free.
Related posts: pates’ tapes: hours of terrific music – free
wishing you: joy!
ode to joy
pates’ tapes: hours of terrific music – free
dept. of tiny miracles: 100-year-old letter to santa found in a chimney
The Irish Times reported an amazing story of a 100 year-old letter to Santa found tucked in a Dublin chimney. It was found by the house’s current occupant, John Byrne, who works in the building industry.
“At that time, the fireplaces were made of brick with a shelf on either side,” Byrne. “The letter was found on one of the shelves.”
It makes some simple, very specific requests: read more…
alt christmas trees made of string lights n’ things to d-i-y
Although we love walking through the canyons of trees for sale on New York City streets, we haven’t been able to wrap our heads around buying and decorating a Christmas tree. Lately, we’ve seen a number of festive alt-Christmas trees made with inexpensive string Christmas lights
revisionist jingle bells bollywood-style
(Video link here.) We need silly right about now.
With thanks to Cara de Silva!
Related posts: dance for friday
(bowls of) water music from India
best-ever holiday cookie recipe: ethereal brown sugar butter cookies with many variations
photo: maria robledo
With the holidays soon upon us, I thought I’d post one of my very best cookie recipes. Or perhaps I should say cookie dough recipes: in addition to being able to fashion it into all sorts of cookie shapes and flavors, it also makes a great bake-ahead tart crust. Fleur de Sel Cookies, Earl Grey Tea Cookies, Coffee Vanilla Bean Cookies, Shortbread Pastry Lids and Shells for Tarts, and Brown Sugar Lime Curd Tart are just a few of the creations it easily morphs into. Once you know the basic thinking behind it, you can improvise endlessly with it. read more…
‘sugar plum fairy’ on a glass harp (water music)
We were charmed by this wondrous rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Sugar Plum Fairy on a glass harp – wine glasses filled with water. We were also amazed when went to GlassDuo’s website and learned:
“Many of those who see a set of wine glasses for the first time consider it most avant-garde to use it as a musical instrument. And it amazes them to learn that in the Far East glass instruments were already known in the Middle Ages…”
How makeshift led to such beauty…
…And then we remembered the water music our friend Peggy Markel filmed on a street in India…
Magic.
Via Neatorama
Related posts: insta-meditation: a history of the sky + moby
a dance lesson from zorba + anthony quinn
vision break: a dress that makes music…
ode to joy
‘everyday is a day for thanksgiving!’
‘gif wrap’ + six strategies for cool, cheap gift wrap (d-i-y)
We wish our gift wrapping could do the boogie-woogie like this Gif Wrap by Fueled by Coffee. But barring that bit of magical brilliance, here’s our favorite strategies for impromptu gift wrapping. read more…
