OK Go is the band that made that hilarious treadmill video a few years ago. Their frontman Damian Kulash has issued tiny mission statements here and there: “We’re trying to be a DIY band in a post-major label world” …and the essential: “Our whole bag is having good ideas and making cool shit.”
Their new video is nothing but brilliant and silly ideas, one after another, so good, I wish I could watch it in slow motion (watching it without any sound is a whole other experience). It was designed and built by Syyn Labs who describe the amazing constraints they had to work under on their website. They call it “Rube Goldberg Machine”. It’s an homage to the work of Rube Goldberg, after whom an adjective was named; he was a cartoonist known for his wildly-elaborate inventions designed to accomplish some simple task, like this “Simplified Pencil Sharpener”: read more…
Yikes! have we had a glitch sending ‘the improv life’ via Twitter. So this is a test to see if we’ve finally got it figured out…
…we’re sending along a teeny post: a very simple cool way to disguise a sofa with panels of fabric, to take the focus off the original homely cover without denying it’s existence (which never works).
Years ago, New York photographer Maria Robledo designed this simple, functional and really cool-looking storage for her studio. A few hours before she moved to a new space, I ran over to photograph them for ‘the improvised life’ because they are so smart and great, even though she’d emptied them out. They once held an impressive amount of office and photographic supplies, and linens and props for shoots.
Maria’s wall of cabinets is an unfussy, easy-to-duplicate approach that would translate well to all sorts of spaces. read more…
Just about every cook I know has a favorite fork or a spoon that they use for all sorts of purposes in the kitchen; they reach for it before any other tool when they need to toss or stir or shift something in a pan, because it feels right in their hand, makes them feel right in the kitchen, and able to deal with whatever comes up.
Ellen Silverman took a picture of mine. I am certain that each utensil in this odd assortment HELPS me to cook. Each has a unique feel of its own. All are balanced, attuned in some special way that helps me to listen to whatever I am making. These implements are so much a part of my cooking that I am often not aware of all the different things I do with them.
They are the opposite of kitchen catalogue offerings; all except one are cheap and beat-up. They all have stories. read more…
I continue to mull ways to merge office and bedroom without sleeping in the midst of the fray of papers and projects…and stumbled on an interesting variant of the idea posted earlier, of creating a little shed in the office/bedroom that would be a sleeping cocoon, protected from officey stuff and the idea of never-finished work. This version of a “room (cocoon) bed” from Hotel Aire de Bardenas in Spain has a wonderful view (a nature preserve). Not so in my city digs.
To create a view, I’m fooling around with the idea of making a “room (cocoon) bed” whose fabric walls are printed with a trompe l’oeil photo mural, read more…
Suzanne Shaker, whose spare modernist house was posted here a while back, wanted a window shade for her bathroom that afforded some privacy, let light in and didn’t block the view completely. She found an old japanese screen with paper on the back that was ripped. She removed the paper and her husband Pete added hooks and simple chain. It’s a beautiful bit of repurposing. Here’s another picture. read more…
I stumbled on an archived post on Automatism of some pictures of jewelry designer Ted Muehling‘s New York City apartment. Blogger Lori had reprinted an article on Muehling’s apartment that she’d saved for years, from Maison Francaise in the late 1990′s. The place looks as appealing today as it did then (THAT’S style). In response, a woman named Joanna wrote “SO beautiful. i’m downloading these for the inspiration journal… xo”.
The Inspiration Journal. It reminded me of folders I’ve often kept of clippings from magazines: of spaces I liked, or ideas I wanted to pursue. Seeing pictures can help you bring to life your own ideas, as you take the gist, or a kernel, or a detail and run with it. Nowadays, it can be done digitally of course, and kept on a computer or printed out. An Inspiration Journal is a much better way of framing things than a “bookmark”. read more…
Remodelista posted some terrific pictures of my friends Suzanne Shaker and Pete Dandridge’s perfect summer house on Shelter Island, 2 hours from New York City. Suzanne, an interior designer and stylist, and Pete, an art conservator, worked with Deborah Burke & Partners Architects to build the 1250 square foot from-scratch house. It seems incredibly spacious, due in part to large glass doors and picture windows (one whole side of the house) that bring in the surrounding woods and nature, and a 20-foot dining/living/kitchen area. Ample storage keeps the minimalist house from looking cluttered.
What Remodelista doesn’t mention is that the house was made on a strict budget – less than half of what a house in this part of the world would normally cost. Every design decision was meant to be both beautiful and practical, if not always easy; the budget demanded that Suzanne and Pete give up some ideas they’d seen as essential, and become more resourceful in finding solutions. They went with inexpensive materials in many places, to spend more on others. read more…
A big part of improvising is imagining possibilities, or “listening” to the possibilities inherent in a situation or a thing. That can mean any thing, even something as ordinary as a hook, though its always easier if it has a simple, rather classic design that can work in a variety of situations. The trick is to ignore what the item was originally designed for. This handmade brass boat hook from the great, bordering-on-fetish website Hook Lady is a fine example. It is at once handsome, understated, and elemental, both modern and rustic. It would work equally well as a bathroom towel hook, a closet hook, key hook, fireplace tool hook…as coat hooks (a row of them on a wall by the door), or, as a “pot rack” (many hooks composed in stacked rows or as a cluster on an entire wall of a kitchen)… read more…
Westerby Gard is an inn and restaurant on a beautiful centuries-old estate near Inkoo, 45 minutes southwest from Helsinki. Its traditional, rustic style reflects the Swedish influence on Finland. I was taken with their glossy painted tables, cleverly configured to make a huge dining table, or rectangular tables of any length – no tablecloth necessary. It’s an expensive-looking way to transform cheap wooden tables and chairs like these (from Ikea, Crate and Barrel, or an unpainted furniture store… ) read more…
Reg E. Cathey is a wonderful actor who has been in The Wire, and a million tv shows and films. He recently played Red in the Shawshank Redemption in Dublin, and is on his way to London’s West End to star in it there. He’s been reading ‘theimprovisedlife’ since its launch in early July and taken its message to heart, responding in comments he’s posted. In telling little stories of his own improvisations, he manages to find the perfect words to describe what improvising is all about. (I’ve quoted two below.)
Apparently, Reggie hadn’t written much before the improvisational spirit moved him him to: a perfect example of its power. This post is an introduction to the post that follows: a gorgeous piece of writing and spoken word from Reggie. read more…
Years ago, when I was putting together my very make-shift kitchen, I searched and searched for a pot rack that was the opposite of the ones that seemed to be everywhere – clunky or “country”-ish, overly ornate or verging on Medieval. Nothing I found accommodated my personal pot rack idiosyncrasies that includes not liking pots hanging over head, or making my small space looking cluttered.
So I turned to towel bars. It was a small shift in thinking to envision these sleek steel bars hung with hooks and copper, rather than terry cloth. Why not use a towel bar as a pot rack? (Or simply change its name?) read more…
Platform21calls themselves a design platform (“curiously exploring”, “strangely optimistic”) but other people call them change agents, and that definitely describes them. Witness their latest project, Repair Manifesto. In eloquent, energizing statements, it expounds the coolness of repair. (Check out #5 and #7.) It has hit a nerve, racing through the internet like wildfire. read more…
The N.Y.Times recently ran a story about a couple who bought a house in Upstate New York for $95,000 and fixed it up, beautifully, for $10,000, using pure elbow grease and a eye for scavenged and second-hand stuff.
The best nugget of info, to me, was about how to score serious finds on Craigslist: “Using Craigslist successfully means scrolling through the listings every day, not once a month,”read more…
I’m a big fan of rocks, which I haul home from the beach or country to use in various ways around my apartment, for Chicken Under a Brick Rock, or keep the air conditioner from rattling. They make beautiful, rather elemental doorstops. They’re also wonderul to look at with no use at all, piled up somewhere.
I know a guy who piled beautiful smallish round stones in shades of white and gray in the corner of his shower, to remind him the beach every morning…
