Lately we’ve been wanting to expand our fields of vision a bit. We’re always on the lookout for new inspiration for the blog, but also just for shaking up our own thoughts and routines. After asking a couple of friends for some book and blog recommendations, we realized that we have the greatest resource in our own readers!
So tell us: what are you reading that inspires you? Whether it’s a new favorite book or one you return to often, a blog you keep tabs on or one you just discovered we want to hear about it. read more…
Every year, New York Times’ publishes a special issue of the Sunday magazine called The Lives They Lived, usually famous people who passed away the year before. The 2011 issue was subtitled “These American Lives: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Stories.”.
We read the stunning issue cover-to-cover, deeply moved, often in tears, haunted by what we read. We’ve been meaning to write about it ever since.
The most insanely beautiful piece is Uneasy Rider, an interview with comedian Mike DeStafano’s in which he describes the unplanned gift of a motorcycle ride to his girlfriend who was in hospice care. If you haven’t readyyour quota of free Times articles, this is the one to read, though it is well worth paying for. This excerpt is only a fraction of the astonishing story: read more…
A favorite way we’ve found to savor an artwork or image without owning it is simply to prop a book with the work open against a wall, on a shelf or sideboard or mantle. Every time we pass by or glance up, it is there for us to enjoy. When we tire of it, or become “blind” from seeing it frequently, we open the book to another page, or display another open book altogether.
We’ve found this is a great way to put ideas we want to remember in our field of vision…
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 from Amazon, or through the publisher.)
We’re just following our Philosophy of Late Celebrations: read more…
Our friend Lisa Morphew recently sent us a photo of Rabah Belamri, an extraordinary Algerian poet we met many years ago in the south of France. Accompanying the photo were these words:
“It feels like this Christmas is about remembering the people that somehow changed my life.”
Rabah was blind; he lost his sight when he was a teenager living in a remote village in Algeria. He had a poet’s memory for the world, with a blind man’s acute senses: hearing, touch, smell, the “feeling” of a place.
Fearless, he would walk with us in the mountains, guided by his companion Yvonne, along rough dirt paths and steep inclines, through meadows of wild thyme, crossing streams by stepping trustingly on one rock after another, as Yvonne talked him across. Rabah and Yvonne, as though their senses were intertwined, would comment on scent of flowers we hadn’t seen, plucking wild fruits for us to taste that we hadn’t noticed. Writes Lisa:
(Video link here.) In his riff on being broke, comedian Louis C.K. vividly echoes the Russian proverb: “A rich man in his fur coat cannot understand why a poor man feels cold”, as he addresses the many people he knows – a whole nation, in fact – who are broke.
Being broke is, in fact, an age-old dilemma which forces one to be creative to survive. The wonderful Chinese poet Su Tung-P’o lived in the eleventh century and made and lost many fortunes during his long life. He wrote this letter to his brother during one of his extended period of down-and-outness, describing his improvised method of budgeting, made all the more interesting by his unique point of view: read more…
“Sculptor and designer Harry Bertoia was just 15 when he moved from Italy to the United States. Two years later, struggling to assimilate in school, he made this list of personal attributes as part of a class project. After high school he attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where, along with his neatness and accuracy, he developed a fluid sense of sculptural form that made him a leading designer of modern furniture.”
With the holidays fast approaching, everyone we know is starting their annual scramble to find great gifts. We’ve always felt that books make the best children’s presents. Over the years we’ve posted some of our favorites, all of which encourage creative thinking. From surprising cookbooks to clever craft projects, we highly recommend these six books to inspire your child’s inner artist. Click through the links below to read our posts about each one and order from Amazon, starting with The Donut Chef by Bob Staake ( buy it here)… read more…
Video link here. Yesterday, we downloaded several iPad apps, hoping to check in with what the latest technology was doing. We tried apps for viewing art, reading magazine articles, listening to music that promised to present a ‘multi-dimensional experience.’ Among the most compelling was an multi-dimensional app designed for children, that charmed and resonated with our grownup selves. We completely related to Morris Lessmore’s story…and know an awful lot of grownups who would as well:
“Morris Lessmore loved words…His life was a book of his own writing, one orderly page after another. He would open it every morning and write of his joys and sorrows, of all that he knew and everything that he hoped…
But every story has its upsets. One day the the sky darkened…the winds blew and blew…till everything Morris knew was scattered…
He didin’t know what to do or which way to go. So he began to wander. And wander.”
Morris goes on to discover what can happen when you a bit of unexpected luck comes your way, or you shift your pattern just a bit: read more…
The best part of Maria Popova’s Brainpickings blog is, for us, the glimpses she gives us into new books. With extensive pictures and well-selected quotes, she immediately and completely draws you in to the world of the book she’s featuring. This picture from the book Nomad by Jeroen Toirkens particularly spoke to us, as it reveals the life of people who must always be prepared to be on the move. A teepee with solar-panels and satellite dish in Mongolia somehow resonates with our obsession with portable rooms (both inside and out), and reminds us the many other ways of living that are going on right at this moment… read more…
(Video link.) We’re excited for Steven Johnson’s new book, The Innovator’s Cookbook: Essentials for Inventing What Is Next. It looks like he has called upon an all-star cast of innovators and researchers to discuss what makes for successful innovation. In the video, he gives away some important parts of the recipe: We like being instructed to “lose our bearings” in order to be open to new ideas. But we really love his story about music producer Brian Eno forcing band members to switch instruments in the studio to keep their music fresh and encourage new sounds. …And the practice of starting brainstorming sessions with a “show-and-tell” of recently discovered ideas – even seemingly unrelated ones.
The tenets of innovation presented here sound very similar to Joshua Foer’s rules for becoming an expert. It seems that experience and research both show that forcing yourself out of your comfort zone and taking risks is integral to building new skills and finding success in new projects. So it’s not all just a hunch of ours!
Johnson is also the man behind Where Good Ideas Come From, which we find ourselves returning to often (perfect bathroom reading: you can open it anywhere.)
For a long time, it was our habit to jump out of bed and start working: reading blogs, news, emails, writing. We were, literally, swept away each day by the virtual world we love to wander around in; there were no real breaks and downtime, no time to turn inward, quiet. Every morning, we simply jumped in.
Then a friend told us that he made a practice of always reading something uplifting or illuminating first thing in the morning – NOT firing up the computer and NOT reading the news, but rather taking the time to read a bit of poetry or a philosophy, something that was more about ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’. We decided to try it, turning to books that we valued but hadn’t looked at for years – Wherever You Go, There You Are… Neruda’s Garden: An Anthology of Odes… reading as we drank a cup of tea in the quiet of the morning. It changed everything; the books we read have the effect of centering us for much of the day, while teaching us a new perspective.
(Video link here.) Here’s a magazine idea we find compelling: called Makeshift, it’s about the ingenious solutions and inventions people all over the world are making with what they’ve got on hand. Right now it exists as a Kickstarter project. We see it as a quarterly reminder of possibilities in magazine form, an antidote to Martha Stewart Living, Wallpaper, Elle Decor…
What do you think? (Is this something you’d buy?…Are you buying any magazines these days?)
Our favorite hunk from Just Kids, Patti Smith’s story of finding her artistic voice, in tandem with her friend Robert Mapplethorpe. Here, a life changing notion from Sam Shepard.
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. It looks like he has called upon an all-star cast of innovators and researchers to discuss what makes for successful innovation. In the video, he gives away some important parts of the recipe: We like being instructed to “lose our bearings” in order to be open to new ideas. But we really love his story about music producer 
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, Patti Smith’s story of finding her artistic voice, in tandem with her friend 
