Egor kraft
This art work by Egor Kraft is echoing what a lot of people are finally getting with (or trying to): making mistakes are a way to learn, part of the path, the way things work…
Yeah!
(The guy loves papering the streets with signs by the way. Check these out.)
via uncopy
Related posts: discover the ‘negative’ path to happiness
on the rightness of being wrong via TED
elizabeth streb on the necessity of risk-taking
reminder: a wrong choice can take you to the right place
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In the the Bill Murray interview we excerpted recently we held back an essential chunk, perfect for right NOW:
I realized the more fun I had, the more relaxed I was working, the better I worked.
Q. That seems to be a philosophy you apply not only to your work but to your entire life.
A. Well, I’ve made some mistakes in that area too. The more relaxed you are, the better you are at everything: the better you are with your loved ones, the better you are with your enemies, the better you are at your job, the better you are with yourself.
We were wondering how old wiseman Bill manages to stay so relaxed when we found a post on ZenHabits about exactly how to relax and let go of tightness no matter where you are. Leo Barbauta boils relaxation down to a few simple steps: read more…
We were reading a packed-full-of-revelations1992 interview with poet Gary Snyder when we came across this amazing, of-the-cuff line. What a concept! The context is his answer to the question about whether he’d work as Secretary of the Interior or other political post if asked:
I’ve never thought seriously about that question. Probably not, although I am foolish enough to think that if I did do it, I’d do it fairly well, because I’m pretty single-minded. But you don’t want to be victimized by your lesser talents. One of my lesser talents is that I am a good administrator, so I really have to resist being drawn into straightening things out. The work I see for myself remains on the mythopoetic level of understanding the interface of society, ecology, and language, and I think it is valuable to keep doing that.
The gist: Don’t let a not-terribly-important skill that you happen to be good at sidetrack the real work you need to do. How wise that guy is, always was…
In case you don’t know Snyder, here’s a couple of his poems that have much to do with how any creative work gets made. read more…
(Video link here.) The first 20 seconds of this wacky video illustrates an essential tenet of improvisation – especially in cooking: the associations of ideas in your field of vision. Here, a classic breakfast next to a frozen pizza sparks the brilliant idea of a breakfast pizza. For us, it’s lead to the discovery that vanilla bean scrapings are delicious on avocados (with a little sugar), that a chunk of chocolate smeared with peanut butter = a peanut butter cup, that amaretti cookies and creme fraiche make a delightful cake for one; the peanut butter and dulce de leche make a stupendous “truffle” or cake filling; that bacon is a great substitute for some of the butter in a cake; that herb salt makes a great dusting for butter cookings. We’ve also found figs to be divine with salami, sugar to be great on olive-oil brushed toast, among about a million other revelations (many of which are in Sally’s The Improvisational Cook
All it takes is TRYING out the combos you see before you and seeing if they work.
via Epic Meal Time
Related posts: midnight snack: peanut butter cups
recipe: dark chocolate cakelets with aromatic pepper and…….
late night forager: seven layer cake for one
brown sugar butter cookies with thyme-rosemary-lavender salt
fried egg formula for a satisfying breakfast (or lunch or dinner)
The other day we received this email from artist Siobhan Humston:
On the theme of New Year & lists, I thought you may enjoy this list from a former school mate of mine, Mark Alessio. He was killed in Africa a few years ago and on the Facebook memorial page, a friend of his posted a page from his at-the-time current resume.
I adopted it as my email signature for a long time and posted it often…the poignancy of his succinct mandate and his death is something that always seemed to touch a cord with people, even those who knew nothing of his brilliant, full but short life.
It makes us think about what list we’d make…as we come across potent principles, we’re going to make a practice of writing them down: ‘proceed with gratitude’ to start. Got any we should know about?
Thanks a million Siobhan!
Related posts: reflecting on 2012: the lists, images, video
tattoo’d words of wisdom + hope
thelonious monk’s notes on life and music
remarkable to-do lists
(Video link here.) One of the very best things in the New York Times’ recent The Lives They Lived was a clip from Terry Gross’ last interview with Maurice Sendak; Chrisopher Niemann’ found and illustrated it. It is full of achingly tender, wise words from the 80-year-old Sendak:
There’s something I’m finding out as I’m aging — that I am in love with the world…I look right now, as we speak together, out my window in my studio, and I see my trees, my beautiful, beautiful maples that are hundreds of years old. And you see I can see how beautiful they are. I can take time to see how beautiful they are.
Our friend Maureen Rolla turned his words into a New Year’s blessing: read more…
nphoto: frank gunn/ap
This has been QUITE a year and we’re taking this week to reflect and look back (while we look forward). We start with this image of Nik Wallenda walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls from The Big Picture’s The 45 Most Powerful Images Of 2012; we often feel like that, in our own small way.
We love Google’s Year in Review 2012 Zeitgeist video (and bless them for including Pussy Riot). (Video link here.) read more…
CreativeMornings Short: George Lois on Courage from CreativeMornings on Vimeo.
(Video link here.) In this short, great clip from design legend George Lois‘ CreativeMornings talk, he gives what he considers to be his most essential piece of advice for creatives — for anyone — : “be courageous!“.
And suddenly we realized that Lois is curiously reminiscent of the Cowardly Lion giving his great speech from the Wizard of OZ about why courage is so important . read more…
(Video link here.) When commercial photographer John Dugdale lost most of his sight almost twenty years ago, he did not give up photography as one would have imagined. Instead, he started photographing in a new way, using a huge view camera and employing 19th century forms and processes. Life forced him to “see in a new way” and his art photographs became highly acclaimed.
Among his many commissions was the ad campaign for a revival of William Gibson’s play The Miracle Worker. This video gives insight into his unique process and the “lesson” he took from his blindness.
“There is an alternate world out there that is as powerful as anything one might describe as normal. Whatever it is that you think is your adversity is actually your strength.” read more…
Charlotte, Daniel, Olivia, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Madeline, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Emilie, Jack, Noah, Caroline, Jessica, Benjamin, Avielle, Allison…
When President Obama said those names aloud today during his moving speech at Newtown, our hearts broke, again.
We found ourselves comforted by the words-gone-viral of kindly old Fred Rogers —Mr. Rogers — advocate and true friend of children for eons. It is our experience that there are indeed helpers all around, and that in each moment, there is the possibility of light, unimaginable perhaps, until it appears. read more…
(Video link here.) We find this video of guys throwing balls with their “other hand” is both hilarious and curiously illuminating. It’s really funny how cockeyed throwing with the other hand makes these guys, and how off their aim. But intentionally switching handedness — or any practice we do routinely — can be a kind of training. It forces you to be present, see things differently and engages different parts of the brain. We’ve found that writing with our “other hand” produces a very different kind of writing: wilder, more personal, another voice within us.
It’s just on other way of waking ourselves up.
Via the great Manny Howard, author of read more…
We found this to be a swell sign unto itself…
Then when we looked into it, it turns out to be part of a marketing campaign the CocoCola Company did around its soda OK Cola. Trying to market to Gen X and Y markets, Coke Cola tried to create “a counter-intuitive advertising” campaign that intentionally targeted people who did not like advertising. The campaign, and the soda, failed after a year (apparently the flavor of the soda itself was pretty bad) though its unique and varied can design and advertising have since gained something of a cult following. read more…
photo: henry leutwyler
Recently, New York Magazine published a photo essay by Henry Leutwyler Behind the Curtain at the New York City Ballet. We can’t help viewing his image of a ballerina’s feet — one pointe shoe on, and one off — as a powerful metaphor for the often-hidden and difficult “inside” of a creative work that appears effortless and in control on the “outside”. The ballerina’s unadorned foot speaks volumes about the harsh realities, discipline, suffering and committment she (we) must sometimes experience to do what she (we) loves.
A number of people we showed it to thought otherwise. read more…
(Video link here.) Susan Dworski alerted us to this stunning video, in an email with the subject line: “ah, the improvisational human spirit”. It’s about a remarkable orchestra from a remote village in Paraguay — a slum built on landfill — where its young musicians play with instruments made from foraged trash. The village’s inhabitants eke out a living by culling saleable items and materials in the huge dump. When a half-destroyed violin was found, Nicolas Gomez had the idea to rehabilitate it using found materials; the improvisation of other instruments followed.
It is astonishing to hear the wondrous first strains of Bach’s Suite No.1 in G major Prélude played on a cello improvised out of “an oil can, wood that was thrown away in the garbage…its pegs made out of an old tool used to tenderize beef and to make gnocchi…”
…And to hear how these kids lives have been changed by music: “When I listen to the sound of a violin, I feel butterflies in my stomach.” Says Music Director Favio Chavez, “The world sends us garbage. We send back music.” read more…
zero waste home
A reader recently alerted us to Bea Johnson, creator of the website Zero Waste Home, who challenged herself to wear a single man’s shirt in 50 different iterations, as part of her committment to a zero waste lifestyle:
Great inspiration, and many iterations look so wearable and comfortable. Reminds me of Audrey Hepburn and her oversize shirts with tails wrapped around her waist and tied in front. A great look and a fresh perspective at the same time.
Bea posted images of her many stylish shirt improvisations on Zero Waste Home. Unfortunately, the black-and-white photos don’t show all the detail we’re dying to see, nor does Bea describe the fabric and style of the shirt she chose: But we got a sense of it in this photo: read more…
