Our intrepid friend Peggy Markel just arrived in India to prepare to lead one of her amazing culinary adventures, Tasting Royal Rajasthan. She sent us this amazing picture of an ironing board computer table and the story behind it:
“We’re staying with a new friend, Rajiv Jani, friend of a friend. It is his rig, was already here. I knew you would love it. I thought to call it ‘permanent press’. Here’s how it came about:
Rajiv lived in Atlanta for 10 years and had all of his stuff shipped back to Delhi. He set up the ironing board in a spare room for his ironing. But he found out that he could have his shirts ironed for 2 rupees each. (1/2 a penny.) 25 shirts? $1.00.
He was looking for a place to set up his home computer and set a few things down on the ironing board until he found the right place. His electronics started growing there as that was where the internet connection was and the wiring was getting too complicated to move.To buy a new table from Ikea would cost $150. Then you need a chair. read more…
(Video link here.) When we’re introduced to a venture, our first impulse is always to ask: what’s the story behind it? What were the seeds of the idea that grew into a fully realized project? It’s the stories that win us over, which is why we’re are so taken with Jam in the Van.
Based in Venice, CA, Jam in the Van is the project of music fans looking for an uncommercialized, authentic music experience. Armed with an old Winnebago that they’ve turned into a state-of-the-art recording studio, these guys invite musicians to perform, film the unique performances, and put much of it online for free (scroll down for the current list of musicians). Music fans get to discover new artists or check out fantastic live-versions of their favorite tracks, and small independent artists get amazing free publicity. It’s such a rare and beautiful thing to see a project come together sheerly out of passion and drive. read more…
While looking at images of Taliesin West for our string light post, we came across this sign of Frank Lloyd Wright’s “The Organic Commandment”. We’re not sure if it’s one or four, or ‘commandment’ rather than principles, but we find it worth mulling…
(Video link here.) It’s been an eerily snow-less winter in New York City. With the exception of a single January snowfall there has been nothing—and we kind of miss it. This post is in honor of the snow we think may be on its way…and the possibilities it brings with it.
We wrote a couple of summers ago about artist Jim Denevan and his large-scale sand drawings which totally transformed how we think about playing in the sand. Now our attention has been called to his work with snow and ice. In 2010, Denevan made the largest piece of artwork in the world on the surface of Lake Baikal in Siberia. This nine-mile spiral of circles over the ice is stunning and allows us to once again completely re-imagine the possibilities of using snow as/in art. 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…
(Our strategy for being “on hold” is to wear an old-fashioned telephone headset - an essential tool – so we can write, scan blogs, surf…as we follow one thing to another… draw….and make cups of tea…cook. It’s not so much being “on hold” that we mind, it’s the irritating music that’s the problem. Take away the music, and it wouldn’t bother us much at all.)
(Video link here.) A reader sent us this lovely little video her friend Julia Warr made. It is about 95-year-old Maia Helles, a former Russian ballet dancer who she met on a plane four years ago. Warr became convinced that Maia “remains resolutely independent, healthy as a forty year old…through the benefits of her daily exercise routine, which Maia perfected, together with her Mother, over 60 years ago, long before exercise classes were ever invented.”
Towards the end, Maia reveals the keys to her long life:
“My secret for a long life is simplicity and work and enjoyment. “
Last week Mondoblogo posted two photos taken at Art Basel of wonderful geometrically-painted walls with doors (they are part of the blog’s illuminating challenge to identify what is actual “art” and what is not). The top is “Final Cut” by artist Ernst Caramelle. The second “a random door”…
We’re putting them in our file of cool ideas for painting a room with a door. read more…
We love things that change our view. With the wind howling and the temperature cold, we found ourselves delighted with a little book that has taken us on an armchair trip through Paris, showing us the city through new eyes: the eyes of a pastry-o-phile. Pastry Paris: In Paris, Everything Looks Like Dessert grew out of a teeny film graphic designer Susan Hochbaum created a couple of years ago, which we posted here (sadly, it has since been taken down.) It was perfect, with a sweet story behind it: “I came to Paris middle-aged, divorced, and newly in love. Granting myself a sabbatical and renting out my suburban home, I moved with my beau to this romantic city for a year of living shamelessly…Abandoning restraint, and with the appetite of a teenager…”
Hochbaum ate her way through the pastry worlds of Paris, seeing pastry everywhere she looked…
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…
Ever since we found this quote by the legendary choreographer Martha Graham on Elephant Journal the other day, it’s been haunting us, because we relate to SO much to it and because we DON’T relate to some of it, a curious mix.
“I believe that we learn by practice.
Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same.
In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one’s being, a satisfaction of spirit.
One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God.
Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire.
Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.” read more…
(Video link here.) Ekso Bionics, creators of a robotic exoskeleton that enables paraplegics to walk, has created a compelling video about their remarkable invention. Much of the video is of Amanda Boxtel, an early product tester, who has not walked since she sustained an spinal cord injury 20 years ago (though she has mastered – and taught – many sitting-down sports.) Watching her, and listening to her speak of her experience, is to be reminded of – and really “get” - the little ordinary things that we take for granted…“putting my heal on the ground…being able to bend my knee..taking a step and then another step…a walk in nature.”
Recently, we’ve been on the hunt for great lighting, that is, lighting that is cool looking and gives us the option of as much light as we want to adjust hi-or-low with a dimmer. We keep finding wonderfully designed lights with really low wattage bulbs, like 40 or 60, which rule them out. We want at least 100 watts worth.
As always when we can’t find what’s in our heads (which is surprisingly often), we look around to see if we can make it ourselves. For a while now, we’ve been a fan of lighting designer Lindsay Adelman’s free d-i-y lighting plans (there are four on her website) which give you a basic plan, parts, where to buy them, and how-to’s - information that makes it possible to improvise. A note in the You Make It section of her site says:
“Experimenting with off-the-shelf parts is how Lindsey got started before designing and manufacturing the custom system for the Bubble Series.”
We’re inspired. We’re already looking into read more…
We really love artist Nicole Dextras ice texts series, especially this 6 foot high “VIEW” made out of ice and set out in the landscape and left to melt – a lovely, ephemeral artwork that changes our….view. You’ll find other potent ice texts and installations at her website, along with what amounts to “how-to’s” for making ice words. Dextras builds molds of individual letters out of wood, fills them with water, sometimes coloring them with food colors, and then waits for them to freeze before removing the molds…curiously similar to making a popsicle. read more…
- an essential tool – so we can write, scan blogs, surf…as we follow one thing to another… draw….and make cups of tea…cook. It’s not so much being “on hold” that we mind, it’s the irritating music that’s the problem. Take away the music, and it wouldn’t bother us much at all.)
grew out of a teeny film graphic designer 
