Artist Holton Rower, of 3,000,000+ YouTube hits fame, (not to mention inventor of fabulous leather door pulls) takes all his tools very seriously, including the camera on his phone. It has a lens that is precision, easily damagable glass, just like any other good camera. You wouldn’t put a camera in your bag without its lens cap on, so why do it with your phone? We hadn’t thought of this obvious fact; Holton did. He devised an insta-lens cap: a piece of blue masking tape, which leaves no residue, and be “opened” and “closed” many times before it need replacing.
Simple, efficient, smart!
(And if you don’t like Holton’s rough look, snip the tape cleanly across with a scissors to make a more graphical embellishment.)
(Video link here.) On the heels of Sally’s how-to-make-herb-salt-video on The Splendid Table this weekend, we thought this piece by British ‘ecclectic, eccentric and innovative musician’ Imogen Heap would make a nice combo-platter. Heap “sings” salt into a beautiful and very controlled, rather cosmic-looking pattern. Actually, singing might not be the right word – we actually dislike Heap’s sound – but LOVE how she turns it “visual”, with ordinary salt.
Wonder what the process was that led her to discover out-there technique….
Last week, we were working away when suddenly we felt the air change. We looked out the window to see a storm cloud right out of a Disney movie: ominous swirls of gray collecting on the horizon. A fierce wind was whipping through the trees in the park across the way. All we could do was STOP. We sat on the terrace as the storm rolled in, amazed. And despite all the work and to-do’s on our plate, Nature seemed to be reminding us to look, LOOK at what’s going on here. Here was something WAY bigger and fiercer than we could ever have imagined, that, at the same time, we realized we were part of and partly, the cause of it.
As the sh*t hits the fan around us in so many people’s lives, we find ourselves saying “the hell with it”, and taking time out, to look, bear witness, be here, instead of on a computer or in the future. read more…
Over the past few month’s public radio’s The Splendid Table hosted by Lynne Rossetto Kasper has featured an illuminating series called Key 3: a series of discussions with great cooks (not just professional chefs) about the three recipes or techniques they think everyone should know. In a break from traditional radio, Kasper and her team made videos in the cook’s kitchens so you can get an in-depth lesson – and the thinking behind – their Key 3′s. So far the stellar line-up includes Daniel Boulud, Lydia Bastianich, Andrea Reusing, Isaac Mizrahi, Andy Ricker and…
…Sally Schneider. Just before Sally moved out of her old apartment, Lynne and her team stopped by to film her talking about her Key 3 which will air launches Friday evening. They include Perfect Roast Chicken, Essential Chocolate Cake, and Fragrant Herb Salt. We’ll post the video once it airs, along with the recipes.
But meanwhile, we recommend starting with Daniel Boulud making his fabulous Aioli, a rich Provencal garlic sauce. (Lynne filmed him right before coming to Sally’s and brought some of it with her, so we know for sure it’s swell.) His easy-to-make aioli is a perfect summer sauce for many reasons:
(Video link here.) We can’t think of a better way to celebrate this lovely ordinary day than with this video of the great Maira Kalman – whose remarkable books are a blend of images and words into vivid stories – giving her two cents on what it is to be human. She covers a lot of ground: work, love, identity, life, death, THE POINT OF IT ALL.
I’ve been circling the story of the transformation of ‘the improvised life’s new Laboratory from vin ordinaire apartment to its new incarnation of fluid, morphable, multi-use space for living and improvising (a glimpse above), wondering how to tell it. Having shown the early sketches and plans, it seems like the best bet would be to show BEFORE photos of the place as it was when I first found it, along with notations of the immediate challenges I saw, so you can get your bearings. I’ll get into the wild specifics of planning and renovation in the months to come.
This recent New Yorker cover by Mark Ulriksen called “Capturing the Memories” is, curiously, the perfect illustration the New York Times article Call Waiting: It’s Me, Your Vacation: Eight Rules for Getting the Most Out of Your Time Off that appeared a week before. Matt Richtel outlines ”Vacation Mental Prep” for people who have a hard time letting go of the devices – phones, ipads, computers – that keep them constantly connected and unable to being PRESENT during their vacation. It’s a subject that seems to be on eveyone’s mind these days. read more…
Over the past few months, we’ve made much of our practice of reading poetry in the morning, rather than jumping to the computer. We especially love haiku, the ancient Japanese form of poetry that follows a rigorous formula: three lines of five syllables, then seven, then five again. Haiku tend to be brief, deceptively simple, and utterly packed with meaning and surprise. Here’s a favorite by Issa:
A sudden shower falls - and naked I am riding on a naked horse!
As an antidote to any possible high-mindedness we may have exhibited, we offer impressionist Jim Meskimen‘s version of Christopher Walken reciting haiku.
The next best thing to reading poetry in the morning is to die laughing.
Today, Tuesday the 17th, is the last day to enter our giveaway contest of Mindy Fox’s Salads: Beyond the Bowl: Extraordinary Recipes for Everyday Eating. It is a book that will be useful all year long. Wondering what to do with quinoa? Check out Mindy’s Red Quinoa, Raw Asparagus and Endive Salad with Shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano:
We found this on Marc Johns’ website the recently. His own words tell its story better than we ever could:
I wrote this in my sketchbook the other day, as a reminder/statement/ mantra to myself. I used to spend all day in front of a computer, emailing, photoshopping, designing, layout-ing, etc. I enjoyed being a designer (and making things with pixels and code is great), but personally, I still needed to use my hands, even if it was just to make some marks on paper. That’s why I started drawing on post-it notes. They were small and quick and raw and immediate and I could do them on my lunch break. I craved the spontaneity, the imperfections of ink bleeding on paper, of lines not matching up, of things being not quite centered. No grids. Unpolished. Hand made.
I need to always be making things. Are you a maker?
We love the idea of using post-it notes to draw on, in lieu of nothing at all. We found this one especially to-the-point: read more…
Intrigued by a brief mention on her website of her renovated log cabin in Montana, we wrote designer Laura Handler to ask if we could see some pictures of the place. We not only got pictures with charming, haiku-like notations, but the wonderful story behind the cabin:
Fourteen years ago, my mother died and left me a Toyota Corolla with 15 thousand miles on it, and I decided to learn how to drive. As soon as I got my license, I took off a year to drive across the country. By the end of my voyage, I had bought a log cabin and 20 acres in Pray, Montana. No one was more surprised than I.
I wanted the perfect “weekend” getaway from New York City where – excepting for a few years in Milan – I had lived for my entire adult life.
Its resulting design has evolved – as I have – to become an stew of indigenous influences, incongruous cultures, and things that I love.
Inspired by Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation that I visited on my drive, I added a austere and minimalist 1000 square foot cedar plank deck to the cabin.I cut through the log walls in the bedroom and studio, and added large sliding glass doors to the deck. I had all of the old wall to wall carpeting and linoleum ripped up, the particle board subflooring sanded smooth, and the entire floor epoxied bright white.
It feels more like a log apartment than a cabin. Or a log loft. A Gloft?
Handler’s notations, room-by-room, give an idea of her sensibility, process, and resourcefulness: read more…
When I was looking for an affordable space to buy in New York City, I devised strategies for envisioning how I might tailor the various spaces I was considering. I ended up teaching these strategies to several friends who were “stuck” when trying to design a new kitchen, study — any room at all; these simple approaches helped them unplug the creative flow of ideas, and ultimately find solutions to their design dilemmas.
The first thing is to figure out all the things you need a space to do or have, and make a list. read more…
Makes us think about: What bridge are we crossing right now…
….and are we crossing it wholeheartedly?
Then we remembered the poem we read this morning, by Ryōkan:
Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days’ worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.
Sometimes you can cross a bridge without doing a thing.
. It is a book that will be useful all year long. Wondering what to do with quinoa? Check out Mindy’s Red Quinoa, Raw Asparagus and Endive Salad with Shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano:
