photo: galenfrysinger.com
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…
Related posts: string lights as everyday indoor lighting
a dance lesson from zorba + anthony quinn
tolstoy’s big rule for living
rules for living: just one from pablo picasso
how to be yourself in 10 simple steps
illustration by melinda josie
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…
anne herbert
Two recent bits of brilliance by the mysterious Anne Herbert of Peace and Love and Noticing the Details.
Related posts: xanne herbert’s wise + teeny meditations
going from “can’t” to “can”
fling and be flung (jackson pollock)
ann herbert: unaccumulateann herbert: unaccumulate
a reminder, via anne herbert (open doors!)
copyright: mastermind maps
A few weeks ago we wrote about the concept of “pulsing and resting,” throughout the work day; actually taking breaks from work in order to get more done (and do better work!). One of our readers introduced us to the Pomodoro Technique, (names after a tomato-shaped timer) which is based on this very idea and provides a specific method:
Today, many of the blogs we visit went dark in protest of SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) proposed legislation that could potentially destroy the stunning innovation that has defined the internet. BoingBoing described it best:
“…the US Senate is considering legislation that would certainly kill us forever. The legislation is called the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), and would put us in legal jeopardy if we linked to a site anywhere online that had any links to copyright infringement.
This would unmake the Web, just as proposed in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). We don’t want that world.”
Manhattan User’s Guide wrote:
“MUG fully supports the intellectual property rights of artists and companies but SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is ham-fisted and inept legislation that would have far-reaching, deleterious effects to sites like MUG. Today we join the SOPA boycott and urge you to fight this proposed legislation.”
We urge you to sign a petition in opposition to these two acts, in advance of the Senate vote on January 24th.
It only takes a couple of minutes to make your voice heard. Help protect the ability of sites like ours to continue to bring you illuminating content. (Just scroll down our home page to see what’s in jeopardy. Imagine it GONE.)
Sign Google’s petition here and/or at Stop SOPA.
For an instant “get”, check out An Open Letter from Top Innovators: read more…
photo: library of congress
“Monday’s a holiday” we were told. “What holiday?” we asked. Since we work for ourselves, we’re not really in sync with regular work days.
It’s “Martin Luther King Jr Day.”
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…
photo: john deane
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
preciseset 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 athleteof 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.) We were just getting disgruntled at Pandora’s “Bjork” stream when “All Is Full Of Love” came on. We WOKE UP, amazed at what we were hearing and went looking for the lyrics. They are beautiful, somehow making us think of the creative process as much as love. “You have to trust it, despite wrong turns. It’s there.”
This video of a young Bjork performing the song is a bit unfocused until 1:20 when it really picks up steam. At 2:30 she holds a note – the word “love” – for a stunning 17 seconds. It has an utterly forthright, courageous quality that reminded us read more…
woodie guthrie
We’re not very big on New Year’s resolutions. We’ve always felt like “resolving” to accomplish big fat goals for the year sets us up for failure, and ignores life’s complexities—oftentimes, a single resolution is actually made up of a lot of different pieces. It’s juggling all of those pieces that makes keeping resolutions so difficult.
This is why we really appreciated the latest newsletter we received from David Allen, of Getting Things Done
While Allen would probably reccommend going through each question and writing down an answer, we just used them as food for thought to center ourselves for what’s ahead. We hope they are helpful for you too. read more…
Forbes Online recently published a piece called “How to Be More Interesting (In 10 Simple Steps).” We love the steps (and Jessica Hagy‘s illustrations that accompany each one), we couldn’t help feeling like they weren’t really about being “interesting,” but more about BEING YOURSELF. We’d retitle it: How to Be Yourself, In 10 Simple Steps. (Being yourself will guarantee you are interesting.) Here’s the list, with our favorites in bold face: read more…
christopher niemann via the new york times
In his 2010 New York Times series, Christopher Niemann nailed what we think about everyday when we leave the house: However hard we try to weigh knowns and unknowns, unexpected “stuff happens” in our lives and in those around us. Some of what happens is swell, and some is really hard. It’s how to respond to the hard stuff that interests us.
Recently, on Clayton Cubitt’s blog Constant Siege, we found two amazing quotes by friends who had been diagnosed with breast cancer within a few days of each other. We view them as extraordinary responses to the question “What to do when things get really rough and scary?”
From Xeni Jardin, one of the founders of BoingBoing: read more…
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
We’re just following our Philosophy of Late Celebrations: read more…
In 1966, Alexander Calder and his wife Louisa published this full-page ad in the New York Times; it is a fantastically bold and hopeful statement. Every New Year’s Day, we remember that ad, finding it about the most perfect wish for the New Year.
Related posts: a new year’s wish spirals on
a new year: 20 seconds old…
a new year’s call from the future
neil gaiman’s benediction for new year’s (or any other time)
what are your new year’s…wishes?
We already so burnt out from holiday stuff, blogging, renovating, life, that this piece by guest blogger Sarah M came just in the nick of time:
As a chronically overcommitted, over-scheduled multi-tasker, I regularly push myself to max capacity. Working long hours, offering up my time for others’ projects, sacrificing sleep for productivity, and running home only to leave again five minutes later have become common practice. I can see the flaws in this system, but it’s helpful to have a reminder, which makes a recent piece by Tony Schwartz in 99% extremely valuable.
The big takeaway is that doing more doesn’t necessarily mean we’re getting more done. He uses the example of two people who both work 10 hour days: one barely leaves his desk all day and one works 90 minutes at a time, taking brief breaks to renew his energy. By the afternoon, the constant worker’s capacity to get anything done has so diminished that he is actually LESS productive than his colleague who works less time. The more productive of the two works in pulses rather than constantly, maintaining his capacity and focus throughout the day. read more…
photo: lisa morphew
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:
“Rabah taught me read more…
