This artwork by Marlo Pascual reminded us how great a big rock can be to display stuff, especially this carefully balanced photograph. Perfect.
It called to mind the boulders Russel Wright used to prop up a red-painted sideboard read more…
resources
triangle letter how-to (mail for free)
photo: sally schneider
We recently came across a compelling blog post about letters sent home by Russian soldiers during World War II. Without access to envelopes and postcards, the soldiers folded up triangular letters that were their own package–”letter and envelope in one.” The folded format was necessary since mail needed to be reviewed by censors and couldn’t be sealed.
Although the letters are a great example of historical improvisation, we love the simple little how-to that accompanies the story – an origami-ish illustration for folding up your own triangular letter. It’s a fun, out-of-the-ordinary way to send a gift or holiday card, or just pass along a note to a friend. There’s something really satisfying about unfolding the paper and finding the letter inside; like having a friend in grade-school passing you a folded-up secret in the hallways between classes. read more…
‘food rules’ made delicious by maira kalman
maira kalman: 'food rules' by michael pollan
We have a lot of respect for writer Michael Pollan’s writing about the food industry, and heard that his 2009 book Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual
Last month Pollan re-released the book with a set of fabulous illustrations by Maira Kalman, and we were hooked. Pollan’s rules are totally sensible, easy to follow ideas for maximizing the good stuff in your diet, most of which we can definitely get behind. But it’s the great images that really pull you in and make the rules come alive. Here are some of our favorites, starting with the one, above, whose simple rule is “Cook”: read more…
chic, not shabby, drop cloth-draped sofa
On a recent Selby visit, we spotted this fabric-draped sofa in the wonderful home of Hitoshi Uchida-san – owner of J’Antiques Tokyo (check out the full story). The beauty of it is that the sofa is covered with a really big swath of fabric that can bunch and drape luxuriously. The fabric is wide enough to go from the floor in front of the sofa, over the seat, up the back and hang over by a couple of feet – not something the usual 54-inch width of fabric can do. But where do you find affordable fabric like this? read more…
chic rusty steel paperweight, via ‘the selby’
photo: todd selby
We have a fondness for rusted and/or corroded bits of steel, aged into a patina that no artist could produce (well…maybe Richard Serra). We find them lying in the street, along railroad trestles, near construction sites. They are sculptures unto themselves that often have great uses, like this stunning vintage nail – a railroad tie perhaps – used as a paperweight, spotted in a from recent photo-story from the Selby.
Our favorite rusted treasure is a three-sided box we found in the street (below, left); read more…
role model: david smith
photo: ugo mulas
What the sculptor David Smith could do with with simple squares and rectangles…
….
…his studio is as inspiring… read more…
resources for fixers
"patch", by walter whittel, 1975
A clear sign of our economic times, the Wall Street Journal recently published an article about the growing trend of folks who attempt home repairs before throwing out a broken appliance. The article cites notable increases in customer service calls for help with do-it-yourself home repairs, and increases in the sales of replacement parts.
We love that “fixing” is trend now, since we’re advocates for creative home repairs (you might recall our taped-up headphones, or the floss-mended sneakers). It also cools out the part of us that cringes at waste and the endless buying of more and more things.
But we also know that home fixes can be overwhelming, read more…
messages from the future, written in the past
In October, 2010 I had just started graduate school and was in a bit of a panic about my choice. I was setting myself up for somewhat limited career options and would graduate with a sizeable chunk of student debt. So when I was asked, at a conference I attended that fall, to write myself a postcard that would be mailed to me three months later, I thought hard about the message I wanted to receive.
Of course I forgot all about the postcard. I came home three months later to find it waiting for me, declaring confidently: “Keep calm. You made the right decision.” And indeed, I had.
Sometimes there is nothing more comforting than our own reassurance or words of wisdom, but for whatever reason we’re often not able to hear ourselves clearly in the moment. That’s what makes FutureMe such a great idea: you can write yourself emails to be delivered at any point in the future. read more…
foolproof roast turkey recipe + brining strategies
photo: helvetia west virginia archive
I know of very few people who don’t get anxious at the prospect of roasting a turkey. Because the breast cooks more quickly than the dark meat thigh, it is often dry and overcooked by the time the bird comes out of the oven. Nobody seems to be certain of what, exactly, the best roasting method is, whether high heat or low, tented with foil, or roasted breast down.
Brining, submerging the bird in a salt-and-sugar solution before roasting it, is one of the most foolproof ways I know of to insure a succulent, flavorful roasted turkey. And the best brine I know of for turkey was created by Alice Waters, the inspired, inspiring founder and guiding light of Chez Panisse in Berkeley California, from whom this recipe was adapted (and published in A New Way to Cook
The only problem with brining are the logistics: read more…
run with style!
We found this beautiful gif of a running scrapwood horse on dvdp, with the caption “horses know how to run with style.”
That’s what we want to do.
(…It’s a clip from the Chemical Brothers video ‘Horse Power’, which we find curiously thrilling watched with the sound off; we felt like we’d been riding a galloping horse…which always shakes things up).
Related posts: salvaged-wood bathtub, headboard, island, floor…
reader’s improv: street tennis
photo: lauren malkasian
Film Maker/ProducerLauren Malkasian recently sent us this email:
“We love your daily inspirations and have very much been taken, moved and forever changed by ‘the improvised life’; it’s like a magic tonic everyday. So here is a little something from us, all the way from LA, that we thought you might enjoy.
We live on a street just out side Griffith Park. Our house is set on a hill and our daughter along with most of the kids in our neighborhood have little or no yard space to play in so she came up with this… read more…
dada-esque ‘extreme repurposing’: postage stamp nail polish
reuben miller
At the end of designer Reuben Miller‘s clever riff on the extreme repurposing movement, some readers commented that that a fly swatter face protector and a paint brush door stop were “stupid’; other’s thought Dada. Some, like us, dug the IDEA that you can make something out of just about anything.
But we fell in love with one repurposing idea for real: stamps as nail “polish”. We’d just come back from the post office where we’d bought some pretty groovy stamps: a tiny Edward Hopper sailboat scene: read more…
how leonard cohen found his song
We always love hearing about where artists find their inspiration, and though this video of Leonard Cohen runs a little long, he has much to say about the process of cultivating an authentic “voice”. At about 5:26, he tells the story of how he went from fumbling around on the guitar to really “finding his song.” (You can also simply read the transcript here; start about 6 paragraphs down when he talks about Garcia Lorca.) Cohen recalls visiting his mother in Montreal and happening upon a young Spanish flamenco guitar player. He convinced the guitarist to give him lessons, and the young man showed up at Cohen’s home for three consecutive days. For three days they worked on the same six-chord progression, and Cohen, though he still couldn’t play as beautifully as the guitarist, finally had the building blocks of a song.
The story ends with tragedy, when the guitar player did not show up on the fourth day and Cohen learned that the young man had committed suicide. The guitarist’s few lessons would prove to have great impact on Cohen: the six chords he was taught that summer went on to be the foundation of all of his songs. (And there are many songs.)
For us, it is a key lesson in improvising: read more…
mimimalist book bar/paperweight (d-i-y or buy)
Recently, Manhattan User’s Guide featured a chic cast iron book bar from Beekman 1802 in a round-up of gifts under $21. It’s designed to hold open the pages of a book, while providing a horizontal guide for reading. It is 7 inches long by 1/4 inch square and weighs 4.4 ounces; with shipping, it costs $23.
We thought it was a great idea, being non-fru-fru, elemental and totally utilitarian, qualities we value in our attempts to keep things minimal. We wondered if we could fashion one ourselves out of a softer metal – say copper, which would oxidize nicely but presented no danger of rusting. read more…
find your alter ego while we’re gone!
We’ve got so many ‘improvised life’ projects on the burners that we need to take the week off to focus on them. While we’re on our tiny hiatus, we recommend poking around our attic/archive of past posts (type a word into the search box and see what appears)….
OR check out this illuminating anagram-maker that Editor-at-Large David Saltman got lost in recently. Just type in a name or phrase and see the thousands of anagrams it yields. Like the New York Post’s daily horoscope, it’s amazing how curiously apt many are, as though revealing hidden identities… read more…
