We’re inspired in so many ways by graffiti artist Banksy’s brilliant tutorial done to the words of Bob Ross, TV painting instructor and host of the iconic Joy of Painting show from 1983 to 1994. Along with revelatory technique is a philosophy for navigating life…
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We love the green polka dots in this down-at-heels kitchen, a perfect way to jazz up a wall. It got us thinking about their cosmic meaning and how to make them without laboriously holding up stencils.
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This quote from the great Lawrence Ferlinghetti, recently-departed poet and founder of San Francisco’s legendary City Light’s Bookstore, expresses an incredibly refreshing worldview…
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After an extended pause from Improvised Life seeing my friend through open heart surgery, all is well. The surgery was successful, and my friend is slowly recovering. Through weeks of ICU and the unpredictable processes of healing, we have felt the powerful effect of the simplest of things: Kindness.
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This week, my dearest friend will have open-heart surgery, a territory whose outcomes and demands defy prediction. So I will be taking time off from writing Improvised Life. But I will be carrying its lessons with me as I navigate waiting, hospital, ICU…
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Periodically I revisit this short clip of Julia Child flipping a potato pancake, “a daring thing to do” on her ’70s television show where flubs and mess-ups were left as-is. Child ad libs essential wisdom that applies to any daring endeavor, and life itself.
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Since we discovered the remarkable effects of reading a poem every morning several years ago, we’ve looked for ways to weave poetry more widely into our life. We found a trove of dazzlers to listen to anywhere.
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New Yorker staff writer Emily Nussbaum posed this question on Twitter: What is your best LIFE HACK?? Most were amazingly wise and/or useful. Here are our favorites:
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Traumatized by seeing her aged face on Zoom, actress Kathryn Grody rants, despairing and conflicted, to her son Gideon as he films her with his iPhone. It is one of the many illuminating moments captured on @Mandy Patinkin, documenting the everyday life of actor Mandy Patinkin, Grody and Gideon as they shelter at their upstate NY cabin.
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When we looked closely at this stumbled-upon image of Henri Matisse, we realized that the wallpaper behind him was really tacked up prints and drawings. Brilliant. Looking for more, we found a trove of ideas to employ.
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Over the years, I’ve practiced various breathing techniques to reduce stress. But it wasn’t until I listened to this interview with James Nestor, author of Breath: The New Science Of A Lost Art that I understood how breathing works in the body and emotions, and how we can use the simplest of practices to calm or energize ourselves, and heal.
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“Just a pair of hands and a whole lot of clever imagination” perfectly describes this 1933 film from British Pathe. The performer moves his hands slowly so that the audience can see how the shape is formed. The setup is minimal: a darkened room, a bare patch of wall, a light source to cast shadows.…
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We feel like we’re flying ourselves as we watch these sea lions leaping and flying through the waves in pure fluid JOY.
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My amazing friend Charlie’s kidneys are failing. He needs someone to donate a kidney to save his life. If we join together to find someone to give Charlie a kidney, we can save the life of my remarkable friend. It’s easy to do. Here’s how we can make it happen:
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Twenty-two year-old National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman’s reading of her poem The Hill We Climb at President Biden’s Inauguration was like big bright sun rising on the day. Her remarkable TedEx talk is full of fierce wisdom, and poetry unto itself…
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We were stunned by the simple brilliance of clothing designer Martin Margiela’s packing tape belt. He recognized the most ordinary of materials as the perfect width, and texture to fulfill an instant need with astonishing personal style. It called to mind Anni Albers’ brilliant words.
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This interesting, badly-edited little film left us with a powerful feeling that we’ve been enjoying, so we’re glad we watched enough to get the gist. It yielded a nice big lesson, with a poem to boot!
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For those who to use a shared laundry room say, in an apartment building or laundromat, we’ve found a solution to a common vexing problem: strong synthetic perfume residue left in the machine from the previous user’s detergent. We’d tried every fix we found on the internet to eradicate annoying floral perfumes residue that would…
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The past week working at our desk, we listened to soundscapes of forests in Malaysia, Estonia, Portugal, China and France… Through a remarkable website, we found ourselves transported into tranquil environments AND quickly able to gift trees to friends…
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As soon as we read “Dial-a-Poem: The Groundbreaking Phone Service That Let People Hear Poems Read by Patti Smith, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg & More” at the great Open Culture, we picked up our phone and dialed. We were surprised by a curiously intimate experience, to add to our arsenal of ways to weave poetry into our life.
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