We knew the Take-Your-Shoes-Off-In-the-House-thing had reached critical mass when we saw door mats for sale that say SHOES OFF in big ugly letters, and other iterations on the theme. It got me thinking about the homemade signs we’ve seen asking guests to remove their shoes, as well as the ones we’ve made ourselves over the years. Here’s…
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If haven’t experienced artist Carsten Höller’s work, perhaps you can devise your own version of his Giant Psycho Tank, above, which invites viewers to float weightlessly in the water of a sensory deprivation pool to alter their mental state.
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Today after a rain shower, the breeze brought the scent of Linden trees in bloom in the park across the way. Every year I wait for this brief few days when the neighborhood seems intoxicated with the honeyed perfume. It reminds me of the fragrant tea that can be made from the blossoms and leaf bracts,…
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We learned that there is no way to know how our work will resonate in the future, or IS resonating right now. It is not in our control. True creatives HAVE to make whether they are recognized or not.
A potent symbol of this came via email recently from a friend visiting Holland:
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This Sunday is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year and we can’t think of anything more celebratory of the first day of summer than strawberry shortcake. So here’s our improvisation on a traditional shortcake recipe, made with a sublime, foolproof cream biscuits. Our friend Sarah brought them by one day after the classic butter-based biscuits she’d…
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We were stunned by this image of David Puchkoff and Eileen Stukane’s porch and meadow on the roof of their six-story coop building in New York City. Puchkoff devised it as part of a plan to have the porch he always wanted, while creating a green roof. Plants insulate the building from heat in summer and cold in winter, and they reduce storm-water runoff by absorbing rain. The coziness and magic of a country porch IS possible in a city without having to keep a country house. Here’s how.
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(Video link here.) We love the Helio Sequence’s trippy, beautiful, psychedelic-ish animated video more for the visuals than for the music. Turn the sound off and you have a wordless meditation on the inventive, imaginative mind and the many unexpected connections that occur in the creative process. It reminds us of the many ideas we have for…
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Having traveled A LOT over the years, I’ve honed a kit of essential items that see me through, both physically and spiritually, the unexpected events that are guaranteed to hit, sometimes hard. Since I have a seriously-sensitive constitution, I’ve learned the hard way that taking some fortifications is well worth the bit of thought and effort…
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A year ago, we clipped the compelling excerpt, below, from Tom Shakespeare’s BBC article about research indicating that people with disabilities paradoxically tend to display a positive worldview and enjoy a good quality of life because of it (often better than the obviously-abled). Upon reflection, we have found this to be true with friends who have experienced…
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On a recent trip to Pittsburgh, I stopped at the Carnegie Museum of Art to wait for a friend who worked there. In my short rambling, I saw some wonderful works ‘in person’ that I’d previously only seen online, including On Kawara’s date paintings. Reading the little info cards alongside the works often gave me…
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(Video link here.) Two minutes of crazy brilliance: DJ Kalan aka DJ Stove in his kitchen in the Philippines spins his fantasies along with Tiesto’s Catch ‘Em By Surprise —sung by Busta Rhymes— using TWO PROPANE BURNERS AS IMAGINARY TURNTABLES. It is the ultimate example of
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We hunt for ideas everywhere, walking around, scrolling through websites, leafing through books and magazines often…in the quiet of the bathroom. A compelling article in the New York Time’s T Magazine made us hunt for a bookmark there. Et voila: we discovered that toilet paper is thin enough to not make a mark on any publication, wide…
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We’ve always loved J.S. Bach’s 24 Preludes and Fugues for Well Tempered Clavier and found one of our favorites this video animation. It is wonderful music to start your day —or week— and
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When I was a young cook, Roger Vergé, who died last week at age of 85, was one of a handful of chefs who changed the way I thought about food, pioneering the innovative style that became known as “nouvelle cuisine”. He taught me his simple, delicious sauce for grilled or roasted fish that I have relied on over the many years since.
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Over the years, one of the very best purchases I have made were two bamboo Wave Room Screens made of thin bamboo slats that unfurl to create an organic wave shape. I have had mine at least 15 years in two spaces and they have proven to be endlessly useful. They are an inexpensive, stylish alternative to the classic Eames plywood screen I could not afford. Here are SOME of the ways I’ve used them…
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At Grant Snider’s very wise Incidental Comics, we found THIS brilliant idea: take a day to do nothing. Only we’d change one word in the last panel of Snider’s comic about the worthy “pursuit of aimlessness”…
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Improvised Life is a space that celebrates creative living to the fullest degree. We work hard to collect great ideas from artists; inspiring thoughts from poets; stylish, useful home upgrades; and yummy recipes…and present them with thoughtful commentary and unexpected leaps and associations. A tribe is a community with a similar mindset for living, and we want you in…
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(Video link here.) The outlets of the “charging station” in the little foyer of my Harlem space are seriously overtaxed by devices and too many visible cords snaking out of the countertop outlet. So I was happy to discover the Portiko Extension Cord, a 6-foot extension cord with two outlets and two USB ports. I can…
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Designer Stefan Sagmeister has been obsessed with HAPPINESS for a decade or so, doing massive research, giving talks, making a film, and mounting an exhibition called The Happy Show, An Exploration of Happiness. You can visit it virtually at his tumblr. It’s worth it. Sagmeister’s tested a lot of “happiness” theories on himself. The very…
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Throughout my school age years I kept ratty composition notebooks with me at nearly all the time to record lists, illustrations, ideas, and poetry: a way to combine artistic enjoyment and organization. Google Keep app is my modern version of that, a canvas for lists and notes-to-be color-coded, archived, tagged, and illustrated. My categories vary from the very practical to very playful.
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