thomas ashcraft: artist as electroreceptor
Could the planet finally be ready for Thomas Ashcraft? He’s been called an “artist-scientist-philosopher”, “inventively creative almost beyond belief”; a “scholar-mystic“; “a romantic visionary”; “inveterate experimenter, artist and extrapolator”; none of these words do him justice. I’ve known him for many years and followed his work closely, so I was happy to hear a profile…
Read Morereader survey: what are your favorite bathroom reads?
Bathroom reading is a specialized and very personal genre of literature. I imagine everyone has his/her idea of what passes muster for bathroom reading, what its essential qualities must be. Of the books that have had a place on my makeshift bathroom shelf (a pipe) for some time – as opposed to magazines or newspapers…
Read Moredesign and x-ray vision
Sorry, this post was taken down at the request of the designer we featured.
Read Morepot luck ps: how to haul celery root puree (with recipe)
When asked to contribute to Burt Wolf”s pot-luck dinner, my boyfriend, a relatively new cook and homemaker, offered to make the Celery-Root and Apple Puree he mastered from The Improvisational Cook. “Don’t forget the double-boiler so you can heat it up at Burt’s” I said. He sounded perplexed. “How do you think I should transport the puree?”…
Read Moreconference call pot luck (with spoon lamb recipe)
I’ve been so busy with ‘the improvised life’ that I can’t seem to see my way to giving a dinner party. A solution was proposed recently by my friend Burt Wolf, who has his hands full with a television show, hosting boat tours in Europe and a small child. “Let’s do dinner, pot luck”, said…
Read Moremore rocks in the kitchen: for steaming greens and…
If you pile a bunch of washed and stemmed greens like chard or spinach or kale in a shallow skillet with a few tablespoons of water, cover them and set over high heat, they’ll steam just fine without a proper steamer; most of the water evaporates by the time they’ve become tender, so they’ll be…
Read Mored-i-y spring blooms in winter
Photographer Maria Robledo emailed me this picture of a winter crocus taken with her i-Phone, with the message: “Needs nothing but light to illuminate us.” She was given crocus bulbs bought from the local farmer’s market as a house-warming present. She had only to place one root-side down in a bowl and expose it to…
Read Moreorigami’s cosmic potential
On December 8th, PBS’s Independent Lens will air Between the Folds, a film that chronicles ten fine artists and theoretical scientists who have forged unconventional lives – often abandoning careers – practicing the unlikely medium of origami. They use paper-folding to explore new ideas about science, mathematics and creativity. Judging from the trailer, the film…
Read Moredavid hockney’s i-phone paintings
The New York Review of Books recently ran a surprising article about paintings made by the artist David Hockney on his i-phone, using an app called Brushes. It allows the user to fingerpaint, smear or draw on the screen using a full color-wheel spectrum. (Hockney likes to use his thumb rather than forefinger to manipulate the…
Read Morelittle makeshift vases
Over the years, I’ve collected a disparate assortment of glassware that I use as makeshift vases: tiny odd-shaped beakers (whatever were they originally used for??!!), little bottles, and squat stemware from decades ago. They are perfect displays for inexpensive branchy flowers whose stems I cut way down. Grouped together, they take the place of a…
Read Morefierce stuff: improvised empathic device (I.E.D)
A couple of months ago I received an email from Kim Sykes, an architect and early friend of ‘the improvised life’. She wrote: “We are hearing a lot about I.E.Ds in the news from Iraq and Afghanistan. I.E.Ds are Improvised Explosive Devices. Every time I hear the word “improvised” I think of your blog so…
Read Morethe oddness and power of real cook’s tools
Just about every cook I know has a favorite fork or a spoon that they use for all sorts of purposes in the kitchen; they reach for it before any other tool when they need to toss or stir or shift something in a pan, because it feels right in their hand, makes them feel…
Read Mored-i-y: cracking the code of a donald judd table
Recently, 2 or 3 Things I Know posted a picture of this table by the artist Donald Judd; it is miraculous in its simplicity and harmony. I put my face close to the screen to contemplate the structure. It looked to me to be made of big sheets of plywood with an ash or birch veneer: a…
Read Moredream balloons
Kyle Cornforth recently moved to Thailand with her family to take a job as Director of the Prem Cooking and Farm Academy. She’s writing a charming personal blog of her experiences in this very foreign country, her “musings on living, working and eating abroad”. This breathtaking video is from her post about the Yi Peng…
Read Morehappy halloween!!! (2009)
halloween inspiration: cardboard box as the empire state building
Designer Pamela Hovland sent this image of her son Henry’s costume, a family collaboration. It’s amazing what recycled cardboard boxes and some paint can become… Thanks Pamela!
Read Morerecipe: roasted pears for sweet or savory improvisations
Throughout fall and winter, one of my favorite improvisational “base” preparations is Roasted Pears. These are pears that are roasted with a bit of sugar, lemon juice, butter and a split vanilla bean or even herbs, until they become tender and caramelized, with a concentrated pear flavor. Roasted Pears are one of those miraculous recipes…
Read Moretool for improvising: embrace mistakes
Today, I found a comment at the end of my post about deferring judgment. It read: “Is it too judgmental to note that in the U.S. “judgment” is the preferred spelling?” OMG!!! The sign I had spent forever trying to make was spelled wrong (“judgment” is spelled correctly elsewhere in the post). It is NOT…
Read Moretool for improvising: defer judgment
When software engineer Gever Tulley left his job at Adobe to start his Tinkering School for Kids, he posted a letter on his blog, ‘some things right ‘, to the people he had worked with. In it, he left them with some “good ideas” like Play! and Instead of Having a Career Path, Always Do…
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