This surprising kitchen is the brainchild of Austrian conceptual artist Thomas Feuerstein. It is an artwork, but like many artworks we come across, it contains wonderful ideas to be had and used, like scrabble tiles on the walls. Just for the hell of it, we started hunting down scrabble tiles. We didn’t find any ceramic…
Read More‘it’s ok for you to think i’m not ok, but i am’
We found this to be a swell sign unto itself… Then when we looked into it, it turns out to be part of a marketing campaign the CocoCola Company did around its soda OK Cola. Trying to market to Gen X and Y markets, Coke Cola tried to create “a counter-intuitive advertising” campaign that intentionally…
Read Morea few cool gifts by artists + designers
We’re not big on bought gifts, preferring to donate money to charity in our friends’ name, or give food gifts we’ve made. That being said, it’s nice to have an arsenal of useful, well-designed, not-too-expensive treats to give on the holidays or otherwise — our favorite gift-giving is just for the hell-of-it when we’ve found…
Read Moremorning poem: cheetahs running in slow motion
(Video link here.) We’ve watched this slow-motion footage of cheetahs running flat-out several times already. It is just BEAUTIFUL and made us wonder where such a thing could have come from. Who dreamed up that wondrous spotted fur, flight taken with each stride? We figured it would be a perfect morning “poem” for today: a language…
Read Morediy food gift: dried cherries in red wine or grappa syrup
Interior designer Suzanne Shaker recently sent this email: Sally, I’m craving your cherries in grappa. Would you please post the recipe again, as it is that time of year ..our last year’s supply is just about finished. I’m making them for gifts as you always do. A gift that lasts and brings such joy to…
Read More‘hip girls home’ giveaway: win ‘the improvisational cook’
Kate Payne over at The Hip Girls Guide to Homemaking is giving away a copy of Sally’s award-winning cookbook The Improvisational Cook, plus a bunch of other goodies at one fell swoop. To enter, visit Hip Girls’ giveaway page, scroll to the bottom and fill out the form, RIGHT AWAY. The contest ends Wednesday (tomorrow)…
Read Moreen pointe: is suffering for one’s art a myth?
New York Magazine published a remarkable photo essay by Henry Leutwyler Behind the Curtain at the New York City Ballet. We can’t help viewing his image of a ballerina’s feet — one pointe shoe on, and one off — as a powerful metaphor for the often-hidden and difficult “inside” of a creative work that appears effortless…
Read Moregift: endlessly useful furoshiki cloth…you can even wear it
(Video link here.) On Ambatalia’s blog, we came across this useful little video demonstrating several ways of folding Furoshiki clothes — large squares of fabric — to make carry bags and packages. What the video fails to show is the little revelation that is scattered around Ambatalia’s site: you can WEAR Furoshiki clothes as well.…
Read More‘the world sends us garbage, we send back music.’
(Video link here.) Susan Dworski alerted us to this stunning video, in an email with the subject line: “ah, the improvisational human spirit”. It’s about a remarkable orchestra from a remote village in Paraguay — a slum built on landfill — where its young musicians play with instruments made from foraged trash. The village’s inhabitants…
Read Moreunexpectedly cool, relaxing visual digital ‘toys’
This swell little visual toy by Koalas to the Max came via Michael Warren of Mike and Molly’s House. If you scroll your pointer over the image above, you’ll set it in motion. Being an ardently curious soul, Michael checked out its source code and made an interesting discovery: It turns out it’s built with a javascript…
Read Moreimprov personal style: one shirt worn 50 ways
A reader recently alerted us to Bea Johnson, creator of the website Zero Waste Home, who challenged herself to wear a single man’s shirt in 50 different iterations, as part of her committment to a zero waste lifestyle: Great inspiration, and many iterations look so wearable and comfortable. Reminds me of Audrey Hepburn and her oversize…
Read Moredivine inspiration: calder.org
(Video link here.) You could say that the renowned artist Alexander Calder, the creator of the mobile, was a major influence on ‘the improvised life’. When I was 13 or so, I babysat his grandkids, and first saw his work around their house: a mobile casually placed on a dining table, household objects made of wire…
Read Morecharming tabletop decoration: diy herb bouquets
As the holiday party season ramps up, we’ve been mulling ways to decorate the table in simple, charming ways (We’ll be talking about this very subject on The Splendid Table on December 21st). A favorite strategy is to make herb bouquets, a play on our penchant for arranging the table with an array of tiny…
Read Morehigh-style lamps have dim bulbs (what would calder do?)
We’ve long been fans of lighting designer David Weeks beautiful lighting, having been smitten initially with his sculptural Lunette clip-on shades. On December 14th and 15th, Weeks will hold his annual sample sale, where you can buy samples and prototypes of some of his wonderful designs at steep discounts. We won’t be going. We checked…
Read Morelast chance to win: ‘canal house cooks every day’
Tomorrow, December 5th, at midnight is the absolute final deadline for entering our giveaway of the great Canal House Cooks Every Day, Christopher Hirscheimer and Melissa Hamilton’s inspiring, user-friendly cookbook. It’s a beaut, a cookbook definitely to have and definitely to give. Read a bit about the book and check out the super easy rules…
Read Morelaughter yoga: a farmer strips bare and leaps!
David Saltman alerted us to this video with the comment: “Wild shit I really gotta do some day.” It is crazy imaginative, daring and hilarious, so you should watch it before your go any farther.
Read Moreorange howell’s macaroni ornaments (we’d wear ’em)
We are smitten by the ornaments Orange Howell is making by hand-casting various macaroni shapes and gold-or-silverplating them. We took one look and thought: We want to wear them as jewelry, especially that Penne Rigate ornament:
Read Morebill murray’s life lessons
Sunday’s New York Times featured a wonderful interview with Bill Murray, a man who never ceases to astonish us for his very improvised ways. (He’s the guy who spontaneously said: Grab this day by the neck and kiss it.) The first couple of pages of a 2010 GQ interview we stumbled on intimates that Murray is not…
Read Morecreate your own oral history project
Recently, we stumbled on an article about StoryCorps, a nonprofit organization that records personal stories, airs some of them on NPR, and archives them at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. It’s a way to preserve personal histories as well as histories of the time, and of cultures. We imagined using it…
Read Morereader’s improv: rubber-stamps from carved erasers
In response to our Dangerous Paths post, graphic designer and illustrator Susan Dworski sent us wonderful email: Several years ago I illustrated an 18th century Japanese saying using watercolors and rubber stamps made from hand carved, Staedtler Mars Erasers. The message reverberates across time. The message not only reverberates BIG TIME, but so does the idea of carving…
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