Although I’ve often left art books open around my space so I could live with an image, it only recently occurred to me to do that with a volume of tiny, powerful poems.
Read MoreHannah Gadsby’s ‘Nanette’ and Ted Talk ask: “What Is the Purpose of My Human?’
In her TED talk and HBO special, “autistic, pathologically shy” Hannah Gadsby tells how she came to be the most talked about comedian on the planet. It started when she asked herself an essential question:
Read MoreBrené Brown’s Life Changing Question: Do You Believe People Are Doing the Best They Can?
When Brené Brown asked herself, ‘Do you believe people are doing the best they can? ‘ she admits to answering ‘Fuck no!’ until she explored it further, which yielded pure, transformative gold.
Read MoreBuild A One-Page Beautiful Website for Yourself or Your Project or…Anything, Fast
If you are daunted by the prospect of creating a website for yourself or a project, check out Carrd, a free platform for building simple, stylish responsive one-page sites, fast.
Read MoreThe Ear is The Way to the Heart
This huge little insight about listening startled us awake! And got us thinking about the powerful practice we all do daily…
Read MoreStephen Nachmanovitch’s ‘The Art of IS’ Decodes Improvising As a Way of Life
YoYo Ma described The Art of IS as “a philosophical meditation on living, living fully, living in the present.” We find it full of surprising ideas that are also incredibly helpful.
Read MoreAn Analog Kid’s Timer Increases Focus and Productivity
The simple, clever Time Timer has proven a useful visual aid that helps me focus on whatever I need to make headway with, and then get up and take a break, disrupting the obsessive overfocus I’m prone to. It helps me work more efficiently, with less stress.
Read MoreA Modern Mantra That Helps Frame Difficulty and Change
Lately, we’ve found ourselves saying an unusual mantra when we hit difficult situations. It affords an instant, very interesting shift of view, as do the lovely flower mandalas we stumbled upon about the same time.
Read MoreSylvia Plimack Mangold’s Trees with W.S. Merwin Haiku, Time Disappears
Sylvia Plimack Mangold’s trees are amazingly wonderful depictions of the treeness. As we looked, we thought of this haiku by W.S. Merwin…
Read MoreThe Best of Core 77’s Hilarious Weekly Roast of Really Bad Design
Core 77’s Weekly Design Roast gives our Annals of Bad Design a serious run for the money. Rain Noe deconstructs high-minded, idiotic design, channeling the hilarious design thinking behind it.
Read MoreOscar Murillo: Airplane Seat as Art Studio, Flight as a Sacred ‘Other’ Space
Columbian artist Oscar Murillo’s view of his singular seat on a airplane flight as a sacrad studio space will change your view of air travel.
Read MoreA Homemade Foam Core Screen to Block the Sun or Define a Space
In my top floor space, the scorching temperatures have been pushing me to find non-electric ways of cooling the place down to mitigate air conditioner use. I turned to the material that seemed most likely to provide insulation: foam core leftover from the many life-size prototypes I’ve built …
Read MoreLessons in Stillness and Quiet, with Mitch Epstein’s Astonishing Trees
At first, we only visited the New York Times “Lessons in Stillness from One of the Quiestest Places on Earth” because we wanted to see Mitch Epstein’s remarkable photographs of trees. But then, the story called us…
Read MoreNew York Magazine’s Low Lift Home Improvements for Under $100 INCLUDING Improvised Life’s Big Fat Idea
How swell to see Improvised Life mentioned in New York Magazine’s ’31 Low Lift Home Improvements for Under $100′ for our decoding of Donald Judd furniture. We got a lot of ideas for jazzing up our space….
Read MoreHenry Miller and Others on the “Finest Medicine a Person Can Give Himself”
When we came across this quote from novelist Henry Miller, we thought, yes that IS some of the most powerful medicine we know.
Read MoreTiny Blossoms Knocked Off a Flower Make Unexpected Arrangements
Blossoms that might in one way seem broken or damaged can transform into something of startling beauty…
Read MoreReading W.S. Merwin’s ‘Rain Light’ in Dappled Sunlight, We Were Amazed to Learn What ‘Dappled’ Is
When we stumbled on this lovely way to read Rain Light by W.S. Merwin, it took our breath away for a moment as we rode on the New York City subway…Then we read Edward Tufte’s explanation of what “dappled” is…
Read MoreMonks Pond, Thomas Merton’s Visionary Underground Magazine Meant “To Go Out of Business”
In the sixties, Trappist monk and mystic Thomas Merton published a magazine with a radical and artful mission. Here are some excerpts…
Read MoreRefreshing Antidotes to the Heat Wave
All over town we’re seeing signs of people felled by the stunning heat wave, sleeping on benches under shady trees, lounging lethargically on the grass in parks. We’ve compiled some unexpectedly refreshing ways to cope…
Read MoreGold High Heels and Other Uniquely Personal Ways to Focus Your Mind (Mira Keras)
Former Improvised Life assistant editor-come-star-tattoo-artist Mira Keras wrote this spot-on description of a writer procrastinating. She discovered something essential in the process that unleashed her productivity.
Read More