(Video link here.) The Lumineers’ short, moving video Cleopatra tells many stories as a woman-of-a-certain ages wends through her day:
Read MoreMicroscopic Silk Poems Meant to Live Inside the Body
When visual artist and poet Jen Bervin learned that researchers were experimenting with nano-printed silk medical sensors for patients monitoring serious health conditions, she wondered, If I were to have a silk sensor embedded under MY skin, what would I want it to say? The story of her exploration and the results are astonishing and deeply heartening.
Read MoreFragrant Olive Oil Cake with Fresh Thyme
The idea of an olive oil cake always sounded better than any I ever tasted in restaurants. But that IDEA was so enticing, I decided to try my hand at creating one. The result was a lovely easy-to-make cake without an overtly olive oil flavor; rather, the oil makes for a delicate texture and underpins the…
Read MoreHurricane Destruction Transformed into a Startling Work of Art
Transformation is a theme we focus on a lot: the making of something out of what seems like nothing. Resourceful people transmute their circumstance, something they’ve found, to make something with meaning or new uses. Artist Katharina Grosse has done that mightily with the wreckage of Fort Tilden, an army base in the Rockaways that was…
Read MoreTailored, Adjustable Bed Skirt from Ready-Made Curtains
After we transformed a linen sheet into a bedskirt, we stumbled on Eileen Fisher’s clever bedskirt made of three adjustable panels of fabric. You just tuck each panel beneath the mattress at the foot and sides of the bed to adjust it to any length you like. We started mulling how to make our own. Then we had a brainstorm.
Read MoreAn Unusual Memorial for a Loved One: Hair
Hairstory Studio in downtown Manhattan calls itself “part think-tank, photo studio, art space, and production house…challenging beauty stereotypes through the art of cutting, coloring, and styling hair”. Each month it welcomes a handful of people for fresh cuts, color, and portraits. And to tell their story through their hair. We find Oakley’s to be the most deeply personal and unexpected.
Read MoreLaurie Anderson and Lou Reed: 3 Rules to Live By
In 2015, when Lou Reed was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame, his wife Laurie Anderson gave a moving and very eloquent acceptance speech. Toward the end, she shared the couple’s really handy…rules to live by…With those three things, you don’t need anything else. Here they are:
Read More4th of July: Celebrating America’s Work in Progress
As we were scanning images for the Fourth of July, we came across this iconic portrait of George Washington painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1795, a few years after the country gained independence and elected its first president. The iconic, unfinished portrait seems like a fitting metaphor for our wild country.
Read MoreEating Peas with M.F.K. Fisher
Once every June “the day with stars on it” arrives, as M.F.K. Fisher once wrote: It is the day I have “the first mess of peas”. With advice about shelling them happily, a reading from the sublime M.F.K., and an alternative for lazy dogs who just want to EAT their peas… unshelled.
Read MoreEasy: Blueberries, Feta and Herbs
For summer and blueberry season: Mindy Fox’s riff on the classic, ever-surprising, utterly-refreshing combo of watermelon and feta cheese: Blueberries, Feta and Mint from Mindy Fox’s Salads: Beyond the Bowl. Sometimes we replace the mint with basil, a hint of thyme leaves, fresh oregano, rose geranium, or even black pepper…to taste.
Read MoreThe Many Surprising Uses of a Kitchen Hammer
Matthias Wandel is a clever improviser whose YouTube channel is full of good ideas. Our favorite: a kitchen hammer, something you rarely see on any “kitchen essentials” list. We use ours — a rubber mallet— for variety of general household whacks, where a hammer would be too harsh. We hadn’t thought of Wandal’s great use, done with…
Read MoreCecil and Merl Bitters’ Vibrant Flavors INSPIRE, Drinks to Desserts
Of all the artisanal bitters we’ve sampled over the years, Brooklyn-based Cecil and Merl’s totally blew us away. They managed to distill clear vibrant flavors of fruits, vegetables and herbs with a subtle bitter afterfinish that goes well in all manner of cocktail, culinary and wellness applications. Given their sublime flavors and endless uses, they are a perfect house gift.
Read MoreRe-envision Time to Have More of It
Scott Thrift redesigned the traditional numeral clock to make it shift the way you experience your day: he simplified a 24-hour day into a visualization of dawn, noon, dusk and midnight, its slowly moving hand making a gradual transition from one to the other. He says its effects are powerful…
Read MoreWhat You Can Do When You Are Too Challenged To Do Anything
Last week I was supposed to write some articles for Improvised Life and couldn’t do it. I am a few weeks post-op from a serious surgery. Healing at am unexpectedly glacial place is wearing away at my normally very high optimism, physical energy and focus. I’ve talked openly on Improvised Life before about “being myself in a…
Read MoreA Pile of Stones Shows the Way (Mary Oliver)
We opened Blue Horses to this poem and envisioned stones, trees, clouds as we pondered Mary Oliver’s questions, and took in her transforming view of the ordinary things around us.
Read MoreCrowdFunding to Save an Endangered Art Form
Lately, it seems like many one-of-a-kind art forms are struggling to find their footing in an increasingly strange new world. One close to our heart is the Big Apple Circus, modeled on the European-style one-ring tent circus tradition. For nearly 40 years, it has thrilled audiences around the country with wildly imaginative performers, like the great Bello Nock, above. Check out his wild, beautiful act.
Read MoreDandelion and Herb Salad with Burrata
When I saw the dandelion greens, sorrel and herbs from my CSA next to a burrata — mozzarella filled with creamy curds — in the fridge, I had an inspiration:
Read MorePiano Elegy Played On the Icy Arctic Ocean
(Video link here.) We were stunned by this video of composer Ludovico Einaudi playing a baby grand while floating upon the icy Arctic Ocean in front of a surging, cracking Wahlenbergbreen glacier. His astonishing performance of Elegy for the Arctic was part of Greenpeace‘s Save the Arctic project,
Read MoreDaniel Buren’s Clear Spaces
When we stumbled on this space designed by Conceptual Artist Daniel Buren we thought, “that’s our perfect writing space“. Why? We were’t even sure, except that we loved that it was spare, yet adorned in a way that sparked our thinking rather than cluttering it. So we looked for more.
Read MorePema Chodron + A Site That Envisions Impermanance
+We spend a good amount of time looking for ways to be more accepting of change that seems to be moving faster and faster, the messy processes of life and our lack of control over them: what Buddhist’s call Impermanence. Pema Chodrun’s new book and this clever site help…
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