The past few mornings, our reading has been Spontaneous Mind: Selected Interviews with the poet Allen Ginsberg. Most of the interviews are very long, except one It asked a single question about how to balance working for obvious fortune and the creative life, concerns that resonate with just about everyone we know. Ginsberg’s answer totally blew us away. (We recommend…
Read MoreLove is Tiny Actions of Affection + Kindness
This lovely image and commentary Girl Knew York reminded us of the practice of applying “random kindness” not only to others but to ourselves, and Stephen Levine’s principle of “soft eyes”.
Read MoreCurry Crusted Shrimp with Fragrant Yogurt Sauce or Warm Mango
This is one of my favorite ways of cooking shrimp: I peel and clean the biggest shrimp I can find, dust them with curry powder and pan-fry them. The curry powder coating curiously makes them as satisfying as deep-fried shrimp. They need little embellishment: fresh lime and cilantro will do, though a quickly-made Yogurt Sauce with…
Read MoreHomemade Curry Powder
Years ago, when Sandy Gluck, a friend and talented cook was assisting me on some recipes, we hadn’t been able to find a great commercial curry powder: one as subtle and complexly flavored as those Indian cooks make themselves. So Sandy divined her way through an array of spices to make this marvelous curry powder,…
Read MoreOne Wild Slipcover for Three Chairs
Exploring images of La Maison Champs Elysees, a hotel in Paris’s right bank, we came across this wonderful linen slipcover that unites three upholstered chairs into a kind of sofa. Wonderful. How to do it?
Read More‘When Something Goes Wrong…and You Let it Fall into Chaos’
(Video link here.) This short video talk with the creative team of Nice Fish, playing at the American repertory Theater, is PACKED with potent words about the creative process. We love ever-brilliant actor Mark Rylance’s take on what happens when something’s going wrong…
Read MoreDesign Your Own Motivational Phone WallPaper
Bryan Landers, creator of the wonderful 3 Good Things app, has a lot of interesting ideas up his sleeve. At Medium, we found an article he’d written about making his own motivational phone wallpaper. His thinking is compelling and his method simple and easy. We tried it ourselves.
Read MoreEinstein’s Theory of Creativity
With the news that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity had been definitively proved, The Daily Beast’s Michael Daly described some compelling aspects of the brilliant scientist’s creative process in How Mozart Unlocked a Galactic Secret. The gist for us: to be a scientist you have to be an artist and…
Read MoreMorning Rituals from GoGo, Patti Smith, Rumi
We learned the hard way that how we used that first half hour or so that it can set the tone for the whole day. So we’re interested in how people we admire start their day. Mira Keras starts the day with her little girl GoGo making music with whatever is around. Pot lids and pineapples are…
Read MoreAglaia Kremezi’s Sublime Nose-to-Tail Vegetarian Feasts
When I couldn’t sleep last night, I turned to a book I’ve been enjoying immensely over the past few months. Aglaia Kremezi’s Mediterranean Vegetarian Feasts is a cookbook full of stories and pictures, by a cook whose recipes I trust and value. It’s rich with the feeling of place, with recipes written in a way that invites creative…
Read MoreThat Plain Ikea Bed is a Canvas You Can Paint
We love this hack on the most vin ordinaire of Ikea beds by stylist Meta Coleman in her home in Provo, Utah: paint it PLAID. It made us realize that the plain white Ikea Malm Bedframe is really a nice blank palette with many possibilities…
Read MoreSpirals that Focus a Distracted Mind
Just about every creative person we know has something of a “monkey brain” that can run off in too many directions to get much done. So they figure out personal ways to corral and focus their minds to get their priority work done. Mira Keras’ recently came up with a compelling practice, that is also fun:…
Read MoreSir David Attenborough’s Awesome Way
(Video link here.) This wonderful selection of clips from the 2002 BBC documentary Life On Air – David Attenborough’s 50 Years In Television provide a glimpse of beloved BBC nature adventurer Sir David Attenborough‘s unique, always-game approach to the strange and new; it is a fine model for navigating life. Our favorite is right in the first two minutes
Read MoreCreate A Personal Practice To Prepare for Any Challenge
Australian competitive hurdler Michelle Jenneke dances to get ready to run hurdles, a routine that has worked for her for years: she starts with enthusiasm and momentum to launch into extraordinary movement, using the dance’s performance energy to get ready. It’s a superb example of creating a personal routine that uses excitement and imagination to focus and feed yourself for performance, or just about anything you do in life.
Read MoreButterfly Dreaming
When a friend sent us this image of Greta Oto, a wondrous butterfly with transparent wings, we thought immediately of “The Butterfly Dream” from an ancient Chinese text written by the Daoist sage Chuang-Tzu:
Read MoreCrispy Saffron Noodle Cake
Like many cooks, I’d used saffron for years without knowing that it is the dried stigmas from a certain crocus or why it is the most costly spice in the world. After I went to Spain and witnessed the saffron harvest for myself, the backstory made dishes like this Crispy Saffron Noodle Cake all the more wonderful.
Read MoreHow I Reburbished an Old Shearling Coat + Made it Reversible
Although initially pricey, shearling coats are a great clothing investment: they are incredibly warm and last years. But like anything, they begin to show wear. There IS a simple solution that will keep them going for years that I learned from Suzanne Shaker: turn your shearling inside out and have new zipper put in by…
Read MoreThe Benefits of Looking Down
We often write signs that say LOOK UP to remind ourselves to get our heads out of whatever we’re doing and look around. We also practice looking DOWN, and had been meaning to write about our wonderful discoveries doing just that on our daily park rambles, when Dutch artist Saskia de Brauw beat us to the punch.
Read MoreAnnals of REALLY Bad Design: Faceted Crystal Sink
The other day, we got an email from a reader named Ann: Here’s something for your Annals of Bad Design! It almost deserves its own new category . . . Annal of Really Really Bad Design! We found we agreed on WHY the amethyst bathroom sink is really really bad:
Read MoreScent Your Home with Wood Smoke, and a Poem
Even in chilly climates and country settings, wood fires, the most ancient of heating methods, have begun to go out of favor due to health and environmental concerns. Still, a house that smells like wood smoke evokes primal memory and connection, as the poem below describes. Whether you live in city or country, it’s an easy feeling to…
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