We love artist/designer Dominic Wilcox‘s fix for red wine spilled on the carpet (below): Don’t bother trying to get it out…paint a pattern around it. It gives us ideas for fixing clothes and table linens that have impossible-to-remove stains or spots. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em: transform them by emphasising the transgressions,
Read MoreMartha’s Museum: An Ode to Meaningful Collecting
J. Speed Carroll’s Martha’s Museum: The Precise Placement of Objects, is a film about his late wife Martha’s remarkable, very personal collections in their NYC brownstone. Through Speed’s narration, you enter the many stories and meanings hidden in Martha’s eclectic array of object from all over the world. It is an ode to meaningful collecting, at once a house tour of an original and an example of the way objects resonate with each other to convey unique messages.
Read MoreVibration Fixes: Levitation Suits + Air Mattress Shock Absorbers
Over the past year, I’ve written about the many improvised solutions I’ve created to try to NOT feel the mechanical vibration that shakes me awake every morning. I even looked into making a rig like this “Levitation Suit”, a designer’s attempt at a 3D hotel bed. In lieu of being able to be weightless or levitate, my newest vibration-damping fix came via some readers who had the same problem.
Read MoreBill Murray’s Surprising Wish + Meditation
(Video link here.) How did we miss this surprising clip of Charlie Rose asking Bill Murray: “Tell us what it is that you want that you don’t have?” His answer in the first two minutes are truly wonderful, as he talks about “being really HERE“. When Rose asks “What’s necessary for you to get there?”, it get’s really…
Read MoreHappy 4th of July from Improvised Life
If any image speaks volumes about America’s strangely innovative spirit, it is this image of the Statue of Liberty created out of 18,000 soldiers and officers in 1918. Wishing you a glorious Independence Day!
Read MoreCelebrate The Splendid Table’s 20 Years of Food Inspiration
This weekend marks The Splendid Table’s 20th anniversary show. Lynne Rosetto Kasper launched the famous radio food show with a conversation with Julia Child about the 4th of July which you can listen to here. I am THRILLED to be included on the roster for this special show (talking about fresh cherries), along with Mario Batali (talking…
Read More16 Super Fast, Easy, GREAT Recipes for July 4th + All Summer
Everyone is heading out-of-town early for the 4th of July weekend, and we’re just wrapping our heads around the fact that it’s HERE! Since we’re unprepared for the celebration, we figured others may be, too. So we compiled our best quick n’ easy, truly do-able recipes — from cocktail to dessert— with ingredients you can easily pick…
Read MoreAnnals of Voyeurism: Skyviewing Shacks, Docks and Apps
The “skyviewing cubes” nestled in a French vineyard that we spotted on YouTube reminded us of the pleasurable practice of checking in with the stars above each night. There are many magical ways to do it both analog and digital.
Read MoreA Sign from Mary Oliver
This wonderful sign is a fragment from Mary Oliver’s longish 3-part poem Evidence. As usual with her poems, there several passages that we could see on that sign board, which is, curiously, the kind used by churches.(Oh for a church where Mary Oliver is quoted and read.) Here are some beauties, which together, make their…
Read MoreCheck Out Our Instagram @whynot_improvise
We discover SO many TINY improvisations as we wander through our days that we decided to start tracking them on Instagram. You can see the latest in Improvised Life’s sidebar, though you won’t necessarily know what it is. You’ll find the bigger view of our Improvised Life, with commentary, at instagram.com/whynot_improvise…Like the 50-cent Lil Debbie Cake, above,
Read MoreMaterial for Making: Raw Copper Sheeting
Jersey Ice Cream Co’s ingenious stove backsplash out of copper flashing made us LUST for copper sheeting, which we imagined cladding our ugly old fridge, making into a headboard, using as extravagant wrapping paper or placemats, wrapping an ordinary chair or table to transform it… among other things. So we checked it out.
Read MorePractice: Quiet
A friend recently told us about her practice of taking an occasional day of silence; she shuts down intrusive electronics like her computer, tv, phone, and goes through the day without uttering a word. The neighbors in her smallish town know that when she wears a button saying “Honoring Silence”, they need to do just…
Read MoreHow Analog Notebooks can Enhance Productivity
In the New Yorker’s recent Why Startups Love Moleskines, David Sax describes the popularity of the spare notebook that many tech-savvy people find superior to digital task software. M.I.T. students, academics, artists and other high-achieving entrepreneurs prize Moleskine notebooks, which come in variety of shapes and sizes, for their simplicity and efficiency.
Read MoreI Believe I Can…..(Gif-Inspiration)
One of the best gifs we’ve seen of late is I Believe I can… We know about flapping our arms hard to barely keep from falling in the water after we’ve stepped OFF the diving board BELIEVING WE CAN. Perhaps if we try a little harder, and shift our attitude slightly …
Read MoreA Sauce for All Seasons + Deconstructed Caesar Salad
Throughout the Mediterranean, the combination of garlic, anchovies* and olive oil finds its way into scores of dishes, from salads, pastas and vegetables to seafood and even lamb and veal. Here in America, it is the basis for the legendary Caesar salad. With the addition of Parmigiano, its dressing’s assertive flavors add up to something completely…
Read MoreMail’s here!
Our newsletters are a love letter to our readers: A collection of what’s happening and what we’re up to. Subscribing sends us right into your your inbox so you’ll have our quirky, thoughtfully-crafted content to read with your morning coffee. We know what it’s like to be bombarded by the words “please subscribe”. We hear we are worth…
Read MoreAirBNBs Enchanted Treehouses
AirBnb has a the cure to summer boredom; take off to a tree house adventure! If you’re outdoorsy, but not sleep-in-a-tent outdoorsy, a glamorous tree house might be a good fit. There are so many scattered around the U.S. (and other places too, check out AirBnB maps for an area closest to you). Among our…
Read MoreWhen Broken Tools Reveal New Usefulness (Su Tung Po)
The other day I was reading a poem written by Su Tung Po in 1097, over a thousand years ago, and realized that it was talking about me, right now in 2015, using such perfectly wrought words, I saw the most ordinary moment differently. Here is a fragment*
Read MoreUse A Typewriter to Tap Your Poetic Subconscious
A public typewriter is stationed at Tompkins Square Park for whoever wishes to write on. It is the brainchild of the The Poetry Society of New York who original introduced it at the NYC Poetry Festival on Governors Island: The Typewriter Project’s mission is to investigate, document, and preserve the poetic subconscious of the city while providing a fun…
Read MoreCelebrate the Art of Clutter via Browning, Hao + Improvised Life
Having read and written a good deal about decluttering and letting go of stuff, we’ve witnessed something of a backlash in the media of late. Just as we were reading Dominique Browning’s recent Let’s Celebrate the Art of Clutter, we came across the work of Beijing-based Hong Hao who has been recording every item that comes into…
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