We browse A LOT of websites in our search for illuminating content for Improvised Life that will inspire new ways of viewing every aspect of the everyday. We have a special fondness for interiors as we hunt for ideas we can apply to our own space, if only in our imagination. But we have grown…
Read MoreBreath Breathing Human Beings (video + Rumi)
(Video link HERE.) We are knocked out by this video of the endless kinds of breath we humans experience daily, passively, actively…but mostly, unconsciously. It is a wonderful reminder of this mysterious intake/outtake of oxygen and expression…
Read MoreGif of the Week: Transformation
via centrolodigiani
Read MoreTable Setting: Flowers Right on the Table
We’ve documented our friend Maria Robledo’s inspired vase-less flower arrangements before. Usually, she would lay gorgeous flowers from her garden right in the center of the table. Recently, in the East Coast dead-of-winter, Maria worked her magic with vin ordinaire flowers she bought at the deli down the street. Our pictures don’t do her lovely table justice,…
Read MoreThomas Merton: Paradoxical Thinking is a Key to Creativity
Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk of one of the most rigorous orders which he entered in his twenties after quite a wild youth. Merton sought and wrote so lucidly about cultivating a spiritual practice in modern life, that he has been likened to a zen monk in his simplicity, commitment and the breadth of…
Read MoreFinally, A Pleasing LED Bulb + Our Lighting Strategy
After a great deal of testing, and disappointment, we’re happy to say we’ve FINALLY found an LED bulb we can live with; with pleasing, BRIGHT incandescent-quality light.
Read MoreSnowboarding in LED’s
(Video link HERE.) Insanely beautiful and daring. The absence of any sound except the simple piano accompaniment punches up the stark black and white imagery as Sutton carves across snowbanks and threads through barren trees trailing a roostertail of powered crystals. May your Monday be this luminous. —Susan Dworski via Nowness
Read MoreMichael Grab Balances Stones and You Can Too
The amazing Michael Grab is a master at balancing stones a practice that can be done by anyone, just about anywhere. It is practice that is amazingly absorbing and…balancing.
Read MoreInstagram-Inspired Collage Wall Paper
We have a thing for custom-made wall paper, that is, wall paper with images we would love to see, rather than the usual flowers and stripes. Although we aren’t crazy about the DIY wallpaper we saw on San Francisco Girl by Bay recently, we LOVE and see huge possibilities in the process. Writes SFGBB Editor…
Read MoreRobin Williams Helps Carole Burnett Express Herself
(Video link HERE.) After a reader mentioned an episode of the Carole Burnett show riffing on The Princess and the Pea (a reference to our inability to sleep no matter what fix we do to the myseriously vibrating bed) we went hunting for it. We never found it* but stumbled on this extraordinary bit from…
Read MoreA Random Message Written in the Snow: What Would Be Yours?
At twilight yesterday, we went into the park across the way to walk in a snowy field. The light was almost gone, the landscrape a blueish white. As we walked and looked around, our eyes focused on a message written in the snow. We could barely make it out, but found safe amonst the boot…
Read MoreVibrating Bed Fix: Fight Vibration with Vibration and/or Custom Sound
My latest experiment to temper the mysterious vibration that shakes me awake each night was to apply a vibration directly to the bed to neutralize the irritating one.
Read MoreWerner Herzog’s Brilliant + Questionable Advice
We are always interested to read advice of creative, original thinkers AND to see what of their wisdom we DON’T buy. We’ve learned the hard way that one size does not fit all. If we are going to forge our unique path, we’d do well to try out what we’re not sure of, embrace what works or rings…
Read MoreStylish Painted Plywood Sofas, DIYable
Feeling under-the-weather, we surfed the ever-inspiring Aqqindex and came across two seriously-stylish painted wood sofas, the top designed by Salvati and Tresoldi in 1978, the one below from Maison de Vacances designed Andre Monpoix in 1963. We imagined them as DIY’s we could make out of plywood and started hunting for more examples to…copy.
Read MoreInsta-Meditation + Anxiety Antidote: The Endless Ocean
(Video link HERE.) On the East Coast, our attention is on the monster blizzard heading our way and the constant notices of road and transit closings and a general feeling of… DANGER. On the West Coast, Susan Dworski in Venice, California reported “80 degrees with a weird red sky and bed sheets pulled off to wash are…
Read MoreDisplay Art with Vintage Binder Clips
We’ve long been fans of binder clips for all sorts of uses, including hanging unframed artworks. But we NEVER considered how beautiful vintage binder clips might be put to this and other uses, until we saw Remodelista’s recent article. They are prominently featured in the home of art collector and mid-century furniture dealer Demetrio Zanetti.…
Read MoreMusic for Monday Morning: Fast Forward Plays Mixed Metals
(Video link HERE.) Fast Forward* performing his Works for Mixed Metals seems like a perfect way to start the week. In a paint can factory in London in the summer of 1988, a young Fast shows us the music you can make with different metal objects, from paint cans to pipes. For us, the perfect morning…
Read MoreImprovisation-Inspiring Cookooks + a Fab Close-Roasted Meats Technique
In the past week, I received two three affirmations that cookbooks I wrote years ago —The Improvisational Cook and A New Way to Cook —are still resonating strongly. Both encourage improvisation, while giving the thinking and logic behind recipes and techniques, understanding that is the essential jumping off point for improvising. Curiously, TWO emails raved about…
Read MoreGifs of the Week: Mindblowing 3D
Animated gifs have gone mind-blowingly 3D. It had to happen… OMG…. via Studio 360
Read MoreVibrating Bed Fix Headway: A Wood Bed + Hockey Pucks
To date, I’ve published four lengthy posts about my desperate attempts to quiet the mysterious vibration that shakes me awake every morning. I lost count at twenty; the latest was making four 80+ pound concrete block legs to support the platform, which was a grid of wood on a frame of steel angle irons. The real…
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