Video link here. Recently Kottke posted this video of the anonymous Chinese man who stood up to a tank in Tiananmen Square. The footage was taken on June 5, 1989, the day after the Chinese military killed hundreds of civilians in an effort to extinguish democratic protest. Most of us have only seen the photo of…
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Our friend Maria Robledo sent this photo with the words “Color inspiration”. It was a two-fer gift: a virtual bunch of flowers AND a color combo we couldn’t imagine otherwise (for wall or floor or…) …that has us looking around…
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Time’s almost up for our current book giveaway! Tonight at midnight, we’ll be picking a commenter at random to receive a signed, first edition copy of Sally’s A New Way to Cook. Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been posting seasonal recipes from the book, like Strawberries in Beaujolais Sauce, Classic Coleslaw, and three…
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(Video link here.) Thomas Roebers film ‘Foli’ shows the rhythmic daily life of Baro, a Malinke village in Guinea; it is entralling. Almost eleven minutes long, it can be a lot to watch in a busy day. Break it up, watch bits over the course of a day. It will bring into focus the rhythm’s of your life. A…
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…is what we feel for ‘the improvised life’s ever-astonishing and generous readers, who send us ideas, thoughtful comments, support in endless ways and encouragement. THANK YOU!! — The Management from the great gif-maker DVDP Related posts: the possibilities of folded paper what have you been making today? peep show gif: funny, risqué, slightly x-rated color/pattern…
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On Thursday evening, we published pictures of ‘the improvised life’s laboratory – our new space – after all hell had broken loose and we were struggling to get some perspective on a day where everything had gone awry. We did manage to, with the help also of some hilarious and generous Comments from readers. One…
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Months ago we clipped a post we’d seen about a Tyvek shower curtain sold by Grain design. We filed it away as a possibility for our soon-to-be-renovated bathroom, since it was touted as being completely waterproof, mildew-resistent and fabric-like (you can even draw on it) with no off-gassing like regular plastic shower curtain liners. The…
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Recently, a smart, lovely article by blogger Erin Boyle on Urban Foraging made a connection that we knew but were somehow too tired or blocked to make: that the stunningly fragrant linden trees in bloom in many parts of the country (and in New York City) are the very same ingredient used for an age-old…
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Since moving, our space has gone from mess to order many times, as we unpack, settle, organize, in stages. Today, just as we thought we were through the worst of it, that is, AFTER we put the pots back on the finally-finished pot racks, all hell broke loose. Everything went wrong that could, as we…
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Since moving, we’ve realized the insane number of details that comprise “a life”: where is a good dry cleaner in our new neighborhood, what to use for hooks for towels until we find ones we like?…it is endless. We’d bought a nice-looking toilet roll holder only to discover to discover that it would be “a…
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Recently, two friends described the deeply challenging situations they were going through as “really interesting”. They are both artists, and we thought, ‘Ah-h-h just like them to view difficulty from a different lens’. We’ve been trying on the idea, with which we’ve become increasingly comfortable since we started writing ‘the improvised life’. Instead of just…
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Two photos from Magical and Otherwise reminded us of the complete shift of view that can come when we open our eyes to what’s hiding-in-plain-sight all around us.
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We love this chair by monocomplex design studio because it illustrates an essential lesson about cardboard: when sheets of it are glued together they become an incredibly strong material, a homemade laminate that can be used like wood. Here, the designer glued together 127 pieces of cardboard (recycled boxes, not pristine sheets) until he had a big roughly-arm-chair-size…
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Before picking the winner of our latest book giveaway on June 19 (a signed, first edition copy of Sally’s A New Way to Cook), we’ve been posting recipes from the book that fit the season. With summer fast approaching, slaws are the inevitable – and perfect – accompaniment to barbeques, picnics, and porch suppers. We serve this…
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Our friend Margot Wellington sent us a much-passed on email of improvisations and hacks seen in the parking lots of Walmarts across the country. Being a parking lot, all are car related; we can only imagine what else these creative folks have cooked up in their everyday lives. Most boggle our mind with their desperate…
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Over the years we’ve been given a number of beautiful oversized platters which we love to use for celebrations of all sorts. We’ve discovered they are too oddly-shaped to fit stacked on a shelf in our renovated kitchen cabinets, but would if we could find a way to stand them up. Using wire plate display…
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UPDATE: Since we first published this post, Una Morera’s video has become inaccessable online, most likely because it was made an official selection for the New York Food Festival. Yay for Morera. So sadly for us, you’ll have to wait until it’s made public again. Fortunately, we sussed the video and its essential quotes, below.…
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Lately, readers who have seen our ongoing, increasingly obsessive postings of people leaping – an obvious and beautiful metaphor for taking a leap – have been sending sightings on the theme of leaping and jumping. This morning, Cynthia Allen alerted us to the fab Jumping in Art Museums. Sometimes, while visiting art museums and galleries,…
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Nina Saltman, ‘the improvised life’s construction and building consultant, is really good with her hands, and even better with extensions of her hands—namely, tools. Nina was one of the first women in the country to wear a hardhat. She’s worked her way up from apprentice carpenter to general manager of massive construction projects (see About).…
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Occasionally, Maria Robledo emails a picture of the latest “hand” drawing her daughter Isabel has made. We’ve got a small collection, and love them because we’re big fans of hands (and other parts of the body) as a drawing/writing palette (we especially love to write signs hidden in the palm of our hands). The one…
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