Yesterday, we thought we had set our favorite Arabia tea cup down on the edge of the bathroom sink, only to hear it smash into the bathtub. Okay, we got the message, we thought: SLOW DOWN. We take small accidents like that as warnings that we are too distracted to be present. But we got…
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I was intrigued by the Double Chocolate Rye/spelt muffins touted on Green Kitchen. Chocolate and rye!!!. Rye flour in the US is associated with heavy, gummy, serious breads––certainly not pastries. Doubters warned that they could be “brown rocks,” given the weightiness of the ingredients. But it seems that chocolate and rye are much loved taste combo in Denmark. And Green Kitchen said they were delish, so I decided to try them.
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Urban Jungle Street View filters New York City, San Francisco and many any other locales through an Amazonian lens — an eco system of vines, trees, and vines you can wander through. Stockholm-based web developer, Einar Öberg loves “the idea of an abandoned world where nature is taking over.” So do we.
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Type “painted walls” into Improvised Life’s SEARCH box and you’ll find a trove of images of cleverly, unusually, oddly painted walls. Many have beautiful geometries that make them seem like a canvas. We stumbled on this beauty designer Rick Gillete created in 1976 at the great aqqindex. The volumes painted on the wall in subtle hues give unexpected dimension to the room.
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Remodelista recently posted about a new trend: Artful Coffee Drippers. By “dripper”, they mean the funnel-shaped cone, lined with a paper filter, that sits on top of a coffee pot or cup and allows the brewing coffee to drip through. We use the method ourselves so were interested to see the 10 stylish itereations. The only problem with most of the Remodelista coffee cones is they don’t allow for ways to keep the coffee hot, unlike our own homely rig.
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Every since Holton Rower mentioned Equilibres, the inspired series of sculptures Peter Fischli and David Weiss made in the 80’s with ordinary household objects, we’ve been collecting images of them. They are a reminder of the fabulous possibilities inherent in all the things we take for granted.
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Wandering along the Highline one day, we came upon a lone musician playing an upbeat sax with the faint sound of cymbalss and drums in the background. We looked down to see his astonishingly hacked sneakers. He had added little cymbals and percussion instruments to them so that when he tapped his feet, they beat…
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“Breaking the expected pattern” is an ongoing theme that is threaded throughout Improvised Life, in all aspects of our lives. It tends to show most concretely in interiors, in floors and walls.
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We’re so used to seeing images of tidy interiors with neat rows of framed pictures that it was a joy to stumble on this image of Julian Schnable’s living room at Palazzo Chupi. In addition to all the pink, there’s a nice mashup of art, much of it unframed. Unframed canvases have an immediacy and,…
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Although we’ve been a big fan of chalkboard paint in the past, we were feeling it a bit overdone until we saw this chalkboard-painted armoire. What a clever way to cool out a big piece of furniture: cover it with a poem, quote or any other bit of writing: the perfect balance! via Vosges Paris…
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When our favorite 50’s coffee cup slipped off the counter and into the sink SLAM, right into a delicate glass for a double whammy of perfect breakage, we got an early morning reminder that this beautiful stuff we have is just that and NOT what’s essential. With Ai Weiwei and Pablo Neruda.
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One of our favorite things are signs on walls: reminders that call us back to something really useful, true, mind shifting. We love that a church is posting quotes from unexpected sources, like this one from Bill Nye that resonates in unexpected ways.
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This beautiful image of wooden spoons we saw on From Moon to Moon reminded us just how much of a pleasing sculptural element they be when serving up food. Like chairs, wooden spoons can have distinct personalities. The odder they are, the more impact they have.
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We love this design idea from German design group Ambivalenz. The Fläpps: Folding Chair doubles as an artwork, and a simple folding ‘picnic’ chair. The chair snaps out into a modern, streamlined version of a fold-out chair. Unfolded however, it transforms into a less than one-inch-thick artwork,
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In a recent New York Times, 36-year-old Paul Kalanithi wrote How Long Have I Got Left about his diagnosis of terminal cancer, and coming to terms with his doctor’s inability to tell him how much time he had left. Kalanithi eloquently addresses how he learned to live aware of but NOT knowing, with the gravest of uncertainties, as did Stephan Girard.
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(Video link HERE.) Canadian Les Beaux Frères are part of the burgeoning contemporary circus arts movement coming out Quebec. Their clever towel dance made us LAUGH. via The Dish
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We’ve gotten a bit obsessed with Costanza Algranti’s recycling of materials we love: copper, wood and iron, and that she is big on rust and rivets. We went on further rambles through her website for ideas. We were knocked out by this kitchen made of distressed iron. These oxidized copper panels could make surprisingly beautiful cladding…
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We’re big fans of the versatile Componibili system of modular storage units. Originally designed by Anna Castelli Ferrieri for Kartell in 1969, they have since become a modern classic. Made of ABS, the units come in rounds and squares that can be stacked, stand alone, and put on wheeled bases. They are flexible, functional and stylish. Their simple lines seem to work in just about any interior and just about any room, from bathroom to living.
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After we wrote about the meaning of the murmers and shouts of Olé we heard at a stunning Estrella Morente concert, reader Hannah alerted us to Eat Pray Love author Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk ,”Your Elusive Creative Genius”, in which she speaks about the origins of Olé, and why the “Olé’s” we heard sounded like “Alé”. We excerpted…
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Portuguese street performer Luís Reis seems to have found the perfect use for the tiny GoPro Camera. He wore one while he juggled* in a square in Lisbon to create mesmerizing first-person perspective what it’s like to juggle. Somehow you can FEEL the balls rolling along YOUR arms… Totally fab. *As Houdini File blogger David Saltman pointed out, Reis…
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