In the final paragraph of Camus’ last published essay, Create Dangerously, we found this radical idea: One may long, as I do, for a gentler flame, a respite, a pause for musing. But perhaps there is no other peace for the artist than what he finds in the heat of combat. ‘Every wall is a door,’ Emerson correctly said.…
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As fans of plywood for its economical, elemental, very modern possibilities for stylish interiors, we are smitten with bright blue-stained plywood used in Vancouver’s Kin Kao Restaurant. Local Scott & Scott Architects choose plywood to use in tandem with readily available materials, including painted concrete, soaped beech, and galvanized metal. Their clever technique of using construction-grade…
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Video link HERE. Artist Chris Burden used some of our favorite materials — concrete, steel beams, a construction crane…and…chance — for his Beam Drop. For us, the crazy power of the piece is in watching it: pure gravitational and other mysterious forces violently plunking the beams into wet concrete, fueled by Burden’s vision.
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We’ve written numerous posts wishing out loud for a life-size building block that would allow us to create with the ease of a Lego; over the years, we’ve featured some “close-but- not-quite-right iterations“. Our wish has come true, at last. Serial entrepreneur Arnon Rosen applied his knowledge of modular flooring to create the technology to produce 12-inch…
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Usually we think that only difficulties come without warning. It hadn’t occurred to us that harmony and abundance can seem to come without warning as well, until we read this from the Selected Poems of Mark Strand:
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While I was putting together the recent post about mortars and pestles, I came across Maria Robledo’s beautiful image of one of my favorite mortar-made sauces. I learned the deceptively simple recipe from chef Grey Kunz years ago and it has been enduringly great: an example of the magic of a few well-chosen ingredients artfully combined by…
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(Video link here.) When a grieving friend came for dinner, the conversation eventually turned from sadness to LOL hilarity. He told us that he had recently heard that an entrepeneur was making a fortune selling “poop spray”, a scented liquid that you spray in the toilet “before to go” to literally prevent your shit from stinking. You’re kidding, we…
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Here’s a summary of all the fixes I’ve found to dampen irritating, sleep-depriving vibrations coming from machinery and other mechanicals.
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A convergence of two owl poems: one, wordless, at Vine…one by Mary Oliver, when we opened Blue Horses: Owl Poem One has to say this for the rounds of life that keep coming and going; it has worked so far. The rabbit, after all, has never asked if the grass wanted to live. Any more…
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Looking through our photo archive of the Laboratory renovation, we came across this image of an olive fork improvised by Roberto, a stunningly-outside-the-box-creative of a carpenter who was part the construction team. Being Portuguese, he loved olives and bought a jar for his lunch one day. Having no fork with which to spear them, he…made one…
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We stumbled on this curiously beautiful sheetrock wall at the always illuminating Under the Sun. It appears to be a way an art gallery displayed a show. Sheets of uncut 4 x 8′ sheet rock were nailed to a carefully constructed wall of ordinary sheet rock studs with plenty of space between. Not great for sound…
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(Video link here.) A camera mounted to an umbrella captures the experience of walking down the snow-covered streets of New York City in winter in this short video from the New York Times. We saw it not long after we heard a mother reassuring her little girl, as they walked through the frigid, still-snowy park across the way, that…
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Though it’s not exactly a headBOARD, we love this painted canvas hung on the wall at the head of a low bed. And we are inspired by the canvas Cy Twombly tacked right onto the walls of his Rome villa, ready for painting. 63-inch by 6-yards rolls of primed artist’s canvas can be found on Amazon…
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We opened the John Cage’s enduringly great A Year from Monday and found this extraordinary set of questions*: How immediately are you going to say Yes to no matter what unpredictability, even when what happens seems to have no relation to what one thought was one’s commitment? The kind of YES he’s talking about is full committment:
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At the compellingly odd blog Under the Sun, we stumbled on an gorgious interior with messily painted, canvas like walls in what appeared to be an Italian Villa. We follwed the trail to discover it was from an article Vogue magazine ran in 1966, about artist Cy Twombly’s villa in Rome. The photographs were by…
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The Hindu traditional day of festivity known as Holi, celebrated on March 5th, is a religious celebration that has come to signify a lighthearted goodbye to winter and joyous welcome to Spring. Celebrants throw vibrantly colored powders on each other, as though blessings, in a jubilant day of transformation. Spring is literally in the air!
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To illustrate just how useful it is to have a mortar and pestle —and to accompany our essential post about this great, ancient tool — here are some favorite mortar-made preparations: simple, a-la-minute flavored oils for dipping bread, drizzling on grilled fish, or jazzing up soups and stews. I set the mortar on the table for guests to…
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Recently, Jim Dillon asked me to recommend a good mortar and pestle. It is a fine request as they are incredibly useful, yet misunderstood tools. I’ve been mentally panning most of the mortars and pestles I see for year because of their ineffective —yet often beautiful — design. So here are some mortar and pestle basics,…
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(Video link HERE) Does your headphone phone jack have a loose connection? Did the stem of your eyeglasses snap? Tired of trying to repair them with weak glue or duct tape? We said YES to all those questions and were thrilled to find Bondic, a liquid plastic that “welds” broken items. It fits right in with our…
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(Video link here.) Every so often, we check in with artist/educator Paul Zelavansky’s YouTube channel, where we find salient, carefully-edited clips of Mister Rogers’ wisdom. They are as transformative for adults as it is for kids. Zelavansky opened our eyes to the power of Rogers’ work. “Taking a Breath” is a perfect .58 seconds to…
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