This astonishing composite photo of gymnast Simone Biles performing a difficult vault at the Brazil Olympics exemplifies the LEAP as visual metaphor for risk taking, having faith, taking on challenges, attempting to FLY. We wondered what such leaping and flying was like from Biles’ point of view. This insight applies to many of us.
Read MoreJumps + Leaps (Nick Cave Does Pogo Sticks)
(Video link HERE.) Some fab, out-there LEAPS from performance artist Nick Cave. And just in case you’re inspired, here’s where you can get a Pogo Stick that will hold a person up to 160 pounds.
Read MoreFriends With Benefits: Trading Jewels & Taking Leaps—Together
One of our readers, Carol E., wrote to us, In the morning it’s The Improvised Life with my coffee and then the morning paper. I have described you as a little jewel of a magazine that I read online every morning. Many thanks!’ We love the image of Improvised Life as a “jewel”—it rings true because for the…
Read MoreYo-Yo Ma on Leaps of Faith
Not long after we found this rather astounding leap photo, we came across this quote from Yo-Yo Ma.
Read Morelaughter yoga: a farmer strips bare and leaps!
David Saltman alerted us to this video with the comment: “Wild shit I really gotta do some day.” It is crazy imaginative, daring and hilarious, so you should watch it before your go any farther.
Read MoreGeorge Booth, Chronicler of Our Sublime and Oddball Life
When a friend sent us news that legendary New Yorker cartoonist George Booth had died, we realized that his work has provided joy, comfort, and uplift throughout our entire adult life. In a single drawing, he managed to convey the wild complexity of ordinary lives through the simplest of details, embedded with a deeply life-affirming message.
Read MoreSimple Gifts (Yo-Yo Ma, Alison Krauss) + Quarantine Bookshelf Exhibition
What marks the dark time of Coronavirus for me are the many instances of acute beauty that I am offered daily that have the effect of infusing moments with light. Like this sublime 2 minutes: a simple gift for right now.
Read MoreAnnals of Everyday Invention: Magnet Pin Cushion Sculpture
Sometimes tiny inventions happen by seeing the possible solution out of the corner of your eye.
Read MoreWhy Not Now? (Vivian Stancil’s Leap)
This 2-minute video tells the story of one of the most inspiring leaps we’ve seen of late. Complete with the perfect mantra for change.
Read MoreAdvice for Someone Who is Juggling Her Life
Like most people, we often feel like we are juggling way too many things in our life. Although we try to simplify, make choices, edit out the unnecessary, we have not yet mastered the equilibrium of just enough. How startling then to find A Poem for Someone Who is Juggling Her Life and its affirmation of a very counter-intuitive option…
Read MoreWe Leap into The New Year (With Yoko Ono, Mary Oliver, Muybridge, More)
As always we are taking the week between Christmas and New Year’s off. It’s a time to slow way down and reflect on the year that’s passed so quickly, and on the new one we are about to begin. Here’s a few of the things we look at, and think about.
Read MoreLeaping in Poetry, Art and Life (Robert Bly + Maria Robledo)
Leaping In Poetry, Art And Life (Robert Bly + Maria Robledo)
10.17.16 | 2:38am
Maria Robledo, from the Schneider Collection
Maria Robledo, from the Schneider Collection
While we were researching how we often don’t know just how big the leaps we take are, we came across poet Robert Bly’s theory of leaping poetry. He says that leaps are inherent in many works of art
Leap (William Wegman) with Haiku
One of the best titled leaps we’ve seen (in our vast collection): William Wegman’s For a Moment He Forgot Where He Was a Jumped into the Ocean. THAT is how we would love to live our life:
Read MoreCrowdFunding to Save an Endangered Art Form
Lately, it seems like many one-of-a-kind art forms are struggling to find their footing in an increasingly strange new world. One close to our heart is the Big Apple Circus, modeled on the European-style one-ring tent circus tradition. For nearly 40 years, it has thrilled audiences around the country with wildly imaginative performers, like the great Bello Nock, above. Check out his wild, beautiful act.
Read MoreJoin Our Tribe!
Improvised Life is a space that celebrates creative living to the fullest degree. We work hard to collect great ideas from artists; inspiring thoughts from poets; stylish, useful home upgrades; and yummy recipes…and present them with thoughtful commentary and unexpected leaps and associations. A tribe is a community with a similar mindset for living, and we want you in…
Read MoreNick Cave’s Inspiring Process, Philosophy, Art
(Video link HERE.) We discovered performance artist Nick Cave recently and are smitten. As one YouTube commenter wrote: “imagine a world where people wore these to work … lol that would colour up our lives a little”. It’s not just the joy the his Sound Suits evoke; we’re inspired by how the first Sound Suit…
Read More2014 Through Viral Videos: Our Takeaway
(Video link HERE.) 233 viral videos from 2014 spliced together make quite a view. We turned the sound off and watched people leaping…dancing…flying…balancing…mastering…diving…risking…challenging themselves physically… What about challenge? we wondered. We thought of the many difficult situations we faced this year that were internal and not filmable with a Go-Pro Camera: they were our private challenges. And…
Read MoreJames Baldwin on Making a Leap
From our friend Marella Consolini: I recently read an interview with James Baldwin in a 1984 Paris Review. To me, fascinating under any circumstance, but of course thought of you because of his mention of a deep and personal leap. Details: Was there an instant you knew you were going to write, to be a…
Read MoreGrant Snider on Making the Leap
Grant Snider nails it again. What leaps are you afraid to make? (Make a list, real or imaginary, of what they are and why you want to make them.)
Read Morethe first apple computer: great ideas start rough!
Dig this picture of the original apple computer, now known as the apple-1, designed and hand-built in 1976 by Steve Wozniak in Steve Job‘s garage. It’s one of a number of “primitive” early computers that Christie’s will auction in ‘First Bytes: Iconic Technology From the Twentieth Century’. It represents the very first step in Apple’s quite amazing history of…
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