This morning while engrossed in redesigning ‘improvised life’, I forgot about the eggs I was boiling on the stove. Suddenly, I heard what sounded like a gunshot in the kitchen. When I explored, I discovered firm little pellets of egg yolk scatter-shot across the kitchen. Once the water had boiled away in the little copper…
Read MoreWe recently ran a New Yorker cartoon showing Noah’s Ark filled with only giraffes. The suggested caption was “Mistakes were made.” Now The New Yorker has compounded its mistakes with Malcolm Gladwell’s latest piece The Gift of Doubt. It totally convinces us that in order to find the right path, you often have to take the…
Read MoreRecently, we went looking for a 24-inch round metal bistro table for our Harlem terrace and hit a dilemma: whether to buy the pricey classic Fermob table (top photo), made in France, (THE table used in many public spaces), whose durable finish we’ve tested in the guise of a rectangular table we’ve stored outdoors for 2…
Read More(Video link here.) Paulo Goldstein sees himself as a craftsman in his approach to repair. It seems to us, he has the viewpoint of an artist, and certainly his repairs reflect a rare sensibility. We found this short video incredibly illuminating, for the many levels of living he addresses. Here’s the gist, but there’s way…
Read MoreAccording to motivation scientist Heidi Grant Halvorson at at 99U “Making if-then plans to tackle your current projects, or reach your goals, is probably – without exaggerating – the most effective single thing you can do to ensure your success.” Yikes! Sign us up! What do we have to do? If-Then thinking works like this: You decide…
Read MoreKeith Stewart is a writer despite himself. Even with the massive responsibilities and demands of his organic farm with it’s hundred or so varieties of produce, he has written regularly and wonderfully about the inside of farming and living a rural life, from numerous magazine articles to It’s a Long Road to a Tomato: Tales of an Organic…
Read MoreFor the renovation of my 1,000-square-foot ‘Laboratory’ in New York City, my mission was to open up the space to the spectacular park view AND fluidly accomodate an open kitchen, workspace, dining area, and living area. To do this, I removed a small bedroom to dramatically expand the main room and built an office area along one 15′ wall…
Read MoreWe are constantly knocked out by the wonderful endeavors our readers are involved in, committed to, CREATED out of nothing, improvised. Here are a few from the past week: David Downie and Alison Harris set out from their home in Paris to walk across France to the Pyrenees, the French portion of El Camino de…
Read More(Video link here.) In the annals of self-helpism, doubt is considered something to overcome, to find ways around, to MASTER. We’ve discovered time and again that that is easier said than done. Doubt seems to come with territory of being creative, and most of the people we know just find ways to soldier through…or be…
Read More(Video link here.) One of our favorite films has long been My Dinner with Andre, which is, on the surface, a conversation between two friends during dinner in a French restaurant in New York City. Andre Gregory vividly describes his revelatory, new-ageish, risk-taking experiences in experimental theatre while his modest less-adventurous friend Wally Shawn listens and…
Read MoreLast Fall, designer Susan Dworski, a reader and frequent commenter, happened to mention carving rubber stamps out of Staedler Mars erasers to make artworks. “How did you get into that? we asked. Her answer was stunning: Been carving them since 1980 when our house burned down, and only my studio was saved. All four of us all…
Read More(Video link here.) Professional skydiver Erik Roner asked himself a question he’d wondered for a long time: what would happen if he sky-dived with an umbrella? Then he tried it, just to see what would happen. A man after our own improvisational hearts. Question the “rule(s)”… …ask “What would happen if…? …and then TRY YOUR IDEA OUT!…
Read More(Video link here.) About 6 months ago, we got an email from Merete Mueller, a friend of a friend who was just finishing up a film about the Tiny House Movement. The film, “TINY: A Story About Living Small” follows Christopher Smith and my attempt to build a tiny house from scratch with no building…
Read MoreWe’ve just been mulling a wall in a bedroom that has an unfinished doorway, currently covered by a curtain. On the wall next to we temporarily propped a big mirror that gives great depth to the room and a bit of the view of the park across the way. The question: how to combine the…
Read More(Video link here.) We were knocked out by this must-watch-all-of-it TED talk by Anne Cuddy, a professor and researcher at Harvard Business School, where she studies how nonverbal behavior and snap judgments affect people from the classroom to the boardroom. The gist: everyone we meet is influenced by our nonverbals, our thoughts and our feelings and our…
Read MorePerfect question, found on Fluxus’ fffound tumbler. (So….what are you going to do this weekend?) Related posts: diy valentine card + life philosophy from fluxus MOMA’s photo wallpaper (a piece of ass) yoko ono’s wish tree ok go channels rube goldberg: “having good ideas and making cool shit”
Read MoreWe were knocked out by this fragment of an interview with Tammy Duckworth in the Sunday New York Time’s Magazine. She’s the United States Representative for Illinois’s 8th congressional district who lost both legs while a U.S. Army helicopter pilot in the Iraq War: Question: When you wake up do you feel a sense of loss when you realize what…
Read MoreWe know quite a few people who are making major life changes these days, living with the question of what to do next, waiting for the path to become clear. So we were really struck, and curiously heartened, by this series of images by photographer Ellie Davies… … …more here. photos courtesy ellie davies
Read MoreK “Rules are there to be broken” is one of our favorite operating principles. We’ve learned a HUGE amount from seeing what would happen if we “broke the rules” and did things differently from the norm. It’s a practice: questioning the rules with a big “WHY?” and then, when we have an idea, asking “Why…
Read MoreOur friends Christopher Hirscheimer and Melissa Hamilton, creators of the wonderful Canal House cookbook series, have a friend in the appliance business who keeps offering to get them a big new stove for their kitchen studio. NO, they keep saying, We love our little side-by-side stoves! Every great dish Melissa and Christopher come up with…
Read More