Internet visionary Kevin Kelly homeschooled his 8th grade son for a year and wrote about it recently for The New York Times Magazine. He tried to teach his son the kind of tools that would help him navigate the pace of technology which is accelerating so fast “his eventual adult career does not exist yet.…
Read MoreYesterday, a reader alerted us to the possible dangers of wooden shipping pallets, especially found ones that are so great for d-i-y projects. When we read that even new wood pallets could be subject to chemical treatments, we did some research to figure out how we can happily keep making things out of wood pallets,…
Read MoreThere’s a beautiful piece by Alex Ross in this week’s New Yorker this week about avant garde artist John Cage, who had a profound influence on our understanding of what music can be. Here’s a chunk that knocked us out: “One a simpler level, Cage had an itch to try new things. What would happen…
Read MoreAn intriguing question came to us in an email one recent morning, via a TED-minded LinkedIn group. We thought we’d pass it on and see what you think… What is the single most powerful word in the English language? There are so many wonderful words: IMAGINE, WE, LOVE, JOY…Our vote (subject to change) is YES.…
Read MoreBig Think recently filmed a series of interviews with Wylie Dufresne, inspired chef of WD-50 in New York City; our favorite segment is called “Why You Should Play With Your Food” . We’ve followed Wylie for years, delighting in the products of his rigorous experimenting in molecular gastronomy, like freeze-dried polenta, deep-fried mayonnaise and hollandaise, smoked…
Read MoreThe Selby has run a really nice story-with-few-words about Andrew Field, chef of Rockaway Taco, in Rockaway Beach, Queens – right by the beach – who loves surfing and keeps bees on his roof (we are always heartened when we discover a New York City beekeeper; it reminds us that nature is here, even in…
Read MoreWhen we read that Centre Pompidou in Paris was offering a Cardboard Carton Workshop, we wanted to beam ourselves there, a la Star Trek, to see what more we could add to our overflowing file and minds about this wonderfully versatile material. We were stunned by a photo of an archway made of cardboard sheets combined…
Read MoreA couple of weeks ago, we started posting about Lydia Wills’ former studio apartment in New York City; the 600-square-foot space had so much going on, we had to make it a series… Here’s her renovated kitchen which, when she moved in, was the most generic of New York City apartment galley kitchens (there’s a…
Read MoreWhen we wrote about clipped-together cardboard box shelving a while back, we mentioned wanting to paint the cardboard boxes – coat them with something to change their look (we were thinking rubber paint) – knowing that the cardboard would swell slightly and become….something else: not smooth but sculptural, possibly even stronger once it had dried.…
Read MoreWe’ve long advocated the pleasure that comes from cooking in a well-made pot: one with good balance when lifted or moved it around the stove, made of material that conducts heat evenly, that feels right to whatever your particular style of cooking is. Some pots actually shift the experience of cooking altogether – for us…
Read MoreSince we posted The Oil Spill: What You Can Do, we’ve seen lots of websites offering solutions that echo a common sentiment: whether we like it or not, we are all in this together; the risky actions of oil companies are fueled by demand, which we all contribute to. That reminded J.P. Townley of the…
Read MorePamela Hovland alerted us to a wonderful essay posted on Design Observer recently, called The Subtle Technology of Indian Artisanship; it is about how “everywhere you look in India you will find evidence of the maker’s hand.” A sign painter, faced with a drain opening smack in the middle of his underwear ad, transformed it…
Read MoreLast week, we sent out a call for help in creating a tagline for ‘the improvise life’ and were knocked out by the response we got, both as Comments and as emails: an amazingly wonderful and wide array of descriptors and points of view + some disagreement (which we embrace). Pamela Hovland, who has been…
Read More‘the improvised life’ needs a tagline on its HomePage so newcomers who jump onto the site with no introduction can get the gist quickly, and find their way more easily. We’ve been mulling possibilities for a while now and ask for your help in figuring out which of the phrases below describes the site best.…
Read MoreWe’re totally addicted to the History Channel’s “American Pickers” for many reasons but mostly because it taps into our primal need to hunt, hoard, share, trade, wander, and tell stories. Antiques don’t magically appear in your local antique store or flea market. They are foraged and found and repaired by people like business partners Mike…
Read MoreThis weekend, I will take a few days off to go down to West Virginia to the Ramp Supper in Helvetia, West Virginia, a feast served family style in the community hall by the Farm Women’s Association – ham, beans, cornbread, slaw, applesauce, hash browns, ramps raw and cooked. Depending on the weather, the raw…
Read MoreA couple of years ago, we started a file called “bad ideas”. These are ideas featured in shelter/style magazines that look really good, but practically speaking, are really bad. They’d come back to haunt you in no time. Stacked magazines seem like a perfect, charming solution for a table leg, but have you ever TRIED…
Read MoreWe wish there were a way to beam ourselves (a la Star Trek) to a conference taking place in Lahti, Finland on March 24 to 25, called “Designing Slow Life” “…international experts of design, service design and wellness talk about and develop services under the main theme of better, slower and more meaningful life…The Slow…
Read MoreLast December, Pam Hunter, the mastermind behind Studio 707, THE Public Relations firm in Napa Valley, closed its doors to take a sabbatical. On her website’s last post, she told the story of meeting two artists over the years whose practice of taking long sabbaticals from their work had impressed her deeply. Spain’s Fernan Adria, considered…
Read MoreSome time ago, our friend James Bullock, who is a cable car gripman in San Francisco, was followed for twenty-four hours by a video crew. The video of James’ day – all 24 hours of it – will be shown simultaneously with videos of nine other people from around the world, in a specially-designed pavilion on February 26th…
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