Rooftop gardens are still blooming in cities everywhere. No matter how small or large our gardens, or how large or small we gardeners, we all share a farmer’s joys and vicissitudes, so delightfully illlustrated in this New Yorker cover by Ivan Brunetti entitled “Urban Bliss”. Poet Marianne Moore observed that poetry cultivates “imaginary gardens with real toads…
Read MoreIt’s Labor Day, the tacit end of summer. I’m wondering if after all the s’mores have melted, the frisbees thrown, the lanyards woven, the barbeques fired up, the cocktail schmoozes sloshed through, and the group hikes up a trail to see the sun rise… after all these activities, maybe what’s really important about summer is simply…
Read MoreSummer vacations in the great outdoors can result in some ferocious souvenir fallout: gazillions of shells, kilos of stones, and fistfuls of feathers from unidentified birds. We hoard this memorabilia like The Hobbit’s Gollum hovering over Sauron’s Ring, unable to part with our “precious”, be it a single sand-filled shell or random feather. Truth be…
Read MoreGrowing is no piece of cake no matter how tall we are or how long we’ve lived. We progress, we fall back, we start all over again, ferblungeoning forward into our future even while kicking and screaming. The universe commands expanding, and we obey, improvising every step of the way. The side of the bookshelf at the door of…
Read MoreFor many years, I wrote about improvising in the kitchen. My basic approach was to show people how to ‘see’ the basic structure of a recipe. Once you understood its essential workings, you could play with all sorts possibilities, depending on what you had on hand or were inspired to do. It’s pure liberation. So…
Read MoreIn The Art of the Flame-Out, Carl Swanson writes about visionary Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s return to the New York Art scene after 40 years in a mental-hospital exile. But whatever you make of her retreat into a psych ward, her mantra was always “self-obliteration”—to lose herself in the work, or to the work, to save herself.…
Read MoreA friend living in Thailand is an avid admirer of Henri Matisse, particularly his wall-size drawings. He was unhappy with the large, barren entry wall in his house in the jungle of Kanchanaburi, north of Bangkok near the Myanmar border. He dreamed of a of wall mural to enliven the long corridor to surprise his wife returning soon…
Read MoreOur first ‘real’ house was a midget, 1937 knotty pine beach cabin meant for weekend use, built by three spinster sister daughters of a wealthy Iowa man who had invented the snow plow. The seams started busting when two babies arrived bam bam in a year, and my husband and I were struggling to cope…
Read MoreSan Francisco Bubbleman 1 by Susan Dworski @improvisedlife.com from Sally Schneider on Vimeo. (Video link here.) Some time ago, Susan Dworski emailed us about the mysterious Bubbleman she passes on Highway 101, and sent two little videos. At sunset today alongside bustling Highway 101 in Tiburon, CA, an unknown man with a boom box coaxes soap…
Read MoreInstalling hardwired, outdoor lighting can be a big, expensive, all-too-often unaesthetic hassle, forcing you to put lights where you really don’t want them, and use commercially produced fixtures that are less than enchanting. One elegant, inexpensive solution is solar lanterns. My favorites are Allsop‘s faux Japanese shoji solar lanterns available in a rainbow of lightweight polyester that mimics silk.…
Read MoreRainy days always slow me down and tuck me in, seducing me to perform unnecessary housekeeping chores unimaginable in bright sun. When my ancient, duct-taped, binder of recipes tumbled off the top of the fridge in a splat of disorganization, I remanded it to the top of the clothes dryer. Now, a few drops of…
Read MoreI see these outdoor junkyard tubs featured here and there, but I liked the rustic simplicity of this one, from a diy featured at Houzz: salvage transformed into elemental luxury. We had one years ago on our back deck in Malibu. I found an old tub for $5 in a junk yard with a flaking ocean…
Read MoreWe have a nasty patch of rubble in the back alley guarded by unsightly bent pipes that protect a gas meter. Every fall I throw a packet of wildflower seeds down, scratch them in, and wait to see what the rains will bring. It’s different every year. Nasturtiums and poppies duke it out neck and neck for starters…
Read More(Video link here.) Apparently, some readers were turned off by Louis C.K.’s vulgar, and to our minds perspective-inducing reflections on “what comes with a basic life”. Susan Dworski sent us this brilliant few minutes of Steve Martin as the Great Flydini as “an antidote”. Like all great magic, it appears to just happen— an improvision…
Read MoreI’ve been thinking a lot about birds lately, about the mystery of their migrations; their unerring return each spring. Our Cooper’s hawk is back from the dry barrancas of Zapotecas, its familiar kek-kek-kek vying with argumentative crows and cooing mourning doves at dawn. Improvisatory arboreal architects are at work big time. Humingbird hangs its timid sac of…
Read More(Video link here.) This is even more amazing with the sound OFF: traveling via the domino-theory through a kinetic Rube-Goldberg universe… …to make a tuna melt (we can relate) With thanks to Susan Dworski via The Browser Related posts: rube goldberg summer camp ok go channels rube goldberg: “having good ideas and making cool shit” “can…
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 MoreJust as we posted about the many possibilities for using plywood as a wall covering, we learned of this brilliant play on the idea: moveable MAGNETIC silkscreened tiles made out of plywood. They are the brainchild of Giovanna and Matt Taylor, a couple who had never designed before. Remembering the blue-and-white ceramic tiles of her Italian childhood,…
Read MoreMindfulness practice – learning to be present in each moment– is something many people are embracing these days. Business are incorporating it and classes abound. Perhaps the most often-recommended “exercise” is washing dishes mindfully, although we know few people who really do it. Recently, we heard of one that did, truly. No surprise, it is…
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…
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