Psychologist Richard Wiseman completed a ten-year study to figure out why some people, even smart ones, are luckier than others. He explains how and what he found in illuminating detail in “Be Lucky —It’s an Easy Skill to Learn” in the Telegraph. The gist: people who generate good luck practice four essential principles.
Read MoreIn this week’s New Yorker, Ferris Jabr describes research that shows why walking goes beyond being a great physical exercise, but a catalyst for creative thinking as well. We go for a walk daily in the park we look out on. Every time, we discover something new AND find our mind shifting, ideas sparking, problems beginning to yield. Nature reminds us of possibilities…
Read MoreWhen uber-designer Stefan Sagmeister was asked “If you were to give advice on happiness—and I acknowledge that this is a tough question—is there one thing you’d suggest?” Write down 3 things that worked for you each evening, things you might be thankful for. I started an ical calendar that contains this and I just spend…
Read MoreFor many of us, there’s often a disconnect between our ideas and doodles and seeing a project through to its completion. While generating wish list items that exist only in our wildest dreams is a satisfying exercise on its own, a handful of artists and designers were lucky enough to bridge that gap and have…
Read MoreWe were very moved by both this tree that is over 2000 years old and Anastasia Pottinger strangely similar photographs of people 100+-years-old, nude. We found some haiku to accompany them.
Read MoreWe downloaded Quick 4 to our iphone and find that a 4-minute workout (based on high intensity interval training) allows for no excuses and won’t let us off the hook, despite the fact that we are naturally lazy dogs (exercise-wise).
Read MoreThe latest in neurocognitive research that finds MOVING YOUR BODY is a great productivity app, confirming what we’ve discovered ourselves as we sit for hours writing Improvised Life every day…
Read MoreArtist Qozop juxtaposed the dress of youths with that of their elders in an project designed to show that societal beliefs and traditions are often reflected through the clothing we wear, especially in Asian cultures. By swapping the clothing of youths and their elderly relatives, Qozop literally places them in the others shoes. We’ve been using Qozop’s strategy as an interesting exercise in imagination.
Read MoreThis teeny video of Austrian Artist Klemens Torggler clever ‘Evolution Door,’ has been flying around the internet. It sets the common concept of a door — opening via hinges or running on a track —literally on end. The Evolution is a rotating geometric flip-panel door system that opens up with momentum and looks like origami. Torggler’s re-envisioning of the door is NOT just a design exercise, but a truly original solution…
Read MoreOur friend Holton Rower sent us some screenshots of very imaginative snow creations that remind us just what a splendid, ephemeral FREE material snow is for spontaneous making, fashion inspiration, exercise equipment.
Read MoreEven though we live in New York, we are smitten with Humans of New York, a blog which documents just that, that incredbly varied iterations of human-ness one finds on the streets of New York, all with a story. It doesn’t stop at New York either. Photographer Brandon Stanton posts images of strangers he’s met elsewhere,…
Read MoreNew research about techniques said to increase your IQ yield some surprising findings. A simple practice will keep your brain limber.
Read MoreNot being the best of meditators, we rely on Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh to gently guide us in mindfulness practice, which, he points out, you can do anywhere, anytime: washing the dishes, walking, cleaning the house, listening to a friend. In The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation, he outlines…
Read MoreSometimes seeing someone dancing gives you the feeling of dancing yourself: a fine way to start the day.
He, SHE really ramps up at 2:00.
Read MoreOne of the central principles of improvisation we follow is to turn things on their side, or upside-down, a simple shift that often yields unexpected results. It’s a practice you can do in your imagination just about anywhere, and in practice with everyday things. Recently, instead of the usual way of cutting an apple (slicing…
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Read MoreVarieties of Disturbance, a recent New York Profile about actress Claire Danes yields many intriguing and illuminating ideas about the processes involved in her famously “volcanic performances” (of late, most notably in Homeland). Among them, Dane’s passing mention of her occasional practice of walking in circles to get “out of her head”. If I have…
Read MoreAlong with our strategy of exercising outdoors with whatever is at hand, we’ve found this heartening report in the New York Times really useful for getting ourselves to work out regularly: In a study, published last month in the journal PLoS One, researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway, and other institutions attempted to delineate…
Read More(Video link here.) Before I moved up to Harlem, the great Lynne Rosetto Kasper, host of public radio’s The Splendid Table, visited me in my old Chelsea apartment to film me making Tuscan Herb Salt. It’s one riff in The Key Three — three recipes I consider essential in every cooks repertoire — featured on…
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.…
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