We don’t know what we’d do without Cara de Silva, who almost daily sends us something moving and interesting. Even if we don’t post it, we feel like she threw a gift our way: something we would have otherwise missed. This weekend she alerted us to a stunning piece in the New York Times written…
Read More(Video link here.) We were very late in posting today…and have been, here and there, for the past couple of weeks. We feel like the white rabbit, RUNNING, as we juggle and handle and make decisions…running ‘the improvised life’ while we work on a mind-boggling project (which we hope to start blogging soon.) And all…
Read MoreAfter we posted a series of pictures of people leaping and flying – one of our favorite images and ‘the improvised life’s mascot – illustrator/motivational speaker Trevor Romain sent us this image for our collection. He took a picture of a father throwing his son into the air in shallow water in Hawaii and realized…
Read MoreOn Dargelos’ Tumblr, we found this picture with a mysterious caption: “Leaf art found in Prospect Park.” It seemed too simple to be true. This leaf sculpture was so beautiful, we wanted to know more of the story. So we emailed Dargelos and asked. Right away, we got an answer: “We were literally just walking through…
Read MoreAs you may have noticed, we have a thing for images of people flying and leaping, free falling and sailing through the air – to where? – with no constraints. (Because it’s what we want to do). Today we found a delicious trove on John Foster’s Accidental Mysteries column on Design Observer… Related posts: fly! (merce…
Read More(Video link.) We’re excited for Steven Johnson’s new book, The Innovator’s Cookbook: Essentials for Inventing What Is Next. It looks like he has called upon an all-star cast of innovators and researchers to discuss what makes for successful innovation. In the video, he gives away some important parts of the recipe: We like being instructed…
Read MoreLeo Babauta has gained a big following on his blog Zen Habits, where he posts daily about simplifying your life to what you REALLY want to be doing. We often find useful practices we truly can apply to our lives. The other day, we read all the way through his lengthy post How I Changed…
Read More(Video link here.) This week I’ve been contemplating the challenge of saying yes. I was sent a TED Talk in which Sasha Dichter discusses a neat experiment: for a full month, every time he was asked for something, he said yes. Dichter works in philanthropy, so cultivating personal generosity and connecting it to his work has…
Read MoreFor a long time, it was our habit to jump out of bed and start working: reading blogs, news, emails, writing. We were, literally, swept away each day by the virtual world we love to wander around in; there were no real breaks and downtime, no time to turn inward, quiet. Every morning, we simply…
Read MoreTwo years ago, I started ‘the improvised life’ based entirely on the feeling that it needed to exist. Many people I knew were in critical transitions in their lives and facing the risk involved in new endeavors. A website about improvising as a daily practice—living more resourcefully and thinking outside-the-box—seemed timely. Creating this site was…
Read MoreWhen our friend Andrea Raisfeld sent us a compelling scan from Malcolm Gladwell’s piece Creation Myth in the May 16th issue of The New Yorker, we went online to find the story and explore its ideas more fully. In the process, the post we intended to write about the creative process turned into a post…
Read More(Video link here.) We recently came across this great talk by Joshua Foer that explores the success of “experts.” The video is 17 minutes, which we know is long, so we’ve culled the gist for you, hoping you’ll listen at some point; we think it’s truly useful and super interesting. According to Foer and the scientists…
Read MoreLately we’ve been enjoying the phenomenon of succinct self-expression. A friend turned us on to SMITH Magazine and the six-word memoir revolution they’ve started, which reminded us of Studio 360’s one-line obituary challenge. (Sally’s one-line obit: “Sally Schneider, 107, Drowns in Surfing Mishap”.) Before both of these there was PostSecret, where folks anonymously share secrets that fit on the…
Read MoreFunny how this clever chalked welcome mat seems to to be more seriously-welcoming than most of the “real” welcome mats we’ve seen. As does this rather vehement chalk welcome:
Read MoreThis picture of a young Merce Cunningham came from a stunning series of photos of Black Mountain College Dance on Mondoblogo. Man, could that guy FLY! We’re going to try flying in our heads, with Merce-like imagination and grace, and see what happens. Related posts: practice flying (via the uganda skateboard union) danny macaskill’s bike…
Read More(Video link here.) We were really sad to hear of Amy Winehouse’s passing at the age of 27. We were aware of her wild descent in the corner of our consciousness, through tabloid headlines mainly. When we read the news of her death, we found ourselves watching one YouTube video after another, trying to piece…
Read MoreThe only time we read Esquire magazine is in the dentist’s waiting room where we turn right to the “What I’ve Learned” column: to-the-point, full-of-insight interviews with notable artists, writers, actors, athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, musicians, scientists, thinkers. Now Esquire’s published a book of 64 of “the best of” from the column called Esquire, The Meaning…
Read MoreThis is the really fast gist of a two hour presentation Richard St. John gives to high school students (Video link here). We edited the transcript down to a handy little list: “…the first thing is passion. Freeman Thomas says, “I’m driven by my passion.” Carol Coletta says, “I would pay someone to do what…
Read MoreWe were sad to hear that Clarence Clemons, legendary saxaphonist in Springsteen’s E Street band, passed away. He’s left an legacy of great riffs in the world and in our collective psyches, including this one from Jungleland. The story of how he and Springsteen met is some kind of amazing, about how two people can…
Read MoreA while ago, we noticed a woman walking down the street with two brightly-colored hula hoops balanced on her shoulder. We ran after her to find out what she was doing with them, and where she was heading. She told us she was going to practice hula hooping, to which she was devoted. She called…
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