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tina fey’s 4 1/2 rules (in 4 1/2 minutes)

This video is of comedienne/writer/producer/brilliantina Tina Fey’s hour-long interview with Google’s awkward, SO not-quite-getting-it Eric Schmidt about her book Bossypants. The best bits for us are 4 1/2 minutes right up front, starting at about 3:30 when Fey talks about her rules for improv, and Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels rules for hiring/collaborating. Although…

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the possibilian explores time

Lately, we’ve been hearing a lot of people complaining about how little time they have, how stressed they are by all there is so do, being hyper-scheduled and unable to get off the strange treadmill they have found themselves on, trying to keep everything going. We’ve been mulling this very thing for quite a while…

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the power of uncertainty -> ‘delicious ambiguity’

99% recently published a compelling post called the Power of Uncertainty. The gist (though it’s worth reading the whole thing): Projects fail all the time because we unwittingly bake the end solution into our initial objective. Rather than enduring an uncomfortable (but highly necessary) period of ambiguity, we fall into the trap of limiting our…

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non-valentine’s day valentines

Since Valentine’s Day, we’ve gotten some wonderful emails of Valentine’s images and stories, so we thought we’d share a couple (and save the others for later). Maria Robledo made this improvised valentine for her husband, artist Holton Rower whose wondrous Pour Paintings we blogged last week. Since Holton uses clothes pins for his artwork made…

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‘juicy details of a culinary private life?’

William Morrow, the publisher, has been busy blogging, tweeting and facebooking about Sally Schneider’s The Improvisational Cook, newly launched in paperback. They recently blogged a “Conversation” with Sally, with questions like “What’s your Mantra”, and “If you could have dinner with three people, living or dead, who would they be?” They are tweeting it as the…

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holton rower’s pour paintings: intention + chance, in color

Artist Holton Rower is constantly innovating, shifting, moving his work into new territory, too fast even to get an accurate answer  to the question “What’s he into these days?” We’ve marveled at his works out of locks, money, fish hooks for years…Lately, we’ve been smitten with his Pour Paintings (which may in fact be sculptures),…

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good idea: chalkboard panel as disguise

We found this good idea in Covet Garden, an appealing online shelter magazine that features spaces of real people (slightly ripping off The Selby‘s questionnaire). Here, Photographer Tracy Shumate’s converted factory space…”Necessity being the mother of invention, Tracy uses large MDF panel covered in chalkboard paint to hide her unsightly electrical panels.” Here’s another iteration…

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t-shirt improvisations (54 of them)

In Lookbook 54, artists Emily Larned and Roxane Zargham created 54 different improvisations on one XL white t-shirt, using common household supplies (binder clips, safety pins, duct tape) as styling aids. They set serious constraints for themselves: The shirt is never cut or permanently altered, and all the accessories serve a function. In their singular work, they seek to…

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