Public radio’s Studio 360 recently passed out fill-in-the-blank cards to their audience that said: “In my next life, I will be_____________.” Check out the slideshow of some of the responses they got. It makes us wonder: When could our ‘next life’ start? Was George Elliot right when she said, It’s never too late to be what you might have…
Read Moretina 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…
Read Moreramp supper 2011 (with how-to + recipe)
We’ve been getting emails from friends who are on their way down to the ramp supper in Helvetia, West Virginia – ramps being the pungent wild leek that grows throughout the Appalachian and Catskill mountains. We wrote about the supper this time last year, when we were headed to Helvetia ourselves, to the feast served…
Read Morethe 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…
Read Morethe 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…
Read Morebefore i die I want to___________
We’ve just returned from a visit to Helvetia, West Virginia where two dear friends had passed away within a couple of weeks of each other. Both lived long amazingly rich lives that touched a great many people. We came home tired, thoughtful, amazed, sad, inspired…and slowly started back to work on ‘the improvised life’. As…
Read Moreon things not going as planned (addendum)
As often happens, soon after we posted What To Do When Things Don’t Go as Planned, we found an example that fit it EXACTLY, which we’ve come to consider the norm: ‘like attracts like’. In the New Yorker’s recent Back to the Harbor (Seals return to New York), Ian Frazier describes cartoonist James Thurber’s process in…
Read Morewhat to do when things don’t go as planned
Another insightful mind-expanding post from Anne Herbert of Peace and Love and Noticing the Details, quoted here in full because it is so perfect: Jack Nicholson, the actor, said he wished everyday life were like making a movie so when you messed up you could say, “Take two,” and have a whole other chance. “That’s…
Read Morenon-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…
Read More‘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…
Read Morewe all have to DO now…
In a recent Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, Will.I.Am of the Black Eyes Peas said THESE startling words in answer to a question from Deborah Solomon…
Read Moreholton 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),…
Read Moreitzhak perlman: “making with whatever we have left…”
Pamela Hovland told us an amazing story she had heard about the great violinist Itzhak Perlman, and forwarded a version that she found online: Childhood polio left Isaac Perlman able to walk only with braces on both legs and crutches. When Perlman plays at a concert, the journey from the wings to the center of…
Read Moreinventables: porn for inventors and d-i-yers (with samples)
We have a THING for new materials, and have, until today, mostly just imagined what they could do. We couldn’t lay our hands on samples since we’re not a big commercial entity; suppliers didn’t want to bother to sell small quantities or answer our novice’s questions. So we’d read descriptions in Transmaterials, the compendium of…
Read Moregood 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…
Read Morewhat’s on your ideal cookbook shelf?
We were wandering around 20×200, gallerist Jen Bekman‘s site of limited edition work for sale and stumbled on this painting by artist Jane Mount, who paints people’s ideal bookshelves. Right in the center of it is Sally’s striped A New Way to Cook, among very good company. Wrote Mount: This set is actually a “Super-Ideal”…
Read Moretattoo you!: making your own temporary tattoos
The New York Times T Magazine recently published a teeny piece about ink being the new IT accessory for making temporary tattoos and asked four artists to create a design. We especially love Maria Abramovic’s. It echoes our posts last summer about drawing a heart in the palm of your hand, and using your hand…
Read Morebeing ‘a landing strip for ideas’
…excerpted from the blog of Nick Ward, screen writer and tinkerer: One of the questions I get asked the most is ‘where do your ideas come from?’ Usually I simply say: ‘I steal them from other people.’ But the truth is I have no real idea at all. Many years ago I remember hearing a…
Read Moret-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…
Read Morecould you live as a ‘no impact man/woman’
Pamela Hovland alerted us to a film to add to our list of must-see’s: “No Impact Man”, a documentary about a NYC guy and his reluctant family to eliminate their impact on the environment for a year…They MUST have needed to improvise daily/hourly in order to keep up their commitment. Check out the trailer…” Yikes!…
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