Before reading his New York Times Magazine profile of legendary, uncategorizable artist Laurie Anderson, Sam Anderson shared a series of questions Anderson asks herself to figure out whether a piece she’s working on is good or not. It is “great criteria for proceeding in life with whatever you’re doing”.
Read More“I obey time, but do not try to manipulate it” said South Korean artist Myonghi Kang, referring to her painting “Le temps des camélias” (“The Time of Camellias”), which took her 30 years to complete. We are heartened by her assuredness and courage, even, striking in a world where the pressure to be productive seems to inform every moment.
Read MoreOur friend Ruth Kissane sent this message: “Have you heard this? The songs Brian Eno couldn’t live without?” The 8 songs come from a BBC Radio 4 show, Dessert Island Discs, which interviews people-of-note about what eight tracks they would take to a desert island, and WHY. We love how Ruth reframed the question.
Read MoreArtist, composer John Cage was also a remarkably powerful writer. Over years of reading him we’ve found ourself transformed by even a sentence or two. This one landed in a similar way……We found that shifting the flow of words ever-so-slightly had a surprising effect.
Read MoreGrody has a way of talking turkey about aging that we first wrote about in “@MandyPatinkin’s Heartening Reality Sandwiche”: honest, sometimes ambivalent, funny, heartening. This little tonifying video continues the conversation.
Read MoreWhen landscape artist Sargy Mann went totally blind in 2005, he assumed there were no options left. But since a blank canvas was stretched in his studio,and paints had been mixed, he thought, “I wonder would happen if I gave this a go?”
Read MoreFrequent contributor Susan Dworski threw this compelling video over my transom, accompanied by her thoughts about the apps she’s been seeing lately selling all manner of salvation. She asks a big question and points to a surprising path…
Read MoreWe have marveled at Susan Simard since we realized she was the model for the fearless, hermetic tree botanist in Richard Price’s wondrous tree-centric novel The Overstory. Her new book Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Ancient Wisdom of the Forest about the intricate underground communication network trees create and depend upon got us thinking about the perfect gift, for Mother’s day or otherwise.
Read MoreAfter David Saltman described his remarkable experience seeing Alan Watts give a talk in the 1970s, we hunted down some video of the essential astonishing lesson. Which led to way more…
Read MoreSince Kevin Kelly last published his 68 Bits Of Seriously Good Advice a year ago for his 68th birthday, he’s come up with 99 more pieces of wisdom. Like last year’s, it’s a brilliant list, creating something of a guide for living.
Read MoreMy favorite tool of late is the Hulkenbag: a big cleverly-designed open satchel-on-wheels that holds its structure and can be rolled around anywhere. I throw in whatever I need to shlep and go. When I’m done, I fold it up and stash it out of the way. Perfect.
Read MoreThe chart of data sourced from HowSecureIsMyPassword.net shows just how quickly a hacker can brute-force various kinds of passwords, especially the weak grandkid’s-names-type that many people think up. Then there’s THIS solution for making unhackable, easy-to-remember passwords.
Read MoreNew Yorker staff writer Emily Nussbaum posed this question on Twitter: What is your best LIFE HACK?? Most were amazingly wise and/or useful. Here are our favorites:
Read MoreTwenty-two year-old National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman’s reading of her poem The Hill We Climb at President Biden’s Inauguration was like big bright sun rising on the day. Her remarkable TedEx talk is full of fierce wisdom, and poetry unto itself…
Read MoreYi-Young Lee’s astonishly beautiful poem Persimmons tells a number of tiny stories, and lovely very precise instruction about choosing and eating persimmons, which are in season now. What could be better: stories, poetry, something exquisite to eat..?
Read MoreAmid the subtle hues of black in the negative images of Elisa Moro’s photographs, only hands are in positive gray tones. “You are made of all the hands that have touched you” points to one of the great absences caused by the pandemic, and raises a compelling question…
Read MoreOne of the best things to come out of the months of Covid-19 lockdown has been extraordinary films from art galleries and museums. One of the best of is about the English sculptor Phyllia Barlow. It provides an illuminating counterpoint to the many life questions that the virus has thrown into relief.
Read MoreThis remarkable video captures what is normally invisible to our eyes — how masks work to slow airborne infection carried on our breath — and resolves much conflicting information about them. Essential viewing for those that wear them and those that don’t.
Read MoreIn this short, potent video, Arundhati Roy reads from her essay “The Pandemic is a Portal” It is at once a question to hold in mind, an invitation, and a call to arms.
Read MoreWe learned a lot from ‘How to Create Your Own Herbal Tinctures’, including Jade Mark’s compelling recipe for Fire Cider.
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