The story behind Olia Hercules’ A Case for Eating Herbs as if They Were Vegetables in the New Yorker is well worth reading. But the title conveys the vital message. A platter of herbs offered alongside other dishes in a meal is an invitation for guests to enjoy herbs primal and fragrant with abandon.
Read More
If you’re as behind the curve as we are in getting our heads around the holidays, here are two much-appreciated gifts you don’t have to shop for:
Read More
We invite you to ask this question when editing your life down to what is really important, including where you spend your time —and money— online.
Read More
If you’re looking for an instant, inexpensive, totally unique last-minute gift that is full of wonders, give your brilliant someone a subscription to Improvised Life: a month —$1.99— or a year —$18— of view-shifting tools and ideas…
Read More
When long-time blogger Tina Bray described the looming probability of a mall-like internet, it hit home HARD. There’s a simple, inexpensive way to stem the tide….
Read More
We found this cartoon while we were leafing through The Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker, perfect, relaxing bedtime reading. Drawn in 1966 by Charles E. Martin, it’s even more timely today.
Read More
Paper artist Matthew Sporzynski has expanded our view for years with his mightily innovative thinking. His stretch money resonates particuarly strongly now.
Read More
actress Hari Neff said hers was a pineapple a schoolmate gave her many years ago. There’s nothing worse than a bad gift you don’t know what to do with that and you just throw out. You can’t throw out a pineapple. We heartily recommend this inexpensive gift for friends and family (or even yourself), that is way better than Neff’s luscious pineapple…
Read More
Websites that don’t take ads or promote branded content are a rare breed. We’re one. We have an unusual philosophy of “stuff” and how we survive. It’s definitely an experiment in a certain kind of possibility thinking.
Read More
In conversation, I never call Improvised Life a blog. The Blogging world is an ubiquitous, saturated and aspirational one; most bloggers put their true opinions aside to survive. We are trying to do something different.
Read More
Recently, a reader left us a query in Tinypass, our membership platform, and included this comment: “I paid for a subscription to support the writer and I think she has enough support at this point so she doesn’t really need mine.” Yikes!
Read More
Improvised Life is a space that celebrates creative living to the fullest degree. We work hard to collect great ideas from artists; inspiring thoughts from poets; stylish, useful home upgrades; and yummy recipes…and present them with thoughtful commentary and unexpected leaps and associations. A tribe is a community with a similar mindset for living, and we want you in…
Read More
Yesterday, we stumbled on Seth Godin’s question “What if you stopped?“, and…. …we did stop for a minute to think about it. What if we stopped publishing Improvised Life?
Read More
At But Does it Float, we were struck by this the title of a photography exhibition (not by the photographs). “How you see is what you get” is one of Improvised Life’s essential principles. NOT in the magical thinking way, that we will get everything we want if we just think a certain way. But in…
Read More
Sometimes we work SO hard that our health suffers with ailments like back pain or fatigue…Then we employ these tactics, and take a cue from William S. Burroughs…
Read More
Among Improvised Life’s many categories and themes is “Materials for Making“. We love finding surprising uses for materials and showing you how you can use them. The other day as we were mulling our Friends with Benefits subscription program, we realized that money is a Material for Making as well.
Read More
After our recent plea ‘er “invitation” to support Improvised Life by subscribing to Friends with Benefits, several subscribers wrote to ask: How would I increase the amount of my Friends With Benefits contribution? Is there a place on the site I can log in to change the amount? Hmmm. We hadn’t thought of that and consulted with…
Read More
We would happily give every Improvised Life article away for free —all 3000 of them— as we did for nearly five years with great pleasure… …if we could.
Read More
Since posting the sudden announcement a week ago that I would be taking a break due to a confluence of big life events, I’ve received the most generous response from Improvised Life’s readers: notes of sympathy, gratitude, understanding, support, all affirming that family is to be found in places we don’t often imagine.
Read More
One of our readers, Carol E., wrote to us, In the morning it’s The Improvised Life with my coffee and then the morning paper. I have described you as a little jewel of a magazine that I read online every morning. Many thanks!’ We love the image of Improvised Life as a “jewel”—it rings true because for the…
Read More