As the stock market jitters wildly and the media speculates dire straits, we take comfort in this piece from Jeremy Siegel’s seminal book, Stocks for the Long Run, an essential reference for anyone wanting to understand investing. It’s the memo that brokerage firm Dean Witter issued to its clients on May 6, 1932 after stocks plummeted 85 percent from their 1929 high.
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A post-it marks a quote in The Hummingbird’s Daughter, the beautiful battered novel we found in the Little Free Library near our house. We’ve been mulling its essential lesson about allowing things to happen for weeks. And thinking about artists who use chance in their work, giving up control to allow unexpected things to happen.
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In the first few chapters of The Whole Fish Cookbook: New Ways to Cook, Eat Think, chef Josh NIland changed the way I view fish I’ve cooked my whole life. He’s made a years-long study, testing every assumption, to arrive at a point of view that seems radical at first, and then makes perfect sense.
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A photo I stumbled on on Instagram made me loosen up my fevered drive to create bookcases for my many books, some of which are in boxes. Stacked — loose — can be so beautiful…
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When Kevin Kelly’s published Cool Tools, his giant “catalog of possibilities”, five years ago, it immediately became our favorite catalogue. Its descriptions are literary, its selection attuned to creative minds. We find it relaxing to read while it makes our brains sparkle in unexpected ways. Now it’s available for $3.99.
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The other day, a newsletter arrived in my inbox with a list that made me instantly relax. “Some reasonable reasons you didn’t do the thing today” was from Madeleine Dore, author of Extraordinary Routines, which explores “how we navigate the pendulum swings of our days”, i.e. how to live with meaning and creativity and unleash our productivity. Her brilliant list grew out of her realization that there is no secret to productivity, and that the very notion is deeply awry.
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Every week, Suleika Jaouad, creator of The Isolation Journal newsletter “for people seeking to transform life’s interruptions into creative grist”, gives a prompt for readers to think or write about. This surprising prompt about love hit home.
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One of the very best views of the New Year we’ve seen is from Lebanese-American poet and artist, Etel Adnan. Shortly after we read it, this poem* from the great 13th century Chinese poet, Stonehouse jumped into our hands. Amidst darkness that seems so pervasive, they gave just the reminder we needed.
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Unbeknownst to many inhabitants of New Orleans, a small enclave of eccentric, often ingenious outsiders thrive in twelve homemade stilt-houses along the Mississippi, hidden from sight by the levees. Macon Fry’s book living in the “batture” is a compelling view of resourceful alt-living choices that may be the way of the future.
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At the ever-illuminating @upstate_diary, we suddenly found ourselves looking up through wintry trees into a vast moving star-scape. It transported us to a chilly night in the country. It led to reminders of cosmic views of the everyday.
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For a long time, I was hard-pressed to find a good definition of “blessing” that encompassed its quality of kindness, possibiity and transformative power without referencing formal religion. I found it in ‘To Bless the Space Between Us’ by poet John O’Donohue, and in one of his exquisite blessings.
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Do you ever wonder why we humans tend to feel good in nature? Annie Murphy Paul’s scholarly The Extended Mind: the Power of Thinking Outside the Brain gives the simple, obvious gist. It’s message is surprisingly echoed in art…
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In This is Happiness, a beauty of a novel by Niall Williams, I found a nugget of gold that has been subtly transforming my view. It reminded me of Henry Miller’s radical philosophy of living.
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After being diagnosed with AIDS in 1986, filmmaker Derek Jarman bought an austere tar-painted fisherman’s cottage in sight of a nuclear power station in the bleak shingle landscape on the southeast coast of England. It would prove to be an act of creative vision as unique as those Jarman realized in his films.
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When uber-journalist Bibi Baskin was asked what she planned to be doing when she retired she replied, “Nothing.” It is a pursuit she has longed for. Still it is not always easy to do given the fierce demands of a society that values productivity above most else.
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We 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.
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One morning, I found myself listening to poet Mei-mei Berssenbrugge reading Wonder from her book A Treatise on Stars. I was transfixed, calmed, transported by her voice and the story it told. It proved a surprising lesson in seeing stars, and the connection between wonder and not knowing.
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From his retreat at his upstate cabin, legendary actor Mandy Patinkin sings in Hebrew as gets his dog Becky’s food for her. We were surprised to discover that what he is singing is a prayer. And that got us thinking about blessings to accompany simple tasks of daily life.
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Opening at random Richard Powers’ remarkable novel The Overstory, we found the ancient formula for gratitude.
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These New Yorker cartoons describe the peculiar brand of anxiety that has become our weird shared experience. They give a much-needed sense of connectedness, AND levity…
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