Yes, you ARE at Improvised Life. We’ve changed our look but not our mission. The comfortable old site, lovingly-created only 4 years ago, had become too small a container for all our ideas, and too difficult to read on the many devices people use these days. That’s how fast things change! So we redesigned it…
Read Moredance in your head to jungle’s platoon
Sometimes seeing someone dancing gives you the feeling of dancing yourself: a fine way to start the day.
He, SHE really ramps up at 2:00.
Read Morebecoming comfortable with uncertainty is essential to creativity
After we posted Good Life Project’s Creed, Jeanne McMenemy of Calligraphica, wrote us this email: Great creed…. thanks for posting it. I’m tickled by how many times I come across thoughts on the value of uncertainty. Many years ago, one of my most influential teachers, Jenny Hunter Groat, who died in February of this year, led…
Read More2 weeks in Sri Lanka in 2 minutes: many improvs + a leap!
(Video link here.) Daniel Klein and Mirra Fine made a fast, sweet video of their 2 weeks traveling through Sri Lanka by foot, moped, car and boat. Turning OFF the irritating music makes for an inspiring little journey of swell everyday improvs. We especially love the LEAP at 1:50. It’s one of many illuminating escapist videos at The Perennial Plate;…
Read Morerunning the race of your life!
From an April 28, 1934 NY Times photo: Jack Wolff of Manhattan College “running the race of his life.” That’s what it looks like: to be so flat-out…you’re almost flying. We’ve been mulling what the real “race of our life” has been, or is… ..and the times when we have given our all, flat-out,…
Read Moreimprovised life: leap…and one thing leads to another
Recently, we were browsing through Paperless Post looking for a virtual card to congratulate a couple we know on their twentieth anniversary of being together. We stumbled upon this image by Magnum Photographer Ferdinando Scianna and thought: that’s it! Over the past year, both members of the couple has been feeling their way, and ultimately…
Read Moreleaping and flying, underwater (via mark tipple)
Many of Mark Tipple’s photographs of swimmers and surfer’s diving UNDER waves look like people flying and leaping…underwater. They are, in a way, in a different medium than air… because there are many….ways….to….fly……and…………………..leap!
Read Moreobsessive wingsuit flight through a hole in a mountain
(Video link here.) Wingsuit pilot Alexander Polli saw a hole in a mountain’s rocky outcropping and just had to try flying through it. He practiced aiming and controlling his flight over and over until he just went ahead and…flew…right…..THROUGH… …at 155 miles per hour. Polli “hopes his success will inspire others not only to ‘climb…
Read More1924 tightrope walker: mastery + risk to dance in the air
(Video link here. We recommend watching with the sound off.) This 1924 Pathe video rolls a number of ‘the improvised life’s favorite themes into a compelling minute and a half. Tightroping over a city, she’s defying norms, practiced like crazy to master her form, conquered any fears she had and take’s huge risks to dance…
Read Morearen’t we all somehow astronauts? (revised + reposted)
Ed White of Gemeini 4 (1965!) during the first American EVA i.e. extra-vehicular activity, done by an astronaut outside of a spacecraft beyond the Earth’s appreciable atmosphere. The term most commonly applies to a spacewalk. This is what we’re really all doing in some way, right? … …Soon after we first posted this, we found The Future is Space in The…
Read Moreleap! play!
Indian children play on the banks of the River Ganges in Allahabad, India, on Nov. 17. A reminder to leap and play, no matter what age you are! Need encouragement?
Read Morepeople are awesome 2013
(Video link here.) We especially love the kid at 1:30 min. While we watch all these wildly ACTIVE people, we think of all the people doing awesome things unobserved. via Kottke Related posts: danny macaskill’s new video: what he thinks as he rides 94-year-old matilda klein’s gracefully defiant dance weekend fun: new danny macaskill…
Read Morewondrous leaping via the emeralds
(Video link here.) Sublime riff of LEAPS.
Read Morenew year’s eve: ashcraft’s shooting star + ‘winter’s tale’
(Video link at Heliotown) Two days before New Year’s, we came across this passage from Mark Halprin’s Winter’s Tale, describing the moment the old year turned into new: Then the hands of the clock started to race like the tortoise and the hare, and both reached midnight at the same time. The clock struck along with…
Read Moremorning poem: cheetahs running in slow motion
(Video link here.) We’ve watched this slow-motion footage of cheetahs running flat-out several times already. It is just BEAUTIFUL and made us wonder where such a thing could have come from. Who dreamed up that wondrous spotted fur, flight taken with each stride? We figured it would be a perfect morning “poem” for today: a language…
Read Moreleap! (turnip)
Recently, we emailed a friend-fearful-of-the-future our version of a care package: a handful of uplifiting signs and images about taking risks, leaping, going forward into the unknown, one of our favorite subjects. We had just sent off “Leap And the Net Will Appear” when Cynthia Allen from 50 Years 50 Recipes sent us a link to…
Read Moreleap for joy (our daily email is working again!!)
In our entire collection of leap pictures, this is probably the most wholehearted. Talk about “taking a leap” or… …a “leap of faith”!! It expresses how we feel now that our Email Subscription Service is working again. Hurrayy!! And thank you to our many subscribers who bore with us, and sent us encouraging notes. via…
Read Moreleap: risking not being brilliant (but wonderful still)
We’re adding this to our collection of “leap and fly” photos that we see as so emblematic of the willingness to “take a leap”, risk, try new things. We love this one because the dancer is so game, and looks like an ordinary person doing what she loves, maybe not brilliantly, but wonderful all the…
Read Moreglacier point: wonder and daring
This is how we feel sometime, mulling the vast wild creation all around…wondering where we fit in. And this is another mood, when we dance right on the edge:
Read More‘jump!’ (the movie)
(Video link here.) We continue to be AMAZED at our readers: at who they are, what they’re making and saying and thinking about. Today we got a note from filmmaker Helen Hood Scheer, who told us about Jump! her award-winning documentary about competitive jump rope. She wrote: I love your site. I’ve delighted in your leaping…
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