Designer Russel Wright had the habit of shaping parts of the land around Manitoga, his home and studio in upstate New York, into “rooms”. Rather than making a room, I love the idea of an outdoor room coming into being simply by finding it or naming it, as happened when I stumbled on some ancient Beeches. Their branches arch down to the ground to define the space around them, making quiet leafy rooms. The feeling of hanging out in them is extraordinary. Wendell Berry nailed it.
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We hadn’t thought of a website having the ability to act as a sanctuary until we read about Laurel Schwulst’s odd, charming Firefly Sanctuary It is at once a digital space that mirrors a physical one — her Brooklyn apartment — and a quiet meditation on the “invisible, mental counterparts” to visible, physical things.
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We found many compelling ideas in this New York Times interview with Chloe Cooper Jones about her new book Easy Beauty and the disconnect between “our real self and the way that self is perceived”. We’ve been trying out the remarkable technique she learned that she found provides unexpected “agency and peace and power”.
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When brilliant chronicler of American history David McCullough died recently, two people sent me excerpts from obituaries, so apt was his wisdom for Improvised Life. Here’s his brilliant advice for becoming a good storyteller and why he used a 1940 typewriter to write his award-winning books.
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The image of a Serbian Orthodox church inside an oak tree got us thinking about trees being used as churches. What are the qualities of trees that make them a place for sanctuary, reflection, rest, prayer. We found the answer in Jo Shapcott’s glorious poem “I Go Inside the Tree”…
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Recently, the always-surprising Elan Kiderman Ullendorff of Deep Sea Diving Newsletter featured stuff he found on Etsy by selecting “Highest Price” to hone his search results; he stumbled upon an extreme edge of the normally-placid site.
Nestled among “10 extremely expensive items on Etsy” is the Erotic Bouncy Castle and a brilliant life strategy.
Amid the daily deluge of bleak, enervating news about the effects of climate change, we’ve been noticing a strain of defiance: Messages that engender energy and activism rather than despair and paralysis. They offer a thought-provoking and heartening view.
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New York Magazine’s recent article about designer Todd Oldham’s house in the Poconos is a revelation: an over-the-top, completely original color-riot of a country house. Its many cool ideas are driven by an unexpectedly liberating design philosophy.
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It took over five years for Leonard Cohen to write Hallelulah, arguably his most beloved song. Although we’ve listened to Hallelulah many times, we did not get its simple message as powerfully as hearing Cohen’s words in an early interview, featured in the trailer of the just-released documentary about him.
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It is enough to have recognized some of ourselves in comedian Bill Bailey’s astute commentary on the British psyche (which applies to MANY others as well). When he segues into a wild riff on the expression “All things considered” at 2:37 in, we found our view of the world mightily expanded, AMAZING…
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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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Every birthday of late, wise man Kevin Kelly shares things he learned the hard way in, through living. The lists always offer big fat nuggets of wisdom and illumination, and many things to try. Our favorite addresses our frequent dilemma of not being able to decide between two distinct choices, usually when our linear brain is packed with logical arguments for each one that leave us boggled.
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There has been a lot written about embracing your mistakes, but for us, Miles Davis nailed how to make it work, as recounted by a young Herbie Hancock in this tiny video; he experienced Miles’ approach in action.
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As I was contemplating the mighty big birthday I will be celebrating this week, I stumbled on this tiny video. Yeah, that’s it. Role models.
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For weeks, Czeslaw Milosz’ very personal anthology of poetry, A Book of Luminous Things has sat on our table to open anywhere for an unexpected view of our world. It’s made us realize that when we read a poem, it starts a conversation within us and with other things…
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Just a reminder how much can happen when you take the day off…
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Elan Kiderman Ullendorff has a great knack for finding creative ways to find interesting stuff online that resist being force-fed whatever “the algorithm” decides you want to see. His newsletter ”Deep Sea Diving” facilitates deep and surprising discovery.
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It hadn’t occurred to us to think beyond the idea of S’mores we’ve had in our head for eons. Then we stumbled on a complete re-envisioning of the three elements that blew our mind in the most pleasurable way.
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J. Estanislao Lopez’ sublime poem “Places with Terrible Wi-Fi” makes us realize just how far the reach of wi-fi and the buzz of the world is now. And those parts of our lives it cannot touch. Ada Limón’s commentary captured the poem’s true heart.
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We found this short video made for kids curiously clarifying. “Are You Normal?” explains the origin of idea that has become a source of so much modern anxiety, and deconstructs it. We are reminded of the great Betty White in this deeply wonderful Saturday Night Live sketch.
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