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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A fragment from St. Francis of Assisi got us thinking about hands in a new way. Into our head flew images from photographer Tessa Traeger’s moving series, Voices of the Vivarais, of working people in the ancient province in south-east France. and a video about Dutch designer Bertjan Pot.
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Behavioral scientist Michelle Drouin thinks it’s fine to be dependent on your phone — it’s a useful and illuminating tool — and she doesn’t get with the idea of digital detox. If she feels her screen time is out of balance, she uses a simple practice to shift regain time doing things that mean more to her.
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In the weeks leading up to artist and poet Etel Adnan’s death, our instagram feed was flooded with images of her work as though the world could feel her passing. Her striking paintings have been called “talismans”, “declarations of love”, and reminders of what Adnan called “day-to-day bravery”. Seeking out her work and writing, we found her big wisdom.
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I was dismayed to see MYSELF in the brilliant, funny New Yorker piece “Wait but have you tried?” about the advice-giving that is everywhere. It pulled me up short and got me wondering what an antidote for this rampant habit might be?
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Long out of favor due to the glut of cheap clothing, products and materials, mending and repair is on the rise again. That’s got us looking into the deeper meaning of mending.
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Early in the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 23rd, 2022, New York Magazine invited young Ukrainians — the first generation born after Ukraine won independence — to share their experiences. It offers a remarkable view into the fierce realities of escalating war, including this from a 25-year-old painter who fled Kyiv.
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