We were stunned by the simple brilliance of clothing designer Martin Margiela’s packing tape belt. He recognized the most ordinary of materials as the perfect width, and texture to fulfill an instant need with astonishing personal style. It called to mind Anni Albers’ brilliant words.
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This interesting, badly-edited little film left us with a powerful feeling that we’ve been enjoying, so we’re glad we watched enough to get the gist. It yielded a nice big lesson, with a poem to boot!
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The past week working at our desk, we listened to soundscapes of forests in Malaysia, Estonia, Portugal, China and France… Through a remarkable website, we found ourselves transported into tranquil environments AND quickly able to gift trees to friends…
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As soon as we read “Dial-a-Poem: The Groundbreaking Phone Service That Let People Hear Poems Read by Patti Smith, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg & More” at the great Open Culture, we picked up our phone and dialed. We were surprised by a curiously intimate experience, to add to our arsenal of ways to weave poetry into our life.
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As always, we are taking the week between Christmas and New Year’s off. It’s a time to slow way down and reflect on the rough year that’s passed and on the new one we are about to begin, starting with this question from Yoko Ono…
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Bach’s Ode to Joy got us thinking about how JOY works when when life throws in a giant monkey wrench and we find ourselves navigating darkness we never imagined…,
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With winter fiercely, the covid-mandated necessity to socialize outdoors is challenging for those of us who live in cold regions or are simply cold-sensitive. So I’ve hunted down advice about how to hang out outside, whether at a restaurant or on a park bench or in an ice hut if you happen to have one.
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Ferris Jabr’s deeply-pleasurable “The Social Life of Forests” tells the story of scientist Susan Simard whose pioneering research changed the way we think about the fundamental nature of forests: as complex deeply-connected networks that allow trees to communicate and cooperate. It offers a powerful lesson for this time of pandemic.
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SO GREAT, wherever this few seconds of inspiring outside-the-box thinking came from.
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An image titled “sunset TV” reminded us of the many alt-TVs we’ve known people to watch. And the pleasure and illumination they afford.
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A therapist friend once described the idea of reverie as a tool for healing. That allowing oneself to fall into a state of dreamy meditation and daydreaming, free of anxious thinking, has a powerfully restful effect. That is the state I found myself in after I stumbled on this tiny video of a whale lazily…
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Seven months after coronavirus radically changed our world, we don’t know anybody that is not having a difficult time. We turn to the greatest balancing mechanism we’ve found to find out way back to fullness, “enough”, clarity, joy.
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The other day, three random discoveries converged to knock me out of my zeitgeist-powered malaise and into a big wave of joy. They remain a breath of air…
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There is a big message in this little film, way bigger than its title, Reframe the Familiar. The visuals seem somehow of another time and act, with the words and odd voice, like hunks of poetry.
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We take a walk daily because it never fails to refresh our thinking, change our view of things, calm us. Especially, in these most stressful times. It is perhaps our most powerful medicine. Walking, we find our mind shifting, ideas sparking, problems beginning to yield in ways we never expect. Rilke nailed it in A Walk:…
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Tasha Blank‘s video manifesto shook us loose from a stuckness we didn’t know we had, mired as we were in the mighty anxiety of the zeitgeist, a seeming life-threatening election, dire news, contentious opinions… The international DJ, dancer, coach, somatic practitioner and music producer has much to offer in the form of music, events, courses…
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Since the convergence of Covid-19 and the run-up to the election, I’ve been increasingly bombarded with homemade mini zeitgeist-videos expressing the pent-up emotions we’re all sharing during this rocky time. The best of these I forward to good friends; mostly, I enjoy a good chuckle, then hit delete. I’ve kept this one on my desktop,…
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Yi-Young Lee’s astonishly beautiful poem Persimmons tells a number of tiny stories, and lovely very precise instruction about choosing and eating persimmons, which are in season now. What could be better: stories, poetry, something exquisite to eat..?
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Early on in the pandemic, Yayoi Kusama sent out a defiant message “to the whole world”. We found it deeply heartening in the face of the very dark time. Recently, she shared this affirming message with her reflections on the year 2020…
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For over a week, the work of a poet and an artist seemed to be in conversation,
helping us understand a fearsome part of living.
