(Video link here.) The amazing Yoko Ono’s new video embraces being a BAD DANCER, and doing it anyway, WITH NO REGRETS. As she says: When your heart is dancing, your mind is bouncing! Break a leg Cut the thread I’m a bad dancer Full speed ahead! As usual, she undermines accepted wisdom, judgments and inhibition, and…
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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.
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(Video link here.) Dithyrambalina is sonic playground, performance venue and laboratory for musical architecture project on its way to being funded via Kickstarter. New Orleans native Clayton Cubitt describes it as “A place made from reclaimed materials, architecture you can play, a local imagination factory and nexus for community connections.” In this cool little video, we found two…
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(Video link here.) Here’s a .47 second bit to splash on your face this morning. The women of the Baka people of Africa play the river like the drum. But the very best bit is at the end… It reminds us a bit of Hermeto Pascoal making music in a lagoon via Neatorama, where you’ll more…
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(Video link here.) While we’re on the subject of stripes, from artist Holton Rower: The White Stripes fab lego animation. If you don’t dig the music, turn it off and watch what you can do with one of our favorite toys/tools/mind expanders. Thanks Holton! Related posts: translucent lego’s, for skyscrapers n’ things amazing lego prosthesis + boston’s…
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While poking around designer NoahWall’s websites, we stumbled on SHSK’H, an only-online music label specializing in contemporary avant garde music. You can stream albums through the site or download free MP3’s, as well as participate in developing music projects. The site features a very cool, beautiful rotary music player that is worth checking out.
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(Video link here.) Reader Carol McDonell sent us this email: ‘Elk Grass* is a collaboration by Peter Van Leeuwen, a life long creative musician and co-owner of Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream, and Awesome and Modest. His haunting piece exemplifies The Improvised Life vision to me . . . It does indeed, in a curiously…
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(Video link here.) Feel like a road trip but don’t have the wherewithal right now? Check out David Lynch’s collaboration with Lykke Li. That Transcendental guy has made a meditation… Related posts: jack kerouac’s crazy-wise advice + that improv scroll 2 minute vacation: a virtual trip to paris weekend road trip: ‘address is approximate’
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This cartoon was the subject of the New Yorker’s great cartoon caption contest, where readers are invited to submit their caption for the cartoonists drawing. Our favorite caption (that didn’t win) was: Mistakes were made. We make so many mistakes daily that it was heartening to see this image of Noah’s miscalculation. Although we don’t…
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(Video link here.) This is even more amazing with the sound OFF: traveling via the domino-theory through a kinetic Rube-Goldberg universe… …to make a tuna melt (we can relate) With thanks to Susan Dworski via The Browser Related posts: rube goldberg summer camp ok go channels rube goldberg: “having good ideas and making cool shit” “can…
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We were very sorry to hear that singer Richie Havens passed away. He was born in Bedford Stuyvasant, Brooklyn and we used to see him in Greenwich Village in the old days, around the time his intense improvised opening of the Woodstock festival which made him famous (see video below). Here’s one of our favorite songs: Follow (Words…
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(Video link here.) First we came across Spanish musician Xavi Lozano playing a street barricade like a flute: brilliant!. (He claims he can play just about anything like an instrument)…That led us to Spanish percussionist Jorge Pérez of patáx who uses four women’s thonged bottoms as percussion instruments. Why women’s bums, we wondered? Why
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(Video link here.) This video of artist and musician Brian Eno is full of interesting ideas about the creative process. The best, to us, is right up front in the first 1:44 minutes: I think one of the things art offers you is the chance to surrender, the chance to not be in control…
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(Video link here.) This tiny gem of a film comprised a curious and moving Op-Ed in a recent New York Times by filmmaker Anthony Sherin. The story of how Sherin came to make it, as well as the story documented in the film are pure improvisation: responding to the moment, not knowing what the endpoint would…
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(Video link here.) We don’t remember how we stumbled on this video by Kathleen Hanna, a New York City-based artist best known for her groundbreaking performances in the seminal 90′s punk band, Bikini Kill, and her more recent multimedia group, Le Tigre. She made it to accompany the song Let’s Run. We find it curiously uplifting: a…
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(Video link here.) A very clever guy named Mennyi or possibly Mátyás Wettl (we’re unclear who) made a video in which he performs “Ode to Joy” by kicking broken plates around under an overpass. One of our favorite pieces of music…Lovely…Wonder what we could play on the porcelain Ted Muehling cup we broke a few weeks ago… via…
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(Video link here.) The other day I was in the park across the way doing my ad-hoc workout while listening to the great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s My Heart, My Life on my iPhone. (Click to listen while you read.) There was NO WAY I couldn’t dance to that music. Suddenly skipping seemed like the rhythmically perfect move to make.…
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(Video link here.) The inimitable James Brown perfectly expresses our gratitude and holiday wishes! Thank you for being part of ‘the improvised life’, for reading us, commenting, emailing ideas… And special thanks to our Friends with Benefits; your support has been a tonic (and essential). Related posts: roy arden’s blog: james brown’s dance lessons and…
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(Video link here.) Ever since we saw this 3 minute bit from comedian Louis C.K.’s amazing tv series Louie we’ve been looking for a video clip to post; we FINALLY found one. As Louie drives his daughters to visit their ancient aunt in the country, The Who‘s “Who are You?” comes on the CD player. The valiant, crazy vision…
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(Video link here.) Gangnam Style, South Korean hip hop artist PSY’s video was so insanely over-the-top, it went viral. But the original is not nearly as funny or amazing as this brilliant hack YouTube user Moto2h made with it: he took away the music and added in some sound effects to PSY’s a capella blather. …We hope it brings…
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