(Video link here.) When we’re introduced to a venture, our first impulse is always to ask: what’s the story behind it? What were the seeds of the idea that grew into a fully realized project? It’s the stories that win us over, which is why we’re are so taken with Jam in the Van. Based in…
Read More‘pastry paris’: paris through pastry-colored glasses
We love things that change our view. With the wind howling and the temperature cold, we found ourselves delighted with a little book that has taken us on an armchair trip through Paris, showing us the city through new eyes: the eyes of a pastry-o-phile. Pastry Paris: In Paris, Everything Looks Like Dessert grew out…
Read Moregifts for the wine curious: metro wine maps
When I saw ‘the improvised life’s recent post about christopher niemann’s fab color-tiled bathrooms, I immediately thought of the Metro Wine Map of France, created by architectural historian and wine buff Dr. David Gissen, which was introduced this past summer by De Long, a favorite resource of mine for beautiful wine region maps and clever…
Read Moreweekend road trip: ‘address is approximate’
(Video link here.) The weekend is here. Time to take a road trip cross country with this little desk toy, using a toy car and Google Maps Street View. A little beauty of homemade animation by Tom Jenkins. via Open Culture Related posts: ‘the world is full of interesting things’ on the massively creative internet and…
Read Morereport from tangier: 3d business cards
The streets of Tangier in North Africa are a mix of the ancient and the contemporary but some traditions still hold fast. Outdoor cafes are populated with men who seem to sit for hours on end, drinking strong coffee or Moroccan ‘whiskey’ – gunpowder green tea with loads of fresh mint and sugar. Passing the…
Read Morethe ten principles of burning man (and life in general?)
We’ve long been fascinated by Burning Man, the annual “art event and temporary community” in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. Every year our friend Kim Sykes participates in the infamous festival firsthand. This year she sent us photographs and a report. To those that aren’t familiar with it, Burning man might seem like a 70’s style…
Read Morefound instruments and seaweed scarves, via fast forward
photo: fast forward A while back, our friend Fast Forward showed us images of his recent trip to Hong Kong; many are annotated in true Fastian (or is it Forward-ian?) style, which show HIS unique way of seeing things, as an experimental/culinarian composer/artist . Beat-up drums full of something – cooking oil, perhaps – become…
Read Morethe path forward
Related posts: lynda barry’s ‘what it is’ (+ being your creative self) how to find a hidden solution a daring path making it up as you go along tool for improvising: defer judgment
Read Moreellen silverman photographs: inside cuba’s kitchens pt.1
Our friend Ellen Silverman traveled twice to Cuba in the past year, and came back with some amazing photographs of daily life there, in particular the kitchens of families she met. They are invariably improvised, deeply makeshift spaces, reflecting extremely limited resources coupled with extraordinary resourcefulness and spirit. Ellen’s images tell the story.
Read Morevietnam’s culture of improvisation via charlie allenson (happy birthday charlie!!!)
Our friend Charlie Allenson had a big birthday a few days ago, and we had big plans to give him a shout out that day and find ourselves, THE DAY AFTER, having been swept away by..everything. Damn. Charlie’s at the jazz festival in New Orleans so we thought we’d publish some of the very cool…
Read Morethe appalachian trail (2200 miles in 5 mins) + we’re gone!
In the past month, two dear friends from the tiny hamlet of Helvetia in the West Virginia Appalachians passed away. With them goes a great deal of memory and wisdom and beauty. We’re heading down there to pay our respects, and… just be for a while…in Appalachia’s astonishing spring, as we remember their wild, rich,…
Read Morecome along for a ride into space…
Objectified cinematographer Luke Geissbühler and his 5-year-old son Max made a homemade spacecraft out of a Thai food takeout container and a weather balloon, and outfitted it with an HD video camera and an iPhone. Last August, they sent it into space. “The mission was…was send it up into the upper stratosphere to film the…
Read Moregreece for $31
Photographer William Abranowitc has been in love with Greece for as long as we can remember, constantly making time to go there to do his personal work amidst amidst his busy schedule as a lifestyle/landscape/still-life photographer. Hellas, his second book of photographs of Greece has just been published: 160 pages in full color. Most of…
Read Moreemergency medicine
A few months ago, while I was clearing out a storage room in a lonely warehouse building, a friend called me on my cell phone in tears. She told me of the overwhelming fear and anxiety she was feeling about a trip she was to embark upon in a few hours, that held many potentially…
Read Morea jar of air + memory
We were trying to figure out what to bring back from a trip to a place we loved, something that would be able to remind us in a FLASH what it was like. Pamela Hovland suggested we bring back a jar full of its beautiful air, so we did, capturing it in a small canning…
Read Morehow to grind nuts without a food processor (moroccan-style)
Our friend Peggy Markel just got back from months of Culinary Adventures – her own, and facilitating those of the intrepid guests that embark on her “underground” tours of Tuscany, Elba, Sicily, Morocco. Peggy seems to know everybody, that is, anybody who is seriously into food in all the places she travels. She has a…
Read Moreimpromptu drowned cell phone rescue (+ life lesson)
We got an email from Manny Howard this morning about an improvised save for water-logged digital appliances (and a great general approach to take when the #$%!! is hitting the fan). We know Manny to be prone to minor disasters from his book My Empire of Dirt: How One Man Turned His Big-City Backyard into…
Read Moreitaly for the gourmet traveler (+how to hack a guidebook)
In 1996, when I was about to take an extended trip to Italy, Fred Plotkin’s Italy for the Gourmet Traveler was my guide. Plotkin, who had been traveling in Italy since 1973, forged the guide from years of passionate traveling, living and eating there – over 700 pages crammed with personal notations and insider views…
Read Moreforaging for ‘REAL’: ramps etc with recipe
This weekend, I will take a few days off to go down to West Virginia to the Ramp Supper in Helvetia, West Virginia, a feast served family style in the community hall by the Farm Women’s Association – ham, beans, cornbread, slaw, applesauce, hash browns, ramps raw and cooked. Depending on the weather, the raw…
Read Moresally on finland at the atlantic food blog
Aside from endless design ideas, last summer’s trip to Finland has yielded a several part series at Atlanic Onlines’ Food Blog, starting today. The Atlantic posts will be ongoing for the next few weeks and will be mostly food-centric – woven through with cool design – until we get to the home of a Finnish…
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