This week, my dearest friend will have open-heart surgery, a territory whose outcomes and demands defy prediction. So I will be taking time off from writing Improvised Life. But I will be carrying its lessons with me as I navigate waiting, hospital, ICU…
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“Just a pair of hands and a whole lot of clever imagination” perfectly describes this 1933 film from British Pathe. The performer moves his hands slowly so that the audience can see how the shape is formed. The setup is minimal: a darkened room, a bare patch of wall, a light source to cast shadows.…
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We feel like we’re flying ourselves as we watch these sea lions leaping and flying through the waves in pure fluid JOY.
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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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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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Over 9 years at dawn, Cosmo Sheldrake carried recording gear, laptop, and sometimes a keybord into fields and woods to make music in collaboration endangered birds. The result is his new album Wake Up Calls; it is both charming and illuminating…
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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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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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Perhaps the most heartening victory of the fiercely contested national election is the record-breaking turnout of voters braving long waits and the coronavirus to exercise their VOICE. We can think of no better celebration than the anthem Patti Smith wrote in 1988…
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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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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.
We’ve been seeing a lot of very cool VOTE images from artists peppering the instagrams of arts galleries and museums. Here’s a trove along with essential resources for planning your vote.
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Reflecting on the passing of legendary Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I found her life and words full of hope, wisdom, and direction.
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Frequent contributor S.B. Dworski dives into John Koenig’s deeply beautiful concept, Sonder, which has poignant resonance today.
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Artist ciriacaerre made a video of repairing a smashed vase using kintsugi, the Japanese art that celebrates the scars and breaks. She, and other artist, eloquently describe its greater meaning…
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One of the best things to come out of the months of Covid-19 lockdown has been extraordinary films from art galleries and museums. One of the best of is about the English sculptor Phyllia Barlow. It provides an illuminating counterpoint to the many life questions that the virus has thrown into relief.
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