Improvised Life

ideas and tools that inspire

[Improvised Life @improvised_life]

In This is Happiness, a beauty of a novel by Niall Williams, I found a nugget of gold that has been subtly transforming my view. It reminded me of Henry Miller’s radical philosophy of living. https://t.co/pvwwhZ83Sz

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The New York Times’ Ezra Klein’s conversation with poet Jane Hirshfield yielded many remarkable insights. But what dazzled us most was her reading of her poem A Cedary Fragrance, and the story behind her writing it, and its big lesson and challenge. https://t.co/wKsRAiy5fJ

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Two minutes of wonder to start the day: this wondrous, trippy visualization by the inside of a giant redwood tree leaf, with a remarkable poem by Australian Aboriginal elder Big Bill Neidjie… https://t.co/SttfszF5TY

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With Covid full force again, eating in restaurants' outdoor seating is returning as a strategy for socializing. Our height-of-Covid post on strategies for staying warm, is a propos given the frigid weather. As is this compendium of ice-fishing shacks. https://t.co/TV44mip1P6

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How did we forget about the great https://t.co/uUtuBxb1W5, the site that streams only birdsong. Listening to the music of birds first thing in the morning woke us UP in the best way possible. Our friend Josh Eisen described its mighty effect perfectly..

[Improvised Life @improvised_life]

We’re loving Jane Hirschfeld’s wonderful poem I Wanted to Be Surprised. It is the lens through which we’ve been looking to discover uplifting…surprises… https://t.co/QKoXUMbc6Q

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Inspired by Farhad Manjoo’s revelatory NY Times article, I deleted the news feed on my phone to see if I could “have what Manjoo was having”: more free time, and a clearer head. https://t.co/8yGH7l2t1F

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We’ve found employing Celeste Headlee’s 10 principles for having a better conversation really DO take the conversation farther. Here they are, including the Crap Advice she advises you forget. https://t.co/kkw1oLGO1d

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A reader wrote that she has poet John O’ Donohue’s benediction tacked on her fridge to remind her to “let my work feed and refresh me”. Which is what it does for us, mightily. https://t.co/XmeituuLEl

[Improvised Life @improvised_life]

“This is what thought looks like” begins Dennis Overbye’s article about Jessica Wynne’s remarkable photographs of mathematician’s blackboards, that reminded us of Steiner and Cy Twombly… https://t.co/eDYhUjIvrO

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A typewriter and paper is all it took for surrealist artist and poet Kay Sage to make a holiday card for her friend Eleanor Howland Bunce in 1958. Evidence of an imaginative improvised life after our own hearts. https://t.co/3P7MD9d1d8

[Improvised Life @improvised_life]

Lately, we’ve found ourselves saying an unusual mantra when we hit difficult situations. It affords an instant, very interesting shift of view, as do the lovely flower mandalas we stumbled upon about the same time. https://t.co/17iNs8u9GK

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August Sanders‘ farmer got us wondering What new seeds do we want to sow today? And before we knew it, the powerful image segued with a quote by Brian Eno about his process of composing: https://t.co/P22vAf11lW

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There are twenty-one post-it notes in my copy of Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists: each an illuminating and useful tool. Here is a favorite. https://t.co/ucqAaNXQJq

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We’ve never read a more perfect description of foraging for wild mushrooms or for ideas than this from John Cage. It’s from the sublime John Cage: A Mycological Foray. https://t.co/vlQlJJAP6A

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Hazel Beeler’s extraordinary letter to the New Yorker about pockets is rich with ideas and revelations including extraordinary improvisations she makes to her clothing — including undershirts… https://t.co/hrAUMKsVz0

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These bottles of Night Air by Yoko Ono remind us of the jar of air we brought back from Ireland, to capture and remember that exact time and place…and air. https://t.co/50iX89Rhn7

[Improvised Life @improvised_life]

A reader wrote that she has poet John O’ Donohue’s benediction tacked on her fridge to remind her to “let my work feed and refresh me”. Which is what it does for us, mightily. https://t.co/XmeituuLEl

[Improvised Life @improvised_life]

Lately Mary Oliver has been coming again into our field of vision. This perfect evocation of being among trees is a balm in this ferocious time. https://t.co/Wb1I9uttQk

[Improvised Life @improvised_life]

When a friend threw THIS over our transom, we felt instantly better. Clarifying, heartening, it pulled us out of our heads into just the right place. https://t.co/BS6Pn3O4Wo