Camilla [Nickerson] urges [her sons] to expose themselves to the widest range of experiences available, whether it's riding, go-karting, or visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art- "any adventure, really to encourage them to see the world first-hand, high and low, with eyes wide open. It's much more stimulating than them receiving information from the Internet. I say to them, 'Go and see it, go and feel it. Do it!'"
After all, it's what she did.

- the gentlewoman

gokhale method

Current fashions are cut for today's average posture, which includes rounded shoulders and a tucked pelvis.

[If you use the Gokhale Method, you may need to] alter or replace some of your fitted clothing.


A common solution for an uncomfortable chair or seat is a lumbar support cushion that supports of even exaggerates lumbar curvature. The design of these cushions is based on misguided notions of ideal spinal curvature.
Even when placed above the lumbar spine, most lumbar cushions do not work for stretchsitting as they don't have the appropriate firmness or texture for "hitching" the spine.

A lumbar support cushion exaggerates lumbar curvature.
The Stretchsit cushion lengthens your lumbar spine.

Place a support so that it rests at the level of the mid-back, just below the shoulder blades.


[When lying down and sleeping], tossing and turning is an attempt to find a healthy position in which your muscles can relax. If you start the night with your body in a relaxed, neutral position, you won't have to toss and turn to find one.

Many people assume corsets are uncomfortable and unhealthy.
A moderate corset remains a healthy device; weight lifters regularly wear back support belts as do workers who carry heavy objects. The medical profession also prescribes corsets for back pain to patients to correct distortions or protect damaged tissues. Simple versions of these are available at medical supply stores and can be useful if you are injured. In my clinical experience, most patients, if they need a corset at all, do best with a corset that leaves the pelvis free to settle in an anteverted position.

Many people are uncomfortable standing for long periods of time. If they go to a museum, their backs hurt; if they go to a party, their feet hurt. Yet many others stand comfortably all day to earn their living. By learning to tallstand, you will be able to stand for long periods of time without feeling fidgety or uncomfortable.

Healthy standing requires tipping the pelvis forward and stacking the vertebrae. The hips align over the heels which carry most of the weight, and the knees and groin area remain soft. This position facilities healthy blood flow to and from the legs.

Good shoes are especially important, given the harsh and unnatural surfaces on which we walk, and the corresponding damage and under-development in our feet.

If there is one action that makes or breaks a back, it is bending. People who bend well usually enjoy good back health; people who bend poorly often develop back pain.
By watching people bend, a skilled observer can predict where tension or pain is likely to occur.

Successful bending requires a health baseline back contour that you preserve as you bend.


- Esther Gokhale, 8 Steps to a Pain Free Back

alice waters and chez panisse

On food in other countries:
In Greece,
we'd cook everyday.
The people had these big pig roasts, with everybody dancing.
There was a certain poverty, certainly, but it was a beautiful way they lived their lives in spite of it.

French food is family food.
French homes had vegetables, nearly always local, fresh, and plainly cooked. The poorest people always ate well, always had a salad and a beautiful soup with beans and cabbage and lovely things. It always tasted good.

On Alice:
It is a principle in Alice's life that any man who has been her lover will be her friend forever.

As she began to imagine the food, the lighting, the feeling, the communitarian ethos that her restaurant would embody, Alice knew, at last, what she wanted.

Nobody else had her zeal, her imagination, her inexhaustable energy, her innate authority.

She was married to her restaurant.

Talented amateurism
unassuming perfection

When you're in love with somebody, you really learn things in a way you'll never forget.
We had this very romantic way of being together. We always danced together. We went on trips together. I always wanted to dance with him.


we were in love with what we were doing.


every kid has something she's good at. you just have to find out what that is. it's what gives them a sense of confidence.

Her devotion to excellence could inspire large numbers of people.



On food:

purist approach

Good cooking meant finding the freshest ingredients, then doing as little as possible to them.

flawless looking but half dead produce.
My idea of organic was to grow everything so, so carefully.

The meal that made you happy the way great home cooking did.

Happy plants! A good farmer's got to know how to access plant health.

If you could eat in only one restaurant for the rest of your life, Chez Panisse would be the one to choose.

A Delicious Revolution (for clothes would be, beautiful revolution? when the goods are good)

Those of us who work with food suffer from an image of being involved in an elite, frivolous pastime that has little relation to anything important or meaningful. But in fact we are in a position to cause people to make important connections between what they are eating and a host of crucial environmental, social, and health issues.

Inspiration:
There's always money for great ideas.

Greatness must be earned.


California is still frontier country, free from the restraints of stodgy tradition.

Our primary motive is not profit, it is to educate ourselves and the public.

She'll just say: here's how I want a thing to be. And it's up to us to figure out how to do it.

set in motion the restless dream that became alice waters' life.

how we eat can change the world.
- alice waters

how we dress can change the world.
-me

Roughly 80 percent of the world lives on fewer than $10 a day, yet more than half the global population owns a mobile phone.

The mobile phone is the most visible manifestation of one of the biggest disruptors in recent times-- personal and convenient connectivity.
- hidden in plain sight, jan chipchase

Most high tech cities in the world: tokyo, seoul, san francisco)

china, japan, south korea see more experimentation in manufacturing and marketplace because they are close to manufacturing processes

Low income people are the world's toughest customers. They have to make every rupee count, they can least afford to buy poorly designed products.

The morning rush for essentials is a ritual virtually everywhere.

water is the natural resource where we can most clearly see the interconnectedness of systems-- as children we learn rain comes down, fills our groundwater reserves, rivers, and gutters, evaporates
from lakes and oceans, gets stored in clouds, only to reappear in the form of rain or snow.

Water is also not something found out there in the environment, external to us: our own bodies are 50-60% water, 70% for babies.
- Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff