Alghe

A gently reflective piano song by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. He wrote it in 1919.

Ecce ancilla Domini

Perhaps the perfect piano song. Written by Jehan Alain.

Posole

One way to prepare tough indian corn is to turn it into hominy, then cook it in a posole.

Whetstone

The best are made of coticule.

Guide to Civilized Leisure

Written by H. A. Overstreet. A refreshing, enthusiastic viewpoint from the 1930s.

Hand Tools: Their Ways and Workings

Use hand tools and feel the quality of wood. No electric cords, no rush. Aldren Watson wrote this excellent book.

Skellig Michael clocháns

Read "The Forgotten Hermitage of Skellig Michael" by Walter Horn.

From a Monastery Kitchen

It's a cookbook written by Victor-Antoine D'Avila-Latourrette (that itself is a mouthful). The recipes are minimalist.

Wool military blanket

Plain gray blankets are available cheap (<$20) from army surplus.

Humble root vegetables

Parsnips, turnips, and rutabagas are cheap and underused.

American indian music

Unadorned singing, with simple drums. Recommended listening: the Turtle Dance Songs of the San Juan Pueblo indians.

Pencil sharpeners

Wall-mounted manual sharpeners are getting rarer.

Sowiesoso

Cluster's 1976 album is music floating from far away down a dirt path through golden haze.

Enduring Seeds

"Native American Agriculture and Wild Plant Conservation." Gary Nabhan writes about seeds' rich genetic information.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring

In this movie, a hut floats in the middle of a placid lake. An old monk raises a boy.

Everett Ruess

A teenager who wandered the deserts of the southwest United States and made woodblock prints of what he saw. He disappeared in 1934 at age 20. His diaries survive.

DJ Krush

Calm, atmospheric trip-hop.

The Way Things Go

A short movie showing levers and flames and pendulums doing their things.

Public mailboxes

Those tough blue metal boxes accept simple hand-addressed letters.

Skillet cornbread

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup flour

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

1 egg

1 cup plain yogurt

3 Tbsp honey

3 Tbsp melted butter

Bake in a skillet at 350° for 20 minutes.

Parthenocissus tricuspidata

Boston Ivy.

Walden

A pond and a book. At least the pond is free of contradictions.

Taiyo Yuden CD-R

CDs are reliable and accurate, but burnables can lose data in a few years. Taiyo Yuden is known for longevity.

White tea

A delicate variety.

Westerly windows facing trees

The sunset dapples through.

Reel mower

Quiet and effective. Hire someone to push it, and it becomes effortless, too.

Brother Nikanor

Used to be Hristo Mishkov, a stock broker at Bulgarian firm Karoll, until he became a monk in the Tsurnogorski Monastery.

"Milk is not produced by computers, bread doesn't come from a good company PR. It is necessary to plow, sow and harvest before that."

Beans

They are cheap, nutritious, and their growth improves the soil.

Vipassana

llinois Vipassana Meditation Center offers ten day donation-supported retreats. It's calm, but is it useful?

Dwelling Portably

An 80s magazine describing how to live without a fixed home. Bert and Holly Davis wrote it on their manual typewriter.

Morton Feldman

A composer whose later works are long, sparse, and quiet. Recommended listening: For Philip Guston (it is over 4½ hours long).

Beeswax candles

They smell good and are easy to make with just a lump of wax and some wicks.

Yeast-risen bread

How relaxing to knead and rise and bake.

Building with stone

The world's madness is fleeting; stones endure. Read Charles McRaven's book.

2700 Kelvin lightbulb

For bulbs Kelvin measures color: lower redder, higher whiter/bluer. 2600-2800 is soft cozy light.

Interest

Money's unskilled labor.

Cast-iron skillet

Heats food evenly. Repays its modest upkeep.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: There Where You Are Not

Wittgenstein was a brilliant uncompromising 20th century philosopher. This book by Michael Nedo provides biographical pictures, including details of W's cabin in Skjolden, Norway.

Cloth cords

Electrical cords wrapped in cloth rather than plastic.

Bakelite phone

Tough old rotary beasts with real mechanical ringers.

Go

A board game with just one type of move.

Nicolas Bourbaki

Not a person, but a group of men who wrote a multi-volume, austere, unified exposition of math.

Toru Takemitsu

Wrote haiku-like music blending Eastern sensibilities with Western instruments.

Swingline 747 stapler

Solid metal. Indestructible.

Pickling food

An easy nutritious process to preserve food without refrigeration. Harsch Fermenting Crock Pots make it even easier.

Mansfield College Library

Old, with portraits and nooks.

The Man Who Planted Trees

"In order for the character of a human being to reveal truly exceptional qualities, we must have the good fortune to observe its action over a long period of years."

Jean Giono wrote this short story about a dedicated man who planted a forest.

Edsger Dijkstra

He designed algorithms, and emphasized patience and exactness. See the video Discipline in Thought.

網師園

The Garden of the Master of Nets is located in Suzhou, China. Placid water, circular windows, ancient calligraphy.

Manual typewriter

Isolation and focus can improve writing. A typewriter removes distractions.

RZA beats

Disjointed atmospheric instrumentals provide urban calm.

Brevity

"I would have written a shorter letter but I did not have the time."
— Blaise Pascal

Grain mill

Try a cast-iron manual grinder. Make cornmeal, etc.

Poem by Frances Shaw

  Who loves the rain
  and loves his home,
and looks on life with quiet eyes,
  him will I follow through the storm;
  and at his hearth-fire keep me warm;
nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise,
  who loves the rain
  and loves his home,
and looks on life with quiet eyes.

The Hand-Sculpted House

Ianto Evans wrote this guide to earthen housebuilding. Building with cob requires no forms, no cement, and no machinery of any kind.

Clothing

It is as simple as you choose. Have it tailored to your specification by Janine Giorgenti. Read Alan Flusser for historical guidance.

Three sisters garden

Corn provides a stalk for beans to climb. Beans fix nitrogen. Squash smothers weeds and cools the soil.

Chalkboard

Easy to use, quiet, durable. A piece of slate.

Blank analog watches

E.g. Mario Botta's single-handed watch.

Plainchant

It is free of instruments, meter, or polyphony. One can learn Gregorian chant by the Solesmes method.

Plant cloning

This works for many plants: cut a small branch, put it in water until little roots begin to sprout, then plant it. Copy complete.

Junkbusters

An organization which helps consumers reduce unwanted junk mail, junk email, and telemarketing calls.

Im Lauf der Zeit

Directed by Wim Wenders. A slow, hypnotic story of two men traveling back-roads by truck.

Déodat de Séverac

Loved nature, and wrote sunny, picturesque piano music. Suggested listening: En Vacances.

пустынь

Poustinia in English. A small, sparsely furnished cabin for solitary retreats.

Fixed gear bike

Just a frame, wheels, and a chain.

The Twelve Seasons

A book by Joseph Wood Krutch about people's relation to non-anthropomorphic nature.

Dick Proenneke

A survivalist so skilled he creates his own tools and a snug cabin in Alaska. He filmed himself for the documentary Alone in the Wilderness.

Federico Mompou

He wrote delicate, meditative piano music. Suggested listening: Musica Callada.

Récoltes et Semailles

The autobiography of mathematician Alexander Grothendieck. He describes the simplicity and poetry of modern abstract math. There is no complete English translation yet.

Cheap. Fast. Good!

A cookbook by Beverly Mills and Alicia Ross. Its title is accurate.

Ryōkan Taigu

A buddhist monk who left the monastery to live in a hut outside of town. He wrote poems about his daily life.

The thief left it behind:
the moon
at my window

Into Great Silence

A three-hour, mostly wordless documentary by Philip Gröning about the Carthusian monks. They live closely with wood, stone, cloth, and the seasons.

Erik Satie

A composer of understated gentle piano music. Suggested listening: Cinq Nocturnes.