(Newser)
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Living with the heat off—if they even have heat—is a way of life for some Northerners who get through the winter on a combination of ingenuity and insulation. Their motives are often curious. Take the New York artist who appreciates the acoustics of his loft so much he won’t insulate the rafters, and therefore doesn’t pay to heat his space. “I listen to a lot of music and it just sounds better,” he tells the New York Times.
Then there’s the woman with an unimproved schoolhouse in rural New York. “When your house is 15 degrees, the only problem you have is getting warm,” she says. “Focusing on survival is right up there with a Zen retreat when it comes to clearing the mind.” Then there are the Baltimore hipsters who occupy a vast, unheated warehouse. When they get down, one says, “we remember how wonderful it is to be living with five other best friends and making art and how it will get warm eventually.”
