Brave New Vending Machine

Food

There's no shortage of vending machines filled with strange fare, from live crabs to fresh eggs. But how about one that will make anything you want?

The Fragility Chronicles

Touch

We may be as cocky, blatant, loudmouth as you want, but when it comes to our penises, men feel suddenly introverted and vulnerable.

How to Rest in Peace in Romania

Death

In black and white: the camera pans over my childhood. I am playing in my grandparents’ village, and then my grandmother calls me inside. Our house has a special room for the "death-coffer".

The Sweet Sound of Ice Cream Trucks

Food, Eat the Street

There's nothing like the beckoning call of ice cream truck music. Long before today's food truck craze, ice cream vans reigned supreme among mobile food vendors, distinct for their use of alluring jingles.

Agriculture Returns to the Center of Economic Life

Apocalypse, Teenagers

Happy Graduation, Class of 2012. It’s both tragic and hilarious that young people have been swindled into thinking their vocational future lies in some corporate nirvana of magic techno-innovation (complete with ‘free trade” latte breaks).

Recipe: Embalmer’s Cabbage

Beijing

It's spicy, smoky, deliciously toxic. Is this cabbage dish giving you cancer?