Romance novels are the least stuck-up books in the world, almost never reviewed or discussed at a dinner party. One is supposed to be embarrassed to have a taste for them. And yet, The Awl reminds us, so many of us do….

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Don’t be scared of Picasso and Pollock. New research shows that fear heightens your appreciation of abstract art.

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Would food taste better if you kept it on the kitchen counter? The project Save Food from the Refrigerator finds alternative ways to keep food fresh.  

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Experimental chefs in India have captured the taste of smog.

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Artists can—and should—be ordinary, too.

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It’s time, argues Strong Towns Blog, to start getting used to a world with no new streets.

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A dispatch from an über-clandestine, global gathering of casino sharks and card counters.

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“[T]he most recent Gallup surveys” writes Joel Kotkin, “[. . . show] a remarkable correlation between the states and regions with the highest proportion of childless women under 45–the best indicator of offspring-free households—and the propensity to vote Democratic.”

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Like Sherlock Holmes, with booze: The mystery of the Canadian whiskey fungus. 

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Are there too many think tanks with too few original thoughts? Tevi Troy thinks so.

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Transcending partisan rancor, lefty Ralph Nader and rightwing Bruce Fein provide a blueprint for a new kind of politics.

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Big Think exposes the myth of the tortured writer and “the kind of single-minded devotion (to anything) that seems so at odds with our disposable culture.”

Image by jjpuzzles, licensed under Creative Commons. 

“Rather than cars being our servants, many of us have become enslaved,” writes Chris Richards in New Internationalist. The former Australasian editor of the magazine openly chronicled her attempts to free herself from our prevailing car culture, and also shared some ideas for breaking the cycle of dependence and a vision of what life could be like if we made some serious adjustments. She writes:

“What would this parking lot look like if it no longer serviced cars? The asphalt could be torn up, the soil regenerated, then gardens planted and fresh produce grown. As cars would no longer drive there, the shopping center could be scaled back and the space converted to a range of homes for a range of incomes. Throw in a school and medical centre, and village life could emerge. Such transformations are tantalizing. A pity, then, that our asphalt nations are more likely to expand than contract.”

Richards shares similar views as Utne visionary Mark Gorton, who also is on a crusade to empower people to ditch their cars and reclaim their streets. Check out our coverage on Gorton’s work with The Open Planning Project for more information.

Source: New Internationalist