BY: CONNOR BRIAN “I think there is a responsibility for any artist to protect freedom of expression.” says Ai Weiwei in an interview with BBC Radio 1 in 2011 He is a man who has experienced the exact opposite of…
Expression & Culture
Adorable photos of a rescued baby raccoon that lives with a family and thinks she’s a dog
BY: JESSICA BEUKER Last year, Rosie Kemp found an injured baby raccoon that had fallen out of a tree in her backyard in Nassau, Bahamas. The little critter had a broken back leg and had been abandoned by her mother.…
These aren’t photos of traditional Chinese landscapes; they are mountains of man-made garbage
BY: ELI ROSS All too easily your eyes can mislead your mind. Nostalgic imagery is deceiving. As your eyes scan across the foggy mountain peaks and calm rivers that wind through green pastures you probably mistook these photographs for a…
This Chinese amusement park has a death simulator where you can be “cremated”
BY: JESSICA BEUKER People have always been fascinated with death. The uncertainty of what is an inevitable event causes many to wonder, “Will it hurt?” “What will happen to me after?” While there is no way to answer these questions,…
This terrifying new app is like “Yelp” for people, where others can rate and review your life
BY: JESSICA BEUKER We are obsessed with rating things. We rate restaurants, movies, hotels, our workplaces and professors. A new app will let us take the obsession even further—allowing us to rate people. That’s right, Peeple (basically “Yelp for people”)…
This surreal artist ditched his studio so he could paint with light and movement instead (Photos)
BY: ELI ROSS Artist Julien Breton has mastered the art of gesture, working silently in urban environments, using the world around him as his canvas, recording it with a long exposure on a film camera. When he is drawing, it…
Watch James Franco read the Ginsberg poem that captured the spirit of a generation
BY: CONNOR BRIAN The first time I read Howl my chest exploded, the words were a ticking time bomb that sent shockwaves down my spine, it cracked open my skull and out poured out my imagination like a bag of…
A tribe in South Dakota is opening America’s first marijuana resort
BY: JESSICA BEUKER Back in June, the United States Department of Justice granted Indian tribes permission to grow and sell marijuana on Santee Sioux land in South Dakota. The Santee Sioux tribe operates a number of successful businesses including a…
The golden era of skateboarding in 1970s California (photos)
BY: CONNOR BRIAN In the mid-1970s an endless summer struck Southern California, evaporating water in drainage ditches and suburban swimming pools, catalyzing what would change the face of counter-cul- ture forever. Maybe it was the dehydration, or maybe it was…
Take a peek into the surreal custom house of a 65-year-old Russian clown
BY: JESSICA BEUKER On the outskirts of Paris sits a house with a psychedelic caravan parked outside. Lush gardens line the perimeter and the inside has a design so surreal it must have been dreamt up by the severely mercury-poisoned…
7 short stories that will turn you into a literary master over lunch
BY: ROB HOFFMAN A Good Man is Hard to Find By: Flannery O’Connor This piece of classic southern gothic literature offers a commentary on the fickle definition of morality. A family trip turns sour as the grandmother tries to persuade…
The hypnotizing architecture of a city that is reaching towards the sky
BY: CONNOR BRIAN The word claustrophobia finds new definition in Hong Kong. The city is one of the most densely populated places in the world, with over 7.2 million people squished inside and the area of just 1,104 square kilometres.…
Human Library gives people a chance to learn from people rather than books
BY: JESSICA BEUKER “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” That’s especially true if the book is a person. The Human Library lets people check out “interactive books” for half an hour, but the words come straight out of people…
A 12-year-old’s IQ result put her above Einstein and Hawking
BY: ROB HOFFMAN An unlikely genius has emerged in the heart of England’s gypsy community, scoring an IQ higher than some of the world’s most renowned geniuses. On a whim of intuition about his daughter’s exceptional intellect, James Barr took…
An inclusive park just opened for children with disabilities so everyone can have fun
BY: SWIKAR OLI In the city of Kenosha, WI, a joint three-year dream of over 3,000 volunteers, organizers and contributors has come into sharp relief: a playground for children who otherwise had none. The Dream Playground has swings that fit…
Squatting communities are putting experience above objects on the fringes of London (Photos)
BY: TYLER FYFE While glossy advertisements on home decorating magazines might tell you different, home isn’t defined by space, it’s defined by the people who inhabit it. Photographer, Corinna Kern found a community of eclectics living on the fringes of…
Everest Sherpas are finally being honoured as the pillars of a glorified Western dream
BY: TYLER FYFE The word Sherpa is not a job title. It is the cultural name of an ethnic group living in the eastern Himalayas long before the first recorded ascent of Everest in 1953. Since that famous feat was…
This photographer helps children with cancer live out their wildest dreams
BY: JESSICA BEUKER “Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” A line from a Shel Silverstein poem was all it took to inspire Jonathan Diaz to make dreams come true for child cancer patients. His ‘Anything Can Be’ project is…
Meet Tippi—the real-life Mowgli who spent 10 years living with wild animals
BY: JESSICA BEUKER A young ferocious child lies peacefully in the trunk of an elephant. His name is Abu and he also happens to be her best friend. The child rides ostriches and plays with cheetahs, exploring the raw and…
Try these recipes and eat like you give a fuck.
BY: STEFANIE PHILLIPS Sharpen your fucking knife, because the bad mouthing, vegan cooking phenomenon that is Thug Kitchen is about to get a lot more important. The Thug Kitchen website has been gaining notoriety since its launch in the summer…