Destination: United States
Photo You Must See: Walking the Walk in Bryant Park
by World Hum | 05.10.10 | 11:42 AM ET
Frank Murray Kate Gilmore's live public performance art "Walk the Walk" features seven women in yellow dresses walking in circles in New York City's Bryant Park.
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Yahoo! Buzz‘If You See Something, Say Something’?
by Eva Holland | 05.05.10 | 1:13 PM ET
In the wake of this weekend’s attempted car bombing, Slate’s Noreen Malone heads to Times Square in search of “suspicious activity.” The result is an unusual sort of ode to one of the world’s most famous public spaces. Here’s a taste:
I asked Ghazi what sort of “unusual” behavior might grab his attention. “Someone panicky or paranoid,” he said. “You make a logical assumption that he’s off his meds.” And how often does he see that? “Oh! Every day.”
The Titanic Awards: 10 Worst National Cuisines
by Doug Lansky | 05.05.10 | 10:29 AM ET
More than 2,000 travelers from 80 countries voted in the Titanic Awards survey. Here are the unlucky winners.
See the full photo slideshow »
Yosemite Through the Eyes of a Chinese Artist
by Jim Benning | 05.04.10 | 12:31 PM ET
Lovely piece in The Smart Set about Chinese artist Xie Zhiliu’s renderings of Yosemite National Park, which are now part of an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Xie visited Yosemite in 1994, a few years before his death.
There, he produced a series of paintings that are a testimonial to cognitive dissonance. He paints the mountains and trees of Yosemite, but they look vaguely Chinese. The vegetation looks sparse, like in the drawings that accompany Chinese calligraphy. The stones of Yosemite rise up with the stalagmite abruptness we expect of Chinese art.
Cognitive dissonance at work on a canvas can be a beautiful thing. I’m reminded of these impressionistic West-meets-East paintings by Van Gogh.
Why I Walk
by Bill Belleville | 04.29.10 | 10:57 AM ET
iStockPhoto No, it's not quick or expedient. But it offers something other modes of transport can't. Bill Belleville on traveling by foot.
Will Arizona’s Immigration Law Lead to a Travel Boycott?
by Jim Benning | 04.27.10 | 11:52 AM ET
It’s starting to. Some groups are already canceling meetings there. San Francisco supervisors are expected to vote today on a resolution that would go well beyond travel and cancel all contracts with companies based in Arizona.
And in a man-bites-dog kind of twist, Mexico has issued an alert for Arizona, warning that “any Mexican citizen could be bothered and questioned for no other reason at any moment.”
Taco Bell to Indians: ‘Visit Mexico for 18 Rupees’
by Jim Benning | 04.21.10 | 2:59 PM ET
Yes, Taco Bell is invading India, offering such classic Mexican delicacies as “Potato & Paneer Burrito.”
The offerings, with an Indian twist designed to appeal to local tastes and vegetarian diets, sound genuinely intriguing in an Indian-Mex-fusion kinda way.
The LAX Theme Building: It’s (Almost) Back
by Michael Yessis | 04.19.10 | 12:52 PM ET
Three long years after shedding a 1,000-pound piece of itself, the iconic futuristic building at Los Angeles International Airport is almost ready for its adoring public again. Jennifer Steinhauer has the update.
‘Treme’: TV’s Best-Ever Take on New Orleans?
by Eva Holland | 04.15.10 | 3:09 PM ET
Slate’s Josh Levin, a NOLA native, thinks so. Our own take on the city, courtesy of contributor Adam Karlin, is here.
Political Pundits, Lay Off the Kabuki References
by Eva Holland | 04.14.10 | 4:21 PM ET
Slate writer Jon Lackman has a message for America’s Washington-watchers and op-ed writers: Stop using “kabuki” as a stand-in for “political posturing.” Lackman thinks the stylized Japanese theater tradition deserves better. He writes:
[T]here’s nothing “kabuki” about the real Kabuki. Kabuki, I’ll have you know, is one of UNESCO’s Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity! And it’s nothing like politics. It does indeed use stylized gestures, expressions, and intonations, but it’s far from empty and monotonous… Unlike a Dick Durbin stemwinder, the quintessential Kabuki moment (known as a kata) is colorful and ruthlessly concise, packing meaning into a single gesture. It is synecdoche, synopsis, and metaphor rolled together—as when, in one Kabuki play, a gardener expecting a visit from the emperor cuts down all his chrysanthemums except one, the perfect one. And in contrast with our own shortsighted politics, Kabuki concerns not the present so much as a “dreamlike time shrouded in mist but ever present in the subconscious,” to quote critic Shuichi Kato.
The history he digs up on the term’s arrival in American political discourse is fascinating.
The International Banana Museum: Meet its Saviors
by Eva Holland | 04.13.10 | 11:59 AM ET
Here’s an odd one: Gawker has an exclusive interview with Virginia and Fred Garbutt, the mother-son duo who recently purchased the entire contents of the International Banana Museum on eBay after collector-curator Ken Bannister was forced to sell. The new incarnation of the museum will reopen in North Shore, California, in January 2011.
The Leap at Crater Lake
by Amy Eward | 04.13.10 | 10:15 AM ET
Photo by Dustin Eward Amy Eward's infertility strained her marriage and left her reeling. During a trip to Oregon, she made a bold move to try to regain control.
Tourism in the Tenderloin
by Michael Yessis | 04.12.10 | 11:16 AM ET
Is San Francisco’s “ragged, druggy and determinedly dingy domain of the city’s most down and out” ready for tourists? The New York Times explores the question and talks to those behind a push to bring travelers to the ‘loin.
What if Martha’s Vineyard Had a Subway System?
by Eva Holland | 04.07.10 | 3:31 PM ET
It might look something like this. (Via Boing Boing)
76-Second Travel Show: The San Francisco-New York Showdown
by Robert Reid | 04.06.10 | 2:09 PM ET
New Yorker Robert Reid asks: Could San Francisco be the better city?