What Kind of Town Elects a French Bulldog as its Mayor?

Must love dogs in Rabbit Hash, Kentucky. That’s the town with the means – nay, the genius – to elect a strapping young pup named Wilbur Beast as the new Mayor. At six-years-old, the French Bulldog may appear to be one of the youngest to serve in the office. But weirder things have happened in…

We took the Liberty of Scouting the Perfect East Coast Winter Weekend Escapes for You

We take our motto, “Don’t Be a Tourist in New York,” very seriously – which is why we’re taking our own advice this November. Fall has arrived, Central Park is ablaze with shades of yellow, red and orange, but you’d be doing yourself a huge disservice if you didn’t venture out of town to see…

Don’t Judge this Potato Hotel by its er, Skin

Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder, as they say. Especially if that beholder happens to own Idaho’s chicest new B&B, The Big Idaho Potato Hotel. At a glance, the spud seems like another loveable wonky, abandoned roadside gem from the golden days of Route 66. But this six-ton ‘tater has Pinterest-perfect interiors that feel…

My Desert Rock Tub: Weekend in a Mojave Mirage

What Bonnie & Clyde really needed was a desert hideaway like this … complete with a cowboy tub and rubber ducky, of course. Naturally that little pool had me at hello, but the seclusion that this dream house offers, masterfully camouflaged amongst those weathered desert boulders is calling to my inner Bonnie & Clyde… Welcome to the…

A New York City Misfit Museum, like No Other

Woody Allen pulls off one of Groucho Marx’s best lines in Annie Hall — you know, the one that goes, “I wouldn’t want belong to any sort of club that would have me as a member”. He’s kidding, of course, but the line perfectly reflects that charming New York brand of pessimism, and because it…

Why NASA Set up Shop in Russia’s Forbidden Star City

Tucked in a Russian forest not terribly far from Moscow, you’ll find it: a veritable mini-city, populated entirely by space explorers and their kin for over half-a-century. This is “Star City,” and getting an invite here is a bit like making it into Wonka’s Chocolate Factory; it’s the world’s oldest habitation of its kind, a…

What if the First African American Woman to Run for President Had Won?

Shall we for a moment, imagine an alternate reality where Shirley Chisholm became President of the United States in 1972 instead of Nixon? As the first African American woman in Congress, as well as first woman and African American to run for President, Shirley campaigned under the powerful mantra, “Unbought & Unbossed“. And let’s just…

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The Real Life ‘Indiana Jones’ Was Just as Cool as You Think.

He said he “was born under a lucky star”. Yet, Roy Chapman Andrews, that good ‘ole American chaser of bandits, dinosaur eggs and lost civilisations, was always the kind of man who made his own luck. He charmed a generation of daydreamers with his stories of the Gobi desert — and that hat —and while there’s…

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How to Soak Up New York City in Scorsese’s ‘The Irishman’ Style

The Irishman is Martin Scorsese’s latest ode to the Italian-American East Coast, and the unflinching mobsters who held its purse strings in the 1970s. It’s also an utter delight for the New Yorker at heart: Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino take us on a slow burning trip down memory lane to find…

The Man who Documented the First Americans

His lifework documenting the North American native was once hailed as “the most ambitious enterprise in publishing since the production of the King James Bible.” Today I found his photographs deep in the Flickr’s archives. At the height of Edward Curtis’s career, he had one of the most powerful bankers of his era, J.P. Morgan, personally financing him.…