In late 2008, Jon Rubin, an artist and professor at Carnegie Mellon University, took over a vacant Pittsburgh storefront with his students and opened the Waffle Shop, an experimental art project in the guise of a cafe.
Inspired by the Seinfeld episode where Kramer rescues a Merv Griffin Show set from the trash and sets it up in his living room, Rubin built a ’70s-style talk-show set in the back of the restaurant, aiming to “use waffles to lure people into public storytelling.”A dedicated host—sometimes one of Rubin’s students, sometimes a community member—sits at a desk (Read More…)
Outer Sunset, just south of Golden Gate Park, is a quiet, atmospheric neighborhood where thick fog frequently obscures the trim pastel houses, Asian groceries and surfers cycling down to Ocean Beach. Until recently, you’d never call it cool. But a hip and quirky micro-neighborhood has emerged, its epicenter at Judah Street and 45th Avenue, with a clutch of locally owned businesses bolstering a sense of community and drawing style seekers citywide. 
There’s a new party in Salt Lake City. Utah liquor laws were normalized last year for the first time since 1935, allowing patrons simply to walk into a bar and order a drink, as if they were in any other city. Add to that a budding film scene (a spillover effect from the nearby Sundance Film Festival), a fresh crop of indie galleries 
It’s been a long time since California’s most glamorous wine region felt like farm country. Today, the area buzzes with Michelin-starred restaurants, new hotels and shops, and nearly 150 tasting rooms. Some may grouse about commercialization — to say nothing of weekend traffic — but this is still America’s best answer to Provence. 
“If anybody said this was Malibu, you’d say they were crazy,” says Richard Hirsh, the millionaire clothier-turned-vintner standing in the vineyards of his Cielo Farms estate.
If you spy a dark-haired woman gliding down Mission Street, past the taquerias and bodegas, in a white, head-to-toe bee suit — picture a hazmat suit crossed with a fencing mask — chances are it’s Cameo Wood, en route to a beehive. 
The city’s unofficial motto, “Keep Austin Weird,” blares from bumper stickers on BMWs and jalopies alike, on T-shirts worn by joggers along Lady Bird Lake and in the windows of independently owned shops and restaurants. It’s an exhortation for a city that clings