In Oakland, California, when it comes to Black homelessness and dispossession, dystopia is already here.

As surely as 2008 was made possible by black people’s long fight to be publicly American, it was also made possible by those same Americans’ long fight to be publicly black. That latter fight belongs especially to one man, as does the sight of a first family bearing an African name. Barack Obama is the president. But it’s Malcolm X’s America.

In 1962, Siffre spent two months living in total isolation in a subterranean cave, without access to clock, calendar, or sun. Sleeping and eating only when his body told him to, his goal was to discover how the natural rhythms of human life would be affected by living “beyond time.”

A youth set to the shifting sounds of CCM, Christian Contemporary Music:

This, by the way, is considered the ultimate sign of quality CCM, even amongst Christians: the ability to pass as secular. Every band’s goal was to have teenagers stop their grooving mid-song and exclaim, like a soda commercial actress who’s just realized she’s been drinking Diet, “Wait, this is Christian?”

A look at Andy Warhol’s enduring popularity and power in the art market.

Warhol’s art was not supposed to be a matter of emotion, introspection or spiritual quest; it was to be an image, pure and simple. “During the 1960s,” he wrote knowingly in 1975, “I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don’t think they’ve ever remembered.”

“As we enter into a new age, maybe art will be free. Maybe the students are right. They should be able to download music and movies. I’m going to be shot for saying this. But who said art has to cost money?”

Kids say it’s fun to take cars. They brag to each other about how many they’ve stolen and the sleekest models they’ve sped away in. They say they are bored and that it’s easy, sharing videos of themselves driving at 120 miles per hour. They smile with key fobs, offering rides on Facebook. But all of the biggest car thieves had something to run from.

A son tries to make sense of his mother’s end.

The history of blue jeans, “America’s greatest contribution to the global closet.”

A participant in a deadly shooting spree decides to snitch on his friends.

A mother struggles to cope when a child is born with albinism.

How self-harm came to take more lives than war, murder and natural disasters combined.

“In the past, when he has spoken, he has sometimes replied to questions by protesting that he is boring. Maybe he believes that this is the case, or just believes there is no point in allowing himself to seem interesting in the way interviewers usually want people to be. Still, he has told himself that tonight he will be truthful. He’s feeling calmer these days. He has not had one of these conversations for a while, and he intends it to be a long time before he has another.”

The cheerleader who sued the Raiders for failure to pay minimum wage.

Following a lobster from sea to table.

One rabbi’s tactics against husbands who refuse to divorce their wives.

On the universal drive to grow and reproduce.

A trip to the U.S. Open of ping-pong.

Fame, fashion, and a trip to the zoo.

An essay about phone dials and a response to the end of blogging.

On Teller, his magic, and his response to a stolen trick.

A trip to a grave in Damascus as shelling started in Homs.

A trip to Hempfest with cannabis breeder DJ Short.

Brazil’s restless youth in the lead-up to the World Cup.