by Janet Forman
Tobogganing down the Cresta Run makes skydiving look like knitting.
“It’s a hell of a feeling,” sighs former racecar driver Gunter Sachs, “speed and courage mixed with exuberance.”
“It’s like flying loop de loops in a plane,” avows Raymond McKenzie, a strapping 38-year-old venture capitalist from Barbados. “At some points you think you’re airborne.”
Champion Cresta [...]

by Peter Mandel
How do the hungry drivers of NASCAR fuel up? With Ragu Rich & Meaty Spaghetti Sauce.
I snap off the TV. I flip past the magazine ads screaming about speed and about the men in helmets who achieve it.
I am sure that America’s top drivers burn calories thundering around tracks in sponsored [...]

by Carmen Semler
“I wish for you that when you grow up you will return to Malta and visit the good Sisters at the orphanage.” Those were the words my father repeated to me during his worst of times. I knew what he meant by “the good Sisters” and how important it was for him that [...]

by Catherine Watson
If the key had been pretty, I could have worn it around my neck like jewelry for the last 40 years, but it’s utterly plain — bronze-colored, round-headed, the kind the Yale company stamps out by the millions every year.
I have kept it anyway, not for its looks, but [...]

by Janna Leyde
In a department store on the biggest island in the hemisphere of the Southern Cross my two Aussie friends waiting patiently while I debated between $20 or $200 sneakers—cheap generics or unnecessarily expensive Lacoste. It was simple. In three hours I needed a pair of sneakers to climb a bridge, and [...]

by Janet Forman
There’s an intoxicating energy along the broad boulevards of Harlem these days. In the heart of black America, a wellspring for generations of eloquent literature and incendiary music - and a community that has seen more than its share of hard times – fashion and design boutiques are opening amid the convivial crunch [...]

by Catherine Watson
I have learned to believe in the mystical connection of people and places. At its strongest, that connection is what I think of as “home.” It has come to me, at times, on trips — come in inklings, in waves, in glimpses.
It always starts with a kind of recognition — not deja-vu [...]

by Terri Hinte
Somewhere between the twin poles of obsessive itinerary-planning and utter surrender to serendipity is my preferred travel style: I arrive at a destination with one fervent wish. I ask the local guides (and gods) to grant it, though I never have any idea how this will come to pass. Then I watch it [...]

by Dave Mondy
I don’t idolize pig parts and I don’t own a Kiss the Cook apron. I don’t search for secret spices. Which is to say, I’m no barbeque fanatic; I came to Memphis for the music, not messy meals.
But after giving a dollar to a homeless man, I asked, “Where’s a good [...]

by Celeste Brash
Mama Rose impaled the coconut onto the wooden spike making a tear in the husk. Self-rolled cigarette hanging out the corner of her mouth, she continued with ease, lifting, turning and thrusting the coconut on the spike till the husk fell away. Inside was a newborn, white nut with brown hairs. Picking up [...]