Headphones are often criticized as one of the fastest ways to close yourself off to a culture. The bell of the rickshaw about to run you over is no match for speakers in your ear blasting, well, anything. However, if you're going to trade local sounds for an MP3, why not expand your knowledge of...

Growing up, Eliot Stein wanted to be a cowboy, Michael Jordan and a shepherd (in that order). One year, his father gave his brother and him a journal and told them their summer homework was to write a page a day until school began. Soon, Eliot wanted to combine the journal-style writing he had grown...