Storytelling
The French City Of Grenoble Wants You To Kill Time With A Short Story
The public plazas in Grenoble, a city in southeastern France, might appear to be a prototypical European panorama of outdoor cafes, people milling about, and picturesque historic architecture. But the city is soon to unleash a handful of vending machines that dispense short stories in an effort to change the way people kill time. Instead of mindlessly checking Twitter moments or playing another round ofCandy Crush, the city’s denizens could be discovering a new story from the publisher Short Édition. The totemic machines are free to use and operate 24 hours a day. Simply decide how long of a story you’d like—one, three, or five minutes—press the corresponding button, grab the print out, and start reading. Currently, there are 600 short stories in the dispensers, which represent...