Radley Balko of reviews Christopher D. Salyers’s Vending Machines: Coined Consumerism in the latest issue of Reason magazine. Balko observes that the anonymity of using a vending machine can make those devices subversive of the conventional standards. I think he’s right. Here’s a bit of his essay:

In his quirky book Vending Machines: Coined Consumerism (Mark Batty), Christopher D. Salyers notes that upon his release from prison, [19th century publisher] Carlisle thought he could skirt laws banning controversial books by constructing a machine that “dropped a customer’s desired book after money was inserted and a dial positioned to a corresponding number.” Carlisle was rearrested anyway, but the liberating potential he saw in the anonymity of automated vending has certainly been validated.

For nearly a century before the Internet put the anonymous consumption of vices literally at the world’s fingertips, vending machines dispensed taboo wares, experiences, and entertainment free from the gaze of prying eyes. Salyers argues that the first vending machines in wide use were the snuff and tobacco boxes in 17th century English taverns, appropriate forerunners to the ubiquitous, plastic-handled cigarette dispensers that populated bars, bowling allies, and restaurants in the second half of the 20th century.

Be it the condom machine in the gas station bathroom, the coin-operated peep show, the pinball craze that prompted a moral panic in the 1940s, truant hoods spending afternoons in smoke-blanketed video game arcades in the 1980s, or the rebellious rock ’n’ roll dispensing jukebox, there has always been a subversive element to coin-operated commerce. Even the Norman Rockwell–celebrated Coca-Cola machine has gone rogue, as public health activists now fault soda and candy—and, in particular, the widespread availability of both through vending machines—for the fattening of American children.

There’s much that’s unique about Wisconsin, but some of that is sad and odd. There’s no better example than that of a man who was convicted of stealing dirty diapers from someone’s home. Dillon Makuski was sentenced to thirty months’ probation and two hundred hours of community service.

A man who broke into someone’s home to steal diapers through a compulsion of some sort should be confined to a hospital for evaluation and treatment.

Afterward, and only afterward, upon release, that service should include working in a laundry.

Wisconsin Man Gets Probation for Stealing Dirty Diapers.

Over at Skunkpost.com (great name!), there’s an Associated Press story entitled, “Food Bloggers Give Restaurants Indigestion.” Bloggers, at least according to the story, are going into restaurants and taking pictures of their meals, thereby sometimes actually eating the meals only after they’ve grown cold, or distracting other patrons. Many restaurants, including upscale ones, have come to welcome the attention blog posts receive:

Chuck Arendt of San Francisco, who writes about food at chuckeats.com and is co-founder of MainPursuit, a travel app publisher, says he understands “no flash” rules, and agrees that people who take photos to an extreme — 20 shots of one dish — can be annoying.

He aims for two to four pictures, taken quickly. But he hesitates before going to a restaurant with a camera ban….

“People should be allowed to take photos; restaurants should not only see it as a compliment, but also a potential word-of-mouth recommendation to 20-30 people on average, and I think it’s in restaurants’ best interests to accommodate them just a bit more, better lighting for example,” Arendt said.

New York City chef Marc Murphy, owner of the restaurants Landmarc and Ditch Plains, welcomes bloggers. He recently ran a “Surfer Sunday” special at the Ditch Plains restaurant and within a day and a half a review and pictures were up on the Web.

“It just gets the word out quicker,” he says. Murphy sees blogs as introducing an egalitarian note to restaurant criticism. “The world’s changing, everybody’s got an opinion,” he said.

Chef David Chang doesn’t allow cameras at his wildly popular Momofuku Ko restaurant in New York. But he says that’s only because the intimate, 12-seater restaurant simply isn’t big enough. “It was intrusive on other guests.”

At his other restaurants, including Ma Peche, there’s more space and he doesn’t object to cameras.

I’ve yet to see this happen here in Wisconsin, but perhaps in big cities, this happens every so often. I can see how it might be disruptive in a proper restaurant. It’s not something that I would ever consider while at table. For me, a meal is for those enjoying it together, there and then.

Having said that, I did something related recently while in a trendy market in Wisconsin. While shopping for produce, I saw some interesting peppers, that I enjoy, and decided to snap a picture of them with my phone’s camera. (I don’t think this is like photographing one’s own meal, by the way; there’s a lot of bustle in a market, and a meal is a far different experience from simple shopping.)

It took only a moment for an employee of the market to notice me, though, and a supervisor quickly came by to ask, very politely, how she might be of help to me. I was prepared for that possibility, and if she had asked me to stop, I would have done so. Instead, she was more interested, I think, in why I wanted to photograph some peppers.

The market has a notably talkative supervisor of their cheeses, almost a cheese master in his enthusiasm, and I decided to adopt his approach and delivery. The supervisor who confronted me — however subtly — was soon put at ease, deciding that I was neither some sort of inspector nor irritated patron. She talked to me for a bit, about different selections in her produce section, and made a few recommendations.

I was able to keep my photos without incident.

Here, by the way, is one of the photos that I took, of delicious peppers from South Africa: