'The Newsroom' Season 3 Trailer Shows Sorkin's Take On The Boston Bombing

October 3, 2014, 12:48 pm

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"We don't do good TV. We do the news," might as well be the slogan for "The Newsroom" Season 3. A new trailer, which originally debuted at TVLine, reveals that Aaron Sorkin will take on the Boston Marathon bombings -- "social media's gonna solve this crime!" -- and a Wikileaks-type scandal.

"The Newsroom" returns for six episodes Sunday, Nov. 9 on HBO.

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What Happens When Everyone's On Their Phone At A Party: The Musical

October 3, 2014, 12:56 pm

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It's a tough world to navigate out there. And millennials have their own unique set of problems. Like when you go to a party and there's no one to talk to, because everyone is on their f--king phone. Don't you sometimes just want to chuck that piece of tech against a wall?

Check out this musical parody from Honora Talbott about the plight of the millennial at a party full of phones.

The 'Gone With The Wind' House Is Finally Getting The TLC It Deserves

October 3, 2014, 1:28 pm

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Long before Peter Bonner created his "Historical And Hysterical Tours" in Jonesboro, Georgia, he was simply a guide sharing Civil War stories for tips. These days, those stories that he says "saved him" haven't just led him into a career -- they've led him to Tara.

Known more commonly as the house from "Gone With The Wind," Tara has become the reason that Bonner drops character for a few hours a week and hunkers down in a dairy barn about 30 miles outside of Atlanta, he told HuffPost Home via phone. The facade of the iconic plantation made its way from California's Selznick Studio Lot years ago, and is being restored by Bonner in the barn.


The tall window that stood in the background behind Scarlett and the Tarleton twins at the beginning of the movie.

Originally dissembled and moved from Hollywood in the late 1950s/early 1960s, Tara was sent to Atlanta where it was intended to become the centerpiece of a museum. Instead, it sat in a barn until the famous hostess Betty Talmadge opted to purchase it. She faced the same disappointing fate of the previous owner who tried to revive interest in Tara, though now in Bonner's hands through a deal with the family, things appear to be looking up.

"We came to an agreement and I'm doing it out of my pocket -- just me and my Home Depot credit card," he joked. "We started cleaning the place up, and now it's just a never-ending puzzle."

Pieces of the puzzle include the cathedral window where Scarlett discusses the war with the Tarleton twins, the porch where Melanie Hamilton sits with Confederate soldiers and other set elements straight from cinema history. Just don't tell him to pick a favorite.

"You're asking me which child I like the most," he laughed. And seeing as none of his "children" come with instructions, just "ghosts" or marks of assemblies past, Bonner is in no rush to complete the project. "It's real labor intensive and a project like this could just kill you, so I learned something -- the barn could burn down tomorrow so I'm not going to get all crazy. It's reminded me that sometimes you take things like you eat an elephant, one bite at a time."


The steps from the right side porch where Mellie sat and talked with the soldiers who were eating. These are made with manmade knotholes.

But if the "elephant" is completed, Bonner envisions it to be a bit different from the movie set, considering he is working with pieces of the facade and not an entire home structure. In that regard, he's hoping to display the pieces in the barn and show off the "pretty amazing" workmanship involved in their creation. He's even taking time to keep track of his progress on his Facebook page, "Saving Tara" and has already written a book titled "The Official Guide To The Saving Tara Site," all in the good name of telling the story.

So how will his story conclude?

"One day, sure, it will be great to build a replica of the Tara facade, but this is all being displayed as art right now," Bonner said. "And every day I walk in and get to stand next to this window with shutters and it's the same window that [actors] Vivian Leigh and Fred Crane stood in front of, and that's pretty cool to me."


A row of windows from the front of Tara's left side waiting to be placed in flats (cradles) to better secure them before being stood up on display.

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Are you an architect, designer or blogger and would like to get your work seen on HuffPost Home? Reach out to us at homesubmissions@huffingtonpost.com with the subject line "Project submission." (All PR pitches sent to this address will be ignored.)

Gwyneth Paltrow Turns Heads At The Premiere Of Blythe Danner's Broadway Play

October 3, 2014, 1:38 pm

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Gwyneth Paltrow put a trendy twist on the little black dress when she opted for a black crop top and matching lace skirt at the Broadway premiere of "The Country House" in New York on Thursday.

The actress completed the all-black attire with a pair of black satin pumps:



Paltrow, who turned 42 last week, attended the premiere to show support for her mom, Blythe Danner, who stars in the play. The adorable mother-daughter duo shared a precious moment backstage together after the show:



These two have been hitting the red carpet together for years now. Here they are in 1985, at an event at Studio 54 in New York:

'El Libertador' Star On Why Every American Should Know Simón Bolívar's Story

October 3, 2014, 2:19 pm

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General Simón Bolívar is one of the Americas' greatest revolutionary heroes, but you won't find elaborate accounts of his feats and ideologies in U.S. history books.

The Venezuelan-born aristocrat, who lived from 1783 to 1830, is perhaps the single most important military strategist in the history of Latin America. Bolívar played a role in allowing present-day Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru and parts of Bolivia to gain their independence from the Spanish Empire. He later became a political leader who dreamed of a unified Latin America. He was known as "The Liberator," a title that Venezuelan director Alberto Arvelo borrowed last year for his biopic based on Bolívar's exploits in the Americas.

"The Liberator" was released in Venezuela earlier this year, and opened in limited release in the U.S. on Friday. Venezuelan actor Édgar Ramírez ("Zero Dark Thirty," "Clash of the Titans"), who stars as the iconic leader, spoke to The Huffington Post about why every American should know Simón Bolívar's story, and why Arvelo's film strays from the historically accepted account of Bolívar's death.

The Spanish-language movie features the lush landscapes of Venezuela, with panoramic shots of the Canaima National Park, Choroní Beach and the Andes. Much of the filming also took place in colonial towns in Spain. The screenplay was written by Timothy J. Sexton ("Children Of Men"), and acclaimed Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel, of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, provided the score, marking his first work for film.

"The Liberator," one of the largest and most expensive independent productions ever to come out of South America, is also Venezuela's official Oscar submission for this year.

Take a look at what Ramírez, who also executive produced the project, said about the film.



The film starts with this text:

Simón Bolívar fought over 100 battles against the Spanish Empire in South America. He rode over 70,000 miles on horseback. His military campaigns covered twice the territory of Alexander the Great. His army never conquered -- it liberated.

Simón Bolívar was clearly a huge figure in the history of the Americas. Why do you think it's taken so long to make a film of this magnitude based on his life?

I think it's due to different factors. A major one is that Bolívar's army, as we say at the beginning of the film, covered an area that was geographically huge. You have to consider that the distance between Caracas and Potosí in Bolivia could be equivalent to the area between Mongolia and France. They are enormous distances, [which] Bolívar covered at least four times in his lifetime and by horse ... Obviously to be able to have that on film, and try to capture the scale and [the] spectacular trip that they made during those years, you had to find a way to mature the industry in Latin America and find the resources to tell that story.

On the other hand, Bolívar has always been a figure that, even while alive, had already become a legend. And obviously, humanizing, exploring and dismantling the myths takes time.

He is definitely regarded as mythical. Was the film's goal to portray Simón Bolívar the man, or Simón Bolívar the hero?

I think that also took time -- trying to dismantle the myth and tell a story in which we could explore the more personal aspects of the man that Bolívar could have been, behind the myth. Basically, the movie doesn't try to be a photograph. It's impossible to be a photograph, because there are no photographs of Bolívar, there are no records, no records of audio, no record of video. The only thing we have are his letters, but no one talks like they write. Right? The written language is different than the spoken language.

In the end, biopics don't mimic. A biopic evokes. This film is the evocation of the humanity that could have been behind the legend of Simón Bolívar. That's how I see it as an actor, anyway. And I also base it on my previous experiences portraying characters from the past and that still exist, like [Venezuelan terrorist] Carlos the Jackal and recently [Panamanian boxer] Roberto Duran, who are alive. There are videos of them, there are records. With Bolívar it was a work of complete imagination and empathy, and trying to put myself in the shoes of a 19th-century man trying to change his world.

So how did you go about figuring out who Bolívar the man could have been?

There is one thing that most historical accounts and biographies agree on, and that's that he was a very impulsive man. He was guided by impulses and passions and he himself would say his impulsiveness was one of his greatest virtues and at the same time a flaw. It was a characteristic in his personality that led him to take risks that would have been, and truly were, unthinkable for any man of his time. So I tried to rely on impulse when I was interpreting the character, trying not to think too much about the scenes or the texts or the camera angles and just let myself be guided by empathy.



Apart from figuring out those personal intricacies that could have shaped Bolívar as a man, what was another struggle you had during filming?

This film is told from the point of view of Bolívar, which meant that as an actor I had to be in every single one of the movie's scenes, which was an interesting challenge from the narrative point of view. I mean, for over five months I was living in the 19th century. I slept five or six hours [a night], and the rest of the time I was filming 14 hours a day with four layers of clothing and seven people always around holding my sword and my cape and taking care of my horse.

In the end it was a script, as I was saying, that was written from the point of view of Bolívar. It attempts to be a fictional approximation. We are not a documentary by any means, or a history lesson. A history lesson wasn't the intention of the film, and personally I don't think it should be the film's objective.

(Caution: Spoilers follow.)

On that note, something that did catch my attention was Bolívar's death. The historically accepted version of his death is that after his 1928 assassination attempt and fall-off in political popularity, he died in Santa Marta from tuberculosis before he could set sail to Europe to live out his days. But in the film, his death is portrayed very differently. While there is mention of the tuberculosis, the film delves into the theory that Bolívar was actually assassinated by his enemies in Nueva Granada and his illness was just a cover-up.

The assassination theory was made most popular by the late President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who had Bolívar's body exhumed in 2010 to find evidence. The results of the exhumation, however, were inconclusive. So I'm just curious as to why the film decided to present this version of his death.

Well, I think while talking to Timothy Sexton, who wrote the screenplay, he defended the option of having an ending that was much more open and somehow maintained the [audience's] attention until the last moment and left the viewer hanging in a type of vortex of emotions. I think that this ending is stronger, more climactic, more provocative and more dramatic, like cinema tends to be.

In reality, in the end, the film doesn't tell you how Bolívar died. The film opens a spectrum of possibilities so that the viewer can be moved emotionally and can decide for him or herself ... It's also a film about the life of Bolívar, not the death of Bolívar. So the decision about the film's ending was made from a creative standpoint.

What's something you took away from the film about this period in Latin American history?

We filmed for five weeks in Venezuela and approximately 10 weeks in Spain. Obviously it sounds ironic and contradictory to film a movie about Simón Bolívar in Spain, but in the end, you realize that the Latin American independence wars were really one big civil war within the Spanish Empire. We can't forget that Bolívar, [Francisco] Santander, [José de] San Martín and all of them were born in Spain [...] so it's about recognizing that. Very few Spaniards are aware of that. I wasn't aware of that. And through this film we began to become aware of it, that it was truly a great civil war within the Spanish Empire.

The movie was released in Venezuela a few weeks ago, but it's just arriving in the U.S. now. What do you hope a U.S. audience can take away from the film?

It would be interesting if they become interested in finding out more about who Simón Bolívar was -- and through that, gain a better understanding of the historical process that not only Latin America went through, but the entire American continent. There is one thing that isn't often taught to us in Latin America or here in North America, and that's how deeply interconnected and related the independence [wars] on both sides of the Rio Grande were.

I mean, in the end, Washington and Jefferson's generation, Bolívar's generation and later Lincoln's generation were all interconnected. The ideas that brought about the American Revolution, then the French and later the Latin American revolutions, were all connected ... It was approximately three generations of incredibly brilliant men who dreamed of a new world and created it, some one way and others another. But the status quo of this entire continent changed.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Beast Jesus Reappears -- This Time In Japanese Pastry

October 3, 2014, 3:50 pm

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The infamous "Beast Jesus" is ba-a-a-ck, only this time it's in a Japanese pastry.

Or so says a Twitter user in Japan known as @atahuta_, who said he recently sat down to enjoy a green tea roll at a Japanese coffeehouse.

Just as he was about to chow down, he noticed the snack looked a lot like "Beast Jesus," the infamous botched restoration of "Ecce Homo," a 1930 fresco by Elias Garcia Martinez.

コメダ珈琲の抹茶ロール、何かに似てるとおもったらコイツだな pic.twitter.com/xNICgHpDdq

— atahuta（無職） (@atahuta_) September 30, 2014

The "Beast Jesus" first came to the attention of the world in August, 2012, when octogenarian Cecilia Gimenez tried to restore "Ecce Homo," and unwittingly turned the painting of Jesus into something that looked more like Cornelius from the "Planet Of The Apes" movies.



The so-called "restored" painting became known as "Beast Jesus" and spawned an Interest craze and this Halloween costume.

In fact, Gimenez actually profited from the woeful artwork by agreeing to a merchandising deal that would put the face of her Jesus creature on t-shirts, dishes, postcards and more.

No word on what Gimenez might think of the "Beast Jesus" pastry, but since it was apparently unintentional, the coffee house probably isn't obligated to pay royalties.




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Miranda July Designed A Purse And It's Everything You Hoped It Would Be

October 3, 2014, 5:50 pm

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Writer slash performance artist slash filmmaker slash app developer Miranda July is now also a fashion designer. She recently collaborated with leather goods brands Welcome Companions on a new bag, titled "The Miranda." The portable satchel is a chic, red leather number which, in typical Miranda July fashion, is totally cute and normal.

Just kidding! It's basically a piece of moveable art, obviously. The unassuming bag doubles as a survival kit for all the needs of a lady millennial on the go. There's a miniature nightie for sleeping in a strange bed, a bottle of Calm SR homeopathic pills, a single almond for low blood sugar and a USB flash drive labeled "Ultra Top Secret Projects."

There's also a collection of "multi-purpose cards" that may or may not be well received in real-world scenarios. One alerts shopkeepers you're allowed one free item from the store, while another politely requests more lubricant.

"Although it is often the exterior of the handbag that we notice,” Welcome Companion designer explained to The New York Times, "it’s also interesting to have the interior be a public part of identity."

She added: "your stuff is also a kind of companion."

July works her magic in the video above, explaining the various tricks up her little bag's sleeve, and thus continuing to bridge the gap between art and life. The avant-garde accessory toys with the notion of needing a consumer good, placing a literal survival kit within it.

For more of July's recent enchanted inventions, we direct you to "Somebody," her new social messaging app that turns the world into a performance piece.

h/t psfk

10 Eerily Adorable GIFs That Will Make You Feel Like A Kid Before Bedtime

October 3, 2014, 5:50 pm

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Back when you were ending your long days by being tucked into bed and read a bedtime story, do you remember feeling so moved by the illustrations that graced the pages that they seemed to jump off the page and come to life?

For kids living in this technologically enhanced age, there's a GIF for that.

(Vladimir Stankovic)

Serbia-born, Denmark-based artist Vladimir Stankovic crafts enchanting GIFs that don't just capture entire stories in each frame, but entire worlds. Mushrooms with nine eyes and spindly fingers interact with glowing aliens and woodland critter hybrids. The images, reminiscent of creepy-cute artists like Gary Baseman and Mark Ryden, channel an otherworldly sense of mystery inspired by mother nature and what lies beyond it.

(Vladimir Stankovic)

"In my work I try to combine my love and passion towards illustration and graphic design, with the use of both traditional and digital mediums," he explains on his website. "My inspiration comes from science and nature on one hand, and fantasy, fairy tales and all sorts of mysteries on the other."

Get lost in Stankovic's fantastical GIFs below and head to his "Between Worlds" page to see more.

(Vladimir Stankovic)

(Vladimir Stankovic)

(Vladimir Stankovic)

(Vladimir Stankovic)

(Vladimir Stankovic)

(Vladimir Stankovic)

(Vladimir Stankovic)

(Vladimir Stankovic)

(Vladimir Stankovic)

For more of Stankovic's GIF beauty, check out his mollusk-themed series below.

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Behold, The Many Faces of Texas

October 3, 2014, 5:50 pm

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This post originally appeared on Slate.
By Jordan G. Teicher

The first time Michael O’Brien set foot on Texas soil—in 1982 for a Life magazine assignment—it felt like home. In the decades since, he’s been to every part of the state and met a wide variety of people, including celebrities, politicians, and everyday citizens.



In an updated and expanded edition of his book, The Face of Texas, out from University of Texas Press this month, O’Brien celebrates the state’s “individuality and independent sprit” through portraits of its residents. For readers from the Lone Star State and beyond, O’Brien hopes his book illustrates that Texas is “a country, a place, unto itself” with a unique and diverse culture.

O’Brien was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1989, he got an assignment to photograph a cover story for National Geographic on Austin, Texas. He made several trips during that year, and every time he went back to Texas “it felt like I was slipping back into a comfortable, well-worn pair of shoes. In 1993, I just decided to keep the shoes on all the time,” he said.

O’Brien finds “a commonality in the shared humanity” of all his subjects, whether they’re nationally known figures like George W. Bush, or lesser-known Texans, like George Dawson, the grandson of slaves, who, at 102 years old, wrote his first book after having learned to read at 89. “The trick was to take memorable photographs and string them together so that as you thumb through the pages you get a rough, bumpy, mosaic of the state,” he said.

See more photos on Slate.

How Do You Build A Gay Art Museum? Hunter O'Hanian On The History Of Leslie-Lohman

October 3, 2014, 5:51 pm

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On Huff Post Arts&Culture, we spend a lot of time spotlighting amazing artists -- new and old. Every once in a while, we like to profile a museum or institution doing good in the art world. This is one of them.


James Bidgood, Willow Tree (Bruce Kirkman), mid-1960s, Digital C-print, 19.688 x 15.438 in. Foundation Purchase.

"We have so many histories," Hunter O'Hanian explained to me in a recent chat. I had asked him to give me the abridged history of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, the institution for which he currently serves as director. Indeed, the museum cites more than a few birthdays on its website -- one in 1969, when Charles Leslie and the late Fritz Lohman opened their home to art enthusiasts, one in 1987, and another in 2011. O'Hanian clarified:

"We officially started in 1987, when people were dying of AIDS. Families would come in and throw everything away -- throw away the gay art. It was obviously a terrible time, the '80s in New York City. So Charles and Fritz, who lived in SoHo, decided that they wanted to do something about it." The co-founders were already a large part of gay culture, O'Hanian explained, having welcomed 200 people to their first exhibition years before. Realizing that the art created by their friends and peers was being disposed of at a rapid pace, the two decided to set up a non-profit corporation to preserve and exhibit the works of art that spoke to the gay and lesbian community.


Peter Hujar, Ethyl Eichelberger as Auntie Belle Emme, 1979, Vintage gelatin silver print, 14.563 x 14.625 in. Gift of the Peter Hujar Archives.

Of course, 25 years ago, the road to setting up a non-profit dedicated to archiving gay history was a bumpy one. It took three years to get their tax exemption. The IRS was not happy about the word "gay" in the title, and it wasn't until 1990 that the organization's lawyers won their battle. Happily nestled at 127 Prince Street, the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation, Inc. functioned as a safe haven for work that was otherwise going to be destroyed. Those works piled in. By the time the organization transitioned to the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in 2011, it had collected over 24,000 pieces.

"From 1990 to 2010, over the course of 20 years, [Leslie and Lohman] did exhibitions, supported gay artists, and showed work that other galleries wouldn’t necessarily show. Some of it was erotic, some intuitive." They added board members, moved to a 1,800-square-foot exhibition space, began acquiring new artworks and hired O'Hanian in 2012. With a provisional charter -- the organization is set to achieve official museum status in 2016 -- Leslie and Lohman's legacy began mounting six to eight shows a year. This year the museum is expecting 30,000 visitors.


Alexander Kargaltsev, Black and White, 2014, Archival digital C-Print print, 19.938 x 29.938 in. Gift of the artist.

The museum now runs under a guest curator model. Individuals submit proposals for exhibitions to the museum's committee, and O'Hanian guides the chosen submissions to fruition. At first, this made sense for the budget, but it also gives the museum an edge on perspectives. "We weren't quite ready to have a single voice, so we have multiple voices."

Those multiple voices have launched exhibitions like "Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community" (curated by John Chaich), "STROKE: From Under the Mattress to the Museum Walls" curated by Robert W. Richards, and "After Our Bodies Meet: From Resistance to Potentiality" (curated by Alexis Heller). Aside from the shows, O'Hanian's team has built up a stunning permanent collection, one that includes pieces by the likes of David Hockney, Robert Indiana and Peter Hujar. They've borrowed works from the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress, and now they're lending too. From a 60's loft to a Wooster Street staple, Leslie-Lohman has been blossoming for over four decades.


David Hockney, Two Boys aged 23 or 24 from: Fourteen Poems from C.P. Cavafy, 1966, Etching and aquatint on wove paper, 13.75 x 8.75 in. Foundation purchase with funds provided by Ray Warman and Dan Kiser.

Still, O'Hanian sees potential for growth. "What we hope that we can do -- and what we care a great deal about -- is treat and deal with issues of gender and sex in a professional museum setting that is done in a straight forward and honest manner. So that other museums have the courage to do so."

The art landscape is obviously much different than when Leslie and Lohman began collecting -- in terms of sexual and gender representation and the scale of the art market. But the traditional aspects of the art world persist. "My general overarching perception of the art world is that it tends to be relatively traditional based upon the fact that it's commerce related. With commerce comes caution." Even in Provincetown, O'Hanian's home before New York City, traditional landscapes reign supreme. "Stuff pops up here and there, but they're not taking as many risks as they can."


Berenice Abbott, Margaret Anderson, ca. 1923-26, Silver gelatin print, 13 x 10 in. Foundation purchase with funds provided by Alix L.L. Ritchie and Marty Davis.

Leslie-Lohman's mission statement prioritizes a desire to exhibit and preserve art that speaks directly to the many aspects of the LGBTQ experience. That includes the transgender experience. "We’re definitely expounding our mission, and we definitely have a strong desire to be inclusive as we can be, involving other underrepresented communities. It's non-heternormative core of who we are."

"An international aspect is also very big for us," he added.


Dyke Action Machine (DAM), Do you love the dyke in your life, 1995, Processed ink on paper, 8 x 8 in. Foundation Purchase.

This month, the museum will reach another milestone of sorts. The exhibition "Classical Nudes and the Making of Queer History" will show off a piece by none other than Michelangelo Buonarroti, of "Pieta" and "David" fame. Curated by Jonathan David Katz, the collection places the nude at the center of early same-sex representation in art, reexamining the visual meaning of early queer history. For Leslie-Lohman curators, and O'Hanian, the question of what makes a work gay, whether it's been crafted by Michelangelo or an outsider artist, never ends.

"It’s really interesting," O'Hanian mused at the end of our interview. "On the one hand, you know a work is gay when you see it. On the other hand, we're talking about artists and people who have just been marginalized, and they often still live within a marginalized community. At the then end of the day, what is the artist’s intent? What do they want to convey in making that particular piece of art? I am directed more, than by anything else, by wants and desires and understanding."


Ingo Swann, Male Love - Not War, n.d., Collage, 11 x 16.5 in. Gift of the Ingo Swann Estate.

The images includes in this post depict artworks from "Permanency: Selections from the Permanent Collection." On view starting October 18 will be "Classical Nudes and the Making of Queer History." Stay tuned for more that exhibition to come.


Robert Indiana, FÜR K.V.F., 1990, Color screenprint on Rives BFK, 40 x 30 in. Foundation purchase with funds provided by Louis Wiley, Jr.

This Guy's One-Man Duet As Freddie Mercury AND Pavarotti Will Give You Goosebumps

October 3, 2014, 5:52 pm

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Freddie Mercury, frontman of the British rock band Queen, and Luciano Pavarotti, the Italian operatic tenor, were two of the greatest singers of the 20th century.

And now, thanks to the vocal prowess of singer Marc Martel, you can hear what it would sound like if those two powerhouses sang a duet together.

In a goosebump-inducing video, Martel impersonates both Pavarotti and Mercury, singing a one-man duet of “Nessun Dorma,” an aria from Giacomo Puccini's opera “Turandot."

Incredibly, Martel says that the video was shot in just one take. “This is one continuous performance from start to finish, shot in one take, using two cameras,” he wrote in the YouTube video description.

“Martel's singing is enough to wow me, but the fact that this video was done in a single take is breathtaking,” one YouTuber said of the feat.

“Truly remarkable,” said another.

Watch the performance for yourself in the video above.

H/T Tastefully Offensive

Let These Photos Take You Inside The Hong Kong Protests

October 4, 2014, 8:02 am

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Hong Kong's pro-democracy protesters are savvy social-media users. Images of the crowds taking over the city streets this week have been shared around the world, sparking rallies of support from Manila to Los Angeles.

Powerful portraits of the protest movement have been shared on the photo-sharing app EyeEm, documenting some of the people and places behind the mass push for greater freedoms from Beijing.

Protesters in Hong Kong are demanding the right to choose their political leader in the 2017 elections without interference from Beijing. The demonstrations swelled last weekend after riot police used tear gas on the crowds. After a tense standoff this week, counter-protesters stormed the sit-ins on Friday. The future of the protest movement remains unclear.

Here is a selection of the stunning images from the historic protests, part of EyeEm's gallery from Hong Kong.

'Faces Of Faith' Explores Religious Perceptions Of LGBT People In Uganda

October 4, 2014, 8:57 am

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When we talk about the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Uganda, it tends to always be in terms of religion-based oppression, violence and murder.

However, are the voices that often rise to the top when same-sex attraction in Uganda is discussed truely representative of religious leaders as a whole in this African nation? This is the question documentary photographer Daniella Zalcman sought to explore through her new portrait series "Faces of Faith."

Zalcman's previous feature on HuffPost Gay Voices, titled "Double Lives," elevated the images of activists working tirelessly in Uganda to change perceptions surrounding LGBT identity. The photographer notes that while not many (if any) religious ledaers in the East African country will vocally support rights for queer individuals, it's important to understand that not everyone shares the sentiment of some of the country's most vocal anti-LGBT voices.

The Huffington Post chatted with Zalcman about this last week.



The Huffington Post: How did the project come about?
Daniella Zalcman: I've spent more than three years documenting the LGBT rights movement in Uganda, focused entirely on the dedicated community of activists who have been fighting so hard to challenge anti-gay legislation and widespread homophobia in their country. On Aug. 1 of this year, Uganda's Constitutional Court struck down the infamous Anti-Homosexuality Act on a procedural technicality. I went back to Kampala immediately, and tried to figure out what the next chapter was in this story.

While it's critical that the law has been declared unconstitutional, many activists argue that the real struggle is in figuring out how to shift public opinion, which is decidedly homophobic; 96 percent of Ugandans say they don’t support sexual minorities. And it seems like the origins of that sentiment are based in ideologies supported and transmitted by religious institutions. Many of the fiercest proponents of the Anti-Homosexuality Act are members of the clergy, and a speech delivered to Ugandan Parliament by American evangelical activist Scott Lively is thought to be what prompted MP David Bahati to author the first iteration of the anti-gay bill in 2009. This series is an attempt to identify and engage with the root of homophobia in Uganda.



The Huffington Post: Why did you want to highlight anti-LGBT subjects?
Uganda is both an incredibly religious country and an incredibly religiously diverse country. While the majority of the population is Catholic or Church of Uganda (Anglican), American-style evangelism is growing in popularity and there are significant numbers of Muslims and Hindus as well.

But when Western media outlets report on the latest update from Uganda, we only ever hear from a small group of militantly anti-gay pastors, usually Evangelical, who don’t really represent the full scope of religious thought and leadership in Kampala. I’m not claiming that there are many Ugandan pastors and priests who support the LGBT rights movement (one bishop who famously stood up for LGBT rights was rapidly excommunicated by the Church of Uganda), but from my interviews it’s clear that many of them are much more thoughtful and measured in their discussions of sexual and gender identity than we’re led to believe. With this series, I hope that I’ve created a more thorough and accurate cross-section of what Ugandans hear in their places of worship every week.



The Huffington Post: What do you hope viewers take away from this project?
I think that these perspectives are vital to the evolution of the LGBT rights movement. They are beliefs that are widely held -- not just in Uganda, and not just in the 80-odd countries worldwide that criminalize homosexuality, but throughout the Western world as well. On some level, humans are programmed to avoid cognitive dissonance -- we surround ourselves with news and opinions that tend to reinforce our own views because it’s more comfortable than trying to reconcile conflicting ideas. More than anything, I hope this work encourages people to start a conversation.

See more images from the series below and for more from Daniella Zalcman, visit her official website here. Zalcman's reporting was supported by a grant from The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

'Dick: The Documentary' Explores The 'Physical And Emotional' Relationship Men Have With Their Penis (NSFW)

October 4, 2014, 10:26 am

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Ben Affleck made headlines after announcing that he'd appear fully nude in "Gone Girl," one of this season's most hotly-anticipated new movies.

While viewers have so far been divided as to whether or not Affleck's full-frontal scene lives up to the hype, the actor's proclamation once again sparked a conversation over why male genitalia continues to be such a taboo, not just in Hollywood but also society at large.

Filmmaker Brian Fender aims to explore this dilemma, as well as others in regard to male sexuality, in "Dick: The Documentary." For the film, Fender interviewed 63 men, between the ages of 22-82, who stripped nude and revealed themselves "physically and emotionally" through personal stories about their relationship to their penises.

Directed by Fender and produced by Chiemi Karasawa ("Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me"), the resulting documentary is billed as "a revealing and candid exploration of an unspoken 'member' of modern society," the penis.

Fender revealed his inspiration for the new movie, and shared his thoughts on why male sexuality, in an interview with The Huffington Post. Check out a clip from the movie above (WARNING: NSFW) and check out what he had to say below.

The Huffington Post: Where were you when you first got the inspiration for the film?
Brian Fender: I was at an independent filmmaker’s conference (IFP) listening to a symposium on innovative ways to raise money for film. I had just finished an accidental documentary film called “XYQ,” which had started out as a video installation in a gallery show about LGBT youth in St. Louis.

I self-produced the two DVD set and now have about 950 copies in a closet in our Upper West Side apartment. So, I was thinking that for a commercially viable film, it had to be about sex. I am gay man, so obviously I was curious how men were affected by their dicks. I certainly have been affected by other men's dicks.

How do you think finding subjects via Craigslist affected the outcome of the film?
We tried other ways of soliciting people, but Craigslist was the only successful venue. I would have preferred a broader cross section of participants, but what I got was an educated sample of men that thought this was a worthy project and wanted to be a part of it. I only got one creepy guy, who wore a Lone Ranger mask. Even though I met him for coffee to explain my intentions for the film, he still thought I wanted to hook-up.

What was the most surprising thing you learned while making the film?
I found that the men who participated were very thoughtful. I didn’t get any sexist thugs, which I was kind of disappointed about. I assume that men who are more conservative and judge sexual expression beyond the heterosexual paradigm -- and would probably call these men, myself included, a pervert -- would, I imagine, have less healthy sexual attitudes and feel threatened by the questions this film asks. But as educated as my subjects were, many of them told me that this was the first time they had said these things out loud and that they found it cathartic. I had also wanted to talk about using your dick as a weapon, but I got the feeling from these men that they weren't sexually aggressive. The one thing that is funny is that there isn't a glimmer of consensus about the dick. The opinions are as varied as the penises themselves.

Though the phallus rules all, the sight of a penis is still a taboo thing in many respects. Why do you think that is?
The reason why the phallus is so taboo with men is homophobia. If I freely look at another man's penis, am I gay? What if I get turned on? For women it is the member that can make them a "whore." If they admit to loving dick and look at dicks freely what does that mean about them? We are all conditioned harshly to not even consider men's penises except in a humorous context or porn.

The truth is: most people love dick. Most men love their own, most women love them, and gay men are obsessed with them. That's why I wanted to confront the audience with all of these penises in an innocuous setting. After about five minutes it just becomes a non-threatening appendage and people start making the bodies into faces. I think at some level, a large majority of people in this country think the human body is shameful.

What do you hope viewers take away from the film?
I hope it opens up a dialogue about sexuality in general.

My unrealistic hope is that people will start talking to their kids about sexuality while they are young: letting them know it is a gift that they should cherish and care for and that when they want to act on their sexuality, they should be responsible. But that's too rational for most religious people, so they will distort their boy’s minds through guilt and shame and create sexually immature men who abuse women and children because they don't how to express their sexuality appropriately. Sexual abuse is an epidemic; we have to do something different.

Check out more on "Dick: The Documentary" here.

8 Things You Need To Know About 'Inherent Vice' Right Now

October 4, 2014, 6:01 pm

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"Inherent Vice" made its debut at the New York Film Festival on Saturday, the culmination of a week that included an in-depth interview director Paul Thomas Anderson gave to the New York Times and the premiere of the film's trailer. Based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Pynchon, and marking the first-ever screen adaptation of the author's work, Anderson's latest is a shaggy dog detective story that pushes stoner cinema to its limit; the smoke budget on this one might have reached six figures.

Sure to draw comparisons to "The Big Lebowski" and "The Long Goodbye," "Inherent Vice" still feels wholly of Anderson's oeuvre: as with "Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia" before it, "Inherent Vice" is about a family of misfit toys trying to make sense of an increasingly nonsensical world. It's a technical marvel, too: Jonny Greenwood's score is impeccable (and greatly different from his heavier work in "There Will Be Blood" and "The Master") and Robert Elswit's lush, cloudy cinematography is some of the year's best.

There's a plot, but it's as opaque as a brick wall. Joaquin Phoenix stars as Larry "Doc" Sportello, a drug-addled private investigator searching for a missing real estate mogul (Eric Roberts) and his mistress, who also happens to be Doc's former girlfriend (Katherine Waterston). Along the way, Doc interacts with, among others, a saxophone player who faked his death (Owen Wilson), a dentist hopped up on drugs (Martin Short) and a police detective named Bigfoot who moonlights as an extra on shows like "Adam-12" (Josh Brolin). "Inherent Vice" is so sprawling that Anderson even has room for Joel from "Parenthood," Jonah from "Veep," narration from Joanna Newsom and what amounts to an extended cameo from Reese Witherspoon. This is a movie, one that may divide audiences when it arrives in limited release on Dec. 12 because it's so inscrutable. (A nationwide bow follows on Jan. 9, 2015.)

Following the film's first press screening at the New York Film Festival, Anderson, Phoenix, Waterston, Short, Newsom, Wilson, Benicio Del Toro, Michael K. Williams, Maya Rudolph, Hong Chau, Sasha Pieterse and Jena Malone participated in a press conference about "Inherent Vice." Highlights from the discussion and the film itself are below.

1. "Inherent Vice" is Paul Thomas Anderson's first ensemble movie in 15 years



Anderson's early films were notable because of strong ensembles, but in the years since 1999's "Magnolia" the director has focused on movies with more singular points of view. Not so with "Inherent Vice," which includes almost two dozen significant speaking parts.

"It felt great for the obvious reasons: getting to work with all these people," Anderson said of doing an ensemble again after so many years away. "The only frustrating thing was that for most people it was only two or three days. Which was a drag, because just when you got started and excited, they'd leave."

All except Phoenix, that is, who appears in nearly every scene of the 148-minute feature.

"I was stuck with him," joked Anderson, pointing to the laconic actor.

2. Owen Wilson's outfits were maybe inspired by The Muppets



In his interview with the New York Times, Anderson cited "Airplane!" and "Top Secret" as influences for "Inherent Vice." The Muppets maybe played a part too, at least when it came to Wilson's wardrobe for his character, saxophonist Coy Harlingen.

"Zoot from the Muppets," Anderson joked about Wilson's look for the film. "The saxophone player from The Muppets has the hat and those glasses." (For the record, Wilson also noted that Dennis Wilson from The Beach Boys was a sartorial inspiration for Coy.)

3. The plot owes as much to Howard Hawks as it does to Thomas Pynchon



"I saw 'The Big Sleep' and it made me realize that I couldn't follow any of it and it didn't matter because I wanted to see what was going to happen next anyway," Anderson said of Hawks' 1946 adaptation of Raymond Chandler's noir novel. "That was a good model to go on. Throw that stuff out."

4. Martin Short might have the film's best shot at an Oscar nomination



Before the film's premiere, some Oscar prognosticators had listed Josh Brolin as a possible Best Supporting Actor contender from "Inherent Vice." But as it turns out, Martin Short might be the film's best hope. The 64-year-old's manic comedic performance is a jolt of energy to the proceedings, and it could win the hearts and minds of Oscar voters looking to honor Short's lengthy career.

"I loved how many variations we could do," Short said of his experience with Anderson. "It was trying to create as many elements, colors and hues that could help Paul later on when he was putting it together."

It worked. Short hasn't been this lively onscreen in quite some time.

5. Joanna Newsom is one of 2014's best breakout stars



Newsom, a harpist and songwriter by day, narrates "Inherent Vice" like a hazy, ethereal Greek chorus. It's her first screen role, and she acquits herself like a true veteran.

"I had known Joanna a little bit. I loved the way she talked and looked. It was a supporting character in the book -- Doc's best gal pal, who always seemed to know more about things than he did and was right about things. Somewhere along the way, probably just looking to have a good female voice come in, I came up with the idea of trying to do it," Anderson said of the narration.

For Newsom, her screen debut was rewarding and surprising. For instance, her first scene in the film -- and one of the first shots in the movie -- wasn't even supposed to exist.

"I wasn't told that was going to happen," Newsom said about the shot, which finds her framed behind a setting sun. "I don't know if it was an improvised decision Paul made, but it was at the end of a day. I was getting ready to go home, and there was a passage that was intended to be voice over. Paul was like, 'Will you just sit on this picnic table?' We tried it there, then tried it on a lawn. I didn't have it memorized or anything. I messed up a couple of times, and then got it sort of right. I didn't think anything else of it. I was 99 percent sure that would not be in the movie, and it was."

6. Two adjectives that can be used to describe "Inherent Vice" are loose and chaotic



"It was a very loose way of working," Wilson said of making "Inherent Vice," the first time he and Anderson have collaborated on a film together. "We were encouraged to do anything. It was loose and chaotic."

"I thought it was me," Michael K. Williams, who has one scene in "Inherent Vice," said. "Most of my credits are on television where they crack the whip. It's just time, time, time. In this situation, it was like, 'Let's talk about this.' Joaquin was so generous. I came in very intimidated to be invited to this table, to play with such immense talent. I came with a nervous energy and to be put in a situation that was foreign to me."

Williams then turned to Anderson: "I thought you didn't like me," he said to laughter from the crowd. "Although the process was new to me," Williams continued, "I knew I was in good hands."

"I didn't like you!" Anderson joked before expressing dismay. "Aw, no, that makes me feel terrible."

7. There's a "new" Radiohead song in the film



It's technically from 2006, but as Slate points out, the closing credits list "Spooks," performed by Thom Yorke, composer Jonny Greenwood and the rest of Radiohead, as part of the "Inherent Vice" soundtrack. The anachronistic music cue slots in alongside period appropriate songs by Neil Young and Sam Cooke.

8. Joaquin Phoenix is all right



Phoenix gives another layered, confounding and terrific performance in "Inherent Vice" but the notoriously press-shy actor remained all but mute during the press conference. The only words he spoke on Saturday: "No, I'm all right." They were not even on mic.

"Inherent Vice" is out in limited release on Dec. 12.

Film images captured from the official trailer for "Inherent Vice."

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Second Lunar Eclipse Of 2014 To Bring 'Blood Moon' On October 8

October 5, 2014, 6:14 am

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If you've been feeling a strong urge to howl lately, there's a reason why: A full "blood moon" is coming Oct. 8. Just check out the NASA video above.

All werewolf jokes aside, the total lunar eclipse will be the second -- and final -- "blood moon" of the year. It will be visible in the United States and Canada early Wednesday morning, with better viewing for those in the western part of the continent, as indicated in the map below.



The full eclipse will start at 6:25 a.m. EDT and last until 7:24 a.m, according to NASA.

Full lunar eclipses are often called "blood moons" because of the reddish tint they adopt as sunsets and sunrises seen from Earth reflect onto the surface of the moon.

Because this eclipse will happen two days after a lunar perigee, which is the point when the moon is nearest to Earth, NASA says the moon will appear 5.3 percent larger than the previous "blood moon," which occurred on April 15.

This eclipse marks the second in a series of four lunar eclipses in a row, known as a "tetrad." We'll experience just eight tetrads this century, according to the Washington Post, and we won't experience the next tetrad until around 2032 or 2033.

Heavy Metal 'Ducktales' Theme Is Quacking Hardcore

October 5, 2014, 7:07 am

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The theme of the Disney Channel's original series "Ducktales" was basically begging for a heavy metal cover, right?

Well, guitarist Eric Calderone seemed to think so.

Calderone is known among the YouTube community for taking songs by request and recreating them with heavy metal arrangements. So it was only a matter of time before his finger-picking hands got a hold of this action-packed show.

Watch the video above to hear what "Ducktales" would have sounded like if it was not meant for kids. It's pretty hardcore, to say the least.

H/T 331Erock

Maroon 5 Performs 'Animals' & 'Maps' On 'SNL'

October 5, 2014, 7:57 am

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Featured as the musical guest on the second episode of Season 40 of "Saturday Night Live," Adam Levine and those other guys that make up Maroon 5 performed their new single, "Animals." You might recognize this song from its video that was released on Monday, featuring Levine slathered in blood, groping bloody animal carcasses in meat lockers and stalking a woman, drawing heavy criticism from sexual assault support group RAINN.




The band also performed "Maps," the first single off of their most recent album, "V."




"Saturday Night Live" airs on Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC.

After Dark: Meet Lady Bunny, Drag Icon And Wigstock Founder

October 5, 2014, 7:59 am

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This is the twenty-first installment in HuffPost Gay Voices Associate Editor James Nichols' ongoing series "After Dark: NYC Nightlife Today And Days Past" that examines the state of New York nightlife in the modern day, as well as the development and production of nightlife over the past several decades. Each featured individual in this series currently serves as a prominent person in the New York nightlife community or has made important contributions in the past that have sustained long-lasting impacts.

HuffPost Gay Voices believes that it is important and valuable to elevate the work, both today and in the past, of those engaged in the New York nightlife community, especially in an age where queer history seems to be increasingly forgotten. Nightlife not only creates spaces for queers and other marginalized groups to be artistically and authentically celebrated, but the work of those involved in nightlife creates and shapes the future of our culture as a whole. Visit Gay Voices regularly to learn not only about individuals currently making an impact in nightlife, but those whose legacy has previously contributed to the ways we understand queerness, art, identity and human experience today.

The Huffington Post: Talk to me about your experiences in the NYC nightlife scene -- what did your journey to becoming one of the most prominent drag queens in the world entail?
Drugs! Booze! Sex in toilet stalls! It’s largely a blur. A van carted me to NYC in drag to appear at the Pyramid Club as a guest star in RuPaul’s booking there. I became a resident go-go dancer at this drag queen owned-and-operated venue for the next few years. From the Pyramid, I branched out to other clubs and was generally enthralled by the vibrant scene of the time. The music was the best I’d ever heard and that led me to dabble in DJing, a side career which I never dreamt would take me to Tokyo, Morocco, Bangkok and even the club atop the Eiffel Tower. Much of the music that the whole world was dancing do was created by NY DJ/producers like Masters At Work and Def Jam with Frankie Knuckles. And then stars like Deee-Lite, RuPaul, Barbara Tucker, John Cameron Mitchell aka Hedwig, Kevin Aviance and Antony And The Johnsons began to spring from our downtown scene. NYC was creating the underground culture that the whole world was vibing to. I fell in love with all of it!

I grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which was a little dull for me. So when I arrived in the Big Apple, I knew I was home. I basically moved here, decided to call myself the idiotic name Lady Bunny, and am very grateful that people bought my brand of lunacy. It’s enabled me to make a living doing what I love the most. Sometimes I gripe, but I’m always forced to remember that not everyone has a job, much less a job that they love doing. I didn’t say I don’t sometimes get sick of shoving my nuts up my ass and gluing giant wigs on my head as I cram my canned ham-sized feet into fetish pumps -- let’s just say they don’t call me Lady Bunion for nothin’!

Why did you decide to create Wigstock? How did this seminal drag festival develop?
As a child, I always put on silly shows in my backyard for the horrified neighbors. So when I got to the Pyramid and saw all of these wild and wonderful performers, my instinct was to showcase them to a larger audience than the couple of hundred regulars that the Pyramid could hold. Bands would often get permits and “jam” playing screeching death metal in the park all day. Sometimes their masturbatory guitar solos would go on for 15 minutes of ear-splitting crap. I thought surely I could put on a better show than that. The festival was also neighborhood marketing for the Pyramid, where most of the performers came from in it’s early years. The festival got bigger and bigger, attracting stars like Debbie Harry and Boy George who joined the mostly drag queen cast. It got so large that we had to move it to the West Side pier to accommodate the crowds -- especially after "Wigstock: The Movie" came out in 1995. It then rained for two years in a row and we lost a fortune. So we announced one last festival and called it quits. But the festival of wigs and hair pieces didn’t necessarily curl up and dye -- we may have some kind of revival in the future.



What do you think Wigstock represents within the historical narrative of queer history? How do you see it influencing young queers today -- for example, through Bushwig?
If I was introduced 10 years ago as the founder of Wigstock, people would cheer when they heard that word. Now they are more likely to cheer for an emcee saying that I was on "RuPaul’s Drag U." So many younger folks don’t know Wigstock. I also don’t like to rest on my laurels and, while I created something that many enjoyed for two decades, I have a few more tricks up my sequined sleeve. For a certain age group, my claim to fame is that I organized Wigstock. But that age group isn’t going out much now! However, I sense that some young people watch the documentary and feel the strong spirit of community -- not just between transvestites and their bewigged audience -- but between musical artists who graced our festival because they admired or were part of our community. But also the freaky people of NYC who appreciated a drag festival and saw it as an asset to their home and those who visited to experience it. Wearing flawless coiffures, natch! Wigstock was not only a reflection of the vibrant, inventive drag community but of the more bohemian, less expensive NYC of the time. People of all colors and sexual persuasions and musical tastes from rock to house -- we all felt connected somehow and Wigstock was a hipper version of gay pride day for the freakier set.

I only got to see only a couple hours of Bushwig, but it was refreshing to hear no top 40 tunes. Clearly, this crew is looking for something more interesting than typical twink culture and are therefore to be applauded. The emcee was lively and fun but I had to run to work and only caught a few acts. Those were deeply deranged, but so were some of the acts at Wigstock!

How have you seen nightlife change and develop during your decades in the scene? How is it different today?
I’ve seen the rise of the crappy, very undemocratic VIP/bottle service scene. In the old days, if you were fun enough, you didn’t need money to get in or pay for drinks. You could be a great dresser, dancer or a drummer like Fred The Animal who just brought something unique that spiced things up. Fred just showed up at different clubs with his drum kit and played along with the djs. His skills were snapped up for the worldwide smash "I Like To Move It."

I’ve seen gays turn towards garbage pop instead of what gay clubs used to play -- music so good that straight DJs would come to see which records they were breaking to the gay community who were then dance music’s tastemakers. Now we play the same crap that’s on the radio. Rather than asking a genius like Dennis Ferrer, who’s produced worldwide underground dance hits, to play some formulaic Britney and Rihanna, we used to go up to the DJ and ask them what the phenomenal record that they were playing was! We were looking for interesting music -- not just lapping yup whatever we were sold. But that would mean that our ears would have to be open to new music that wasn’t part of the the idiotic hype machine which produces “visual albums” like Beyonce’s last tired offering.

Listen, I’ll take the equal rights for gays, but can we please keep out traditionally better dance music?



I’ve seen the smoking ban and surveillance cameras which halt drug use and in-stall blow jobs make the clubs not only snooty, but less decadent and permissive. They don’t call me the DJ with the bjs for nuthin’! Aah, the Tunnel. And I hate not being able to blame the stench of my wigs on smokers in the club the way I used to!

If you’re on a phone in a club, you’ve lost the plot on how to party. Rather than bring some magic of your own, the idea is for everyone to document everything with devices and then use them to suck the life out of the party and zap it over to the real party -- which is online. You’re only as good as the number of your Twitter followers or likes these days! But this is a reflection of a soulless world where even Obama and Lady Gaga buy Twitter followers. The hottest and biggest club is now online and, sadly, it’s a popularity contest rather than an actual party. I remember when Johnny Dynell and Chi Chi Valente stopped doing their Tuesday night bash Jackie 60. They told me they were going to have a “virtual party” online with their website. I sneered “I can’t drink a virtual drink and I can’t suck a virtual dick, so I have no use for a virtual party.” Turns out that their online site the Motherboards was a precursor of Facebook.

I wish I could think of a few positive developments in clubs. The desperation to get people out and the recession have led to cheap drink specials and reduced cover charges.

Linda Simpson talked about how formative The Pyramid Club was for her, saying that it "was very thrilling back then because it was the world headquarters for an entirely newfangled way of drag... Practically everywhere else drag was dull serious queens in gowns lip syncing to Barbra Streisand. But the Pyramid was kooky and punky postmodernism." How formative was the Pyramid club for you as an artist and performer?
Linda who? KIDDING! Completely formative. I was kooky before I arrived in NYC, but the Pyramid showed me so many different kinds of drag. In Atlanta, where I’d moved from, you’d only see drag queens lip-synching to Tina Turner and Barbra in sequined butterfly tops. Some were sensational, but the Pyramid queens expanded the parameters of what you could do in drag. So you had drag queens singing live, fronting bands or dance troupes, DJing, writing plays and musicals and they were more likely to impersonate Janis Joplin or Mona Lisa than Madonna. My goal in creating Wigstock was to showcase this type of drag to a wider audience because I was so impressed by queens like John Kelly, Ethyl Eichelberger, Jayne County and Lypsinka. One manager of the club had a character named “Jane” who would just fall every few steps and wallow on the floor drunk, crying and impossible to be reasoned with. It was off -- on purpose!

Lypsinka only lip-synchs, but she did it in a way that was art -- combining rare audio clips, costumes and lighting to create entire evenings of glamorous and comedic theater. I love a lip-synch of "And I Am Telling You" -- if it’s by Jennifer Holliday -- as much as the next queen, but Lypsinka truly elevated lip-synching to an art form. We didn’t have the technology to edit sound clips on our computers back then... because we didn’t have computers. Lyp’s soundscapes were meticulously edited in a professional recording studio. So Lypsinka, in particular, influenced me by teaching me to cut up audio -- there’s no need to perform a song as is. And today, medleys are very common in the repertoires of many a queen, including my own. And Ethyl taught me how to put on false eyelashes! There was a feeling that we were all part of a happening -- a magic moment, perhaps, like a very budget Studio 54 complete with it’s own royalty. And even though the Pyramid’s owners might've been passed out drunk or on heroin, they spoiled performers by the excellent sound and lights there. Few clubs, even those with multimillion dollar lighting systems, could replicate the simple but crucial task of lighting up the performer and furnishing them with onstage sound monitors.

I don’t say this often, but Linda Simpson was then “fresh” on the scene and may have missed the Pyramid’s annual Night of 1000 Barbra’s. But far from a slavish diva worship, it was a demented romp that used music Babs as a launching point for more insanity than recognizable impersonations.



We live in the age of gay marriage and queer people seem to be becoming increasingly normalized and sterile within the mainstream. Do you think nightlife can act as a preservation of the more radical and transgressive segments in our community? Or do you think it serves a different purpose now?
Don’t fret! Straights are becoming more normalized, too! I hope that clubbing will always serve the purpose of dancing, partying and hooking up for sex. But younger gays are assimilating and often going to straight bars. Sadly, gay culture is worth preserving -- especially “radical and transgressive segments” because that was mainly found in clubs and performance spaces. And the more off-beat and crazy, the less likely it was you’d ever see it on TV. Now clubs take their tips from TV and book reality stars -- embracing the most mainstream boob tube culture which would never have been admitted to cool clubs back in the day. Much less paid to perform for scenesters. At least the "Drag Race" queens perform -- gay clubs now book “real housewives” to just get on the mic and say "hi!" I performed at the Castro Theater with a bunch of "Drag Race" queens and was told to ease up on the filth factor at the early show due to the fact that the show has many underage fans. So now drag queens have to tone down their acts and make them family-friendly? That’s very foreign notion to a club denizen.

I’m always furious when I read that hooking up online is shutting down clubs. As a card-carrying slut, I fault no one for new technology that gets you laid. Even if I do better on Blendr than Grindr. But the hottest clubs were never just about getting laid. There were certain bars like The Eagle where you’d go to just to hook up. But clubs like the Pyramid, Boybar, Limelight, Jackie 60 were much more than that. We went out to experience new music, fashion, art, performance, dancing and remember this one: CONVERSATION! Remember that antiquated art on the border of extinction? Is there an app for that? Yes, there is. It’s on top of every phone and it’s called an off button. So I guess I’m saying that conversation, fun, good music, dancing and clubs we could afford are now “radical and transgressive” elements in our community. I would start a petition right now to preserve them on change.org but I have to set up the Kickstarter for my liposuction.

What do you hope to see as the future of nightlife in NYC? Do you always want to be a part of it?
Nightlife here has definitely taken a big dip. A lot of my work is in clubs, theaters, cabarets, gay pride festivals -- even a little film and TV. And much of it is out of town. So as it’s withered in NYC, I’ve looked elsewhere. But just as I don’t see every Broadway show or foreign film that comes out, it comforts me to know that clubs are here to experience. I just miss big clubs like the Palladium and Tunnel. I’m a big girl so just in terms of proportion, I like my wigs, my dresses, my lashes, my clubs and my men to be BIG! Bars are fun for an easy night out, but you don’t dress to the nines to hit a bar. That’s for bigger clubs which promoters struggle to fill.

I performed recently at Frankie Sharp’s Westgay and was blown away by the great music, crazy antics and the frenzied energy of young, fucked up people just grinding on each other and feeling the pulse. I’ll always wanna be a part of a fun vibe. And if the kids were really wasted, I could blow them while they were passed out. Steal their wallets on a good night. The fact is, I can sit and whine that NYC’s golden age of clubbing is dead -- just as aficionados of the Mud Club, Studio 54 and other great clubs of the past could say before the Pyramid had even opened said the same. The truth is, I’m now 52 and not looking to get fucked up, fucked or turned out by any DJ every night of the week as I once was. There was a time when we were thrilled just to be able to work a look that got us into Area for free or warranted a few drink tickets wherever we chose to hold court. Now clubbing is my profession so I view it in a different light. Maybe there are still people who work a new look and hit 5-6 clubs a night like we used to do. But with NYC rents what they are, those crazy kids must be living 5-6 to a studio apartment. You need to be able to party near where you live and I don’t think Manhattan, where I live, is party people central anymore. Bushwig was cute and all, but it was also a $40 cab ride for me each way. And it’s transphobic of you to suggest that taking the subway isn’t an option because I’m not passable enough. In fact, I’ve decided that the word transportation is insensitive to the trans community. I’m still deciding if we should permit the word traffic. It is so insensitive to the victims of sex trafficking. And let’s go ahead and ban the word “rose,” too. It’s contained inside the word heterosexual so it brings back all the hurt feelings of straights cruelly mocking us.



What are your current projects, shows and gigs are you currently engaged in?
I’ve just released a dance single called "Lately" by myself and NYC-based production team Groove Addix. My last single, "Take Me Up High," hit #17 on the Billboard Dance charts and I’m definitely focusing on recording more original music. Antony, from Antony and The Johnsons, took an interest in one of my compositions and was kind enough to produce the vocals for it. It’s being remixed now. But music is a side project -- comedy and DJing are what currently pay my rent. I’m happy to say that I’ve been able to go worldwide with it and, after an October gig at a museum in Buenos Aires, I’ve DJed on all five continents. I’ve been performing one woman shows at La Escuelita and plan to relaunch the last one, Clown’s Syndrome, in the future. And I’m appearing in film festivals in a short called "Dinner @ 40" and have a scene opposite Heather Graham in a movie where we recreated Wigstock in Tompkins Square Park. It’s called "My Dead Boyfriend" and is directed by Limelight owner Peter Gatien’s daughter Jen. I’ve just written two forewords to a book called Jeza Belle’s The Harlot’s Guide To Classy Cocktails and a Rizzoli photo book of vintage porn. And now ghostwriting a transsexual friend’s book and my own!

If there was something you wished to communicate about the evolution of queer history through nightlife in New York to the new generation, what do you think is the most important thing to ensure is not forgotten?
I’m glad that younger gays feel comfortable going to straight clubs or bypassing clubs completely and hooking up online. However, when I DJed at the closing of Splash, I was deeply saddened. It’s closing left XL as the only other large gay venue in town -- and it was only open 2 nights a week and is now more of an event space, which isn’t always gay. So there are three Disney shows on Broadway and no large gay venues that are gay for more than one or two nights a week. Wow -- NYC is hopping if you’re five years old! But as a legendary clubbing destination, forget it.

As Brian Landeche, the owner of Splash, scrambled to put on years of footage of Miss Fire Island Pageants and other blasts from the past, I realized that club history is gay history.

Younger gays may not need them, but clubs were where gays lived our lives prior to more mainstream acceptance. Clubs were safe spaces where we danced with or kissed a partner of the same sex, fell in love, learned gay lingo and felt safe enough to queen it up on the dance floor to the diva of the day -- from Donna Summer to Madonna to Whitney. For decades, clubs were the only establishments where you could see a large group of gay men -- besides AA. There was a feeling of community in the club world which I don’t think you get much of on Grindr.

For more from Lady Bunny head here visit the artist's website. To pre-order her latest single, "Lately" with Groove Addix, head here. Missed the previous installments in this series? Check out the slideshow below.

This Woman's Polyphonic Overtone Singing Doesn't Sound Humanly Possible

October 5, 2014, 8:07 am

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When you watch German musician Anna-Maria Hefele demonstrate a few polyphonic overtone singing techniques, you will get chills.

"Overtone singing is a voice technique where one person sings two notes at the same time," explains Hefele in the video above. On her website, Hefele says this style is originally from Mongolia, locally known as Sygyt.

Watch Hefele show off her perfect control, as she is able to sustain one constant low note, while simultaneously singing a high-pitched scale. It seems impossible that the sounds are coming from just one woman, and Hefele's vocal control might leave you wondering if she is even human.

But she is not new to the craft. Hefele has been studying throat singing since 2005, and is a classically trained singer who plays instruments like the harp, mandolin, piano, didgeridoo and Schwegel.

H/T Reddit