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Annie Lennox: 'Strange Fruit' Criticism Was 'Painful'

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PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — Annie Lennox says online criticism leveled at her remarks about the anti-lynching song "Strange Fruit" was hurtful and unfair.

"It was so painful. I can't even begin to tell you. I'm the last person who would disrespect that history," Lennox said. In a TV interview last fall about her new CD, "Nostalgia," and the "Strange Fruit" track it includes, Lennox didn't mention that the 1930s song made famous by Billie Holiday was a direct attack on African-American hangings of the era.

Blogs and posts on Twitter accused her of "whitewashing" the song's origins by referring generally to human violence and bigotry while speaking to PBS host Tavis Smiley last October.

Lennox, appearing Monday night at a Television Critics Association meeting to promote a spring PBS "Nostalgia" concert special, was asked about the controversy. She said she was glad to address it after initially remaining silent.

Because of one blog and what she called its "opportunistic swipe," the "whole thing blew out of context," said the Grammy-winning musician and activist. She didn't respond at the time "because if I did that it would all get blown up again."

"Let me just say that if I offended anyone — anyone — about not mentioning the lynchings, I wholeheartedly apologize. It was never intended and I was hurt" by the blog, she said.

A DVD released about the album includes her comment that "Strange Fruit" is about hangings in the Deep South and that they were "shameful," she noted.

The Scottish-born Lennox, 60, who first gained success with Dave Stewart as the Eurythmics in the 1980s, has received numerous honors for her artistry and for her work against AIDS and poverty in Africa, including the Order of the British Empire in 2011.

"I'm a person who really, really cares about social injustice, and racism is so vile to me and it disturbs me, since I was a kid I've been distressed by this, this fact that there's still so much injustice," she said.

Jane Wilson, Artist Of The Ethereal, Dies At 90

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Jane Wilson, a painter whose best-known works were landscapes that occupied a niche nestled between representation and abstraction, died on Jan. 13 in Manhattan. She was 90.

The cause was heart failure, Bridget Moore, the president of the DC Moore Gallery in Manhattan, where Ms. Wilson’s work has been shown since 1999, said in an email.

Chewbacca Actor Peter Mayhew Recovering Following Pneumonia Hospitalization

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Chewbacca actor Peter Mayhew, who portrays the lovable Wookiee in the "Star Wars" universe, was recently hospitalized for pneumonia. As TMZ reports, the 70-year-old star is expected to make a full recovery.

Mayhew canceled a Saturday appearance at a Texas comic-book store where he was schedule to promote Marvel's "Star Wars #1" alongside Mike Quinn (who played Nien Nunb in "Return of the Jedi" and helped with the animation in "Attack of the Clones") and Margo Apostolos (who played an Ewok).

"He will make a full recovery, and hope to be discharged within a few days," Mayhew's wife wrote on Reddit. "Doctors are incredibly happy with his improvements."

Mayhew's webmaster tweeted from the actor's account on Monday, confirming that he is making a smooth recovery.




Mayhew is set to star in the new "Star Wars" triology, starting with "The Force Awakens."

Sleater-Kinney: Return of the Roar

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The following article is provided by Rolling Stone.

By JONAH WEINER

A decomposing skull hangs beside Janet Weiss' doorbell: one bulging eyeball, jagged teeth, strips of flesh. Halloween was a few weeks ago, and Weiss hasn't gotten around to taking it down yet – perhaps because other, realer ghosts have been haunting her. Like, for instance, the Ford cargo van in her driveway. "That was Sleater-Kinney's gear van," she says. " 'The Silver Bullet' – we put more than 200,000 miles on that thing, and it's still going." Or take the brand-new vinyl box set perched magisterially in her study, collecting all seven albums by the epochal punk trio that Weiss joined in 1996, that Time called America's best rock band in 2001, and that announced its "indefinite hiatus" in 2006. Sleater-Kinney – Weiss on drums, Carrie Brownstein on windmilling lead guitar, Corin Tucker providing the klaxon-force lead vocals – had sealed their place in the indie pantheon by that point, with their fans ranging from the midcareer Eddie Vedder, who brought them out on a 2003 arena tour with Pearl Jam, to the pre-career Lena Dunham, who saw them live when she was an adolescent and thrilled, she says, to their "amazing mix of chutzpah and pure skill."

But the band was tired. Sleater-Kinney's seventh album, "The Woods," pushed them farther from their creative comfort zone than they'd ever gone, and the arduous experience of making it, in wintry upstate New York, left them spent and raw: "It's freezing; there's 10 feet of snow every night," Weiss says. "You're really isolated. And when you're working creatively like that, 12 hours a day, sleeping in the same place as each other? It's an intense experience." By the end of the tour, she says, "Carrie didn't like being on the road. Corin wanted to have another kid. We were exhausted."

10 Sleater-Kinney Songs That Make Them the Best American Punk Band Ever. Really.

They pulled the plug, and for years there was little reason to suspect a reunion. Weiss, a Portland fixture who's played with Elliott Smith and Stephen Malkmus, focused on other projects, including Wild Flag, an amped-up collaboration with Brownstein. Tucker concentrated on a solo act and on raising two children. And Brownstein became exponentially more famous in just four years by co-creating the satirical sketch series "Portlandia" (average viewership: about 5 million per season) than Sleater-Kinney had become over two decades (total album sales: 596,000).

Then, one night in 2012, Brownstein and her "Portlandia" co-star, Fred Armisen, were hanging out at Tucker's house, on Portland's southeast side. Tucker made an offhand remark to the effect of maybe-possibly-sometime-imagining getting back together. Armisen became a cheerleader for the idea, as did Tucker's husband, the filmmaker Lance Bangs. "Then someone called me," Weiss says. "I think it was Corin, and Carrie put her up to it: 'See if Janet will do it.' " They started messing around in Tucker's and Brownstein's basements, seeing how it felt. By early 2014, Brownstein was dropping hints in interviews that the band might re-form, which turns out to have been a coy feint: "The album was probably already done by then," says Weiss.

Weiss' bungalow is furnished with the spoils of thrifting on the road: a Seventies-looking leather couch; oil paintings of dogs, horses and tigers; an orange novelty telephone fashioned to look like a basketball. Last night, she, Brownstein and Tucker caught a Portland Trail Blazers game. "We sat courtside, because Carrie gets amazing seats now – thanks to a certain friend of hers named Paul Allen," Weiss says. Brownstein's celebrity has earned her a social network of power movers that includes the Blazers' Microsoft-co-founding owner. "We were down by 16 points, but we turned it around," Weiss says of the game. "I gave Paul Allen a high-five. It was great."

In Pics: Sleater-Kinney Over the Years

Courtside glamour notwithstanding, the L.A.-born Weiss lives a modest, bohemian life that hasn't changed that much since she first moved to Portland, in 1989. She drives a sensible station wagon, and the towering hedges lining her backyard are wildly overgrown, "because it costs, like, $1,500 to have them trimmed, so I don't do it that often," she explains. Recently, Brownstein hooked up Weiss with a job scouting locations on Portlandia. "I get to drive around with the director and have a say in what the show looks like – I love that job," Weiss says.

In other words, things were perfectly fine post-Sleater-Kinney, and to hear the band members tell it, they approached the reunion with a mixture of excitement and wariness. "I was just like, 'Carrie, do you have enough time to put into this? Corin, do you have enough time to have it be great?' " Weiss says. These questions skirted a trickier one, about whether Tucker and Brownstein – who began the band as romantic partners, and whose elaborately interlocking guitars, vocals and personalities form the band's spiky DNA – were prepared for the Buckingham-Nicks-esque emotional intensity that working with each other has always entailed. "It's almost like they're weird twins," Weiss says. "They're kind of telepathic. And they can push each other's buttons: When the other person's so in there, sometimes you're like, 'Back off!' " As Brownstein puts it to me later, "I feel like Corin knows the map of my veins. And you don't always want someone to know those things."

"Corin knows the map of my veins," Brownstein says. "You don't always want someone to know those things."

The resulting album, "No Cities to Love," transforms those densely tangled doubts, vulnerabilities and ambitions into some of the most assured and powerful music Sleater-Kinney have ever made. There are no slow songs. The lyrics aim high, concerning idol worship here, the collapse of the American middle class there. "Carrie was like, 'If we're gonna do this, it's gotta be a total renewal,' " Tucker says. "All or nothing. We just went for it."

*****

Brownstein enters a small Italian restaurant on Burnside Avenue. "I'm sorry I'm late," she says. Her work on "Portlandia" has led to other gigs – a supporting part on "Transparent"; a "tiny role," as she puts it, in the next Todd Haynes movie – all of which she's juggling in addition to Sleater-Kinney. In a few months, she'll load up her two dogs and drive down to a rental house in Los Angeles to join the "Portlandia" writing staff for the show's next season. As Brownstein consults the menu, a waiter crouches by her knee and regards her with the blissed-out affect of a yogi. "Helloooo," he says. Brownstein orders the cappelletti soup. "Wasn't that strange, how he got down so close?" she asks when he's gone. "I don't know that guy, but to him it was like we were old friends!" In the real-life Portlandia, material is everywhere; she starts riffing on the trend of servers telling patrons, " 'Have you eaten with us before? We do things a little differently here.' I always want to tell them, 'I've eaten at a restaurant before. Unless I have to order in Esperanto, I think I'll be able to get the hang of it. . . .' "

In Pics: At Home With Carrie Brownstein

Brownstein is a former theater kid from the Seattle suburb of Redmond. Growing up in the Eighties, she loved bubblegum pop with an ardor you can hear, albeit obliquely, across Sleater-Kinney's catalog. "I listened to Madonna, New Kids on the Block," she says. "You can embrace punk all you want and try to push melody to the side, but pop is infectious." She describes herself existing, as a child, "in a constant state of performance – I did theater and drama, and I had this insatiable appetite for attention." The author and filmmaker Miranda July, who befriended Brownstein when they were teenagers, remembers her appearing in a parodical Christmas play opposite fellow punk-scene stalwarts in the early Nineties. "Carrie was wearing, like, a bad sweater with Christmas appliques," July says. "It sounds so 'Portlandia' now, but at the time it was like seeing the Fonz wearing a mom sweater and discovering that he was really into acting. It took me a long time to understand that this is a huge part of who Carrie is."

In adolescence, Brownstein grew withdrawn and disaffected. "It was junior high," she says. "Feeling like your body is going in two different directions." Her home life suffered an upheaval when her parents split, leaving her father, a corporate lawyer, to raise Carrie and her younger sister by himself. (A few years ago, he came out as gay; he and Carrie are close.) Brownstein enrolled at Evergreen State College, in Olympia, Washington, the epicenter of the early-Nineties feminist-punk movement known as riot grrrl, where she started a band, Excuse 17, and saw shows by iconic Evergreen acts like Heavens to Betsy, who were fronted by Tucker, and Bikini Kill. The scene was revelatory: "I thought, 'This is the sound my heart would make if I could amplify it,' " Brownstein recalls. "Sometimes, with your family, you're like, 'How can you be so close to me and not see me?' And then, all of a sudden you see yourself portrayed in music, and it's like, 'On the other side of the telescope is someone that sees me.' "

In Heavens to Betsy, Tucker steeped her songs in what academics call intersectional politics: Queerness, race and the plight of working people were recurring, overlapping themes. Tucker made no effort to prettify her massive wail, knew her way around a stingingly pithy phrase, and was not only righteous but also funny: On the Heavens to Betsy song "Waitress Hell," she sang from the perspective of a server imagining her crappy customers writhing in flames.

Tucker and Brownstein began to collaborate, taking their band name from a Washington road they practiced on, and they also began to date. Conceived as a side project, Sleater-Kinney quickly won their full attention, and in 1994 Brownstein and Tucker traveled to Australia, playing tiny bills with an Aussie drummer named Laura MacFarlane, whom they'd met via the punk-zine circuit. "Being women in music was really important to them," MacFarlane recalls. "I remember them giving me a mixtape of indie bands from America featuring women."

In Pics: The Best Musical Moments From ‘Portlandia’

The band recorded a self-titled LP fast and loose in Australia, then returned to Washington to make another, "Call the Doctor." The process was so turbulent that Sleater-Kinney actually broke up, for the very first time, before it was through. "I was there on a three-month visa," says MacFarlane, "and right before I left, they sat me down and told me, 'The band's over.' Everyone needed some breathing room."

The dissolution of Brownstein and Tucker's romantic relationship was an agitating factor, and lent the album an added air of urgency and volatility. "It's hard to be professional and creative with someone you've broken up with," Tucker says. "And we were all living in a weird one-bedroom apartment together. It was insane." As the album's producer, John Goodmanson, who has worked on several Sleater-Kinney albums since, puts it, "There's never been any hiding in this band – everyone's completely exposed."

With time, Tucker says, she and Brownstein "got it together enough to go on tour." In 1996, Weiss – a powerhouse who says she hails from "the John Bonham tradition of hard-hitters" – joined the band; the next year, Sleater-Kinney released their breakthrough, "Dig Me Out." Fittingly, for songs about women who reject quiet, subservient roles, the band crafted a scabrously catchy sound, in which melody is alternately flirted with and thwarted. This push-pull aesthetic relates to the formal choice, Brownstein explains, to tune every song to C-sharp: "It's one and a half steps below standard tuning, which creates a sourness and a darkness that you have to overcome if you're going to create something harmonious and palatable. So even when we're getting toward something with a little bit of catchiness or pop sheen, there's this underlying bitterness to it."

Most of the songs on "No Cities to Love" began as collaborations between Brownstein and Tucker – a throwback to their earliest method of working. At first, Tucker says, "the dynamics were a little rusty – we were getting a little frustrated." Weiss notes that "at the beginning, Carrie and Corin needed to reconnect. I was just like, 'You guys just need to sit in a room and play together. You're not ready for me yet.' On other records we would write as a three-piece, but with this record I got the sense that they were going to go into some crazy rabbit hole, and it would be awesome."

The waiter returns with Brownstein's soup and purrs, "Let me know how you like it." She admits that, after a creative life mostly defining herself as a musician, the celebrity she's enjoyed with "Portlandia" is "very surreal. There's a bittersweet quality to it, because Sleater-Kinney is precious to me, and seeing it eclipsed, there was a little part of me that went, 'No, guys, you know this other thing I did is important, right?' " She pauses for a beat. "But I don't pick. I don't pit one against the other."

*****

The clerk at Powell's Books on Southeast Hawthorne needs to see Corin Tucker's ID. The singer has hauled in a bag of used children's books to sell – she and Bangs have two young kids, "so this is a great way to clear space at home."

We find a table at the bookstore cafe, where Tucker gets a tea. She grew up in Eugene, Oregon, arriving at Evergreen in 1990 and writing songs that regarded the patriarchy and her own white privilege with equal acidity. On "No Cities to Love," she again turned her gaze outward – "Price Tag" is about the "downward spiral of the working poor," as she puts it, in the big-box-chain era – and inward, too. On "Gimme Love," Tucker confronts what she describes as her own "monstrous" need for an audience's approval: "That song started with me asking, 'Why are we doing this band again? Why are we here? There's no guarantee we're gonna make a reasonable amount of money!' "

The 15 Best ‘Portlandia’ Sketches

When Tucker's done with her tea, she hustles home for dinner with her kids, then over to a newly opened pingpong hall on Southeast Belmont to meet Weiss and Brownstein. Sleater-Kinney played a lot of ping-pong on the Pearl Jam tour; a few years back, Weiss and Brownstein crushed the Willamette Week in a Portland charity tournament. The Belmont hall is new, with sleek tables and nouveau-mod decor. One of the owners, spotting Brownstein, rushes over. "This place is the culmination of a lifelong dream of ping-pong!" he says. "My brother and I started it as a pop-up party, to see if people were as crazy about the game as we are!" The band nods politely. Weiss tells me later that the place would make a wonderful Portlandia location.

We play a doubles game, with me and Weiss against Brownstein and Tucker. "How does this go again?" Tucker asks. "I serve to that side?" Brownstein's style of play is cool, with one hand tucked nonchalantly into a pocket. Weiss plays the way she drums – precise and clobbering. In just a few minutes, thanks to her, we're up 10-0. Weiss sends a blazing serve fast and low across the table. Brownstein and Tucker both go for it, and both whiff: 11-0. "That telepathy between them that I told you about?" Weiss cracks. "It doesn't extend to ping-pong."

Animals Are What They Eat (PHOTOS)

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If we are what we eat, then we are mostly string cheese. Mmmm!

These animals, who are the creation of artist Sarah DeRemer, are also what they eat.

There's a half-lion/half-wildebeest, a half-cougar/half-deer, a humming bird mixed with flower nectar and a snail with a strawberry shell.

See all of the twisted creations bellow.





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James Patterson's Disappearing Book: Sales Gimmick Or Future Plot Device?

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How many books have you been “meaning to read”? Personally I’ve avoided contact with the third of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels since Christmas (I know it’ll be all-consuming) and am ashamed to admit I don’t even own a copy of War and Peace for similar reasons. But if you were to tell me that all issues of either of these books would soon dematerialize, you’d find me planted on a couch for the next several days, fully engrossed in reading.

Which is why James Patterson’s self-destructing book Private Vegas is a thought-provoking -- if problematic -- experiment. Releasing this week, it follows recurring protagonist Jack Morgan from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, where a chain of seedy happenings is set off after his car is firebombed. The story's par for the Patterson course, but includes an inventive interactive element -- only 1,000 readers will be able to download the book, and 24 hours after beginning, it will disappear in a cloud of smoke. Like Eterna Cadencia's novel printed in disappearing ink, it allows us to consider whether a little instilled FOMO is all the book world needs to compete commercially with more event-centric media, like TV.

"A little instilled FOMO is all the book world needs to compete commercially with more event-centric media, like TV."

A press release describes Private Vegas as a “nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat experience,” for which 1,000 readers will have the opportunity to unlock the story and “race to the end” in 24 hours, before it “disappears in a cinematic and spectacular way.” Sounds like a fun device, but this setup raises a few questions: Shouldn’t the language of a novel be enough to build tension, and encourage readers to continue? And isn’t a book, no matter how plot-driven, supposed to be one of the few forms of entertainment we can preserve, revisit and build upon?

Regardless, this Monday I opted not to read the conclusion to Ferrante’s glowing trilogy, and instead curled up with an iPad, ready to speed through Private Vegas, which is best summarized thusly:

Jack Morgan’s pal has been thrown in jail, wrongly accused of a heinous crime against his saucy, long-legged ex with long legs. In addition to long legs, which she has, she’s also got a loose-fitting blouse and heels that make you forget you’re supposed to be reading a story with an actual plot. To find out what happens next, keep reading before this book literally explodes.

One of the app’s features allows readers to see how far others made it before their novels expired. While I sputtered along on Jack’s escapades and wordy descriptions of expensive vehicles and women's hairstyles, most readers gave up -- or ran out of time -- about a third of the way in. Thrilling event or not, in this case it seemed true that compelling language and empathetic characters mattered more than edgy graphics and the comfort that comes with a neat conclusion.

"Compelling language and empathetic characters mattered more than edgy graphics and the comfort that comes with a neat conclusion."

But Patterson’s off-the-mark attempt to turn a single story into an event that exists beyond readers’ imaginations, extending into their social circles and even their physical experience (one copy of Private Vegas, purchased for nearly $300,000, will literally self-destruct, with a trained bomb squad on site) doesn’t mean other fiction writers won’t explore that realm. David Mitchell's forthcoming novel was first constructed entirely on Twitter, with each line racking up handfuls of likes. Neil Gaiman, too, wrote an audiobook including a mashup of his own writings and suggestions made by the Twitterverse, which he credited as a co-author.

Such unconventional works may subvert our understanding of literature (and, in Gaiman's case, of authorship). Literary works that create moods and consider context rather than encouraging page-turning aren't exactly hash-taggable, nor should they be. But, in theory, stories with immersive plots could be transformed into cultural events when given a specific time peg. In Mitchell's case, the steady stream of tweets kept readers hooked. In Patterson's, the uneasiness that comes with potentially never knowing the book's conclusion is an incentive. Consider, also, that the one reliable metric in predicting a book's placement on a bestseller list is its impending movie adaptation release date. If everyone else will soon be discussing a story, it's unlikely to grow cobwebs.

The concept of a collaborative reading experience may be grumbled about by some -- after all, is the private act of exploring another's thoughts not special? -- but decriers should be reminded that "The Bachelor" isn't the only form of entertainment religiously logged on Twitter. Even art exhibitions conductive to interaction, such as Christian Marclay's "The Clock," have their own hashtags.

In many ways the book world, with our trending literary puns and obsessive Goodreads starring, is hungry for a way to make reading more social. Perhaps giving stories expiration dates is one way of achieving that.

Squabbles Are Damaging Hopes Of Rebuilding Afghanistan's Beautiful Bamiyan Buddhas

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It is always a shock reaching Bamiyan, coming face to face with the two huge cavities in the cliff face. The upright tombs stare out over the valley, a splash of vegetation surrounded by wild mountains. The town straddles the Silk Road, close to the point where it used to enter Persia, dwarfed by two massive mountain ranges, the Koh-i-Baba and Hindu Kush. The void left by the two destroyed Buddha figures is appalling, it rouses and emotion almost more powerful than their once tranquil presence did for centuries.

To understand what happened you must go back to the beginning of 2001. The Taliban-led regime was on very poor terms with the international community and increasingly tempted by radical gestures. The decision to destroy the two monumental Buddha figures at Bamiyan was just part of the drive to destroy all the country's pre-Islamic "icons", an act of defiance to the outside world.

Michael Urie Helms 'What's Your Emergency' Web Series, To Debut This Month

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It's been estimated that 240 million calls are made to 911 in the U.S. each year. Still, only a select few have been privy to the behind-the-scenes goings-on at the call centers responsible for handling those emergency inquiries.

An all-new web series, "What's Your Emergency," attempts to dramatize just that in a hilarious way, chronicling the the misadventures of the inept rescue workers of Hell, Michigan (a real place) as they attempt to run the town’s 911 call center. Written by Ryan Spahn and Halley Feiffer, the show features an emsemble cast of New York stage veterans, including Reed Birney, Sierra Boggess, Debra Monk, Kevin Covert and Mckean Rand, among others.

The series is directed by "Ugly Betty" star Michael Urie, who nabbed a 2013 Drama Desk Award for his solo performance in Jonathan Tolins’ "Buyer & Cellar." The 34-year-old actor told The Huffington Post in an email that he'd been "drawn to the kind of comedy that comes from putting morons in emergencies" since he first saw the 1980 comedy, "Airplane!"

The project's origins date back to Spahn's days at the Juilliard School when he created the character of "an idle idiot who worked at 911" as part of an improv class.

"I think low stakes people in high stakes situations are universally funny," Urie, who is Spahn's longtime partner, said. "After we were lucky enough to corral some of our favorite actors together, Ryan [and] Halley Feiffer went to work to create funny high stakes situations in which our actors could be hilariously low stakes."

The series will debut Jan. 27 as the flagship production of Stage17, a site which aims to "bridge the gap between traditional theatre and new media" that "marries audiences’ favorite aspects of theatre -- actors, writers, directors, and creativity -- with digital programming and theatrical content."

For Urie, the first season of "What's Your Emergency" is just the beginning: "The deeper we go with these characters, the funnier and darker their situations will be.”

Check out the trailer for "What's Your Emergency" above. Head here for more details.

A Whole Year Of Motherhood In Just 6 Minutes

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A lot can happen in a year. If you need proof, try documenting it.

Photographer and mother Fally Afani used a GoPro camera to film moments of her life every day in 2014. She then pieced together one second from each of those clips. The result is nothing short of incredible. The final product is full of sunsets, music and gorgeous shots of her smiling daughter.

"The video highlights my work in the music industry, my relationship with my daughter and husband, and overall life in the vibrant community of Lawrence, Kansas. It's been a wonderful year, and I'm happy to share with you everything I've documented!" Afani wrote in the YouTube description.

Titled "Just A Sec," the video is only about six minutes long but manages to perfectly capture a year of love and life in Lawrence.

“Obviously, the arts have made my life -- as well as my daughter’s -- flourish in this community,” Afani told BuzzFeed. "I’m hoping that when someone watches this video, they’re aware of how many hours there are in a day and that a year can bring so much possibility."

Orange Is The New Red: In Praise Of A Condiment Better Than Ketchup

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popular and good





It's time again to take a magnifying glass to one of the best things in life. In case you missed the last two installments, this is the latest in a new HuffPost series, Popular Things That Are Also Good. We're exploring the age-old notion that popular pleasures are somehow lower quality than niche ones. Not true! In rare and life-affirming instances, a thing beloved by all -- be it a pop song, snack variety or family film -- is so undeniably good even the elitists sing/snack/stare along.

We'd like to shout our message from the mountaintops, like the lead character in one of our favorite, worthwhile family films, The Sound Of Music: a thing can be both popular and good. Just look at the holiday classic we investigated last month, The Snowman. David Bowie gives it two thumbs up and so should we all.

In lieu of actual mountains, here we are. In this latest entry, we turn away from the music and movies of our childhood. Instead we're contemplating a relatively recent game-changer, a condiment so powerful it pulled off the ultimate parlor trick this January, and merged with ketchup. Along the way, it's collected accolades and grave accusations. Aficionados know where we're going with this. The rest of you: ready your face masks, and your heretofore boring scrambled eggs, as we dive into the intoxicating (maybe toxic) world of...

Huy Fong's Sriracha


sriracha

"Sriracha has taken our taste buds hostage." -- Business Insider poet.


Today, the "Beyoncé of condiments" is everywhere, in supermarkets large and small, flavoring ice creams, starring in its own festival.



But it wasn't always so. To really understand why HFS deserves all the hype, it helps to go back to the brand's humble beginnings, aka the chronologically first bullet point in our love letter.

So humble.

In 1979, Daniel Tran left his home in Vietnam for America. The freighter that chugged him toward U.S. soil was named the Huy Fong, and like some divinely-led character in a Horatio Alger novel, Tran honored that name by making it famous. "Sriracha" is itself the umbrella term for a type of hot sauce characteristic to the coastal Thai city Sri Racha -- which is why companies like Taco Bell can so easily mislead the public into thinking they're incorporating Tran's version into their menu when they're actually producing their own (Sri-gotcha!).

sriracha
Aint nothin like the real thing, baby...


Born into a family of Sriracha makers, Tran quickly moved from Boston (too cold) to Los Angeles, where he bottled his uniquely addictive combination of jalapeños, vinegar, sugar, salt, and tons of garlic in glass jars just as his father once had. He reportedly never dreamed he'd sell to an audience outside of the local Asian population, which brings us to exhibit B.

Beyoncé wishes.

In an age of books getting trailers and Instagram accounts for first ladies, Huy Fong Foods is a refreshingly out-of-it megacorporation. In 2012, the company sold 20 million bottles, all without a Facebook page, a Twitter account, or advertising of any kind other than word-of-mouth. As a Business Insider profile pointed out around that time, the company's website clearly stated that it hadn't been updated in around a decade. Nowhere in this narrative did a brand manager slap "gluten-free" or "artisanal" on the green-capped bottle and submit it to Whole Foods for resale.

sriracha
Willy Wonka's vacation home.


In fact, the rise of HFS is a tale as old as time -- or at least as old as trade. The story goes that an upscale Bay Area chef became the sauce's ambassador when she noticed its place of honor on the table during after hours, when her ethnically Asian staff sat down to eat. She tried it, loved it, and spread the word, without HFS spending a dime on publicity. If anything, it's the Sugar Man of condiments. Tran's dream, he told Quartz last year, “was never to become a billionaire.” It is “to make enough fresh chili sauce so that everyone who wants Huy Fong can have it. Nothing more.”

Even if you hate it, you sort of love it.

Every silver lining has a cloud, and for Huy Fong Sriracha that cloud once emanated from its headquarters. According to a lawsuit filed by the city of Irwindale, Calif. in 2013, the nearby HFS plant was ruining the surrounding air. Residents complained of burning eyes and throats, and an odor so spicy they could smell the chiles. A lesser product might have disappeared under the frankly believable charges, but apparently people love Sriracha more than clean air.

sriracha

Ted Cruz, walking cartoon politician, spoke for the people of Texas and claimed the possibly toxic smell would be welcome outside Dallas. California governor Jerry Brown responded with a hustle not deployed for gay rights or the economy, convincing HFS to double check its operation, and Irwindaliens to drop the suit. Because jobs, and hot sauce. All complied, so much so that journalists reporting on Huy Fong are now encouraged to inhale deeply over the vats.

Lastly, in the words of David Chang...

“I don’t understand how [noted Sriracha backstabber Andrew Zimmern] could hate something so loving and giving. It’s just goodness. It’s good on everything.”

The Bright Light Social Hour's 'Space Is Still The Place' Lays Out The Foundation For The 'Future South'

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No matter how much research you put into figuring out who will be the hottest new artists of each year, another act comes into your vision with an output that absolutely blows you away. Today, that band is Austin, Texas' The Bright Light Social Hour. The Huffington Post is pleased to announce the upcoming release of their new album, "Space Is Still The Place," and premiere their first single, "Infinite Cities."



Comprising members Jack O'Brien, Curtis Roush and Joseph Mirasole, as well as Edward "Shreddward" Braillif, "Infinite Cities" kicks off a quick, hi-hat groove before some spacey guitar picks begin echoing overtop. A swirling bridge shows Roush occasionally sliding into dissonance, just nearing resolution before the next line picks up, leading into one final chorus where O'Brien and Roush's harmonies line up the strongest. According to O'Brien, the song is about "quick movement or a quick change as a new form of home," in which one tries "to find a sense of stability or comforting identity within the movement itself.”

A listen through the rest of the album reveals a diverse pack of punches. Some wander deeper into the ambient brooding of "Infinite Cities," some bear the lightheaded psychedelics of acts such as Tame Impala and some delve into the bluesy rock similar to the earlier works of The Black Keys, all with a raw, unique edge that cuts through.

“We became really interested in mixing southern aspects of music -- soul, rock, blues, those sort of things -- with a progressive outlook, where we got really into dance music, house music, techno, psychedelic rock," O'Brien said. "We became really interested in mixing all those sounds; something future-looking and also vibe-y and comfortable, but different all together.”

But "Space Is Still The Place" is more than just a mélange of southern sounds laced with spices from a more adventurous palate. It is the band's first foray into exploring politics in their music. Falling into the self-assigned label of party-rock, TBLSH's debut, self-titled record was a reaction and safety net for the stresses of O’Brien and Roush's time in graduate school. After touring the album for several years, they came to the conclusion that this wasn't the sound and message they wanted to make a career out of. What resulted is their concept of a "Future South."

“When we started putting the record together, 'Future South’ was kind of a phrase or a motif we were thinking about a lot because for us it's simultaneously it’s an aesthetic and political thing," Roush said. "The aesthetic side is similar to how Jack explained it. On the political side, there’s a lot that’s backwards about the South, and very obviously so. The South has always kind of lived at the back end of American history, you know, as things progress around the country, the South is the last to follow along. I guess with our generation -- millennials and general human beings -- we’re more fair, we’re better educated, we’re more dedicated to justice than any of our predecessors, and that this doesn’t need to be an inevitable thing anymore. The South can be a place of radical change; a role to play in pushing the political and cultural conversation of the country forward.”

A prime example of issues addressed was made very clear to the band through their touring experiences. Operating on a tight budget, they would often spend the night at fan's houses after performances. What they noticed through their conversations with those that welcomed them into their homes was that so many of them had "shitty jobs."

"They’re, (a) not making very much, and (b), very few people are doing things that feel any kind of self-actualization by," Roush said. That feeling of good work, you know, where you feel your soul in it and it really utilizes your abilities. We’re kind of witnessing first hand the effects of recession and expanding inequality and declining opportunity. There are songs on the record, especially the more rock-leaning, that address some of these frustrations. Like, I just read today that by next year, the richest one percent will have control of 50 percent of the world’s wealth, and that kind of keeps going up.”

Roush continued: “On the flip side of that, there are the kind of more future-leaning, or dreamier songs on the record that are meant to be more hopeful, more kind of gazing outward: what could be or what ought to be. So there’s kind of two strands on the record that look two different directions.”

Space also plays a large role in the design of TBLSH's new record. The album's title derives from the film and musical composition "Space Is The Place" by jazz composer (and so much more) Sun Ra. In the film, Ra transports the black community a new planet to be free of their history and oppression.

“Life on the road can be pretty rough, and as a way of sort of escaping into the self, we kind of imagined space as a metaphor for escaping into dreams and dreaming of progress," O'Brien said. "A dream of a new frontier where you go into it and cut free of all history and have all of these kind of chains or claws inside of you that prevent progress in a lot of ways.”

Furthering this their theoretical departure into the final frontier, O'Brien, Roush and Mirasole decided to send HuffPost Entertainment a list of their possible blast off songs: the final tunes they would listen to as the departed Earth for forever.



You can preorder "Space Is Still The Place" on iTunes here, which will be available on March 10, and make sure to check out the dates for their upcoming spring tour.

before the beat drops

Before The Beat Drops is an artist introduction series dedicated to bringing you the rising acts before they make their break. Our unlimited access to music of all kinds is both amazing and overwhelming. Keeping your playlists fresh, we'll be doing the leg work to help you discover your next favorite artist.

Dark Knight Fanatic Gets Awesome Batmobile Baby Stroller For His Son

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Dad and Batman super-fan Josh Earl has certainly passed his love for the Dark Knight on to his toddler son, Collin. In fact, Earl's wife Maressa told the web show "Super-Fan Builds" that some of Collin's first words at the age of 18 months were the Batman theme song lyrics.

The mom nominated her husband and son to receive a Batman-themed creation from "Super-Fan Builds," which builds custom items for mega-fans of pop culture icons like comic books, video games, TV shows, and more. The show's producers heeded the Earls' call in a big way -- they tapped Hollywood prop artist Tim Baker and his team to build a baby stroller based on Batman's Tumbler from "The Dark Knight Trilogy."

batmobile

As the video shows, the one-of-a-kind Batmobile baby stroller is a big hit with the whole family. The streets of Gotham ... er, baby Collin's suburban neighborhood, just got a little more badass.

batmobile

batman stroller

batman stroller

batman stroller collin

H/T Tastefully Offensive



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Country Star Craig Morgan Slams Seth Rogen Over 'American Sniper' Tweet

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Country star Craig Morgan took issue with Seth Rogen after the actor posted a tweet mocking "American Sniper."

On Sunday, Rogen tweeted that he felt Clint Eastwood's new movie, which focuses on deceased Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, reminded him of "Nation's Pride," a fake Nazi propaganda film featured in "Inglourious Basterds."




Morgan responded to Rogen's tweet in a Facebook post published on Monday:

You are fortunate to enjoy the privilege and freedom of working in and living in the United States, and saying whatever you want (regardless of how ignorant the statement) thanks to people like Chris Kyle who serve in the United States military. Your statement is inaccurate and insensitive to Chris and his family.

I'm sick and tired of people like you running your mouth when you have no idea what it takes for this country to maintain our freedoms. If you and anyone like you don't like it, leave.


Morgan wasn't the only person upset with Rogen. "I wanna kick your ass," actor Dean Cain tweeted at Rogen. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin also took issue with "Hollywood leftists" -- presumably people such as Rogen and director Michael Moore, who also commented on "American Sniper" -- for being unhappy with the film.

While caressing shiny plastic trophies you exchange among one another while spitting on the graves of freedom fighters who allow you to do what you do, just realize the rest of America knows you're not fit to shine Chris Kyle's combat boots.


On Monday night, Rogen clarified his joke, explaining that he "actually liked 'American Sniper'" and wasn't comparing the film to the fake Nazi feature.

'Selma' Director Ava DuVernay Shares Powerful Description Of White House Screening

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Best Picture nominee "Selma" screened at the White House on Friday for Barack and Michelle Obama. In an Instagram photo posted on Tuesday, director Ava DuVernay explained what it was like to show the film to the president and first lady.

President Obama's introduction of SELMA in the presidential screening room, the quality time he and the First Lady took with us before and after, the stories he shared with my editor and cinematographer, the praise she gave our dear cast, the handshake he gave my father, the hug she gave my mother, the laughter, the smiles, the extra time they gave us all long, long, long beyond when we were scheduled to go, the warmth, the respect, it was just beyond exquisite. "I'm proud of you," she said to me. "We're proud of you," he added. I'm proud too -- of them, of us, of the film, of this moment in my life.


Read DuVernay's full comments below.

Here is a small note that they will never see, but I must post it anyway. Projecting a film that I made with my comrades in the White House for the President and the First Lady - for THIS President and First Lady - was as stunning an experience as I've ever known. The first film to ever screen at the White House was "Birth of a Nation" or as it was previously titled "The Klansman." That was in 1915. Last Friday, "Selma," a film about justice and dignity, unspooled in that same place in 2015. It was a moment I don't have to explain to most. A moment heavy with history and light with pure, pure joy all at once. President Obama's introduction of SELMA in the presidential screening room, the quality time he and the First Lady took with us before and after, the stories he shared with my editor and cinematographer, the praise she gave our dear cast, the handshake he gave my father, the hug she gave my mother, the laughter, the smiles, the extra time they gave us all long, long, long beyond when we were scheduled to go, the warmth, the respect, it was just beyond exquisite. "I'm proud of you," she said to me. "We're proud of you," he added. I'm proud too - of them, of us, of the film, of this moment in my life. Who knows what lies ahead. But what has already occurred is food and fuel and fire and freedom. To President Obama and First Lady Obama, it was a dream I never dreamt, a dream seared in my memory like a scar from a fight won. The kind you look at every now and then, and just nod and smile. I thank you. xo.

A photo posted by Ava DuVernay (@directher) on



Michael Franti's Proposal Video Reminds Us That Love Happens In The Little Moments

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There are certain advantages to falling in love with a talented musician and this is one of them.

On Tuesday, singer and poet Michael Franti shared the news of his engagement to nurse and jewelry designer Sara Agah on Facebook with a special engagement video he created to his 2013 song "Life Is Better With You."

"I wrote 'Life Is Better With You' three years ago as a song I hoped to be played at our future wedding and made this video for Sara using clips I shot of her on my iPhone over the past three years," Franti wrote on Facebook. "At a surprise dinner I planned in Bali, I played her the song on acoustic guitar and then showed her the video."

He added that she was "quite moved" by the gesture and naturally, she said, "yes!"

In a 2013 Rolling Stone interview about the inspiration for the song, Franti explained, "I told [Sara] that even my worst day with her is better than any day I had before she was in my life, and out came the words, 'Life is better with you.' I picked up the guitar and wrote the song right then. I hope it inspires gratitude through the ups and downs of relationships for couples, friends, parents and kids."

The pair first met at a music festival in Canada and soon became good friends. After three years of friendship, they gave the whole romantic thing a shot -- and it paid off.

Congratulations to the happy couple!

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Sam Smith Reportedly Splits From Boyfriend Jonathan Zeizel

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Just weeks after their romantic Australian vacation, singer Sam Smith and boyfriend Jonathan Zeizel have reportedly called it quits.

The 22-year-old Grammy nominee, who is currently in the midst of a U.S. tour, seemed to hint at an apparent split with an emotional Instagram post:






Many have interpreted Smith's words at a Jan. 20 performance in Toronto as an implying that he and Zeizel had gone their separate ways, too. In the middle of the concert, he introduced his song "Good Thing" by telling the crowd, "This is about a very similar thing I had to do today with someone I've been seeing."



"Good Thing," a cut off Smith's smash debut album, "In The Lonely Hour," features lyrics which reference a breakup: "Too much of a good thing won't be good for long/Although you made my heart sing, to stay with you would be wrong."

The Mirror cites a new interview with The Sun, which quotes Smith as saying, “Hopefully I will find someone soon and when I do I think it will be a bit more difficult to sing songs because I will want to sing happy songs."

In the interview, said to have been conducted following his Toronto performance, Smith added, "Right now when I’m on stage I feel like it is good for me, it is like therapy every night. The music comforts me.”

Smith, who nabbed six Grammy nominations in December, confirmed last month that he was in the "very, very, very early days" of a relationship with an extra he'd met on the set of his "Like I Can" video.

He went public with Zeizel, a dancer and model, in a series of cozy Instagram snaps over the holidays. The couple even re-enacted the iconic scene from "Titanic" in one image.

H/T Towleroad

Van Gogh the preacher? New show to explore artist’s life before painting

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This summer the Grand-Place in the Belgian city of Mons will be transformed into a blaze of yellow, a field of 7,500 sunflowers celebrating the city’s turn as European capital of culture, and the peculiar man who spent 18 months living in the area and failing at yet another chosen career.

This time his failure marked a turning point in the history of art: sacked as a preacher and evangelist working in the Borinage, a tough coalmining region, Vincent van Gogh decided that his future lay in art.

Rainn Wilson Sees No Difference Between Art And Spirituality

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Rainn Wilson is an intensely spiritual man, but he doesn't find that to be at odds with his existence as part of the Hollywood machine.

During a conversation with HuffPost Live's Ricky Camilleri, Wilson answered a fan's question about his Baha'i faith -- which he has blogged about for The Huffington Post -- and how it factors into his work on shows like "The Office" and his new series "Backstrom."

"How do I incorporate my faith into my work? I think that being an artist is one of the highest forms of spirituality you can do, because you are being of service to people, you are being creative, expressing creativity, you are providing entertainment, you're trying to get people to think and feel deeply on a soul level," Wilson said.

Wilson added that even playing his latest character, the caustic investigator at the center of "Backstrom," allows him to explore a "greater understanding of the human condition."

"I don't see an artistic journey and a spiritual journey as being that different," he said.

Watch Rainn Wilson's words on faith in the video above, and click here for his full HuffPost Live conversation.

Sign up here for Live Today, HuffPost Live’s morning email that will let you know the newsmakers, celebrities and politicians joining us that day and give you the best clips from the day before!

You Don't Love Anything As Much As This Man Loves Nintendo

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Some people will just never have enough video games.

YouTube user Lithium017 is a 27-year-old from Ontario, Canada, who's amassed a Nintendo collection that he says is worth about $50,000. Of course, you can't really put a price on nostalgia.

"To me, it is priceless," he told The Huffington Post via email.

Lithium017, whose real name is Dan -- he asked for his last name to be withheld, due to privacy concerns at work -- says he's been a "Nintendork" ever since he bought a Nintendo 64 console in 1998 with saved-up birthday money. His collection got a bit more serious when he was in college, and since 2009, he's been uploading videos to YouTube of his "Nintendo Room," a packed space filled with almost every variant of Super Mario and Pikachu you can imagine.

It's grown by leaps and bounds since the beginning:


The Nintendo Room in 2009...




... versus the Nintendo Room in 2015.


Dan's collection is definitely impressive, though technically it's not the biggest out there. In November, the Guinness World Record for most Nintendo paraphernalia was granted to Ahmed Bin Fahad, a Dubai police officer who's reportedly spent more than $408,000 on products from the Japanese game maker. And in June, an anonymous buyer spent more than $750,000 to acquire the world's largest video game collection -- which includes many non-Nintendo items.

Still, Dan has a number of items not often seen in other collections. For example, check out this Nintendo 64 Millennium 2000 controller, of which he says only 1,000 were made:


Many different Nintendo 64 controllers have been manufactured, and most are worth no more than $20 -- but not the "Millennium 2000."


The idea of spending hundreds on a shiny controller for a 19-year-old system might strike you as a bit odd, but for Dan, it's part of a mission.

"It is my goal to eventually have the most complete officially-released Nintendo collection of games, consoles, and controllers in the world," he told HuffPost in an email.

"I know that having numerous versions of the same console and controller may seem odd or useless," he added, "but I enjoy finding the variations."


Dan's collection includes 20 different Nintendo 64 systems from all over the world -- all identical on the inside, but sought after due to differences in how they look.


Besides the video games and piles of expensive consoles in different colors, Dan owns furniture, pillows and figures that complete the floor-to-ceiling Nintendo aesthetic. He says his wife also enjoys relaxing in the Nintendo Room and playing games -- though we weren't able to confirm that with her.


Does YOUR man cave have pillows with Super Mario's face on them?


"I do not think having more items makes you happy," Dan told HuffPost, "but surrounding myself with supportive people who love Nintendo gaming certainly helps."

Dancing Mom-To-Be Reveals Baby News To Hubby With Cue Cards And Choreography

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When dance instructor and choreographer McKenna Lynch learned she was pregnant, she knew she wanted to surprise her husband Sam with the news. Coming up with a specific idea for the big reveal was a no-brainer for the dance fanatic.

"I feel like I can express my love and excitement better through dance than I can with words," McKenna told The Huffington Post. The mom-to-be researched songs that she felt captured her marriage and planned out some basic choreography to express her feelings about this next exciting chapter. With cue cards and mostly improvised moves, McKenna danced for Sam the story of their journey together, ending with the news "We're due July 2015!"

The baby news was particularly emotional for the Utah couple, as McKenna's first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage last February. "I went into labor and had to deliver at home, so it was a pretty traumatizing experience for us," she recalled. But, as one of her cue cards states, "We got through it together."

After progressing a bit further in her pregnancy, McKenna posted the video of her announcement dance on YouTube to share the news with other friends and family. After sharing the video, she and Sam were touched to find support from online strangers as well.

"I hope that by watching this video people will see a story full of love, loss, hope and now, excitement!" McKenna told The Huffington Post.

As for now, the mom-to-be is experiencing the ups and downs of pregnancy. "Being pregnant is hard," she said. "I cry while watching 'Master Chef', I am too tired to blow dry my hair, and I throw up so hard my back muscles get sore. And the truth is? I wouldn't trade it for anything."

Best wishes to the Lynch family!

H/T RightThisMinute



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