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Circumcision Protester Vincenzo Aiello Sells Fake Foreskin Sculptures For $1,000 Each

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An Italian artist is attempting to protest male circumcision one foreskin sculpture at a time.

Vincenzo Aiello is currently mounting a Kickstarter campaign to protest the practice of male circumcision through art.

People who donate $1,000 to the campaign, titled "HUFO: The Missing Link," will get a framed replica foreskin made from silicon resin.

Not willing to shell out a grand for a fake foreskin? A $50 pledge will get you a t-shirt with a foreskin on the front.

Circumcision is a touchy issue for Aiello, who said on the Kickstarter video that he had to have his own penis circumcised about nine years ago "for medical reasons," but didn't elaborate further.

Currently, Aiello and a team of fellow artists and an anthropologist have raised around $12,000 towards their $40,000 goal with 43 days to go.

If successful, Aiello and the others will use the funds gained to raise awareness about what they believe is a barbaric custom.

"Circumcision has become so commonplace in the US that parents often forget that circumcision is a surgery," Aiello wrote on the HUFO Kickstarter page. "Every other surgery in Western medicine requires both compelling and urgent medical reasons to perform without consent."

Male circumcision is practiced in Judaism, Islam and widely practiced by Christians in the U.S. and the Middle East for non-religious reasons.

Anti-circumcision advocates -- or "intactivists" -- like Aiello argue that circumcision reduces the sensitivity of the penis, and that it's not a parent's place to make body modifications that make sex less enjoyable later in life.

The American Academy of Pediatrics hasn't recommended routine removal of infants' foreskins since 1999, but a 2012 report cited literature suggesting circumcision can help guard against problems like urinary-tract infections, sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS, and cancer of the penis.

Besides selling foreskin sculptures, Aiello also wants to be at the forefront of foreskin technology.

He is the president of Foregen, a company that is attempting to use up-and-coming regenerative medical technologies to rebuild foreskins on men circumcised as infants.



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How To Overcome Being A Young Rock Band In 2015

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Comprised of brothers Mikaiah and Anaiah Lei, The Bots are no strangers to disparaging labels. But they've overcome their share in more than half a decade as a rock band. "What was a big deal when we were younger? 'Look at the brown kids playing rock music.' That was a big deal for some reason," said Mikaiah.

The duo released their first album at 15 and 12, respectively, and after playing festivals from Coachella to Bonnaroo, shows across the world with bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Blur and a recent "Late Night" television performance, they've finally reached the typical ages of other buzzworthy rock bands.

When the group first started "it was kind of like a Jack Black 'School of Rock' moment," according to Mikaiah. Given their youth and rising success, The Bots offer an excellent case study for young upstarts searching for what it will mean to be a rock band.



BotsFeed, a fake website modeled off BuzzFeed and created for the band's "All I Really Want" music video, displays lyrics scrolled through a listicle made up of GIF images. Although the video didn't go particularly viral like a true BuzzFeed listicle (it garnered a meager 32,000 views), the use of the site's aesthetic to associate with their song certainly seems to place the band in a new generation.

The band Eternal Summers partnered more fully with BuzzFeed a few years ago, releasing a video called "Why Virginia Is The Weirdest (And Best) State" which was a straightforward viral video with shots interspersed of the band playing live. For indie bands, it still remains unclear if attempting to go viral is a new model to pursue -- does anybody actually want to be the next OK Go or one of those Vine stars who receive massive record deals? -- but instead is interesting in terms of subject matter.

More and more, "Snapchat Me Maybe" doesn't seem like such a ridiculous song title. The accepted subject matter of songs is certainly about to undergo a shift with our new forms of communication. The Bots seem to be one of the most equipped bands to handle this change and with their ambitions to be remembered along with the most popular bands from the generations before them, the ascent of these brothers is certainly worth closely watching.


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The band has seemingly been on the cusp on ultra-stardom for the entirety of its existence, but lately The Bots have been especially close. In 2013, The New York Times used those exact words, The Bots are on "the cusp of stardom." Coming off their fall 2014 album, "Pink Palms," the band has gotten bigger and bigger shows, recently playing the aforementioned "Late Show" with Seth Meyers and Williamsburg Brooklyn's impressive Rough Trade Records Space. Just shy of 17,000 people Like them on Facebook, but they landed on the back of a Lunchables box with MTV's Rob Dyrdek. (No matter how you feel about the increasing nature of bands partnering with brands, in a traditional sense, that should be pretty big.)

But is it possible to become a "big" alternative-leaning rock band at the moment like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs from the last decade, or has the moment passed where indie bands have a support system to grow to that size? The Antlers recently stayed in a house sponsored by Sour Patch Kids while playing in New York. Mac DeMarco from the small label Captured Tracks enjoys a Facebook following of over 200,000, but that in part seems to be because he often guest stars on Adult Swim shows. Run The Jewels, which topped almost every critical album list in 2014, only has 71,000 Facebook Likes. Music criticism and hyping seems increasingly pointless in terms of taste-making, so how does a band break through?

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Watching The Bots trying to figure all of this out has become a fascinating example of a young band triumphing over to notoriety. "This band is my job I would love to this for as long as I'm alive with the intent of making a successful career out of all this. We are able to get by with the help of everyone and family," Mikaiah told The Huffington Post; "It's our job, we take care of ourselves, our homes. Going into adulthood does suck (maybe on my behalf because I'm all about my youth), but that's how it is and that's what we have to do," Anaiah said, focusing on growing up.

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The duo feels as if they've been over-labeled whether for their youth or race or gender and are afraid that there was a time they were considered a novelty act. The "brown kids" with the minimalistic indie rock-esque band name and the Death From Above 1979-ish sound. Talking about the name, they jokingly mention they sort of wish they had one of those ones that are hard to pronounce.

When they were just starting out as essentially pre-teens, the music was far less polished. In a culture where its hard to overcome first impressions, they seemingly have a fear their moniker will always be associated with how they started. In their minds, there is a struggle to escape what some labeled a gimmick.

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Recently, the band posted a photo from Glendale High School's "battle of the bands" competition, when they were still at the beginnings of their career. "We were pretty surprised to win because we tried the year before and came in second place," said Mikaiah.

Nobody is counting on another indie rock band to become big at this moment in time. Growing up with The Bots, Mikaiah and Anaiah have had to figure out who they are as people and as a band at the same time. What works for them as people will work for the band and just maybe they'll be the alternative group that finally figures out how to musically get to stardom in a viral world.

Image Top: Getty. All other images from The Bots website.




Divorced Woman Gives An Epic, Months-Long Send-Off To Her Wedding Gown

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When Dayna Rumfelt’s marriage ended after eight years in 2014, she knew she didn’t want her wedding dress just hanging around the house. Her plan of action to rid herself of it? Operation Destroy The Dress.

With the help of friends and family, the 35-year-old set out to put the gown through utter hell for the better part of seven months, dragging it through mud, taking it onto the paintball battleground, and eventually burning the damn thing in a huge bonfire.

"It felt so freeing," the Wasilla, Alaska resident told The Huffington Post. "For a long time after my divorce, I felt like I had a monkey on my back dragging me down into the mud. When the dress adventure began, I started to feel that less and less."

The first stop was a roller derby fundraiser; Rumfelt is a major roller derby girl.

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Credit: Flaunt Photography

Then the ex-bride repurposed the dress while serving as bench manager at a Rage City Rollergirls roller derby game. "I benched with Spenard Itch, who is adorable," Rumfelt said. "She even found a suit to wear so we could match."

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Credit: Flat Track Imaging

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Credit: Flat Track Imaging

From there, Rumfelt and Laura Burn, a close derby friend also going through a divorce, gave their gowns a good soaking in the Reed Lakes.

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Credit: Matthew Powell

"Jumping into a lake doesn't screw your dress up quite like you'd expect," Rumfelt said. "It's funny how when you're getting married your wedding dress seems so fragile, but really when it comes down to it, those suckers are tough as nails. Outside of the smell, once the dress dried, it was fine."

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Credit: Matthew Powell

But "fine" was definitely not the state Rumfelt wanted the gown to be in. When a local photographer asked Rumfelt if she'd be up to participating in a trash the dress photo shoot, she jumped at the chance. Here's one of the most dramatic shots:

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Credit: Captured Moments By Kat

The photos are beautiful, but the plan was to destroy the dress. For the most part, the gown looked no worse for wear. "It was even more surprising than the lake not messing up my dress," Rumfelt said. "The majority of the silt and mud washed out of the dress."

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Credit: Captured Moments By Kat

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Credit: Captured Moments By Kat

Next, Rumfelt, threw the "damn dress in the washing machine" and rounded up her family for a day of paint-balling.

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Credit: Chris Rumfelt

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Credit: Chris Rumfelt

"I wish I had a picture from the end of the day because I literally slid baseball-style through a pile of paint balls and was covered with the funk," Rumfelt recalled.

At this point, a still undeterred Rumfelt toyed with the idea of water skiing and sky diving in the dress, but a busy work schedule got in the way. "Eventually, I just wanted the dress out of my house for good," she said. "It was like a black cloud and I didn't want to take it with me into the next chapter of my life."

The gown's final send-off involved Rumfelt simply setting fire to it in a backyard bonefire while a photographer friend snapped a few photos.

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Credit: Greg A Morgan Photography

"I felt such a sense of relief watching it burn," Rumfelt said. "Almost all my negative energy had transferred to the dress over time and it had made me so sad to see it. I slept really well the night of the bonfire. The dress just had to go."

Keep in touch! Check out HuffPost Divorce on Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our newsletter here.

500 Years Of Hypnotic Masks Reveal Our Eternal Obsession With Disguise

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Whether it's a helmet for the big game, a disguise for a stealthy rendezvous, a transformative adornment completing a costume, or a headpiece dutifully positioned before singing in the mirror, most of us are familiar with the otherworldly metamorphosis that goes with donning a mask. What you may not know, however, is just how far back the mystifying powers of the curious accessories originated, and just how widely their traditions extend.

"Everybody has put on a mask in his life somehow, whether as a child or at some point later on," explained Jan Van Alphen, Director of Exhibitions, Collections & Research at the Rubin Museum of Art, in an interview with The Huffington Post Arts. "A mask is something everybody knows and is accustomed to. We don't have to teach people what a mask is. However, I wanted to explore the meaning of masks on multiple levels, starting with the oldest cultures."

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Dance Mask, Rubin Collection


Thus "Becoming Another" was born, a spellbinding exhibition featuring 100 masks made over the course of 500 years, stemming from Mongolia to Japan to Siberia to the Northwest Coast of America, to name a few locales. The show will explore the early manifestations of the aesthetically charged disguises, comparing and contrasting their visual and practical qualities. Nostrils flare into multicolored curlicues, mouths contort into scowling maws, faces resemble monkeys, dragons, Hindu gods and melting, horned ghosts. Despite the differences -- and there are many -- the exhibition as a whole displays a resounding human urge to dress up, to escape and to transform, if only for a brief period.

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Mask for Ritual Dance, Mongolia, Rubin Collection


The exhibition revolves around three predominant historical uses of the mask that transcended geographical boundaries: shamanism, communal ritual, and theatrical performance.

"A Shaman is someone who could get in contact with the spirit world, if we believe in that," van Elpen explained. "The Shamans have three worlds: the heavenly world, our world, and the underground world, and spirits live in all of them. Spirits have an effect on our daily lives and can influence them in good and bad ways. Shamans have the power and technique to reach spirits and make them their companions, as well as to attack or appease spirits of beings that were unhappy in a previous life and therefore are still creating havoc. It is one of the oldest religious world views to exist and it still exists today."

To engage with the spirits, Shamans don masks to communicate with or take on the identity of a supernatural entity.
Such practices were popular in the South of France, Spain, North Africa, Siberia and Russia, among other destinations.

"The second use of masks is in communities, for community rituals," van Elpen continued. "We use examples from Tibet, Nepal, Mongolia, Buddhist Monastic dance, wherever the whole community is taking part. The public is there to celebrate getting something done from spirits or the gods -- fertility, a good harvest, many good things. It's something that everybody takes part in and many people are masked for that purpose. It's a communal rite."

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Mask Horned, American Museum of Natural History


The final phase of the exhibition focuses on masks used for theater and storytelling, which has existed in Japanese tradition since the 7th century. "Noh emerged in the 13th and 14th centuries, and developed as one of the major forms of dance theater all over the world. It consists a very small stage, and only three people are acting. They use masks, and very few other tools. This is why the mask becomes so important, with the few elements involved. In the Himalayan world, stories were mainly translated into masquerades, helping people learn how to behave, how to live a proper Buddhist life, and how they would be judged later on by the judge of death."

Despite the three categories guiding the exhibition, many masks represent a hybrid interplay between the various traditions, allowing new, heterogeneous traditions to emerge. The masks, variegated in size, weight, material, style and species, depict the many faces we yearn to adopt when looking for respite from ourselves.

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Mask, American Museum of Natural History


Van Elpen hopes the exhibition will engage with impenetrable historical topics through an accessible and familiar vessel. "We try at the Rubin to make things worthwhile, interactive; we want people to feel a connection with the things that we do. We present very difficult topics like Tantric Buddhism, for example, but through something simple like a mask. It's easier to grasp. In the end, it doesn't have to be something philosophical or theoretical -- it's all about human beings. It's about drive."

"Becoming Another: The Power of Masks" runs until February 8, 2016 at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York.



Watch A Love Story Unravel As Two Male Dancers Break Your Heart With Their Muscular Bodies

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For most of us, the aftermath of a breakup involves a pint of ice cream and a box of tissues. For those of us who possess talent in the realm of dance, however, heartbreak sometimes leads to higher artistic outpouring.

Allow CODECdance to show you what we mean. In the short film below, the New York-based multidisciplinary dance company shows what happens in those final moments when a relationship fades into oblivion -- well, at least for those of us who engage in serious choreography with our romantic partners.



Cry it out, people. And get more ballet fixes here, here, here and here.

What Does 'The Jinx' Mean For The Future Of True Crime?

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Middlebrow is a recap of the week in entertainment, celebrity and television news that provides a comprehensive look at the state of pop culture. From the rock bottom to highfalutin, Middlebrow is your accessible guidebook to the world of entertainment. Sign up to receive it in your inbox here.

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"What did I do? Killed them all, of course," Robert Durst says in the final moments of "The Jinx." His voice -- with a cadence that is an an eerie mix of Heath Ledger's Joker and Woody Allen -- bumps over his hot mic between burps and flushes in the restroom. That chilling last episode of the HBO docu-series aired hours after Durst's arrest for the murder of Susan Berman (one of three alleged Durst murders "The Jinx" depicts). With his subject's arrest, director Andrew Jarecki's years of research came to fruition in real time as the ultimate anxiety-based voyeurism: scandal at just the right distance, combined with the reassurance that the bad guys will get caught.

Sources close to the Los Angeles Police Department told the L.A. Times that "The Jinx" "played a role" in Durst's arrest. And it's not the first time a documentary has had such tangible real-life ramifications. In a follow-up piece, the paper pointed to Errol Morris' "Thin Blue Line," which led to the exoneration of Randall Adams in 1989. In 2011, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's "Paradise Lost" aided in the release of the three Arkansas men known as the West Memphis Three.

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The documentary genre has the potential to impact cases in this way because of its inherent and presumed journalistic ethics. And yet, as entertainment, the form falls under the danger of breaching that code of conduct in the push for sensationalization. When the content is working to convict a suspect rather than free the wrongfully accused, that inherent possibility is much more problematic.

With "The Jinx," Jarecki has ushered the typically pulpy tonality of true crime into the realm of prestige television. True crime has typically fallen into the category of guilty pleasure. (Consider that cop shows like "America's Most Wanted" were the first transition of the documentary into the reality TV.) The HBO mini-series marks a move back to the respectability of the documentary format with true crime content. Its resulting interest and popularity will likely change the future of sub-genre. But what does that shift mean for its subjects?

Problems with "The Jinx" emerged almost as quickly as its rise. Once the news of Durst pulsed into virality, "The Jinx" timeline grew murky. Jarecki failed to answer simple questions about how things proceeded with The New York Times and canceled all future media appearances. Now, it is speculated that Jarecki held on to evidence for several years before handing it over to the police. "The way these events are presented on the show, it looks like Durst’s arrest gave Jarecki leverage in his quest to get more time with his subject," Leon Neyfakh and Jay Deshpande wrote in one potential explanation at Slate. "In reality, it seems like the arrest may have happened more than a year after he conducted his explosive second interview with Durst."

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This does not alter Durst's potential guilt. It does call Jarecki's motives into question. As Kate Aurthur wrote at BuzzFeed, "It’s unfortunate that Jarecki’s on-camera statement that its No. 1 goal is to 'get justice' might end up being another of its fictional re-enactments." It's useless to speculate over whether Jarecki deliberately muddled things or why, though it's inarguable that altering the timeline could not align with his priority to "get justice." Really, a film's No. 1 goal can never be to "get justice." A film's No. 1 goal is to entertain. Regardless of good intentions, its impossible for that not to interfere with the ethical obligations inherent in journalism and the justice system.

And where does that leave us? We have a man muttering a possible murder confession to himself while peeing. It might be inadmissible in a court of law, but all that really matters for "The Jinx" is that it's good TV.

Follow Lauren Duca on Twitter: @laurenduca

Here's Gandhi As A Hipster, And Other World Leaders Turned Too Cool

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Once upon a time, young designer Amit Shimoni was contemplating the state of Israeli cultural icons. He Googled a photo of Theodor Herzl, 19th century founder of the World Zionist Organization, and was surprised to see only two accurate photographs of the known figure. He compared his findings with a search of an "average 18-year-old guy," which yielded endless results.

Shimoni took it upon himself to correct the imbalance by starting a series of illustrations that depicted the founding fathers of his home country, rendered in the bright colors you'd find on a friend's Instagram feed. The series was successful, eventually inspiring the artist to expand the work into "HIPSTORY," a broader project that turns the great leaders of modern history into, well, hipsters.

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Think Queen Elizabeth donning Coachella-ready head-ware, Angela Merkel with a trendy bull ring and matching gages, and Martin Luther King in chic camo and a "Dream Big" hat.

"The history of the last century is heavily defined by its prominent figures," Shimoni explained in an email to HuffPost, "the main leaders who shaped the course of history. I often find myself imagining a world where some of these leaders are less interested in influencing lives, and more focused on their own persona."

He encourages his fans to imagine Gandhi obsessing over his looks, rather than protesting British rule of India, or Abraham Lincoln searching for the perfect dive bar, instead of working toward the abolition of slavery. "HIPSTORY" does this for them, in fact, placing recognizable icons in different times and cultures, ones defined by contemporary sets of anxieties and concerns. He's quick to mention that the project isn't meant to criticize one generation over another, but serves to highlight the differences.

"It is my hope that this series will encourage us to reflect: upon our leaders, our society, and ourselves," he adds. "And failing that, HIPSTORY will at least make us smile."

Shimoni tells us that he has plans of continuing his hipsterizing art, hoping to add one American political figure very soon -- Hillary Clinton. We can hardly wait.



All images are shown courtesy of Amit Shimoni, who maintains copyright ownership of HIPSTORY.

h/t New York Times

19 Photos Of Women Working, 100 Years Ago

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Everything that women's work encompasses today, we owe to the women of the past.

One hundred years ago, American women were proving that "women's work" happens outside of the home, too. During World War I, women made strides into the workforce showing that "the weaker sex" did just as well in traditionally masculine arenas like munitions factories, construction and farming. Women continued to contribute to the economy in their jobs at garment factories, mills, telephone switchboards and offices even after the war effort ended.

As Women's History Month draws to a close, here are 19 incredible photos of women at work -- a century ago.


One Of The World's Largest Collections Of Pin-Up Girls Goes On View

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The pin-up girl is a very particular type of woman. She's an All-American super babe, known for dressing up -- and sometimes spilling out -- but never enough to warrant a censor bar. She's flirtatious yet innocent, erotic but not sexual, mischievous and still sweet.

"Her sexiness is natural and uncontrived, and her exposure is always accidental," Dian Hanson, author of The Art of the Pin-Up explained to The Huffington Post. "A fishhook catches her bikini top, an outboard motor shreds her skirt, a spunky puppy trips her up or the ever-present playful breeze lifts her hem, revealing stocking tops and garter straps, but never the whole enchilada."

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Gil Elvgren, Low Down Feelings, Oil on Canvas


The history of the pin-up girl stems back to the time of World War I, when President Woodrow Wilson formed the Division of Pictorial Publicity to create visual stimuli to persuade men to join the war effort. Turned out pin-up girls were quite convincing. It wasn't long before the wavy haired, rosy cheeked, buxom women were popping up on calendars, advertisements and magazine covers all over the country.

The pin-up girl's popularity continued to rise throughout World War II, when soldiers abroad would hang up an image of a pretty lady to remind them of what they were fighting for. Yet some enthusiasts claim the origins of the pin-up extend even further back, debatably to the invention of the bicycle in the early 1800s. For practical reasons, women began sporting pants for the first time soon after, drawing attention to legs like never before and making mainstream women's fashion at once more masculine and more erotic.

To suffragists, the bike was the "freedom machine," releasing women of their ties to a male escort. To the male gaze, the mode of transportation was a prop upon which models sat, prompting a whole new genre of painted and illustrated muses.

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Alberto Vargas, Brunette with Blue Flowers, Watercolor, crayon & graphite on paper


The mythic history of the pin-up is certainly filled with contradictions. On the one hand, objectifying scantily clad women for male pleasure is hardly revolutionary. (Cue hundreds of years of art history.) And yet the pin-up movement has an arguably feminist angle as well, emboldening women with a distinct sense of sexuality, agency and liberation from norms. "We find that the pin-up provided a model through which women could construct themselves as icons of contemporary womanhood," art history professor Maria Elena Buszek writes. "Through the genre, women were representing themselves as at once both conventionally feminine and transgressively aware of her own power and potential for agency on levels both personal and political."

Gallerist Louis Meisel has had a soft spot for the kitsch subculture since childhood, growing up to become the leading dealer and collector of original pin-up artworks. His stash includes oil paintings, watercolors and pastels, each managing to capture the softness of a beautiful woman's face. Some are classic depictions of the girl next door, while others, depicting eroticized visions by the sea or floating in mid-air, seem almost surreal. His works are currently on view at his gallery, in an appropriately named exhibition, "The Great American Pin-Up Girl Returns."

If you're looking for a primer on pin-up culture, curious to see what sexy meant in 1950, or just want to see some beautiful and airbrushed ladies in themed garter belts, enjoy a preview of the show below. For a more in-depth history of how it all went down, check out our timeline here.

"The Great American Pin-Up Returns" will show at Louis K. Meisel Gallery in New York City between April 2 and May 2, 2015.

How To Take Stunning Road Trip Photos, Even If You're Not A Pro

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Spring is in the air, our engines are revved up, and it's a perfect time to plan the ideal American road trip. While on the road, of course you're gonna want to capture every magical second to the best of your Insta-worthy ability.

So start now. We've partnered with EyeEm, an online community of photographers, to round up the best tips for taking professional-style road trip pics.

Heed their photographers' artistic advice, then share your own photos in EyeEm's Portrait of America challenge. To enter, simply share a photo via the EyeEm app that shows us your America -- the people, everyday moments, places or stories that define what America is for you -- and tag it "Portrait of America."

Happy snapping (and mapping)!



Move Over Hermes, Eloi Is Our New Silk Scarf Obsession

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Who's the next great fashion designer? We're on the lookout for the lesser-known or up-and-coming stars who are creating collections and careers worthy of some praise and closet space. Although they aren't household names yet, we're so impressed with their skills that we bet they will be soon. Check out "The Fresh Faces of Fashion" for the scoop on the designers we believe are the next big thing.

Eloi by Paige Russell

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Construction paper cutouts might seem like child's play, but they are the foundation of the sophisticated and eye-catching silk scarves created by artist Paige Russell.

The 24-year-old graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design recently began turning her large scale cut-paper collages into the vibrant accessories that we're currently coveting. That fashionable transformation was inspired from watching her mother frame and hang her prized Hermès scarves over the years.

Russell's limited-edition, hand-hemmed designs are definitely conversation starters. The Austin-based artist describes her wearable art as "deranged technicolor ramblings on silk" that have explored topics like the Deep Web and synesthesia.

We chatted with Russell about her foray into fashion, being compared to some very iconic artists and more. Check it out below.

HuffPost: What does Eloi mean?

Paige Russell: The Eloi are one of the posthuman races in HG Wells' book "The Time Machine." The special effects in the 1960 film version really inspired me. I knew I wanted to incorporate something from that story into my brand.

HuffPost: What inspired you to turn your construction paper collages into silk scarves?

PR: People started asking me to make prints of my work and for whatever reason I didn't feel that taking these layers and layers of paper and squishing them down to just one piece of paper was effective. I love the fluidity of silk, the way it gives these patterns character, and that you can either choose to frame them as you would a print, or wear them.

HuffPost: Your work has been compared to that of Henri Matisse, Stuart Davis as well as Sonia and Robert Delaunay. Are you flattered by the comparison or are you hoping to create a look of your own?

PR: Of course I am flattered! It is insane that my little cutouts could move anyone to think of those people! I think once someone is comfortable with what they are trying to say everything they touch becomes innately theirs. Also, it's funny because until recently I've had to look up these people to get the reference. I've always loved Matisse's work but I didn't know he even did cutouts until a few years ago.

HuffPost: Are there any stars or notable people who you would love to see wearing your designs?

PR: Nina Simone, Emilie Floge (both not alive) and Prince come to mind right now.

HuffPost: If you could go shopping with anyone (alive or deceased) who would it be?

PR: Oscar Wilde seemed like a true weirdo, and he probably loved shopping.

HuffPost: What's the best fashion or beauty advice you've ever received?

PR: "Don't listen to fashion and beauty advice!" -Myself

HuffPost: If you have one day left to live in Austin, what would you do?

PR: I would pick up my boyfriend, our dogs and Taco-Mex breakfast tacos, and go to Pedernales Falls where we'd get super tan and catch a bunch of fish...but it would have to be on a Monday when we could have it to ourselves.

HuffPost: What question do you wish you were asked more?

PR: Are you happy?​ (to keep me aware of how happy I am)

HuffPost: What's next for Eloi?

PR: Maybe turning the scarves themselves into something else after they've been printed. I love the idea of getting further and further away from the original step, continuing to advance the process and the time I spend with each piece.

Here's a look at a few of our favorite Eloi designs. What do you think of the collection?


And to learn how to tie a headscarf, watch the video below.


This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Mom's 'Super-Soft Heroes' Coloring Book Shows Little Boys That Emotion Doesn't Equal Weakness

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Cartoonist, illustrator and mom of two Linnéa Johansson has been drawing cartoons since she was 17. Her latest project is a refreshing take on superheroes, with an empowering message for kids -- especially little boys.

Johansson created a superhero-themed coloring book that showcases these iconic characters' more complex, sensitive sides -- from a babywearing, baking Batman to a tearful, kitten-cuddling Superman.

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The mom, who is originally from Sweden but now lives in Norway, told The Huffington Post that she was inspired to create the coloring book one day after her 3-year-old son Caspian came home from kindergarten almost in tears. While she could tell he was upset about something, the little boy "did everything in his power not to cry," Johansson said, adding, "It looked so painful the way he was making such an effort to literally swallow his tears." When she asked Caspian why he didn't want to cry, he responded, "because Spider-Man doesn't cry."

Caspian's answer broke his mom's heart. "This to me is the proof that, it takes only three years for a child to learn the 'gender code' -- that as a boy, the worst thing you can do is to 'cry like a girl' and that he needed to 'man up' and 'stop crying.' The signal it sends out to a boy is that emotion equals weakness," she said.

As a comic book fan herself, Johansson knows that superheroes are actually complex and sensitive characters, but she told The Huffington Post that she's noticed children's editions emphasize their "aggressive and violent" traits. "Children need to relate to real and emotional role models," she explained.

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So, the mom created images of superheroes that showed their "soft and human side." Her first illustration, "Spider-Man pooping," quickly reached viral fame in Norway and Sweden, prompting her to create nine more pictures for a coloring book series she calls "Super-Soft Heroes." After releasing a free printable PDF of the illustrations, she received positive messages and more original drawings from children, teachers, and parents "all over the world," Johansson said, adding that her son is the coloring book's most enthusiastic fan.

The mom hopes the success of her illustrations makes the creators of these characters "think twice about what they are introducing to our kids." To complement "Super-Soft Heroes," Johansson working on ten illustrations of "strong princesses."

super princess

"I want to make a difference for kids who like me, didn't fit in. Hopefully I can make a difference for somebody."

coloring

To view Linnéa Johansson's coloring book illustrations, keep scrolling or visit her website.



H/T Buzzfeed



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Dolly Parton Duets With Superfan Who Has Down Syndrome, Dazzles Him With Her Kindness

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A country music legend just made one of her superfans feel like a star.

Gage Blackwell of Lynnville, Tennessee, who has Down syndrome, is a huge fan of Dolly Parton, and last Saturday, the 12-year-old had the opportunity to spend time with the singer at her Dollywood theme park, Today.com reported. The pair hung out in a restaurant, and sang a few of Parton's hits together.

gage
Gage with Dolly Parton.

Gage's mother, Lynnae Blackwell, told The Huffington Post that the meeting highlighted Parton's big heart.

"She's an amazing woman. She made him feel like the most important person in the room, and that is a rarity for someone as famous as [she is]," Blackwell said. "It was overwhelming to see the genuine love she had for him. You could tell there was an instant bond there."

The meeting was arranged after someone at Gage's school saw a video of the fan talking about his dream of meeting Parton, and advised Blackwell to reach out to the singer's camp, according to Today.com. The 12-year-old was soon granted 10 minutes with the star. While at the meeting, the singer and her fan started off by singing Parton's popular duet with Kenny Rogers, "Islands in the Stream." The video of Gage and Parton, has since gone viral with more than 1.7 million views on Facebook as of Thursday morning. The pair also chatted about country music and sang other hits, including "Jolene" and "9 to 5."

While Blackwell said that Gage was blown away by Parton's compassion, the country legend seemed delighted with the 12-year-old, herself. At one point during their meeting, she joked about the two going on tour together.

"We may be going on the road before you know it," she said. "We're gonna have to put your name on the side of my bus: Gage and Dolly. How's that sound?"

Parton left a big impression on her young fan, and Blackwell told HuffPost that Gage can't stop thinking about the musician.

"He just loves her! He is very into watching the videos over and over," Blackwell said. "He can even repeat every word she says, and everything he says back to her."

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Iran Film Draws Criticism For Portraying The Prophet Muhammad

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ALLAHYAR, Iran (AP) - Here in this Persian replica of Mecca, built at the cost of millions of dollars, an Iranian film company is attempting to offer the world a literal glimpse of the Prophet Muhammad despite traditional taboos against it.

The movie "Muhammad, Messenger of God" already recalls the grandeur - and expense - of a Cecil B. DeMille film, with the narrow alleyways and a replica Kaaba shrine built here in the remote village of Allahyar. But by even showing the back of the Prophet Muhammad as a child before he was called upon by Allah, the most expensive film in Iranian history already has been criticized before its even widely released, calling into question who ultimately will see the Quranic story come to life on the big screen.

"How should we introduce our prophet?" asked Majid Majidi, the film's director. "Many relay their messages to the world through cinema and pictures."

In American cinematic history, films involving the Bi ble often find the biggest audience and box office returns. Biblical stories have inspired dozens of films from the 1920s all the way to recent blockbusters like "Noah" starring Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott's biblical epic "Exodus: Gods and Kings."

But in Islam, portraying the Prophet Muhammad has long been taboo for many. Islamic tradition is full of written descriptions of Muhammad and his qualities - describing him as the ideal human being. But clerics generally have agreed that trying to depict that ideal is forbidden. The Paris terror attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which killed 12 people in January, saw gunmen target it over its caricature of the prophet.

But while Sunni Islam, the religion's dominant branch, widely rejects any depictions of Muhammad, his close relatives or companions, Shiite Islam doesn't. In Shiite powerhouse Iran and other countries, posters, banners, jewelry and even keychains bear the images of Muhammad's son-in-law Ali, revered by Shiites who see him as the prophet's rightful successor. The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, who led Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and later became the country's supreme leader, reportedly even kept a picture similar to young Muhammad in his room for years.

In the new 190-minute film, the story focuses on Muhammad's childhood, never showing his face. The movie instead uses others to tell his story, like his grandfather Abdul-Muttalib, portrayed by Iranian actor Ali Reza Shoja Nouri.

"It was a very heavy role," Nouri told The Associated Press. "I cannot express my feelings about it."

For his vision, Majidi hired Academy Award winning visual effects supervisor and filmmaker Scott E. Anderson, three-time Oscar-winning Italian director of photography Vittorio Storaro and music producer Allah-Rakha Rahman, who won two Academy Awards for his work on "Slumdog Millionaire."

By making a high-quality film, Majidi said it will give the world the right impression about the Prophet Muhammad. He blamed Islamic extremists and the West for sullying the image of a pillar of faith for 1.5 billion people across the world.

"For Muslims, the Prophet Muhammad is a mercy to the world and the hereafter," he said.

Yet, the film already has seen widespread criticism even before being widely released, largely from predominantly Sunni Arab countries. In February, Egypt's Al-Azhar, one of Sunni Islam's most prestigious seats of learning, called on Iran to ban a film it described as debasing the sanctity of messengers from God. Meanwhile, the Sunni kingdom of Qatar has announced plans to have its own $1 billion epic shot on the prophet's life.

Majidi said he would be ready to cooperate with any Islamic country planning a film on Muhammad.

"We are ready to cooperate to produce any movies to introduce Muhammad to the world," Majidi said. "We are an Islamic country, we know the related culture and we have capabili t ies for production of such movies."

So far, the film appears to have the support of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's current supreme leader, who attended an inauguration of the film's set in 2012.

Iranian film critics generally have praised the film as well, like Mostafa Seyedabadi, who declared its color and lighting as "astonishing," However, critic Masoud Farasati dismissed some of the film's shots, like a low-angle view of the prophet as a teen against the sky, as a "Hollywood" knockoff.

Producers plan to ultimately release the film in Arabic, Persian and English, with showings across Iran and abroad in the summer. Filming took a year, while postproduction in Germany took two more years. And if this film is successful, its producers say they hope to film two sequels, one focusing on Muhammad's life from his teenage years to his 40s and another after 40 when he became the prophet of Islam.

Mohammad Mahdi Heidarian, head of the private Nourtaban Film I ndustry company, said his company spent about $30 million in total to make the movie. He and others declined to elaborate on who provided financial backing for it, though there are wealthy investors and religious institutions in Iran that likely would support such efforts.

In the past, such religious films have done well in Iran. The 1977 Quranic epic "The Message," starring Anthony Quinn as the uncle of the unseen and unheard prophet, drew crowds and long lines to movie theaters in Tehran. And another that did well was DeMille's own 1956 film, "The Ten Commandments," with Charlton Heston playing the sea-parting prophet Moses. It's yet to be seen whether Majidi's film will be led into the promised land of a wide release.

Tig Notaro Is Working On A Top Secret TV Show (But Would Also Be Fine With Just Feeding The Birds)

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Tig Notaro is one of the most revealing comedians working today, weaving deeply personal details about her life into hilarious and conversational bits about the everyday. But you know what else she's great at? Bird watching.

In an alternate universe, Notaro could be a happy pizza delivery driver, a stay-at-home child/bird watcher or the unhappy wife of a wealthy man, but luckily for us, she chose comedy. She recently premiered her first documentary special, "Knock Knock, It's Tig Notaro," at Austin's SXSW festival, which follows Notaro as she performs intimate and/or awkward sets in fans' homes, backyards and basements. The special will air on Showtime April 17.

Notaro spoke to The Huffington Post over the phone on Tuesday and reflected on her life and career ... and birds. She also left us with a pretty masterful round of "Two Truths and a Lie," but if you know Notaro at all, you won't have a hard time figuring out which one is the lie.


How are you doing today?

I'm great. I'm just in the process of turning 44.

Happy Birthday! Sorry you have to work on your birthday.

It's not a problem.

I'm curious, where does your name come from? Is Tig short for something?

My brother made it up when I was two. People think it's my stage name. I guess it is, because I use it on stage as well, but it's just my name.

I saw you perform at SXSW and talk about the temping job you had before you got started in comedy. Did you have any other odd jobs?

Oh yeah, I was a barista at a coffee shop, I babysat, I was a production assistant. I worked for the director Sam Sam Raimi's company for a couple of years. I worked at a grocery store, a lot of things like that.

And do you have any idea what you'd be if you hadn't become a comic?

Oh my God, an utter mess of a human. My girlfriend and I talk all the time about what we would do if we had minimum wage jobs and I always think that I'd want to deliver pizzas. I like that I could just get in my car, get away from everyone and just listen to music. I don't know what I would do. Maybe find a rich man and get married and have kids [laughs]. I think I would have been a very lost human being.

Based on your description of the pizza delivery job, it sounds like you could have been an Uber driver.

No, I wouldn't want to be an Uber driver because then I'd have to talk to people. What I like is that I could get out on the open road -- with my car smelling like pizza -- and just listen to music.

That does kind of sound like a dream job.

Yeah, I don't know why anyone wouldn't want that for themselves.

I love the name of your special, "Knock Knock, It's Tig Notaro." Do you have a favorite knock knock joke?

I can't help but smirk every time someone does the "Orange you glad" joke.

After your album, film and TV special, do you have any personal comedy milestones you hope to reach?

I have an HBO special coming out next year , which is an hour of stand-up. I really don't have much beyond that. My girlfriend and I really amuse each other and we have a fantasy about writing and making something together, but sometimes a part of me just wants to be at my house and feed birds and have children ... Wait, did I say feed or have children?

Well, you could do both.

Yeah I'm not up to that, but I'd like to just stay at my house all the time, feed the birds, hang out with Stephanie [Allynne] and have children. And then, you know, pop out new stand-up shows here and there. That's kind of my dream.

You could probably make that dream a reality.

I'm kind of on the teetering point of that being my life. I've been developing a top-secret TV show so that might appear if it gets picked up, but if not, I'll probably just be here with the birds.

Sounds pretty relaxing.

Yeah, I have bird feeders hanging all over the property. I have a lot of birds' nests too. I'm sure that's not what you were trying to get to the bottom of.

[laughs] It's okay I have other questions.

Are they about birds?

Performing wise, do you prefer New York, LA or being out on the road?


I recently performed in Cleveland and I had always wanted to go there. I'm a big fan of the band The Pretenders and Chrissie Hynde is from Akron, Ohio, so on this tour I drove out of my way to drive to Akron and make my dreams come true. I'm realizing in this interview I sound like I don't have big dreams for myself, between the birds and Akron, Ohio. But, in Cleveland, the audience was just so into it, I ended up doing almost two hours. So the New York and LA audiences are really awesome and great and all that stuff, but Middle America is dynamite, as well. All the fly-over states. I just really love performing.

What's your favorite place to write jokes?

Well, I do all my writing on stage. I'll have an idea or a word or a concept that I think about, but it's not until I'm on stage that I start working it out. I can guarantee that I live with my girlfriend and she's never seen me sit down and write jokes. I'll record audio to remember what I said on stage. But, I don't know, I like that kind of risky feeling I guess on stage.

Do you think the stigma surrounding women doing comedy will ever fully go away?

I hope so. It hasn't ever really reared its head in my life. I just don't even think about it. I just think about doing the best shows I can do and always being the funniest I can be, and then I call it a day. I really think everyone should do that too.

Tell us two truths and a lie.

Okay, one: I use to water ski in swamps as a kid. Two: I played with barbies through middle school. And three ... Umm, I have nipples?

Tickets and tour dates for Tig Notaro can be found on her website.

The Oscars Will Have New Producers In 2016

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For those who had problems with this year's Academy Awards, there is some good news: Craig Zadan and Neil Meron will not return to produce the Oscars ceremony in 2016. The pair confirmed their exit in an interview with Deadline.com.

"Frankly before the Oscars this year were even broadcast, we were questioning whether or not, if we were ever asked, whether we wanted to do it again, and we had long talked about it, and also had casual discussions with [Academy President] Cheryl Boone Isaacs and [Academy CEO] Dawn Hudson about it way back when, and the past couple of years have been incredible, but at the same time, we've also put a lot of projects on hold, and they haven't been getting our full attention,” Meron said.

Zadan and Meron were hired to produce the Oscars before the 2013 broadcast, which featured Seth MacFarlane as host. They produced the 2014 show (with Ellen DeGeneres) and this year's ceremony (with Neil Patrick Harris). As Zadan revealed to Deadline.com, the producers had signed a three-year contract with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences before taking over, a deal previously undisclosed to the public.

This year's Oscars ceremony had the show's lowest ratings since 2009. Overall, 36.6 million people tuned in to watch as "Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)" win Best Picture. Following the broadcast, Zadan hinted that their run at the Academy Awards was over:




For the full interview with Zadan and Meron, head to Deadline.com.

Humans Try To Catch Food, Aren't Nearly As Cute As Fritz The Dog

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Fritz is one cool golden retriever. He loves playing catch with food like burritos and doughnuts. Fritz doesn't always catch his food, but he's still adorable.

Just look at him!
fritz


Humans, on the other hand, aren't as cute -- especially when they're trying to snatch flying food. BuzzFeed put together a video of people attempting to catch doughnuts, pizza, burritos, pumpkin pie and more in their mouths.

It isn't pretty, but it's certainly funny. As the video description notes, "Mouths are freaking worthless."

H/T BuzzFeed

How One Artist Is Working To Build A 'Mini-Versailles' On Chicago's South Side

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For acclaimed Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates, community revival all comes back to his training as a potter -- a practice in which “you very quickly learn to make great things out of nothing.”

That’s exactly what Gates has done with Dorchester Projects, part of an impressive cluster of formerly abandoned buildings on Chicago’s South Side that Gates has renovated into cultural hubs and community gathering sites in the struggling Grand Crossing neighborhood.

It all started with one two-story house adjacent to Gates’ studio on South Dorchester Avenue, Gates explained in a recent TED Talk. Purchased in 2009, the building today serves as a micro-library called the Archive House. A number of sister properties, including the Listening House and the Black Cinema House, soon followed. The hubs quickly began to attract attention from “very significant people from the city and beyond who find themselves in the middle of the 'hood,” according to Gates.

listening house
The Archive House, the first of Gates' Dorchester Projects, before and after. As is the case with Gates' art, the Archive House and his other sites incorporate many reclaimed materials.


Gates’ sites serve a number of functions to the communities that surround them. The Black Cinema House hosts regular screenings and discussions catered to people of the African diaspora. One recent program, “The Divine Feminine,” showcased video and performance-based works from artists of color exploring themes of femininity.

The Listening House is home to portions of the Johnson Publishing Company collection, including back issues of Ebony and Jet magazines, and an archive from the city's late great shop, Dr. Wax Records.

But Gates’ vision for a revitalized South Side doesn’t stop there. His non-profit Rebuild Foundation is currently working to renovate the long-closed Stony Island Bank into another cultural hub, and he has his eye on more development in the future.

“Nothing had happened there. It was dirt, it was nothing, it was nowhere,” Gates said. “But if we can land kind of a miniature Versailles on top of that and connect these buildings by a beautiful green belt, this place where people never wanted to be would become an important destination for folk from all over the country and world.”

Recognizing that he can’t “export” his work, Gates had advice to offer other communities such as Akron, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; or Gary, Indiana, who are similarly working toward revitalization.

“When there are resources that have not been made available to certain under-resourced cities or neighborhoods or communities, sometimes culture is the thing that helps to ignite [communities],” he said, adding, “If you start with culture and get people reinvested in their place, other kinds of adjacent amenities start to grow and then people can make a demand that’s a poetic demand and the political demands that are necessary to wake up our cities also become very poetic.”

WATCH Gates discuss the project in a TED Talk, above.

This Is What Mental Illness Actually Looks Like

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Photographer Anne Betton, 37, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2009. After an arts-focused education, she had moved on to a career in business communication—but a breakdown caused her to cycle between mania and depression for several years, including stints in psychiatric hospitals.

Stabilized since 2012, Betton has moved on to a second career in the arts, and now she’s focusing on portraying the journeys of others who, like her, have battled with mental illness.
Betton decided to commit to the cause after deep reflection on mental illness, its meaning, and the place of the mentally ill in society. Her photography collection, “Putting A Face on Mental Illness,” illustrates the humanity of mentally ill people—making them subjects, not objects of derision, scorn and misunderstanding. In her portraits, which she takes in the homes of her subjects, she seeks to draw them out in conversation and “reflect the soul” of each person in their portraits. A selection of her works was recently exhibited in an art gallery in Paris, to an enthusiastic local reception.

Betton’s project seeks to destigmatize mental illness, and portray it as only one facet of the complex humanity of her subjects, who suffer from an array of mental illnesses including major depression, schizophrenia and bipolarity. In a statement about her project, she writes about her motivations to create portraits of mentally ill subjects:

Because we are part of your family, your neighbors, your colleagues, and we dare not reveal ourselves for fear of being stigmatized. Because diseases such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, chronic depression, psychoses are little known or poorly known ... Because the media, especially the "trash journalism" which aims to sell and not to inform, and most police series, want you to believe that we can be often aggressive or dangerous ... We decided to come forward and show our features. STOP the isolation we create or we suffer... Open the doors and take the time to find us ... We have a lot to offer you, whose sincerity and sensitivity often are beautiful …


Below are some of her most evocative portraits. Under each portrait is the subject’s age, their job and a quotation of their choice; Betton does not specify the illnesses they suffer, preferring to allow each subject to choose how much they incorporate their illness into their identity.

Find more of Betton’s work at her official site.





A version of this post appeared on HuffPost France, written by Annabel Benhaiem.

Seth Cohen Would Still Completely Love Death Cab For Cutie

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death cab for cutie





On a snowy night in January, Death Cab for Cutie packed Music Hall of Williamsburg, a much smaller venue than the band usually plays. In a few months, they’ll come back to New York and take on a bigger space, the holy grail of arena stops -- Madison Square Garden -- but in a small room in Brooklyn, 550 fans bundled together to stay warm and sing loud.

Ben Gibbard, the band’s forever frontman, known for his unapologetic love songs, bounced from one foot to the other, shielding himself with his guitar. His legs seemed unattached from his body as he sang lyrics that ended up on “The O.C.” in 2003. He got through “You Are a Tourist” and “Doors Unlocked and Open,” the two songs from the band’s 2011 album “Codes and Keys” that people still want to hear. Who cares that they’re about his ex-wife, Zooey Deschanel, or that the entire album now sounds like it was written by a man unaware of his own demise (and impending divorce)? To the people in the room, the fans who trekked through the snow, they’re about the person standing by their side, who they’re maybe still in love with.

And when the band bounded into “Black Sun,” the first single off Death Cab's new album, “Kintsugi,” the crowd dug it. “I feel like this batch of songs fits fairly seamlessly in with the old material that maybe some stuff on the last record didn’t,” Gibbard had said a few days before. “Every time we played a set that has new material in it, it always feels like we’re flying down the highway and we have to throw the brakes on for the new songs. Like you see a cop with a radar gun, like slow down.”

Gibbard began the show’s encore with an acoustic version of “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” sweat dripping onto his gray pleated trousers. The familiar words ached and stretched as he sang. He sounded good. The new songs sounded good, and the crowd realized: Death Cab’s only speeding up.



Earlier that week, Gibbard, drummer Jason McGerr and bassist Nick Harmer sat in a cushy room at Atlantic Records’ offices. They had just barely made it into New York before winter storm Juno picked up speed, and were downing drugstore remedies to fight off colds. Handlers brought in soup and Saltine crackers. They pressed their faces up to the window of the midtown skyscraper to watch snow fall on Manhattan.

It’s just the three of them now, though they’re accompanied by two new touring members (Dave Depper and Zac Rae). Last August, Chris Walla, the band’s founding guitarist and producer, announced that he would leave Death Cab after 17 years, via a column in Seattle alt-weekly paper, The Stranger. “Moving forward, my plans are simply to continue making music, producing records, and erring on the side of benevolence and beauty whenever possible,” he wrote. “Darkness may find me, but I shall never choose it.”

The band knew it was coming. About a month after they started recording the new record, Walla told them he was planning to leave. ”He didn’t realize he was in a rock band until five years into the band,” Gibbard said. “I think he kind of came to the conclusion it was time for him to follow what he felt was his true calling. It’s bittersweet. There’s the relief that it’s finally happened and ...”

“There’s the sadness that it’s happening,” Harmer said, finishing Gibbard's sentence.

“I think in the long run, we’ll all be better for it,” Gibbard said; Harmer agreed, “100 percent.”

“It'll be better for everybody if we’re all doing what we want to be doing,” Gibbard reasoned. “If Chris decided he wanted to focus on production and other projects and move on to other phases in his life. I’d much rather him do that than stay and not be happy. “

Walla’s departure signaled a turning point that has only invigorated the band while they tour and promote “Kintsugi,” their eighth studio album. Walla stayed on to record the album from start to finish, but it was the first Death Cab album produced by an outsider, Rich Costey.

It's a reflective record, with obvious lyrics like, "You've haunted me all my life / You are the mistress I can't make a wife." With a comfortable sense of authority, it's a reminder of why you fell in love with “Transatlanticism,” “Plans” and Seth Cohen. On the surface, “Kintsugi” is a break-up record, a bounce back from “Codes and Keys,” which was met with a resounding “meh” from critics and fans. Listening to it now seems like a horrible “I told you so,” and if you know Gibbard’s love life, it’s almost easier not to listen to it at all.



“Divorce is an ugly and painful thing,” Gibbard said. From the man who wrote lyrics like, "You're the only song I want to hear," this sentiment stings. “As I was writing tracks for this record, I made the conscious decision to not edit that for fear of people either correctly or erroneously putting a face on some of these songs. They’re bound to do that no matter what I was writing about.”

Gibbard added, “Obviously, divorce is naturally going to hang over this record because it’s the thing people probably know the most about in the last two years.”

He explains, though, that songs such as “No Room In Frame” and “Binary Sea” are about other things, stuff like social media and fame and curiosity, things he observed and witnessed in the past few years. These tracks, the ones that seem to bite at no one in particular, are still riddled with the kind of anger and frustration reserved for an indie-emo band. What am I doing with my life? Fuck these feelings.

“Little Wanderer” is one of Gibbard’s favorite songs on the record. “There’s this trope in rock and roll music like, ‘I’m leaving baby and I gotta go on the road.’ It’s always written from the perspective of the person who’s leaving. I just thought it’d be interesting to write a song from the other side, the person who’s sitting at home waiting for the person," he said. "You’re gone a lot and you create a lighthouse of a person at home. But the lighthouse never gets to write its own song.”

And “Good Help” focuses on Gibbard’s time in Los Angeles -- living with Deschanel -- and the people who’d been addled by fame.

“I’ve never been in so many contact with people who had created a world around them that was basically there to tell them what they wanted to hear. I think that fame freezes people at the age at which you got famous. If you watch a documentary about a rock band and they’re super super famous and they’re acting like 19 year olds, it’s like oh yeah because they got famous when they were 19," he said. "There was never anybody around to tell them what they were doing was not fucking cool. I think the entertainment industry is wrought with people who have had their development arrested at a certain point because of that. I have empathy for that.”

Coming from a Grammy-nominated band a raised eyebrow seems appropriate. “You’d have to ask someone else,” Gibbard said when asked if they saw some of that in the mirror.

“We were never on that kind of rocketship,” Harmer said. “At no point did I wake up and find myself in a room or surrounded by people that I had no idea how I got here or now they got here or anything. Where we’re from, valet parking is something that just isn’t ... what is that? Our environment doesn’t support that culture.”

That environment is Seattle. Death Cab for Cutie is as much a part of the Pacific Northwest as bands like Pearl Jam or Sleater-Kinney. “The city of Seattle and the Northwest in general doesn’t tolerate rock star bullshit,” Gibbard said. “It’s the reason you still see the Pearl Jam guys around town in the community. If you heard about one of us going to a restaurant in Seattle and demanding a table because we were in Death Cab for Cutie, we would get laughed out of the city.”

death cab for cutie

"I need you so much closer” -- it’s perhaps the most famous Death Cab lyric, the “Transatlanticism” refrain that’s held out eight times in a row, four times in a row, until it’s just a thirsty whisper. It’s the title track on the band’s most well-known and beloved album, and in Williamsburg, 12 years after it was released, Gibbard sung it over and over again. He leaned forward as his hair drooped over his face, stopping just above his nose.

“The kid who fell in love with ‘Transatlantcism,’ we can’t recreate that moment for them,” Gibbard had said in Atlantic’s studio. “But I want to make something that reminds people who have been fans for a long time what they love about the band. If we were trying to be relevant we would be making music that sounds like Animal Collective. It doesn’t matter if it’s relevant to what Pitchfork is writing about. It matters about what’s relevant in their lives. To me that’s the goal.”

Death Cab for Cutie's "Kintsugi" is due out March 31 via Atlantic Records, and is available to stream via NPR.



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