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These 102-Year-Old Photos Shows What Beachy Waves Used To Look Like

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When it comes to faking beachy hair, there is no shortage of products that can help you achieve it. But as with anything else, there's nothing quite like the real thing. Apparently, that sentiment has been true for years -- 102 years, to be exact.

These gorgeous photos of Christina O'Gorman, taken in 1913 by her father Mervyn O'Gorman at a beach in Dorset, England, offer not only a glimpse to the past, but also prove that the best beachy waves are only attainable by actually going to the beach.

The images are notably in color, which according to Mashable is a result of O'Gorman using Autochrome, "one of the first color photo technologies, which used glass plates coated in potato starches to filter pictures with dye."

Take a look at the images below, and excuse us while we book a beach vacation ASAP.


SSPL/Getty Images



SSPL/Getty Images



SSPL/Getty Images


(H/T Mashable)

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The Beautiful Way Hawaiian Culture Embraces A Particular Kind Of Transgender Identity

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In traditional, Western culture, gender identity is often considered a binary concept: You are either male or you are female.

This restrictive and defining construct makes it difficult for our society to understand people like Bruce Jenner, who recently came out as transgender, because they don't always fit neatly into a box. While some transgender people move from one end of the gender spectrum to the other when they transition, other transgender people exist somewhere in between, embracing both genders, neither genders or a multiplicity of genders.

Ultimately, by changing and broadening our definition of gender identity, we can not only better understand it, we can truly embrace it.

In Native Hawaiian culture, for instance, the idea of someone who embodies both the male and female spirit is a familiar and even revered concept. Gender identity is considered fluid and amorphous, allowing room for māhū, who would fall under the transgender umbrella in Western society.

“Māhū is the expression of the third self," Kaumakaiwa Kanaka‘ole, a Native Hawaiian activist and performer told Mana magazine. "It is not a gender, it’s not an orientation, it’s not a sect, it’s not a particular demographic and it’s definitely not a race. It is simply an expression of the third person as it involves the individual. When you find that place in yourself to acknowledge both male and female aspects within and accept the capacity to embrace both … that is where the māhū exists and true liberation happens.”

As an upcoming PBS documentary "Kumu Hina," about a transgender woman and teacher, shows, māhū are thought to inhabit "a place in the middle."

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A still from Kumu Hina, which premieres on PBS on Monday, May 4 at 10 p.m. EST (9 PM CST).


Māhū are valued and respected in traditional Hawaiian culture because their gender fluidity is seen as an asset; the ability to embrace both male and female qualities is thought to empower them as healers, teachers and caregivers.

That ability also helps when it comes to navigating life's challenges.

"I didn’t take to life as my family’s son," Hina Wong-Kalu, the subject of Kumu Hina, says in Mana. "I wanted to be their daughter. However, for me to expand my own personal journey and the challenges in my life, I’ve had to embrace the side of me that is the more aggressive, the more Western-associated masculine when I need to. But that’s the beauty of being māhū, that’s the blessing. We have all aspects to embrace.”

More from The Huffington Post about Bruce Jenner coming out as transgender:

- Bruce Jenner Comes Out As Transgender
- Bruce Jenner's Ex-Wife: How Living With and Loving Bruce Jenner Changed My Life Forever
- New Reality Show Will Show Bruce Jenner Living Life As Transgender Woman
- Celebrities React To Bruce Jenner's Diane Sawyer Interview
- Bruce Jenner Says Kim Kardashian Accepted Transition With Help From Kanye West
- Bruce Jenner Says Time He Won Olympics He Was 'Scared To Death'

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Los Angeles Looks Gorgeous From 10,000 Feet In The Air

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Los Angeles sure looks beautiful from 10,000 feet in the air -- a kaleidoscopic circuit board of a city.

Photographer Vincent Laforet has taken aerial photos over several major American cities, including New York, San Francisco and Las Vegas. This time, he turned his lens on the country's second-largest metropolis and its sprawling network of roadways. His nighttime shots were captured from a helicopter, Mashable reports, when Laforet was graced with clear skies to capture the notoriously smoggy city.

The full set of Laforet's Los Angeles photos can be seen on Storehouse. You can also sign up to pre-order a book on his Air series here. For now, take a look at a few of them below.

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The Powerful Reason Why An Art Student Chose To Sit Blindfolded And Almost Naked On Campus (NSFW)

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With headphones covering her ears and a blindfold on her face, 22-year-old Monika Rostvold spent 45 minutes on Monday morning sitting almost naked on the steps of the Alkek Library on the Texas State University campus.

Social media platforms like Snapchat and Twitter were soon abuzz with photos and video of Rostvold, and websites geared towards college-aged men were quick to comment on the woman’s behavior.

“This is what crazy looks like,” joked Total Frat Move. BroBible’s headline read: “There’s A Naked Girl Stoop Chillin’ Outside The Library At Texas State For God Knows What Reason.”

But Rostvold, a fine arts major at the university, later revealed that she did indeed have a reason, and an important one at that: She was there to raise awareness about sexual assault.

monica rostvold

"I wanted people to view my body as beauty and power and not a sexual object. The fact that it is Sexual Assault Awareness Month I wanted to create a piece about the standards that exist in our society,” Rostvold told the San Antonio Express-News. “Being a victim and having friends who are victims of sexual assault I wanted to take control of my body by eliminating my presence and exposing myself.”

This year's campaign for Sexual Assault Awareness Month focuses on the prevention of sexual violence on college campuses. Rostvold’s performance is said to be part of the “Never Asking For It” movement, a student-led campaign that’s based on the idea that women, regardless of appearance or behavior, should never be subjected to sexual violence.




The student said her performance was a protest of the objectification of women’s bodies.

"The message I was trying to get across was that we shouldn't be seen as sexual objects," Rostvold told Cosmopolitan. "We're beautiful and we're powerful, and people should just respect our bodies in that way."

Rostvold, who wore pasties and a nude thong during the performance, said she looked into federal, state and college nudity restrictions beforehand.

"I talked to a defense attorney about it just to make sure that it would be okay because I didn't want the cops to arrest me for me just trying to spark a conversation,” Rostvold told KTSW 89.9.

According to the San Antonio Express-News, Rostvold was approached by campus police, but was not told to leave. Texas State Police Sgt. Daniel Benitez told the news outlet that he “did not find Rostvold's performance to be illegal.”




Rostvold said she endured some negative backlash in the wake of her performance, but added that the positive feedback has been immense.

"People have come to me on Facebook and written me messages thanking me for making it aware that we're not alone in this," she told Cosmopolitan.

On Tuesday, Rostvold took to Instagram to thank her supporters.

“I just want to say thank you to all the kind people out there for letting me spread the word through art,” she wrote.

A photo posted by Monika Rostvold (@monikaugh) on


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Why The Best Painting At The Guggenheim This Summer Was Made By A Third Grader

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Modern Western education traditionally emphasizes two skills: the ability to process text and numbers. The importance of images, however, is often overlooked. While mainstream public schooling treats pictorial information as peripheral, a quick glimpse at the world around us can contradict this strategy. From television screens to billboards to magazine ads, images are everywhere, shaping and imprinting the minds of impressionable children and adults alike. To be illiterate in the realm of images leaves one powerless to criticize and create in a predominately image-driven culture.

The Guggenheim Museum in New York City has long been working to give children the opportunity to attain what they call "visual literacy," a working understanding of what images are and how they work. Now in its 44th year, Learning Through Art is an educational program that provides elementary schoolers throughout New York public schools with the chance to spend 90 minutes a week focusing on art: looking at it, reflecting on it and, of course, making it.

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Student artwork. Third grade, PS 88, Queens, 2015, © 2015 Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York


In the 1970s, New York found itself in a fiscal crisis, on the verge of bankruptcy. As explained by Susan J. Bodilly and Catherine H. Augustine in Revitalizing Arts Education Through Community-Wide Coordination: "The arts and arts teachers became easy targets for budget cutting. As an example, in 1975-1976, after a decade of crisis and constant budget cuts, the New York City public schools laid of 15,000 teachers, almost 25 percent of the total number. Teachers in subjects considered 'less central' were the first to go. According to the the Center for Arts Education, 'By 1991, the last year for which systematic arts data was collected by the Board of Education, two-thirds of the schools had no licensed art or music teachers.' Schools were no longer allowed to hire arts teachers, and arts teachers who remained were transferred to other positions."

In response to the massive cuts in arts funding in schools across New York, Natalie K. Lieberman, a member of the Guggenheim's development department, launched a program initially called Learning to Read Through the Arts. The initiative, which began as an independent program housed within the Guggenheim, provided arts education to public elementary school children across all five boroughs of New York. It continued through the mid-1990s with substantial contributions from Lieberman, until she passed away, and the museum absorbed the program.

The name soon changed to Learning Through Art (LTA), more accurately capturing the broad aims of a curriculum that extended well beyond reading. It's continued this way ever since. Each year, for 20 weeks, a teaching artist collaborates with a classroom instructor on an artistic curriculum that incorporates both themes from a central syllabus of coursework and the artworks currently on view at the Guggenheim. The syllabus includes hands-on art projects, discussions based on historical and contemporary artworks, as well as a final art project -- all of which revolve around a single theme, or "essential question."

"Every residency has an essential question that connects all the projects you do throughout the year together," teaching artist Molly O'Brien reiterated to The Huffington Post. And the culminating works don't just go on view in the teachers' lounge; they get their very own wing at the Guggenheim, on view alongside works by artists like On Kawara and Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian.

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Student Artwork. Third grade, PS 144, Queens, 2015
Photo: Kris McKay © 2015 Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York


This year, O'Brien teamed up with fourth-grade teacher Deborah Sachs at PS 86 in the Bronx, who has been participating in LTA for 13 years. Their "essential question" was inspired not by a particular piece at the Guggenheim but by the structure of the museum itself -- the iconic, spiraling edifice designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1959.

"Our question was, 'How does where we are affect how we move?'" O'Brien explained. "We looked at the designs of spaces and environments and how we move through them. The students designed models of what their ideal schools and classrooms would look like. We talked a lot about Frank Lloyd Wright's perspective on architecture. Surprisingly, these third graders can talk a lot about organic architecture."

These questions, challenging to say the least, would likely intimidate an undergraduate art student, let alone an elementary schooler. But, as O'Brien put it, "the kids rise to the challenge every time." For example, she taught a second classroom this year, aside from Sachs' group, with a curriculum that revolves around the query, "How can we time visible?" To answer it, the class discussed the different ways time is experienced, witnessed and documented, both in life and in art. She described it as "pretty conceptual."

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Student artwork. Sixth grade, PS 86, Bronx, 2015 © 2015 Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York


The students and teachers also engage in a daily inquiry, focused on one specific work of art, frequently one found in the Guggenheim's collection. Using open-ended questions, the teachers facilitate powerful discussions that can last over 30 minutes on a single work of art. "Depending on the background of the students, this idea of asking them a question that doesn't have an answer is a really foreign concept to them," O'Brien said. "By the end you realize those conversations have so much more power and momentum and the potential to be really deep. They often go on for way longer than I'd expected, which is pretty impressive for nine and ten year olds."

The discussions also allow students to communicate in different ways, often with images of their own, a practice beneficial to those who may not have confidence talking in front of a group to express themselves. "It gave the students more of a choice in how they were learning or how they were participating," said O'Brien. "It's amazing for me to see often in the final weeks that students may not have been as vocal are volunteering to share their artwork."

"The students are making art, looking at art, and reflecting on the experience," explained Greer Kudon, senior education manager of LTA at the Guggenheim. "Having students engage with the art, finding evidence for their statements, it all connects back to this idea of visual literacy." Visual literacy is at the core of the program; the notion that navigating and understanding television, movies, ads and websites are necessarily skills in today's world. In order to be an engaged citizen and a creative force, kids shouldn't just be talking about books, they need to be talking about images.

At the end of the program, the teachers and staff confer to select around four artworks from each classroom to show as part of "A Year with Children 2015," an exhibition at the Guggenheim. "What the teaching artists and the classroom teachers are looking for are works that exemplify the process that the students have gone through over the course of the year," Kudon expressed. "It's not necessarily the best figurative image or the best landscape, they're looking for works that capture the experience that these students had. We also, from where I stand, are looking for gender equality. Obviously we want them to be aesthetically pleasing, but that's very subjective."

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Fifth grade, PS 9, Brooklyn, 2015 © 2015 Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York


The opportunity to be shown in the Guggenheim, one of the leading modern and contemporary art galleries in the world, is one most artists spend their lives working towards. The magnitude of the experience is not lost on the kids. "Their art is in a wing just like Kandinsky's art is in a wing, or Chagall's," Sachs said. "It's open like any other exhibit is open to the public. You will see foreigners walking through and it's unbelievable! I always joke with the kids and say 'Jean-Francois will be visiting from France, and he will see your work as an example of New York art!' What they gain from the experience -- it's enriching them in a way that, honestly, we can't do in the classroom."

Aside from the memories and pride associated with showing in a major museum, LTA provides children with tools that will assist them throughout their education, including literacy skills, problem solving, creativity and confidence. Two U.S. Department of Education grants have quantified some of the advancements actualized by the art program. The first, "Teaching Literacy Through Art," conducted between 2004 and 2006, explored the correlation between reading skills and artistic learning. "Across the board, it was proven there was improvement in literacy for students who went through the program," Kudon explained. Specifically, as detailed in the study, "Treatment Group students were more talkative and used more complex language than did Control Group students."

The second study, conducted between 2007 and 2009, was titled "The Art of Problem Solving," and examined children's problem solving and creative skills, breaking down this somewhat abstract concept into six more measurable components. The results showed that three out of the six targets showed improvement --flexibility, connections of ends to aims, resource recognition. (The other categories were imagining, experimentation and self-reflection.)

As summarized in the study: "In plain language, the findings indicate that students who participate in LTA are more likely to plan, persist, be deliberate and thoughtful, approach difficulties with focus, and have greater knowledge of art materials. On the other hand, students who participate in LTA are no more likely to imagine beyond the task at hand or self critique, and they are less likely to try a number of materials." Kudon hypothesized the satisfactory but not exceptional status of the results stems from the kinds of questions being asked in the particular study. "I think the realization was that these are much harder skills to evaluate in terms of children's success."

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Fourth grade, PS 8, Brooklyn, 2015 © 2015 Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York


Some stories, however, make the triumphant outcomes of LTA more than obvious. "A few years ago when the earthquake occurred in Haiti, I had a child come to my class who had lost his house and his grandparents," Sachs explained. "He was put into my class because he spoke French, as do I. He didn't speak a word -- nothing. I remember taking him to the Guggenheim and thinking, this is going to be interesting. As if he wasn't already shellshocked enough from the country, the city, the school, the language. Right away, he was immersed in this unbelievable artistic experience. Suddenly he was the star of the class, the nicest kid, everyone loved him. He wasn't the most amazing artist in the world, but he loved it all the same."

This year, the Guggenheim is conducting a small grassroots evaluation of the program's effect on children by following six students at four of the participating schools, two performing under grade level, two at grade level, and two above grade level. Kudon explained: "We've done a lot of interviews with these students, asking them about their experience with LTA, what subjects they like best in school, if they ever think about LTA in their other subjects." They also get feedback from the classroom teacher, the teaching artist and the parents of each child. The results of this evaluation will not be available until the end of the program.

For what it's worth -- and that's a lot -- the kids love it. "LTA brings my mind to life, and we are very fortunate to work with The Guggenheim," fourth grader Nashary Altamar wrote about her experience. "LTA is a way to learn how to do art and learn how people made art," added classmate Christopher Macato. And from Sachs herself: "It's an hour and a half of the day where kids' minds can wander. In a way, the program and the trips enrich the children's lives in ways the curriculum can't. It's truly a gift that's given to the children."

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Fourth grade, PS 48, Staten Island, 2015 © 2015 Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York


Our daily lives are saturated with an overabundance of magazine spreads, commercials, printed ads, pop-ups, and countless other graphic signals and signs. "It's a language of words and images which calls out to us wherever we go, whatever we read, wherever we are," John Berger said in his iconic 1972 television series "Ways of Seeing."

Learning Through Art offers up a new model of digesting this overabundance, a model that views understanding art and images not as subsidiary skills for the bourgeoning mind, but a crucial element of being an engaged and purposeful citizen.

"A Year With Children 2015" runs from May 1 until June 17, 2015, at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

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Student artwork. Fourth grade, PS 48, Staten Island, 2015. Photo: Kris McKay © 2015 Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York


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Fourth grade, PS 42, Manhattan, 2015 © 2015 Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York


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The Bottom Line: 'The Enlightenment Of Nina Findlay' By Andrea Gillies

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nina findlay




Dropping the word “enlightenment” into a novel’s title can be read as a provocation of sorts. It implies certain aspirations, certain promises of insight and revelatory character development.

In Andrea Gillies’ The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay, this insinuated promise is an ever-elusive lure seducing us through the story of a middle-aged woman recovering from an injury, and the end of her marriage, in a Greek hospital.

Nina Findlay grew up next door to the Romano brothers, and though she and mercurial Luca were both matched in age and seemingly soul mates, it’s solid older brother Paolo Nina ends up marrying. For over 20 years, as both Luca and Nina continue in separate marriages, they maintain a passionate, flirtatious friendship -- one that seems to add the color and spice lacking from their humdrum domestic lives.

A mysterious, dramatic turn of events blows up this uneasy triangle, however; after the untimely death of Luca’s wife, Nina and Paolo separate, and most shockingly of all, Nina and Luca’s friendship has been shattered. Nina insists that she now hates Luca, that the breach can’t be mended, though for most of the novel we’re entirely in the dark as to why.

Having lost her steady if unexciting spouse and her thrilling if undependable best friend, Nina sets off to Greece in hopes of landing herself in the same romantic setting where she and Paolo honeymooned decades before. Instead, she finds herself in the way of a speeding van and ends up in the hospital nursing a broken leg and confiding in her enigmatic, charming doctor.

Nina has many uninterrupted hours to find herself as she recuperates, eats yogurt in her airy hospital room, graciously allows her handsome doctor to question her about her personal life and emotional state, and ponders her broken marriage. Dashing Dr. Christos, however, serves as the perfect distraction for Nina, who has always defined herself in relation to the men in her life. Seeing the doctor’s attraction to her, she quickly imagines a new romance, a new marriage, a new life: “She smiled at the snippet of film she saw of their island wedding, the two of them standing under the tree in the square, the whole community gathered around them... She looked absolutely content, this woman, and young for her age.”

Of course, Nina is naive and impulsive; her fantasy seems plucked from Eat Pray Love, right down to the plan to write a book about her foreign adventure and second marriage. Lessons, clearly, must be learned.

Dr. Christos, for example, proves a more complicated, and less appealing, figure than his initial disarming pose would suggest. There is no escape into an easy, uncomplicated second life with him. Nina comes to recognize how much she’d idealized her beautiful but clingy mother, Anna, who’d died not long after her father asked for a divorce -- and accordingly, how much of her marital life she’d based on her mother’s deeply flawed advice.

These revelations make up the narrative arc of the novel, which blandly overturns Nina’s youthful misconceptions about life and love. There may still be fresh things to say about women in love, but the value of finding someone dependable and sticking with him isn’t that fresh thing; if anything, it’s a quite conservative stance. Turning the other, more passionate option into some sort of villain is an easy choice, on par with making the losing love interest in a bad rom-com into a cartoonish jerk.

Nina’s enlightenment seems less an enlightenment than a resignation. In her mid-40s, life has left her with few options, or at least few she’s willing to contemplate, and at last she sees her way toward accepting one of those options as a way forward -- but not before the other ones have been blasted out of the water.

Gillies is a skilled writer, painting the scene of Nina’s Greek getaway with cleanly evocative prose, but the characters struggle to come to life, and the bold promise of enlightenment never quite comes through.

The Bottom Line:
Gillies’ gracefully distilled prose makes The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay pleasant reading, but the characters and tired narrative fall flat.

What other reviewers think:
The Guardian: "The secrets that apparently held the couples together for 25 years don't add up, while the 'tragedy' Nina hints at so heavily doesn't, when finally revealed, seem much worse than what has gone before."

Publishers Weekly: "This sure-handed, lovely exploration of the human heart is certain to build Gillies’s audience."

Who wrote it?
Andrea Gillies is the author of the award-winning 2010 memoir Keeper: One House, Three Generations and a Journey into Alzheimer’s, as well as the novel The White Lie, published in 2012. This is her second novel.

Who will read it?
Readers who enjoy introspective, thoughtful fiction focused on the domestic sphere.

Opening lines:
“When the minibus came round the sharpest bend of the descent, trundling along in poor light on the stony dirt road, its driver failed, at first, to see the woman standing taking photographs. He didn’t see her until just before he ran into her.”

Notable passage:
“Didn’t she want to be married to Paolo? Yes. She did. She had meant it when she said yes. Did she really, privately, long to be married to Luca? No. She didn’t. She had meant it when she said no. It was the right order of things, to be married to the friend, a man who loved her sincerely, and to have Luca there in the vicinity. Luca was never going to love her as Paolo did and the pattern of things felt right. Anna would have approved it. So what was the problem? Even the geography of the problem was unclear.”

The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay
by Andrea Gillies
Other Press, $17.95
Publishes May 5, 2015

The Bottom Line is a weekly review combining plot description and analysis with fun tidbits about the book.

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The Unconscious Library Catalogs The Words And Memories We Forget Everyday

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If Borges’s Library of Babel is a massive, amorphous store of written documents, Jonny Love’s Unconcious Library is the opposite. Although it houses over 100,000 books, ladders, and scrolls, it contains virtually no concrete information. Instead, its model stacks, constructed from folded and cut paper, are all completely blank.

Aside from a few labels -- "One night stands," "Windows 98 documents" -- the library is textless. What Love has built is not a house of words, but an homage to the words we've created, said, or heard, but have since forgotten.



Love says his interest in the unconscious, and the unreliable process with which the brain stores memories, spawned from his friend’s nearly tragic biking accident. “It became apparent that memories from the night before the accident had been incorporated into her dreams and was no longer a memory from reality,” he told The Huffington Post. “In fact a whole weeks worth of memories leading to the accident had been eliminated. This was a curiosity to me and I soon found myself hunting tails of memory loss and dipping my toes into a world of unsure theories of how the brain stores memories.”



Before constructing the library, Love had already completed a series of models that attempt to physically represent the feeling of procrastination. His earlier sculpture, "The Archives," is meant to visualize a shelf full of books that a reader intends to read, but hasn't gotten around to yet. But after piecing together the details of a night of heavy drinking, he realized the same concept could be expanded to include other subconscious thoughts. “Those vague clues, wobbly memories and forgotten antics could be recorded and stored,” he said.



The process of “storing” these memories involved a year’s worth of folding and cutting paper -- a process that Love says will “never be considered finished.” The tactile nature of the construction allowed him and his co-creator Samuel Jordan to focus not on the task at hand, but on meandering streams of thought, such as a book they were reading or a letter they wanted to write. “I would say around half of the pieces were made in this unconscious level,” Love said.



He hopes that his project will illuminate that even libraries -- which are designed to store and preserve meaningful information -- are subject to incompleteness in terms of the knowledge they're able to store and display. “Libraries are a magical place filled with mystery, adventure, art, history, love,” he said. “Just like us, over time, they will cease to exist.”

And, while libraries themselves aren't going anywhere anytime soon (other than online), it's true that each is a carousel, rotating in and out the information we find valuable at the time, disposing the quiet and supposedly irrelevant.



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Mom Photoshops Herself Back Into Family Pictures In Hilarious Photo Series

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In anticipation of Mother's Day, comedian mom Ahna Tessler embarked on a creative project that she thought would be the perfect gift for herself. Tessler used Photoshop to put herself back in the family pictures that showed her husband and twin children without their mom.

"I was sick of not seeing myself in our family photos and sick of all those selfies I was forced to take of my kids and me," the mom told The Huffington Post, adding, "I was sick of asking my husband to take pictures of me with my kids because unfortunately, he wasn't born with the I'm-gonna-take-pictures-of-my-wife-with-our-kids gene. He's a phenomenal husband and father, he just sucks at this stuff."

Looking through the many photos she'd taken of her husband and kids one day, she was struck with inspiration. "I noticed that there were huge empty spaces that were just screaming for me to be in them. So, I figured out Photoshop ... poorly... and bam! There I was! There was finally proof that I was part of this family, by God!"

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Tessler calls her hilarious Photoshop series "... And Mama Too" and hopes it will comfort and inspire other moms who feel left out of their family photos. "I just want other mamas to laugh and say, 'me too! me too! me too!!!!' and of course it would be great if their partners said, 'hmmm... maybe I should pick up that camera and point it towards that woman who bore and gave birth to my kid(s). I bet that would make her feel good and loved and recognized.'"

Though the mom says parenting is "the hardest thing" she's ever done in her life, she has no regrets. "I haven't slept more than 3 hours a night in four years. We've gone on about 5 dates since we've had kids. I take about 12 showers a month. I never see my friends. I don't perform anymore. I speak like a 3-year-old and forget what it's like to speak 'adult.' But man oh man, am I happy I did it!"

"I'm in love my damn kids so much it makes me cry at least once a day. I'm head over heels in love with us. I sincerely cannot be more in love with my family."

And, as her funny Photoshopped pictures show, that love transcends the camera lens.



H/T Babble



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Cuban And American Musicians Team Up To Recreate Incredible Moment In Music History

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NEW YORK -- As diplomatic tensions between the U.S. and Cuban governments thawed this winter, pianist and composer Arturo O'Farrill was in Havana recording an album with some Cuban colleagues.

"I saw people break out into tears of joy,” O’Farrill told The Huffington Post. “And I think that moment made its way on to the tracks.”

The New York-raised son of legendary Cuban bandleader Chico O'Farrill has long looked to the island for inspiration. He first visited in 2002 at the invitation of Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés to play the Jazz Plaza Festival in Havana. He has returned in recent years to develop a project that symbolizes the long-awaited relaxing of Cold War hostilities that have defined the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba for half a century.

For his forthcoming album, "Cuba: The Conversation Continues," O’Farrill teamed up with a group of six Cuban musicians to reimagine the 1940s encounter between U.S. jazz giant Dizzy Gillespie and Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo. The greats recorded classics like “Manteca” that fused Afro-Cuban rhythms with the emerging bebop style. Many view those collaborations as a pioneering step toward the creation of the now well-defined genre of Latin jazz.



Listen to the 1947 recording of “Manteca,” performed by the Dizzie Gillespie Orchestra with Chano Pozo on percussion.


For O’Farrill, the fusion between Afro-Cuban music and the American jazz tradition is one that has helped define both his personal and professional lives.

“It’s based on a project that’s been cooking in my mind forever,” O’Farrill told The HuffPost. “You see, Diz and Chano understood the African roots of our music are universal… They realized that they were playing the same music, but that it came from different places.’”

The new work will debut on Friday in New York’s Symphony Space venue. O'Farrill's Afro Latin Orchestra will be joined by three musicians traveling from the island -- trumpeter Yasek Manzano, pianist Alexis Bosch and Juan de la Cruz Antomarchi, a.k.a. “Cotó,” who plays a traditional double-stringed guitar called the “tres.” U.S. composers Michele Rosewoman and two of the bandleader’s sons, composer Zack O’Farrill and trumpeter Adam O’Farrill, will also make appearances.

O’Farrill says he hopes his musical collaborations with artists on the island will help encourage elected officials and policymakers working to mend the fractures U.S.-Cuba relationship.

“There’s a lot of suffering and poverty [in Cuba],” O’Farrill said. “But I gotta tell you that there’s a lot of brilliant joy and beauty. I don’t know how they do that. So I said, this is something we’ve got to keep studying, keep working on.”

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Amy Poehler Thanks Gilda Radner 'For Lighting The Fuse'

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Gilda's Club of New York City honored Amy Poehler on Monday during Gildafest '15, the organization's first annual night of comedy at Caroline's on Broadway. Poehler received the Gilda Radner Award For Innovation In Comedy. In 1995, Gilda's Club opened its signature red door to provide free support for cancer patients in honor of the comedian, who died in 1989 after her own battle with the disease.

Co-hosted by "SNL" alums Ana Gasteyer and Rachel Dratch, the evening featured original writer Alan Zweibel; current cast members Vanessa Bayer, Aidy Bryant, Michael Che, Colin Jost and Kenan Thompson; "Late Night" writer Michelle Wolf; "Broad City" stars Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer; and the stars of Poehler's latest project, "Difficult People," Julie Klausner, Bill Eichner. The legendary Andrea Martin served as presenter of Poehler's award.

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Photo: Rob Rich/SocietyAllure.com

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Photo: Rob Rich/SocietyAllure.com

Martin took the stage before Poehler, providing bright representation of Radner's comedic spark:

What [Gilda] had about her, and what she shares with Amy, is the ability to laugh at herself... When you see those clips of Gilda [on "SNL"], you just knew she couldn't contain all the creativity and humor and joy inside of her. I met Amy in 1999, when we were both cast in a Judd Apatow pilot called "Sick In the Head" that Fox didn't pick up -- I'm sure they're kicking themselves now, -- but I felt the same way about Amy [as I did when I first met Gilda]. It was her first TV show, she had just done Upright Citizens Brigade and she was just a force of nature; I was in awe, really. She had so much confidence and would do different takes without worrying about what people were thinking and I just sensed inside of her this, "Oh, my God, this is so much fun! I just love doing this!" What it is, really, is a vibration that Gilda had and [Amy] has. It's a vibration that everyone feels, and you just want to be at that party. You want to be in her vortex. I wish Gilda were here tonight, and I wish I could have seen Gilda and Amy perform together. It would have been a volcano of comedic brilliance.


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Photo: Rob Rich/SocietyAllure.com

Poehler's acceptance speech was heartfelt and hilarious. Here is an excerpt:

[If Gilda were here tonight] I would genuinely thank her for lighting a fuse that turned into a fire that is now this blaze that I get to stand next to, and I commend all of you who are doing the same thing, taking two sticks together when things are really tough, and waiting for a spark, and letting it catch and warming yourself by it. So to all of you guys who are struggling out there I say stay warm, stay strong, and thank you so very much.


The transcript of Poehler's speech has been edited for length.

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The Byzantine Catholic Monks Who Live In Quiet Harmony On The Shores Of Lake Superior

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MARQUETTE, Mich. (AP) - A monk's life isn't for everybody, but the beauty and spirituality of one monastery is depicted in the new documentary "Gladsome Light."

The film, by Negaunee Township native Dustin Katona and Denver native Jeffrey Geniesse, shows the life of the Byzantine Catholic monks living at the Holy Transfiguration Skete according to The Mining Journal ( http://bit.ly/1GB1J6j ). The monastery is located near Eagle Harbor.

The monks might be better known to travelers as operators of the Jampot, a seasonal bakery on M-26 known for its jams and jellies made from hand-picked local berries and confections such as Abbey Cake.

However, the monks are so much more, and their mission and philosophy was detailed in the film, which premiered Saturday at Thomas Theatres in Marquette Township.

Katona and Geniesse now live in Askeaton, Wisconsin, and make up the Marquette Cinema Coalition, which created the film.

Katona said the filmmakers had worked on the documentary for two years.

The primary motive was originally to create a vocational promotion video for the monastery, but it became more of an artistic piece to show how much the monks cultivate the arts and their way of life and their mission and to share that, Katona said.

The monks start and end their day with prayer and liturgy, he said.

"That is their primary vocation, is to pray for the world and all creation," Katona said.

In addition with running the Jampot, they host musical events such as piano recitals and concerts featuring classical guitar, many of which are open to the public to help people experience the monastery.

The filmmakers made eight trips in which they spent anywhere from two to four days, although Katona called it "a joy and a blessing" to spend time with the monks.

"They're contemplative, however, they're always in action," Katona said. "There's a synergy between being quiet in the heart as well as acting out in the world as Christ."

Monasticism involves disregarding the importance of worldly goods and ambitions, and embracing poverty, chastity and obedience, with prayer at the center of monk life.

That philosophy is reflected in "Gladsome Light." Katona said the monks truly believe that they're there because God has called them, and prayer is central to their existence.

"They believe that with all their heart, so their prayer is their primary work," Katona said.

The film includes footage of the monks' ceremonies, with harmonic singing and stunning slow motion shots of an incense burner on a chain being swung inside the ornate religious interior of the monastery.

Geniesse said he was overwhelmed with the experience of creating the film about the monastery.

"It transformed myself inside," Geniesse said. "I didn't know what was happening. I walked in and I was transfixed and awestruck by their presence and their gentleness and their peace of mind and their liturgy. Everything about them, top to bottom, was extremely beautiful and unique."

The monastic call is ancient, he said.

"The first monastics were living in the desert in caves, and this is is very similar to that, except for they're on the water," Geniesse said. "You know, they are a desert monastic community, but they live in woods. You know, they're foresters in that sense. It's a very special community because it is so special and unique."

Regardless whether a viewer has any inclination to discover more about the Keweenaw monastic life, "Gladsome Light" also is a work of art in that it shows spectacular images of Lake Superior ice, the unique architecture of the monastery and the Keweenaw landscape.

Of course, it also shows scenes from the monks' daily lives, which include prayer, obviously, but more mundane tasks such as making goods for the Jampot and meals for themselves.

For example, in one scene a monk is shown chopping radishes for a salad.

"Good salads take a long time," he said.

Another scene that showed a monk working at a computer is a far cry from the ancient desert monks' existence, but it's part of the Keweenaw monks' day-to-day life.

After all, it was stated in the film prayer doesn't exempt a monk from having to take care of himself, so a certain degree of prosperity is needed.

Father Basil, who lives at Holy Transfiguration Skete, said the experience of the monastery being the focus of a film was "actually quite pleasant." He, along with monks, attended the Saturday premiere.

"I'm not sure what people will get out of it," Basil said. "If nothing, I hope it will get them more curious about who and what we are and make them decide to learn more."

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This DIY 'Harry Potter' Wedding Will Leave You Postively Spellbound

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For Vancouver couple Emma and Greg Gavelis, Harry Potter has practically been a third member of their relationship.

They met on dating site Plenty of Fish in 2011 and immediately hit it off when Greg wrote on his profile that his perfect first date would be a "Harry Potter" marathon. Emma, who has two Harry Potter tattoos, was smitten.

Fast-forward to August 14, 2014 when the two Potterheads tied the knot at McMenamins Edgefield hotel in Troutdale, Oregon.

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Credit: Josh Lasko Photography
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Credit: Myles Katherine Photography

"Harry Potter has played such a big part in us falling in love, that it only seemed fitting to have it be a big part of our wedding and the rest of our love story," Emma told The Huffington Post.

The pair's budget for the big day was $5,000, so the bride tapped into her crafty side and DIYed many aspects of the celebration.

"I spent a lot of time watching 'Game of Thrones' re-runs while assembling everything," Emma wrote in her Offbeat Bride blog post. "And it was totally worth it."

Here are some of the cute and clever ways they incorporated their obsession into the day's festivities:



Emma designed all of the wedding stationery herself in addition to making her bouquet, the boutonnieres, the ring box, some of the table decor, and more.

"I love to make things with my hands," she told HuffPost. "It was definitely a labor of love. Plus, it was nice being able to customize every aspect and make sure it oozed Potter. We also couldn't have afforded this wedding if I hadn't made almost everything myself."

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Credit: Josh Lasko Photography

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Credit: Josh Lasko Photography

When asked about her favorite wedding day memory, Emma said it was when she and Greg were standing at the altar and he started acting goofy.

"I looked at him, and he started pulling faces -- just like he usually does," she said. "It lightened the mood and made me feel so comfortable, and so sure I was marrying the right man."

For more photos from the wonderfully whimsical wedding, check out the slideshow below.



H/T Offbeat Bride

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Uber Driver Entertains Passenger With An Impromptu Opera Performance

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In this car, Pavarotti would play second fiddle to the driver.

Jeff Sullivan captured this video of his Uber driver beautifully belting out some opera and uploaded it to YouTube.

"He was playing [opera] on his radio and I told him how much I appreciated it," Sullivan told The Huffington Post in an email. Sullivan was on his way to a bar in South Boston, and started chatting with his driver.

"He asked me if I could sing -- I can’t, but entertained him with a few weak Andrea Bocelli lyrics," Sullivan said.

"He mentioned that he was a student, but I’m not sure if he meant it in the literal sense or that he just enjoys music," he added. "I then told him that 'the floor is yours' and he started [singing]… at first I thought he was kidding, then he started to impress more and more, so I pulled out my camera ... no one would believe me when I told them I was just in an Uber with Pavoratti’s muse."

"Wow, that's brilliant," Sullivan can be heard saying at the end of the song. He then gets back to offering the driver directions.

"Who needs a radio when you have an awesome uber driver!" Sullivan asked rhetorically in the video description.

Sullivan is currently trying to track down the driver, he told HuffPost. Uber users can see a history of their trips, but the list does not include drivers' names or contact information.

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'Salty Girls' Photo Series Challenges Notions Of Beauty And Cystic Fibrosis

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Photographer and art director Ian Pettigrew was working on a photo series he called "Just Breathe: Cystic Fibrosis" when he realized the majority of his models were beautiful young women.

"'Salty Girls' sprung out from my first book, Just Breathe, which focused just on adults with CF," the 45-year-old Ontario native, who also has cystic fibrosis, told The Huffington Post by email Wednesday. "As that project progressed it was clear that there was a disproportionate amount of women, and it was remarked that 'this project is just a bunch of hot women with cystic fibrosis.'"

Thus began the "Salty Girls" project: a photo series featuring women with cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening inherited illness that affects the cells that produce sweat, mucus and digestive juices, and can damage the lungs and digestive system. It mainly affects white people of Northern European ancestry, according to Mayo Clinic, but can also be present in Hispanics, African Americans and Native Americans. There is no cure, but it can be mitigated with medications or medical instruments that help loosen the mucus and make breathing easier.

Cystic fibrosis can be an overlooked and misunderstood disease, and those dealing with it face significant challenges. Pettigrew's models posed in tank tops, bikinis and nothing at all in an attempt to challenge the misconceptions.

"Unfortunately body-shaming is still very much real and prevalent," he said. "The CF community is not immune to it. Kids can be mean, but so can adults. Part of the goal of this project was for the women to take back that power, to make it theirs and own it. No one has the right to criticize or shame someone, especially when you don't know the facts -- like someone who has side affects from CF. They can be brutal. Hopefully this can teach others to truly stand up and be proud. I consider these women my ambassadors for a generation to come, and they are all proud to carry that torch."

"Salty Girls" is slated to become a book. Check out some of the stunning portraits below.

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Josh Groban's 'Stages' Is Proof That Kelly Clarkson Hasn't Gotten The Due She Deserves

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Josh Groban gave the entire Internet chills when he dropped the first track from "Stages," his new album of Broadway covers. It was a version of "All I Ask Of You" from Phantom of the Opera," featuring vocals from Kelly Clarkson, and it quickly went viral, garnering praise from theater buffs for its grandiosity.

Clarkson is one of three guests to appear on the record -- famed trumpeter and composer Chris Botti is on "Old Devil Moon" and Broadway legend Audra McDonald sings on "If I Loved You" -- but Clarkson's vocals were the ones Groban really wanted to showcase.

"I’ve wanted to sing with Kelly for such a long time because she has one of the great powerhouse vocals in the whole business," Groban told The Huffington Post. "Kelly runs deep. She’s got all the light, all the dark. She makes incredibly sound artistic choices."

Clarkson has said before that no one wanted to collaborate with her, and told BBC Radio 1, "I have asked several people ... Sometimes I feel like I have the plague, or leprosy, they're like, 'If you get too close ...' I don't know." But Groban knew from the start he wanted her on "Stages."



"Sometimes her risk-taking, I know she feels, has bit her in the ass," he said. "But it was risk-taking she needed to do. It was exciting to hear her do it. She’s got the 'Idol' thing that’s maybe part of the reason for that, I don’t know. Everybody knows she can sing stratospherically in the pop world, but I wanted people to be blown away hearing her sing something that was totally different than what they’re used to. She took on this song and hit notes I’ve never heard her sing before."

"Stages" also seemed like a huge risk for Groban when he first started putting the album together. "You need to know your fans are there for you for a record like this," he said. "You want to know your label is there for you. You want to feel like it's not going to be 'tree falls in the woods.'" He'd been thinking about selecting the tracks for ages, but always thought, "That's an artsy side project." He said, "Sometimes in this business you accidentally get over-thinky and jaded and ironically, when you decide to just take the leap of what you wanted to do for so long, people are there for you."

In the near future, though, Groban would like to get back to his musical theater roots and hit Broadway. The musical "Chess," from which he covers "Anthem" on "Stages," is the dream show right now, he said. "It’s always in the back of my mind. I don’t want to do a stunt casting thing, where I jump in and it’s been on for a year. I want to workshop it with a cast. I want to start a classic show like 'Chess.' I think that to be an original cast member of a show that’s new like that, you have to work it from the beginning. I have more dedication and respect for it than to jump in out of nowhere."

Josh Groban's "Stages" is out now via Reprise Records.

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The Average Hipster Employs 27 Slaves Each Day. Here's How To Change That

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Hipsters may value social progress, but their coffee habits say otherwise.

That's according to the team at Made in a Free World (MIAFW), a group dedicated to raising awareness on how consumers support illegal slave operations -- often without realizing it -- with their purchasing power.

According to a statement provided to The Huffington Post, MIAFW looked at stereotypical purchases made by those associated with the subculture -- things like cotton for clothing, coffee beans and tantalum for cell phones -- and estimated that the average hipster employs 27 slaves a day through their purchasing power.

The figure, of course, isn't exact, MIAFW explained, as purchasing habits vary from person to person. But it does highlight how even those who try to be conscious, smart consumers can support unethical global business practices.

"Think about how crazy that is," MIAFW noted in the statement. "This person who values independent thinking, progressive politics, art, music, creativity, intelligence (and tight-fitting jeans) is unknowingly wearing and using products that are creating abusive environments for people globally. But, admittedly, it’s tough to buy ethical because so many of the brands we grow to know, love and trust simply don’t uphold standards that align with our personal ethos."

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Modern-day slavery affects more people now than during any other period in human history. According to the 2014 Global Slavery Index produced by the Walk Free Foundation, there's an estimated 35.8 million people living in slavery around the globe.

As The Washington Post reported, the foundation doesn't follow "some softened, by-modern-standards definition of slavery" -- it tracks child soldiers, people who are forced into labor and prostitution, child brides and others who are treated more like property than people.

Earlier this month, officials rescued more than 300 slaves in Indonesia after a story by the Associated Press exposed the human rights abuse. The slaves had been lured or tricked into leaving their homes behind and then forced to catch fish to supply the global demand for seafood, AP reported. Some of the fish ended up in the U.S.

But there are ways consumers can get informed on the products they buy, and what role such items play in the global marketplace. Organizations like Free2Work aim to educate people on global brands and how those companies relate to forced and child labor practices around the world.

MIAFW recently launched Forced Labor Risk Determination and Mitigation (FRDM) -- a service for companies to learn more about obtaining their products from ethical sources. The digital service, which MIAFW claims is the first software designed to help companies rid their supply chains from slavery, educates companies on business-to-business commerce and pinpoints high-risk regions where the abuse takes place, helping them avoid supporting such operations.

To learn more about Made in a Free World and FRDM, click here.

To take action on pressing poverty issues, check out the Global Citizen's widget below.



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Guy Pours Molten Aluminum Into Watermelon, Unintentionally Makes Art

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If you poured molten aluminum into a watermelon, what would happen?

You’d create art, apparently.

That’s what transpired when YouTube’s “The Backyard Scientist” attempted the unlikely experiment.

In the video above, watch as the Scientist heats up some aluminum, before pouring it into the hollowed-out fruit.

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He said he expected the watermelon to explode, but something surprising occurred.

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“What happened is the aluminum found little channels throughout the watermelon that connected the seed chambers to each other, and this caused this awesome casting to happen,” the YouTuber said in the clip, adding that the result was “totally unintentional.”

The watermelon experiment is reminiscent of a 2013 viral video which showed an artist creating intricate castings by pouring molten aluminum into fire ant hills.

Needless to say, we don’t recommend trying either of these red-hot experiments at home.

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Artist Elevates Paint Swatches To The Level Of Fine Art, Tickles Color Nerds Everywhere

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Paint chips are usually found at home improvement stores, packed into a small herd and fanned out for customers to peruse and take home at will. Someday, some of them may dictate the exact hues of our most intimate spaces -- our bedrooms, our kitchen walls, our bathroom ceilings. But until then, they float in a strange space of indeterminacy, free of cost and packed with potential.

Denver-based artist Shawn Huckins found unlikely inspiration in these mundane color swatches. He first stumbled upon their beauty while working on an experimental painting. "I was having difficulties figuring out which color tone to use for the background," he said, "so I taped some Behr paint cards to the canvas to help me in the process. Seeing the cards attached to the canvas was an interesting contrast with the subject matter. I thought, what if I took that paint swatch, blew it up to a large scale and placed the subject within the color fields?"

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380B - Brown Paper Bags, Artists with Huge Egos 2009 acrylic on canvas mounted on MDF 49 x 40 in


And that's exactly what he did. Huckins creates exact replicas of the original paint chips, blown up to canvas-size proportions. Everything, from the rounded corners to the text style on the swabs, is duplicated. "Typically, I choose the color first and compose which colors work best in a group, trying to avoid muddy or grayed out hues," Huckins explained. "Once I have a few paintings completed with the color fields, then I research and figure out subject matter to place on top of the color fields. With most 'Paint Chip' paintings, I’ll choose my subjects based on the color of the swatch. For example, '490A -- Flight,' the crisp blue of winter’s sky or in '390B -- The Peeker,' the heat of the desert sun."

The results are what Pantone nerds -- yes, they're out there -- dream about. Color swatches, larger than life, finally amplified to a size comparable to the space they take up in our hearts. If you've ever passed by a basket of free color swabs without a second thought, let Shawn Huckins show you the beauty you've left behind. "With this particular series, I wanted to communicate the mundane and the beauty that can be found in it. We can be so caught up in the day to day routines, that it’s easy to forget the simpler, beautiful things, even in the mundane."

Preach.



h/t Beautiful Decay

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The Rich History Of Nepalese Culture, Some Of Which Is Lost Forever

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In Nepal, Buddhist deities and Hindu gods are both vital parts of ritual life and are worshiped side-by-side. Rakta Lokeshvara, a meditation form of the Bodhisattva of compassion, stands at the center of this painting and is surrounded by a number of Hindu gods emanating from his body.
Rakta Lokeshvara/Macchendranath, Nepal; dated 1842, Pigments on cloth; 29 3/8 x 22 in. Rubin Museum of Art




On Saturday, April 25, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal, centered outside the capital of Kathmandu, rattling and destroying many of the city's oldest neighborhoods. The worst earthquake to hit the South Asian nation in over 80 years, the quake was strong enough to be felt all across parts of India, Bangladesh, China's region of Tibet and Pakistan. Aftershocks of up to 6.7 magnitude increased the already devastating damage.

As of now, over 4,800 people have been killed by the natural disaster, although the full scale of the damage has yet to be determined, as many mountainous areas and faraway villages remain unreachable. Prime Minister Sushil Koirala told Reuters the death toll could reach 10,000, a number exceeding the 8,500 deaths that occurred in the 1834 earthquake.

Aside from the thousands of lives lost, Nepal's culture was irreparably wounded, as well. As Donatella Lorch wrote in The New York Times: "The Durbar Squares in Katmandu and Patan where tourists thronged -- ancient plazas graced with temples and fountains opposite the old royal palaces -- had been reduced to rubble, with only a few structures left standing. One of my favorite shrines, famous for its white domes and four giant, fearsome brass dragons with talons raised, is now a pile of cracked red bricks and dust."

We reached out to Jan Van Alphen, Director of Exhibitions, Collections and Research at the Rubin Museum of Art -- New York's mecca for art from the Himalayas, India, and neighboring regions. "We're the only museum that deals with this niche of Himalayan Buddhism and Hinduism, art from Nepal and India and Western China," Alphen explained. "Our collection also includes folk religions, shamanism, everything that's happening in the Himalayas, and in extension Mongolia."

Van Alphen spoke about the damage and what people can do to help.

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Hindu Festival Banner, Nepal, Pigments on cloth, 23 3/4 x 17 1/2 in. Rubin Museum of Art


What has been your experience with Nepalese artworks?

I studied Nepalese art and gave courses on it when teaching in Antwerp. It's really a mixture in its religions, in its styles. We have in the Rubin about 600 objects that are Nepalese -- it's a big part of our collection.

What would you say are the dominant traditions of Nepalese artwork?

The Nepalese paintings, which we call thangkas, many of them have an inscription on their front side which says something about the time the paintings were dedicated to a temple. Basically, it gives a date, which is so important to attach times to certain styles.

The Nepalese bronze casts from the Kathmandu Valley are so important to the history of bronze making. They made perhaps the finest bronzes ever in that part of the world. [The artists] were so good that some of them, like the famous Aniko, were introduced to the imperial workshops in the Chinese capital during the Yuan Dynasty. Their influence worked further into the art of the Ming Dynasty. The Nepalese were also known for their mercury building, where gold was mixed with mercury, and then when they'd fire it, the gold stretched all over the structure and made a second skin. The only thing is that from inhaling what came out, many of those bronze casters died early. It's forbidden now to do that.

Would you say the role of Nepalese art was primarily religious?

Yes, one could say so. But also, non-religious art and buildings have a very important role. I think in those countries it's all mixed and influenced with each other. For example, you have the brackets on one of the famous Nepalese temples, which have now collapsed. They have all sorts of scenes sculpted in the wood that at the same time support the structure and also have a narrative to tell. People would stand under these rooms and look at the sculptures. The fountains, the step wells, it's all mixed -- religious and non-religious. It comprises a bit of every part of daily life.

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Chakrasamvara, Central Tibet, Gilt copper alloy with pigments and turquoise inlay, 12 5/8 x W 12 1/4 x D 6 in., Rubin Museum of Art


What was your reaction when you heard of the earthquake?

It's horrible. In many ways. My daughter studied last year in Kathmandu. She was there with her school working with orphans and children. Her first thought was: what happened to the children? We couldn't get in contact with them because the telephone lines were broken. We heard several of our friends' houses collapsed. They had to live with our friends who had gardens because they couldn't go into buildings because of aftershocks. A friend of mine who has a big collection, his house hasn't completely collapsed, but he can't go inside for any of his belongings. And of course, it's worse for the thousands of people that died in this horrible thing.

The daughter of a friend of mine, who is coincidentally in London at the moment, said "I can't imagine going back to my country. It's changed completely in one day." She was involved in the restoration of many buildings that were just finished. Now, they'll have to start over completely, if it's even possible to start over. Some won't even be possible to restore again. All that is over, it's finished, it's for nothing. My first thoughts were, of course, for the people that died and after that for the tremendous loss of culture and heritage. We just hope that there is a lot of care and solidarity after something like this.

To your knowledge, what is extent of the damage thus far?

The three main adjacent cities in the Kathmandu Valley -- Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Patan -- if you go to the main sites, all the court squares, with beautiful 17th century buildings and Hindu temples in the middle -- most of it has collapsed. The Buddhist stupa sites from Swayambhunath and from Boudhanath and many buildings around them are finished. Also, the Hindu complex of Pashupatinath, where corpses are cremated. And then there's the Dharahara Tower, also called the Bhimsen Tower, an early 19th century watchtower where tourists often visit, collapsed with several hundreds of tourists inside. I think most of the important sites are somehow part of this catastrophe. It will take a lot of work to get it back, if at all possible.

How can we help?

The Rubin has listed humanitarian organizations currently providing aid on the ground and accepting donations. We're also putting our Nepal objects that are mixed in the six galleries together so people can see how important Nepalese art is. We will definitely help in making people aware of how important the heritage and art is in Nepal. We have planned a big Nepal show for next year and plan to do something in light of this disaster. We just want to make people aware of what this means. There are many occasions to help, small and big.

You can also visit The Rubin's website to learn more about their upcoming events, lectures, exhibitions and programming centered around Nepalese culture.

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This exquisitely crafted gilded répoussé plaque depicts a special birthday celebration common to the Kathmandu Valley known as the Chariot Ritual. It is practiced by both Hindus and Buddhists when an elder reaches the age of seventy-seven. (Swayambhu Stupa, Bhimarata Chariot Ritual, Nepal; 1776, Gilt copper; répoussé; H 17 1/2 x W 11 1/2 x D 3 3/4 in. Rubin Museum of Art






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The Dictionary Of Obscure Sorrows Invents New Words For Powerful Emotions

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The journey that a made-up word takes from invention to induction into a dictionary -- be it Oxford Online or Merriam Webster's even more selective print edition -- is arduous.

For the latter, decades worth of frequent use is needed, except in the rare instances that a language trend spreads quickly, but doesn't die out. This is why selfie has made its way into the long-lasting print editions, but twerk, a blip on our linguistic radar, hasn't passed the more ephemeral online book.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows -- a blog that evangelizes new words by constructing faux entries and accompanying videos -- has collected a few contenders. In its first video, creator John Koenig narrates, "There's no word in the English language for the desire to disappear, or the eerie tension of a looming thunderstorm [...] or the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own."

It's true that each language has its shortcomings. In English, for example, there's no single word that describes the light that flits between tree leaves when you pass them by; the Japanese equivalent is komorebi. Nor is there a word for an act we partake in often -- continuing to eat once we're already full. In Georgia, the word for that is shemomedjamo.

In an attempt to bridge the gap between language and the way we connect with one another -- especially emotionally -- Koenig proposes that we add the following words, plus many more, to our lexicon:

liberosis
n. the desire to care less about things -- to loosen your grip on your life, to stop glancing behind you every few steps, afraid that someone will snatch it from you before you reach the end zone -- rather to hold your life loosely and playfully, like a volleyball, keeping it in the air, with only quick fleeting interventions, bouncing freely in the hands of trusted friends, always in play.

nighthawk
n. a recurring thought that only seems to strike you late at night -- an overdue task, a nagging guilt, a looming and shapeless future -- that circles high overhead during the day, that pecks at the back of your mind while you try to sleep, that you can successfully ignore for weeks, only to feel its presence hovering outside the window, waiting for you to finish your coffee, passing the time by quietly building a nest.

midsummer
n. a feast celebrated on the day of your 26th birthday, which marks the point at which your youth finally expires as a valid excuse -- when you must begin harvesting your crops, even if they’ve barely taken root -- and the point at which the days will begin to feel shorter as they pass, until even the pollen in the air reminds you of the coming snow.


For more should-be words, take a look at The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

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