Every so often, some construction project or another reveals a long-forgotten advertisement, making headlines and giving passersby a brief local history lesson. The hand-designed scripts and carefully placed lettering are novelties worthy of admiration, another case of they-don't-make-'em-like-that-anymore.

In the face of that depressing reality, designer Molly Woodward began documenting the unique, often faded signs she noticed. For years she's been photographing abandoned billboards, storefronts, window decals and words carved into buildings and wrought out of metal as part of a project she's called Vernacular Typography.

It was all born out of a trip to Cuba at 14, when Woodward noticed the city's distinct visual tone and snapped a few pictures. Back home in Brooklyn, she told The Huffington Post in an email, she began noticing the graphics she'd grown up with disappearing, "replaced by chains and sterile signage." She started taking more and more photos, building up a collection of thousands.

"Documenting these things were just a way to remember them before they disappeared forever," she explained.

Old-school signage, Woodward argues, represents local flavor and reflects regional differences. She takes issue with a 2014 New York Times article about a large metal sign for now-defunct Kentile Floors, which suggested the Brooklynites fighting to preserve it were no more than a group of gentrifiers with a fetish for "the city’s lunch-pail past."  

"People wanted to save the sign because it was an identifiable marker of place, a way of orienting yourself in space and knowing, in that moment, exactly where you are," Woodward stated, adding that even a storied city like New York "is rapidly becoming less uniquely New York and more like everywhere else." (The sign was later dismantled and relocated.)

She's not alone in her wish to celebrate vernacular type, either. The Neon Museum in Las Vegas exists to preserve and study neon signage, and Berlin's Buchstabenmuseum, or "Museum of Letters," was established in 2005 to "rescue threatened letters from public spaces." A group in Charlotte, North Carolina, fought to designate vintage signs as historic landmarks. 

Woodward hopes Vernacular Typography can become an online resource. She hopes to add more historical information and tools for community activists, including a map to plot out unique signs.  

Landmark graphics worth keeping around for the long term don't have to be a thing of the past. They're most often a product of local culture and industry, and flourish where those values are supported.

"Responsibility," Woodward wrote, "lies with cities and towns to protect and encourage independent business owners."

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If your life has felt devoid of animated animals, we have you covered.

The above is the work of Studio Ghibli, a Japanese animation studio co-founded by Hayao Miyazaki, known for his animated epics like “Spirited Away” and “Princess Mononoke." Miyazaki made headlines this week when he announced a new 10-minute short, set to feature a protagonist caterpillar. The work will mark the filmmaker's first time using computer-generated animation techniques. The news was particularly surprising as Miyazaki had said that his 2013 “The Wind Rises” would be his last feature.

Technically, though, he isn’t exactly breaking his word. Miyazaki never officially retired from animation. He just stopped working on full-length features -- his upcoming film being a short. Unfortunately, though, it’s estimated to take three years to complete.

To tide you over till then, enjoy this series of commercial spots starring an adorable feline character called Konyara. Studio Ghibli created the promotions for Nisshin Seifun Foods, best known for its flour and grain production. Bonus: the commercials feature an appropriately cute song, “I Was Hungry.”

Though Miyazaki was not directly involved with the project, the animator Katsuya Kondo -- known for his work on cat-focused “Kiki’s Delivery Service” -- does Ghibli animals in style. In contrast to the CG plans for the caterpillar short, these draw on traditional Japanese sumi-e ink wash paintings. But with a kawaii (cute) spin. Enjoy!

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White parents are crestfallen. High school English teachers befuddled. American literature buffs horrified. The publication of Harper Lee’s long-lost Go Set a Watchman, with its grown-up Scout and bigoted Atticus, has set the country on its ear.

Watchman, the first draft Harper Lee submitted of the novel that was ultimately published as To Kill a Mockingbird, isn’t the first incomplete or draft novel of a famous author brought to light for our judgmental gaze, but the significant differences between the ultimate product, To Kill a Mockingbird, and this draft, as well as Lee’s reported blessing for the publication, has led many to view it as a legitimate sequel rather than an artifact of literary history.

By this standard, it fails. It’s an ungainly, stylistic hodgepodge of a book; the narrative lacks urgency, and the romantic scenes feel awkward and tacked on even aside from the thought of little hellion Scout being a lady on a date. Lee swings from fairly straightforward realism, shot through with confusingly large helpings of free indirect discourse, to a more avant-garde stream-of-consciousness style. By the end, the narrative has devolved into Ayn Randian ideological tirades disguised as meaningful conversations. Reading Watchman, at least one reason why Lee was pushed to do a full rewrite becomes clear: It’s just not very good.

To readers who grew up on tomboy Scout, an under-10 goddess of female empowerment in overalls, Go Set a Watchman presents another challenge. That is, not a chapter has elapsed in the rediscovered novel before a very much Scout Jean Louise Finch has fallen into the arms of a sometime lover, who kisses her with abandon at the train station. “Hush girl,” says Henry Clinton to the 26-year-old formerly known as Scout. “I’ll kiss you on the courthouse steps if I want to.”

There’s something vaguely unsettling about seeing a long-cherished child narrator all grown up and getting “kissed… hard on the mouth” by a strange character described as “her lifelong friend, her brother’s comrade, and if he kept kissing her like that, her husband.” Some reacted with bemusement:

I was unsettled myself, and that unsettlement felt familiar. A beloved child character, transformed into an adult, sexual being in a new work of fiction -- though one, perhaps, less polished than the original -- where had I seen that before? Oh, of course:

It’s not fair to simply compare Lee’s own rough first draft of the classic To Kill a Mockingbird to the vast archives of fan fiction cached all over the web. These stories -- some mild bits of fluff about the characters as we know them, others wild and salacious romps (even venturing into realms such as male pregnancy and pedophilia) -- typically contain disclaimers: “This is J.K. Rowling’s world. I just play in it.” “These are Stephenie Meyer’s characters, not mine!!” Some are involved and ambitious, others are horrendously spelled, punctuated and written. And, on a basic level, they simply are not “canon” -- they don’t belong to the body of work about the characters created by the actual author. Go Set a Watchman, of course, does.

Like it or not, however, in 2015, we’ve all become used to reading new fiction about familiar characters, behaving in more adult and unfamiliar ways, and we know it as fan fiction. To wit:

From adult Scout’s blossoming into romantic desirability to her ability to both rock a pretty dress and stubbornly don her old overalls when she so chooses, from her sudden handsome suitor to her independent life in the big city, Jean Louise’s story -- expressed in the unpolished prose of a pre-Mockingbird Lee -- seems like a bit of self-conscious Mary-Sue-ism. Meanwhile, Atticus’ darker edge calls to mind the weirder, grittier fanfics -- the ones where Edward Cullen becomes a violent dominant with a tortured past, for example. He’s been abruptly jerked to fit into a new character mold, with some conflicted authorial consciousness of his old one.

Go Set a Watchman has more to offer than typical fanfic, at least in one particular way: It’s asking (particularly white) readers to confront the idea that their white savior idols aren’t worth putting on altars. That they’re flawed and sometimes hateful and will disappoint you. Coming from Harper Lee herself, Atticus’ darker side carries more weight to force these realizations. Mockingbird taught America a gentle lesson when the country needed it, but it’s clear Lee had a more jaded view of white America than she let on in the final novel. She was right to be jaded.

Now, perhaps, there’s something new to be jaded about. Only 55 years after the original publication of Mockingbird, the literary landscape looks a lot different. Fans clamor for more, more, more material on their favorite characters, then gripe that it isn’t up to snuff. In a darkly humorous example of the snake eating its own tail, published fanfic author E.L. James finally succumbed to fan pleas for a follow-up to Fifty Shades of Grey from Christian Grey’s perspective. By the time Grey arrived this summer, disgruntled fans had found fan fiction renditions they liked far better than the one James finally delivered. “I know Grey’s going to be a letdown for me,” one reader told The New York Times. “I’ve already read it through [fanfic author Emine Fougner]’s eyes, and I honestly don’t think E. L. James can touch her version of Christian.” 

It’s not radical to suggest that books belong to the readers just as much as the authors, that the characters are theirs to project upon, imagine with, and idolize. The sudden power of fan fiction has further skewed this dynamic, however. Now, the characters don’t even seem to belong to the books, and they certainly don’t belong to the authors, copyright technicalities aside. We’re so used to this casual rewriting of Twilight, Harry Potter, "The X-Files" and the lives of One Direction that Harper Lee’s own discarded, alternate version reads like just one more shoddy bit of blasphemy against our childhoods.

Readers don’t want to read about Scout awkwardly making out with some guy, or Atticus attending anti-integration meetings. This was someone else’s dream for our childhood favorite, not ours. If we look carefully at what we’re really reading, though, past the shoddy writing and estranged characters, we might see a piece of literary -- and American -- history worth far more than the innocence we’re losing.

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Do you remember Penny Proud? Introduced in the early aughts, the spunky 14-year-old had heart of gold and a family that always kept it real. At a time where there were few kids shows that depicted black family relationships, "The Proud Family" was a series where we saw versions of ourselves through expressive and entertaining characters.

For many, Penny Proud in particular hilariously epitomized the black teen experience, from dealing with her flaky but endearing bestie Dijonay to living in a caring but no-nonsense family. Through Miss Proud, a generation of kids and pre-teens saw themselves reflected and represented in way animated television had yet to provide. 

Whether high school was awkward or the best years of your life, here are 10 things from your teenage years the proud family totally got:

1. You had strict parents that had even stricter parents. "You not having guests, you not sleeping over at anybody's house, and you're lucky you're not paying no rent." Mr. Proud did not play around. 

2. You had to hustle to get by. #BBHMM

 3. You just wanted to talk on the phone with your friends, but your younger siblings had other ideas. 

4. Any time you had to babysit your brother, sister, cousins, or kids from the neighborhood descended into chaos. 

5. You would practice that new dance with the crew, so you could show off at the next block party.

6. You knew that food always comes before bae.

7. When you drove around with your friends and then your jam came on the radio. "Heyyy!" 

8. When you stole the last bite of Mom's soul food. Sorry dad, "You snooze you lose."

9. When your grandma or auntie starts dancing to their favorite throwback song.

10. When you knew -- and still know -- that the experience of growing up black is something everyone can appreciate.

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Photographer Nour El Refai spent more than a year documenting life among Egypt's Nubian community, capturing daily rituals, art, meals, social gatherings and celebrations.

The Nubians are one of the oldest civilizations in the world, having lived alongside the Nile river in what is now southern Egypt and northern Sudan for thousands of years. 

Today, most Nubians live on the fringes of society in Egypt. Nubian communities have been forced to leave their homes near the river to make way for reservoirs and dams several times in the past 100 years.

 In the 1960s, more than 50,000 Nubians were forced to vacate their lands and offered a place in desert settlements near Kom Umbo during the construction of the famous Aswan High Dam. Some families moved to the settlements, while others sought refuge on islands north or in villages in Gharb Aswan.

With his project, photographer El Refai aims to document the traditions these families still observe despite the dramatic changes their communities went through in past decades. 

For more photos of life in the Nubian community, check out El Refai's photo journal at grid.vsco.co/journal/the-nubians.

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Isn't it ironic that the more connected technology makes us, the more isolated many of us feel? Searching for intimacy in the 21st century -- especially intimacy that isn't tethered to a sexual encounter -- can seem like an impossible task that leaves us frustrated and even lonelier than we were before.

So what do you do if you're looking for some affection or tenderness and maybe a community to call your own but Tindr or Grindr just aren't offering what you need?
In this episode of the HuffPost Love+Sex Podcast, co-hosts Carina Kolodny and Noah Michelson explore two options. They chatted with Paul, the head of Rain City Jacks, a masturbation party for men in Seattle, and Marcia Baczynski, the co-founder of Cuddle Party, which is... well... exactly what it sounds like. The podcast explores exactly what happens at these parties, what is -- and isn't -- allowed and the whys and hows that motivate attendees to get up close and personal with a roomful of strangers minus the goal of going all the way:

If you want to download and/or listen to the podcast offline, head to iTunes orStitcher.

This podcast was produced and edited by Katelyn Bogucki and sound engineered by Brad Shannon with additional production by Jorge Corona. Like Love + Sex? Subscribe, rate and review our podcast on iTunes. Have an idea for an episode? Find us on Twitter@HuffPostPodcast or email us at loveandsexpodcast@huffingtonpost.com.

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Meet Medhat Mamdouh. He's a 22-year-old hip hop and dubstep recorder player from Cairo, Egypt. With this video, he just revolutionized the way we think about the instrument:

It's a style that Mamdouh began teaching himself at the age of 14, according to his official Facebook page. More samples of his work can be found on his Soundcloud page and YouTube channel.

Many people in the U.S. likely know the recorder as the plastic instrument that was forced on them in middle school, then promptly ignored following an atonal struggle through "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

It likely did not sound good. In fact, it probably sounded worse than this:

Mamdouh, by contrast, breathes new life into the instrument by beat-boxing over the melody.  

Check out this dubstep breakdown:

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Who's your friend who likes to play -- and makes you cry like a baby in front of everyone at the movies? It's Bing Bong! (Thanks a lot for that, bro.) But now, thanks to a major theory, it looks like you may have embarrassed yourself a little too soon.

Bing Bong was Riley Anderson's imaginary friend in "Inside Out" (spoiler alert!) who ends up sacrificing himself so Joy can make it back to Riley. Actress Kaitlyn Dias, who voices Riley, told The Huffington Post she didn't even know about her character's imaginary friend until she saw the movie for the first time, but now, she cries each time she watches it.

It's touching. It's sad. And it might be total hogwash. 

The Theory: Bing Bong isn't dead. He's actually a monster from "Monsters, Inc." that Riley saw as a little girl and assumed was imaginary. 

Image: BuzzFeed

"The Pixar Theory" is a pretty comprehensive timeline put together by writer and Pixar enthusiast Jon Negroni that discusses how all Pixar movies are connected. Evidence includes everything from a postcard signed by Carl and Ellie from "Up" that appears in "Toy Story 3" to Buy-n-Large, the corporation that has taken over in "WALL-E," being referred to in multiple films. 

Anyway, the theory proposes that the monsters in "Monsters, Inc." rebuilt society years after humans destroyed it in "WALL-E." The doorways the monsters go through use time travel so they can travel back to when humans were around, and get their laughter to use as power. 

Going by this theory, which you can also learn more about on Reddit and YouTube, it's plausible to believe that Bing Bong isn't imaginary. He's actually a real monster who made Riley laugh as a kid, much like Mike and Sully do with Boo in "Monsters, Inc." Then, as Riley got older, she remembered this interaction as her "imaginary friend," because what else could it be?

So, according to this theory, Bing Bong is alive and well, or rather will be alive and well eventually. His animal-like appearance fits in with how the monsters look in "Monsters, Inc.," and he's known for making Riley laugh, which is exactly what they do to get power.

It's a cool idea, but, still, there are some problems.

The case against:

Image: Giphy

The theory gets pretty complex, and, as shown by the idea of monsters using time travel, it makes some pretty big leaps. (Like, don't you need to be driving 88 miles per hour in a DeLorean for that to happen? Let's be realistic here, guys.)

In addition, Dias told HuffPost that she doesn't expect to see Bing Bong again in Pixar movies. "If they possibly do a sequel, I don’t think he’s going to make a comeback, unfortunately. But all of us who watch the movie can remember him for Riley," said the actress.

So, will we actually see Bing Bong again? It's possible. But if not, just take Riley to the moon for him, Joy.

Image: Tumblr 

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The sculpture of Brown is only one of the racially charged works on view, albeit the most contentious. Another work features a confederate flag adorned with the names of the nine victims of the Charleston massacre. It sold for $4,500. According to The Guardian, the gallery plans to donate 10 percent of the money from any artwork sold to a charity aimed at ending police violence. The Michael Brown sculpture is not for sale.

 This is not the first time an artist has been criticized for artwork based on Brown's death. In March, poet Kenneth Goldsmith reworded the St. Louis County autopsy report as "conceptual poetry."

"The Murdered Body of Mike Brown’s Medical Report is not our poetry," an anonymous group called the Mongrel Coalition wrote in reaction to Goldsmith. "It’s the building blocks of white supremacy, a miscreant DNA infecting everyone in the world."

These artworks beg the questions: Can a white artist successfully and meaningfully translate black suffering into a work of art? If so, can they profit off of it? We reached out to Moore to discuss her controversial piece and the decision-making process behind it. 

Growing up in New Orleans, do you recall first becoming aware of your white privilege? What do those words mean to you? 

It's something that I've always been quite conscious of because racial tensions are very potent in the South. But the urge to take action really struck me after Katrina, when I saw all of these displaced, predominantly black bodies laid out in front of me. Bodies I felt a deep connection to because we were all from the same place. To me, white privilege means the unearned advantages I am automatically subject to because of my skin color and that needs to end.

Obviously the death of MichaelBrown caused unimaginable pain to millions of people around the country. What was your motivation to revisiting the visceral and disturbing image of Brown's dead body? 

Disturbing imagery has always been used in art-making to ignite meaningful conversation. I wanted to use his death to make a statement about the brutal realities of racism in this country. I have unfortunately upset many in revisiting this tragedy, but I think the conversations that are surfacing because of it are worth noting and may help us move into a new direction.

Were you hesitant about the reception of the piece, particularly in the black community?

I was very hesitant, indeed, because I didn’t want to dishonor the family, which is why I reached out to the parents. Unfortunately, there has been a lot of miscommunication surrounding that in the media. But the family was informed and permission was granted from MichaelBrown's mother.

MichaelBrown's father tweeted that the piece was "disrespectful" and "inappropriate." Did you reach out to Brown's father? Were you surprised by his reaction and does it make you reconsider the piece? 

I sent a letter that was addressed to both MichaelBrown Sr. and Lesley McSpadden, asking for permission before I exhibited the work. Ms. McSpadden wrote back in approval and I was under the impression that the father was as well because they agreed to fly to Chicago for the opening of the exhibition to speak. I didn’t know that Mr. Brown was not on board until the night of the opening, and that I do regret.

The Root compared your piece to Kenneth Goldsmith's reading of MichaelBrown's autopsy as poetry. Would you agree with this comparison? 

On a surface level I understand that comparison. However, MichaelBrown’s autopsy is one that contained intimate details of his body, ones that should have existed only for their intended purpose. The image of his dead body is one that is, unfortunately, already very familiar to millions in this country. By bringing this image to surface again I only intended to prompt and bring to light the very polarizing forces that continue to divide our country and that continue to isolate the black community.

Do you think the coverage of your work thus far has failed to recognize certain aspects of the piece?

Of course. What ignited this media sensation was a low-quality video of the installation that only focused on the replica of his body. There was little to no context for other very intentional and vital aspects to the work, including the audio of Eartha Kitt singing “Paint Me Black Angels” to commemorate this young man. There is also an entire body of 49 other works that should be taken into account. This exhibition is a call to action. 

What did you set out to communicate through the work, and do you feel you were successful? Would you change anything about the exhibition?

We are at a very crucial time in terms of civil rights and activism in America. The work was intended to be commemorative and symbolic of crippling racism in this country. The reactions have been incredibly polarized. You have frightening pro-confederacy/white supremacist rhetoric online ... You also have black Twitter and activists devastated, claiming that I am re-victimizing this young man, and that is indeed a risk I am running and is very valid. But, my point is for us to look at what we are left with. We need to start a new conversation, and we need new discourse to move forward. It’s far too soon to make any judgments about the outcome; I’m simply looking to take one collective step forward. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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The moment we are first introduced to Dionne in "Clueless" -- she bounces out of her gorgeous mansion rocking braids and a ridiculously huge church-auntie hat -- I instantly fell in love. Later in the movie, when Amber says she can't play games where "balls fly at my nose," and Dionne responds, "Well, there goes your social life," I became obsessed. Witty one-liners, beauty, killer fashion sense, and she was a black girl? Heaven. 

This month marks the 20th anniversary of "Clueless," Amy Heckerling's movie adaptation that took Jane Austen's Emma and turned it into the quintessential '90s teen rom-com. The film's fashion, soundtrack, and catchphrases ("As if!") are now iconic, and, for better or worse, forever associated with the young cast of mostly unknowns who brought them to life. 

Whenever an anniversary of a movie like this one comes up nostalgia descends, and with it an inevitable question: "Where are they now?" There have been countless reunions and roundups on the stars of "Clueless"-- we know that Alicia Silverstone (Cher) has gone on to do guest stints on shows like "Suburgatory," started a lifestyle blog, and raised eyebrows by feeding her 11-month old son chewed up food back in 2012. 

Other cast members, like Paul Rudd (Josh) and the late Brittany Murphy (Tai), went on to Hollywood stardom, or became the leads in cult TV shows, like Donald Faison (Murray) in "Scrubs."

And then, there is Stacey Dash. 

Dash played Cher's best friend Dionne in "Clueless." Dionne is, arguably, one of the most iconic black teen characters of all time. With her box braids, beanie, and coordinated plaid mini-skirt, she stood out in the sea of white faces that made up the pantheon of teen movie characters. She was the "best friend," but she wasn't a sidekick. She was a rich girl at a predominantly white school, but her blackness wasn't completely erased. And in her loving but often volatile relationship with boyfriend Murray, she was given complete autonomy -- allowed to be sexual without being a "slut," while still asserting herself with lines like, "Murray, I have asked you repeatedly not to call me 'woman!'"

Since 1995, she reprised the role of Dionne on the "Clueless" television series, and more recently was the star of the short-lived VH1 soap "Single Ladies." But it's not her work on screen, but her work as a pundit that's kept her relatively relevant in the last few years. 

In May 2014, Fox News announced that Dash had been hired as a contributor across daytime and primetime shows, as the token Black Republican from "liberal Hollywood" who would presumably give the network some badly needed black cred. This was after Dash had openly endorsed Mitt Romney, drawn the wrath of Twitter users by tweeting her support of Paula Deen, and called out Jay Z and Beyoncé for taking a vacation in Cuba, writing: "Do you care that The Jay Zs have taken the capital you have given them and funded a communist oppressive regime?”

Perhaps most heartbreaking in her long list of questionable political stances has been her commentary on women's issues. In February 2015, Dash made a series of comments on Fox News that she later described as a "joke," in a discussion about rape on college campuses.

She said, "I think it’s a good thing for the good girls to be told: 'stay home, be safe'. The other bad girls -- bad women -- are the ones who like to be naughty, might go out and play and get hurt and then, you know..."

In May, she had a heated debate with TV host Meredith Viera about wage inequality during which she argued that women should stop playing the "victim" when it comes to equal pay. 

"I feel like it's an excuse. It's the same thing with race. It's an excuse. Stop making excuses," Dash said. "If there are opportunities, seize them and be prepared for them, and be the best, if that's what it takes. If you have to be extraordinary, then be extraordinary... I will not be a victim." 

How does one reconcile Dash and her politics, especially concerning race and women, with the iconic role and movie she's best known for?

You don't.  

Obviously, and logically, Dash and Dionne are decades and worlds apart. Actors are not the characters they play, and they're entitled to do and say whatever they want to in their real lives. And yet. There's something especially difficult to swallow about Dionne/Dash that's different than the shock of Cher Horrowitz growing up to feed her baby like a mama bird. 

On any given Halloween you'll find at least one black girl wearing box braids and a plaid skirt in homage to Dionne and, in a sense, to Stacey Dash's amazing portrayal of her. It's unfortunate that Dash's politics seem in opposition to everything "Clueless" and her character stood for, but is it possible for an actor to ruin a film?  Can the things someone says and does off screen impact the way you feel about the character they once portrayed? 

With every year that goes by, "Clueless" changes as a cultural artifact. It changes in its relationship to those who first watched it back in 1995, and those who may just be discovering it today. Jokes that went over our heads at age 7 suddenly make sense at 17 and trigger nostalgia at 27, while feminist themes of female friendship and empowerment have become more significant. For better or worse, Dash's "Clueless" role and her role as pundit, have added to that ongoing evolution.

At the end of the day, while one may feel a twinge of disappointment every time Dash says something awful in the media relating to race or gender (or even "Clueless" -- she says she never watches the movie to this day), it doesn't take away from the impact her character had on teen movie history. Dionne remains empowered, intelligent and flawless. (Plus, she would never skin a collie to make her backpack.) That, at the very least, has to count for something. 

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One of Ireland’s most prized cultural components is at risk of being taken from the Irish people.

Considered “definitely endangered” by the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, the Irish language is in a dire state. Even though learning Irish is required in all schools across the nation, only 1.8 percent of its population speak Irish daily, and only 40.6 percent say they have the ability to speak the language.

“There is no situation globally which is comparable to the cultural situation in Ireland,” said Cuan Ó Seireadáin, communications officer at Conradh na Gaeilge.

Conradh na Gaeilge is a non-profit organization that works to promote the legal and cultural status of the Irish language both in Ireland and abroad. The organization’s primary mission is to reinstate Irish as Ireland’s primary language.

“An Ireland without the Irish language wouldn’t be the same place,” said Ó Seireadáin. “It wouldn’t really be Ireland, maybe, not in the sense that it had been. For the longest portion of its history, it had been a country dominated by the Irish language and by Gaelic culture.”

The decline of the Irish language was not gradual and not long ago, said Ó Seireadáin. For the majority of time under British rule the Irish language was still frequently used, however English was the official language, especially for legal, administrative and political affairs. This lowered the status of the Irish language, and the working class population who most often used it was eventually diminished by emigration and the Great Famine in the 1800s. The Irish language never fully recovered.

In Ireland’s constitution Irish is given the status of the first and official language of the nation. Nearly 100 years later, English is clearly still the dominant language.

The Irish government has made numerous plans to encourage the use of Irish. In 2003, Ireland passed the Official Languages Act, which promotes the use of Irish for official matters of the state. The act set guidelines for all state organizations, with criteria in areas including language use in the courts, communication with public bodies, and language schemes, which are required from every public body in the nation.

Cian Mac Cárthaigh, a station manager at Raidió na Life, an Irish-language station in Dublin, said the Irish government tends to simply give the language lip service, throwing money at the problem without any proper amount of planning.

A community group started Raidió na Life to create a cultural service for the community and raise both awareness and enthusiasm for Irish along the way. Most of the staff— three paid workers and upwards of 150 volunteers—comes from the community.

“If I hadn’t found out about Raidió na Life, I probably wouldn’t be able to speak Irish anymore,” said Mac Cárthaigh.

Mac Cárthaigh learned to speak Irish while attending a Gaelscoil for primary school. When he later ended up attending an English-speaking secondary school, he found there was absolutely nowhere for him to speak Irish outside of the classroom.

“The government should fund Irish language media more as organizations that support the use of the language,” said Lisa Nic An Bhreithimh, a Raidió na Life volunteer who was recently nominated for the Young Star of the Year award by Oireachtas na Gaeilge. “The young people of Ireland who could potentially lose their language are the ones who'll lose out most if the situation continues as it is.”

Mac Cárthaigh says having a community to speak Irish with is crucial for the strength of the language, especially among those still learning to speak it. If children don’t have opportunities to speak Irish outside of the classroom, they will always just see it as a language only for the classroom.

“They’d like to have you to think it’s the national language, and they spent all this money on the façade, but they won’t actually put any substance behind what they’re trying to do” said Mac Cárthaigh.

An Comisinéir Teanga (the Irish Language Commissioner) published a 2014 report outlining complaints received about noncompliant government organizations. For example, public bodies that use recorded announcements on their telephones must have the recording available in Irish, and this recording must convey the same message in Irish as it does in English. Of the 32 local authorities using recorded messages, only two were compliant.

Aoife Crawford, the acting Irish language officer at Trinity College in Dublin, said she finds these types of issues with government offices to be a vicious circle. Irish speakers don’t ask for the services because they know they either don’t exist or it is simply quicker to speak English. The offices say there is no demand for the services because nobody ever asks.

The Irish government also created a 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language in 2010, with the mission of increasing the number of daily Irish speakers, ensuring Irish is used by public services, making Irish more visible in society, and providing additional linguistic support for communities living in the Gaeltacht.

The Gaeltacht are areas, mostly on the west coast of Ireland, which have the highest population of native Irish speakers. These communities, as the only places where children are born and raised speaking Irish, play a special role in the Irish language. But recent studies have shown that these government initiatives may actually do more harm than good. A report from Raidió Teilifís Éireann, a public-service media organization in Ireland, showed that children in the Gaeltacht, whose home language is exclusively Irish, actually leave school with stronger English than Irish.

“They (the government) seem to want to get rid of us Irish speakers,” said Angela Connolly, a native Irish speaker from Inis Mór, an island on the west coast of Ireland which is part of the Gaeltacht.

Údarás na Gaeltachta is the state agency responsible for promoting the economic, social and cultural development in Gaeltacht areas. They recently published a report that found that the use of the Irish language is declining at a rate never before predicted, and within the next 10 years Irish may no longer be the dominant language even in the Gaeltacht.

Ó Seireadáin says part of the issue is the government’s “béal grá,” which literally translates to “mouth love,” meaning someone who talks positively but has no actions to back up their words.

“The “béal grá” of the government (is) the officially friendly and positive attitude towards the Irish language but de facto reluctance and lack of energy behind implementation of policy,” said Ó Seireadáin. “Sometimes is policy formed without full knowledge of all of the relevant facts needed to make that policy.”

Some Irish speakers say they are criticized for learning a “dead language,” but the language is very much alive for citizens, such as those in the Gaeltacht, who are raised with the language and may not be able to fully express themselves in English.

In February 2014, at an Irish language rights march and protest in Dublin, Brenda Ní Ghairbhí, a manager at Seachtain na Gaeilge (Irish Language Week), remembers a speech given by a woman who was raising all of her children with Irish. As this woman shared her experience of visiting a doctor’s office, she became very emotional, recalling how her children could not communicate with their doctor because he had no Irish and they had no English. Experiences like these illustrate just some of the frustration and marginalization that can exist when proper services are not provided for those in the minority.

Linguistic rights are a key component of UNESCO’s mission. According to areport in tandem with UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, “Languages are vehicles of our cultures, collective memory and values. They are an essential component of our identities, and a building block of our diversity and living heritage.”

Members of the Irish language community do not say they speak Irish. Instead, they say they have Irish. This phrasing reflects their feelings about the Irish language itself, that it is a cultural treasure they want to have and hold on to. But to save Irish is no simple task, and it will require the efforts of an entire nation, not just a small percentage of it. What was nearly completely taken away from them years ago is once again at risk of slipping through a generation’s hands.

Kent State University student Anna Hoffman reported from Ireland while on a Pulitzer Center student fellowship. Click here to see more of her work. 

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“Pain slowly reappears when we try to escape from memory and oblivion. ‘Reincarnation’ does not seek to signify the emergence of an unprecedented phenomenon, but suggests a way of remembering the deceased and the suffering, as well as restoring conscience, morality, empathy, and justice.” -IM Heung-soon, translated by Harry C.H. Choi

These words may have the sheen of a poet’s, but they were composed by artist IM Heung-soon in a mere email. We were corresponding about “Reincarnation,” his video installation currently on display at MoMA PS1. I had asked the 36-year-old Korean artist the most obvious question of all: the significance of his work’s title.

In a sense, the disparity between the two -- my question's simplicity, his work's complexity -- was unsurprising. IM’s art tends to estrange what feels familiar, while finding links between what seems disparate. His responses, like his art, are earnest and discerning: quick to pinpoint a discrepancy, eager to clarify what’s murky.

Both are welcome tendencies, for, when watched alone, “Reincarnation” will leave you displaced and uncertain -- especially if you’re an American. Two video feeds project on opposite walls, so that visitors must glance back and forth in a harried daze. The images seem incongruous: a veiled mother wailing on one channel is juxtaposed with the other’s tranquil ocean tides. The museum placard mentions the “foxhole circuit”: a group of female entertainers who traveled with Korean troops during the Vietnam War, then settled in Tehran, Iran. I was embarrassed to ask an artist who recently showed at the Venice and Sharjah Biennials about his work’s “plot,” until I realized just how thorny the tale was.

“Reincarnation,” in short, tracks Korean populations circulating between several countries, moved by historical reasons that Americans are, regrettably, little acquainted with. If you're a U.S. native, you probably know that armies are often accompanied by “foxhole” entertainers, but odds are you lack knowledge of the Korean circuit. You are also likely unaware -- as I was -- that Tehran was perceived as a locus of economic opportunity in the '70s, leading, for a short time, to an influx of Korean immigrants.

IM became acquainted with the Iran-settled foxhole circuit women during the 2012 Arts Council in Korea. He found their stories inspiring, for they’d “experienced all the major wars across Asia in the latter half of the 20th Century -- the Korean War when they were young, the Vietnam War as a part of the foxhole circuit, and the Iran-Iraq War after they immigrated to Iran.”

These women were the living vessels of a catastrophic time in human history, but IM is less interested in war’s intense violence than in its gradual, tragic legacy; the effects resonating across countries and through generations. Wails from Iranian mothers who lost their sons to war ripple through PS1’s industrial room, just as the film’s waves crash and crash again -- little pulses still stemming from cataclysm. His film does not aestheticize their pain, but rather interrogates the deep gashes it’s left behind. The effect is disarming. Americans, after all, have always been good at confronting the bloodshed of war, but far less adept at acknowledging its scarred legacy.

“That’s why I’m more interested in the violence within, inherent in ourselves, rather than the violence in front of us,” IM wrote, “‘Reincarnation’ is a question mark I throw at the audience, who is armed with ignorance, prejudice, apathy, and familiarity."

It’s a demanding statement, one that reaffirmed my sense that “Reincarnation” was intentionally alienating -- building on the cinematic precedents of the French Nouvelle Vague and the writings of Louis Althusser to distance rather than comfort the viewer. One technique IM lifts from that legacy is the reenactment, but he does not recreate old scenes in a traditional sense. He explained that he’s more focused on his subjects' unconscious and dreams, on finding alternative ways to convey stories that have been told many times before.

Alienation at PS1 takes place on an experiential level as well. Multiple channels cause viewers to separate and scramble their senses -- listening to sounds from one feed and region, while looking at an entirely different scene. “I was thinking about how to simultaneously show these two wars that don’t have any relevance,” IM adds. Viewers find themselves at the crossroads of old violences, swiveling back and forth, trying to piece together a cultural narrative with which they are unfamiliar.

(There’s also, I found out from IM, one less intentional cause of confusion: the fact that the videos at PS1 are only the second half of a larger artwork. The first is a multimedia installation featuring embroidery made by Korean-Iranian women and a soundtrack that interweaves their voices with those of Iranian women who lost their sons and of female victims of the Vietnam War.)

Americans will and should find the installations disarming, but I do not mean to imply that “Reincarnation” simply reiterates old alienation practices. As I reread IM's responses, a counterpoint to estrangement emerged: his gift for tracing thematic links to which we are otherwise blind.

Art focused on micro-histories may seem to subdivide the world into isolated, personal segments, making access difficult for those unacquainted with the few hundred Koreans remaining in Tehran today. But IM’s work reveals a more connective approach to history -- one that unearths the similarities between Iranian women, Korean-Iranian immigrants, and victims of the Vietnam War. Honing in on specifics lets him see how deeply they resonate with each other.

“I believe that many nations of Asia share a similar history,” IM explained, “in that they fought against, or were dominated by, the West through the process of colonization, the Cold War, and the control over natural resources.” If American viewers find themselves baffled by how Vietnam, Korea, and Iran are related, it is perhaps because we are blind to the way our country has shaped those similarities.

That global mindset reveals a shift from IM’s earlier work, which focused on micro-histories within Korea alone. A series of workshops with immigrant and migratory laborers in the early 2000s, however, spurred his interest is dislocation and diaspora. Spatial boundaries, as this new piece attests, carry little significance for him. But as he’s delved more into film, the “bigger categories of nation-states, religions, or ideologies” have taken on increasing importance. His talent is to first acknowledge those categories -- and then to dispense with them, unifying the despair felt by mothers of both Iranian and Korean soldiers with the video’s strummed soundtrack.

It's a shift in content and technique that distinguishes him from many internationally recognized Korean artists. Nikki S. Lee’s “Projects” brought her acclaim for playing with a cult of personality, Byoung Ho Kim’s sleek sculptures are a paragon of minimalism, Do Ho Suh’s heady installations warp visitor’s relationships with space. Hein-Kuhn Oh’s documentary work offers a closer analogy for IM’s, but his portraits engage with the complexities of his subject's surfaces, rather than with their interior worlds. The Korean pavilion at the Venice Biennial this year features a multi-channel video installation by Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho, but it’s a far more fanciful rendition than “Reincarnation.” Titled “The Ways of Folding Space and Flying,” the work dreams of transcending limitations instead of confronting how those limitations have shaped us.

IM’s films, on the other hand, exists between two poles: distancing us from what is familiar, while making familiar what seems so strange. It’s worth returning, then, to his explanation of the work’s title: “Pain slowly reappears when we try to escape from memory and oblivion. ‘Reincarnation’ does not seek to signify the emergence of an unprecedented phenomenon, but suggests a way of remembering the deceased and the suffering, as well as restoring conscience, morality, empathy, and justice.”

"Reincarnation" will and should challenge our (American) morality, but it also reaffirms our capacity to empathize. Empathy, here, requires reconciling the multiple streams shaping our world both inside and outside the exhibition space. It requires forging unity from a lack of narrative consistency. And it requires feeling memory’s pangs, instead of sinking into ignorant oblivion.

"Reincarnation" is on view at MoMA PS1 through Aug. 24.

An enormous thank you to Harry C.H. Choi, who was kind enough to translate both my interview questions and IM’s responses, deftly maintaining his poetic sheen.

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"I have always been drawn to the old masters, a time when art was all about beauty," artist Ted Pim explained in an email to The Huffington Post. "Every painting, every sculpture, every piece of music strove to be beautiful."

Pim is a 28-year-old street artist, born in West Belfast, whose murals adorn abandoned spaces sprinked throughout the U.S. and Europe. Yet rather than communicating in the typical street art language of bold graphics, colorful geometry and politically-bent symbols, Pim uses a visual lexicon employed by artists like Rembrandt and Caravaggio. One of dark shadows, rich tones and an excess of grandeur.

"Coming out of one of the most deprived and poverty stricken areas in Western Europe, I was always fascinated with wealth and luxury," Pim explained. "When I was dragged to the local Catholic church as a child, I used to love sitting and staring at the fine art on display and motifs dripping in gold ... I liked the idea of being able to create a luxury product out of nothing, so I started painting Baroque-inspired pieces."

While the majority of such opulent artworks hang in museums, cordoned off by velvet ropes and glass barriers, Pim prefers his gold-tinged depictions in decrepit urban environments.

"I was drawn to abandoned buildings as I liked the contrast of painting detailed, Baroque-inspired pieces inside dark, neglected structures. These buildings provided me with the perfect atmosphere to create my pieces, with the end result often reflecting my surroundings -- haunting, dark figures."

Pim hypothesized his predilection for abandoned buildings references the neglected area he called home growing up. 

The juxtaposition between palatial artwork and dingy architecture is striking to be sure. And that's just the reaction Pim hopes for. "I like strong reactions, disturbing and entering the viewers' mind," he said. "I remember the feeling I had after seeing Francis Bacon’s 'Head II' as a child at the Ulster Museum in Belfast. I’ve tried to recreate that reaction in my own artwork."

See Pim's classical take on urban interventions below.

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Canada, a nation whose border security has been known to deprive residents of quality hip-hop acts, has now taken a stance against perhaps the biggest rapper of them all: Kanye West. 

Early Wednesday morning, Minnesota Timberwolves forward and Toronto native Anthony Bennett told the world that Kanye West would be playing at the closing ceremony of the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto on July 26. 

By that afternoon, the news was confirmed. And soon enough, there was a Change.org petition demanding his removal from the closing ceremony's bill because, well, Kanye's not Canadian. 

The petition had already racked up over 35,000 signatures by early Friday morning. Canadians (and perhaps people of other nationalities) really don't want Kanye to perform. 

Even Toronto Mayor John Tory has objected, telling reporters at a Wednesday press conference that he wished the artist chosen to headline the ceremony had "been a Canadian." 

Protestors would like to see a Torontonian or Canadian perform (Drake, The Weeknd and deadmau5 were suggested as replacements)."Why was a local artist or group not chosen and supported, just as our local athletes are throughout the games?" asked Allen Simans, the creator of the Change.org petition.

But let's take a step back. If the games, which are held every four years as an "Olympics of the Americas," were the "Canadian Games," then protesters would have an argument. But the Pan Am games are, well, just that: Pan-American. Kanye is American. This works. 

So too is Pitbull, a Cuban-American musical act on the bill with Kanye. Both Americans will perform at the Closing Ceremony, but Pitbull is cool to cross and Kanye's not? Get it together, Canada. Kanye's great and American and you're great and geographically above the United States. The Pan Am games are for all residents of the Americas -- not just Torontonians. 

What's really going on here? Why do thousands of Canadians hate Kanye? His seminal album, 808s & Heartbreak, is the only reason Drake exists to begin with. Shouldn't they be welcoming the father of their hip-hop messiah with open arms and fresh poutine?

 Kanye West performs at Glastonbury on June 28.

Other copycat petitions have peeled back stronger feelings of resentment towards Kanye. One petition writes, "Kanye West is an American singer, rapper, songwriter and husband to Kim Kardashian ... I believe his moral and ethical compass is not aligned with values that most Canadians adhere to."

Another provided a truly non-sensical, but equally revealing reason: "Because it's Kanye West ... Have you heard him? The Universe 'can't even' with this guy."

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. It's not just that Kanye's not Canadian -- it's that some Canadians flat-out don't like the guy. There's no separation of the art from the artist being processed here, which is problematic, especially when we're talking about one of the greatest artists of the century. Canada, let's make this work.  

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While the "microblogging platform" known as Tumblr is essentially a large horde of teens knotted together by invisible strands of WiFi, it is also a sometime place of great revelations. After all, when you're ~*still*~ awake in front of a laptop screen despite your parents having told you to go asleep hours ago, the mind can so easily tiptoe into some extraordinary, sleep-deprived thought.

And so we ventured deep into the website, where taking breadsticks carries political significance and punctuation is hardly ever necessary, and picked up these souvenirs from some Tumblrinos -- who stole some of them from Reddit -- along the way. Through the lens of the Internet, consider the English language.

And a bonus thought to ponder, next time you're alone: 

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 A pair of best friends from Queensland, Australia are working to promote body positivity, foster diversity and normalize breastfeeding through a craft business they call the "Multicultural Boob Revolution."

"Multicultural Boob Revolution is a concept of social conscience that combines loud, fun jewelry and positive body image," co-founder Holly O'Brien told The Huffington Post. "Basically we hand make beads and necklaces representing all different breasts of the world -- all shapes, colors and sizes."

Inspired by female friends, family members, artists, performers and feminist activists, O'Brien and her best friend Hannah Smets decided to turn their hobby of making pop art-themed jewelry together into a full-fledged breast-centric craft business. From their home in Brisbane, the 20-something women use Fimo or Sculpey modeling clay to create the beads and necklaces, which they sell through their Facebook page -- though they plan to launch an official website very soon.

"We have had a really positive response from friends, young people, old people, breastfeeding moms, women who have had mastectomies, midwives, teenagers, doctors, and more," O'Brien said, adding, "It has been really inspiring to make jewelry that can help empower people in any way."

Inspiring others to feel comfortable with the way they look -- whatever their age, race, or body type may be -- is their ultimate mission. "We hope that the idea that people can receive from the multicultural boob revolution is that as far as our bodies are concerned, there is no such thing as normal."

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