Only good things can happen when Sonic Youth goddess Kim Gordon teams up with electropunk dissident Peaches.  

The two musical badasses star in a video for Peaches' new single, "Close Up," from her upcoming album, "Rub," set to release on Sept. 25. In the video, Gordon is some kind of guru/mentor helping Peaches (aka Merrill Beth Nisker) master the art of Lucha VaVoom. 

Lucha VaVoom, for the uninitiated, is a form of burlesque wrestling that combines the drama of lucha libre (a Spanish term for professional wrestling in Mexico and other countries) with the bawdy comedy and cabaret of burlesque performance. 

If you've ever dreamed of Gordon smoking a vape pen over your shoulder, her red lipstick mere inches from your face as she sing-urges you to get back into the metaphorical ring -- well, your strangely awesome dreams have come true. 

Stay tuned for our full interview with Peaches.

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Posing nude as the subject of an iconic artwork has its ups and downs.

On the upside, your voluptuous bod will be immortalized and exhibited for all to see. For centuries, a depiction of your unclothed physique will travel the world, hang in the most renowned institutions, sell at auctions for millions of dollars. On the downside though, you probably have to pose naked for a really, really long time. Are there snacks? Bathroom breaks? Free, private moments to engage in some sweet self-service?

That's where Magic Wand Art History comes in. The noble Tumblr account generously provides the subjects of art history's most iconic works with a little something something to pass the time. Turns out the one thing a Pre-Raphaelite maiden, a lounging Venus, an "American Gothic" wife-type and the original man, Adam himself, have in common is the urge to rub one out. 

The subjects of art history, they're just like us! 

In honor of the almighty invention that is the Hitachi Magic Wand, we humbly present a Tumblr tour through art history's most unabashed masturbators. You go, ladies ... and gentlemen, and baby cupids, and Virgin Mary and God. 

Visit the Tumblr for more vibin' artworks and, while you're there, suggest an artwork you think would benefit from a little battery powered loving. 

H/T The Creator's Project

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Fall brings with it many things — back to school shopping, fading tans, alarm clocks, routines, homework, chilly temperatures, darker evenings, and warmer dinners. Fall is something else as well. It’s the time of picture books, in time for classroom story time, “just right reading levels,” accelerated reading quizzes, and bedtime procrastination.

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After photos from her Public Breastfeeding Awareness Project (PABP) spread widely across the Internet last August, photographer and mom of four Leilani Rogers is continuing to normalize the sight of nursing and support lactating moms.

In honor of National Breastfeeding Awareness Month this year, Rogers recruited over 70 photographers in the U.S., Australia, Italy, U.K., Venezuela and Canada to take pictures of moms nursing their children in public places like libraries, parks, stadiums and grocery stores. She's also invited other parents and photographers to share their own breastfeeding images on the project's Facebook page or on their own social media accounts with the hashtag #PBAP2015.

Rogers was inspired by her own experiences with breastfeeding to launch the Public Breastfeeding Awareness Project in 2014, she told The Huffington Post. Though she overcame challenges with mastitis, bad latches, low supply, plugged ducts, thrush, staph infections and more, she says the one issue she was never able to face was her fear of breastfeeding in public. 

"I avoided it at all costs," the mom said, explaining that she feared stares and judgment from strangers so much that she retreated to her house and made life more difficult by planning everything around each baby's feeding schedule. "I wish I could go back and tell my former self not to care so much about what other people thought. Not to be ashamed of my body. Not to be self-conscious about openly doing what nature intended."

Rogers hopes the Public Breastfeeding Awareness Project will empower moms by offering the support and community she wished she had. She also believes it may help break down the struggles breastfeeding moms face, not only in nursing successfully but also in overcoming societal barriers and expectations. "Society’s support is paramount to a breastfeeding mother’s success," she said. "Mothers are hiding in their cars, restrooms, sometimes not leaving their homes at all -- because they do not want to face the kind of public scrutiny that causes someone to file a complaint with managers and store owners about a woman breastfeeding in a public place."

By encouraging other moms to participate in PBAP photo sessions or follow the project's Facebook page, she hopes they will gain the confidence to nurse in public. Rogers would also like her images to reach non-parents. "My hope is that seeing these images will help desensitize them, or even reprogram their thinking that breasts are sexual and that breastfeeding is an extension of that. It's not," she said.

"Perhaps you haven't witnessed a mother breastfeeding in public before," she continued. "You're not sure what you would do if you happened to turn the corner in the grocery store and run right into a mother juggling her life with a breastfeeding child in tow. These images also serve the purpose of positive, gentle exposure."

Keep scrolling for a sample of the beautiful images of mothers nursing their babies in public from photographers across the globe.

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Secrecy is at the core of Ashley Madison's business model. 

The dating site, which caters to people looking to cheat on their spouses, bills itself as “the world’s leading service for discreet encounters." Millions of people created Ashley Madison accounts, believing it to be a risk-free environment. No longer. 

On July 15, a group calling itself the Impact Team hacked into Ashley Madison's site, lifting the personal information of some 32 million users. The hackers on Tuesday posted what appears to be the full data set online. It includes an array of information about individual users, according to Quartz, including their name, address, phone number, birthdate and the last four digits of their credit card. Also included are details from user bios, with descriptors like, "I May Be Spoken 4 But I Speak 4 Myself.”

Chat rooms and websites have long been a way for people to behave in a manner that they'd rather not publicize to their friends, neighbors and spouses. Logging into a website used to seem more anonymous and less detectible than flirting at a local bar; shopping online an embarrassment-free way of purchasing a vibrator or facial hair bleach.

But as hackings, like those of Sony, the IRS and Home Depot, become more commonplace, this notion of online anonymity seems less realistic than ever. The Internet never was a place where people could be anonymous in plain sight, but people probably won't stop treating it that way. 

The Internet was created as a way of connecting people, but even its founders are skeptical about whether these connections can ever be truly private. Vint Cerf, who developed the TCP/IP network protocol, a technology that forms the basic communication language of the Internet, has expressed doubt that anyone can shield their identity on the web.

“If you want a life of anonymity, join the French Foreign Legion,” he told Forbes in 2011, adding that “the Internet is brittle and fragile and too easy to take down.” 

Robert Kahn, who "invented" the Internet along with Cerf, told The Huffington Post that the web is no different than society as a whole. Using cash might make a transaction seem secret, "but cameras are everywhere," he wrote in an email. "There are lots of things one can do to conceal one's identity, but I suspect experts in the field can piece together clues of all kinds." 

There are ways to be more anonymous online. You can use Tor or a Virtual Private Network, or VPN, to surf the web without leaving a trail of your IP address, the technique Ashley Madison's hackers used to upload their data. 

But none of these techniques are foolproof. Even users who are especially savvy at concealing their identity make mistakes. In 2012, Hector Xavier Monsegur, a hacker who went by the name "Sabu" and co-founded the hacking group LulzSec, was identified and arrested after he posted comments in a chat service thinking he was using a VPN, software that makes your browsing anonymous. He hadn't connected to the network, and was caught, trading freedom for becoming an informant for the FBI. 

That kind of mix-up happens often, according to Rick Holland, a security analyst at advisory firm Forrester Research. “[Experienced Internet users] think they’re working in some kind of encryption and they’re not,” he said. “Even typing things on a computer -- they think they’re in a window within [their system] and really they’re connected to another.”

People who are less savvy than Monsegur are even more at risk on the web, especially when giving personal information to sites like Ashley Madison. "When you sign up for something that’s a social networking outlet, you’re implicitly giving up some control over that information," said Scott Crawford, research director of information security at 451 Research. 

But Ashley Madison allows its users, if not actual anonymity, then the veneer of it. You can post under a pseudonym and log in with a fake email address. (Ashley Madison didn’t require email verification.) 

And even websites tamer than Ashley Madison offer the illusion of anonymity -- which is why people feel comfortable handing over swaths of personal information. It’s why people continue to purchase things on Amazon, even after purchase histories have been hacked and released. 

“Most people have no idea how vulnerable we are,” Holland added. “Whatever the opposite of anonymous is, that’s what we are.”

The dangerous part of our naivety, Holland said, is that people continue to behave as if the web conceals identities. “People do things on 4chan because they’re hiding. People say things on Twitter that they would never say face to face, because the separation they have from the physical world makes them think their identity is secret.”

The millions of users whose data was compromised in the Ashley Madison hack will have to confront their private life in public. But Holland doubts that people will stop treating the web as an anonymous space. In the future, users could create fake personas and have one-time use credit cards to protect themselves from data breaches, but he doubts they will. 

Crawford agrees.

"There’s a certain amount of fatalism these days, that breaches are inevitable," he said. "Will that be the case in this instance? Hard to say.”

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It's official: Burning Man has a bug problem.

According to a blog posted to the Burning Man website, the rumors that tons of tiny insects have infested Black Rock City -- the site of the Burning Man's desert revelry scheduled to begin on Aug. 30 -- are all true. According to even more Twitter updates, the bugs are biting, crawling and being all-around bummers in Nevada right now. You heard it from blogger John Curley first: "They get up and in you."

Curley, a photographer who's currently in BRC helping to construct the modest infrastructure that greets Burners on the playa, goes on to explain that some of the organizers already on site have encountered a mess of insects that are leaving a trail of red welts in their wake. "What's going on?" you might ask.

"We don’t know," Curley states in his post. "We don’t know how the little critters survive in the heat and the sun. All we know is that if you pick up some wood, you’re likely to uncover hundreds or thousands of the things. They’ve blown up inches deep against the sides of the Commissary tent. They’ve covered the carpets at the Depot. They’re all over the Man Base. So it’s not a localized occurrence, it’s everywhere."

EVERYWHERE.

Curley and his cast of bug-bitten desert people have a couple theories on the insects' origins. Maybe the biters have been laying dormant all spring, and and recent bouts of rain have brought the hell beasts to life earlier than usual. (*Raises fists in the name of climate change.*) Or, maybe the teeny agitators "hitchhiked in on a load of wood from somewhere." Compelling. It's certainly a better guess than the one Shade -- a source we assume is human, and not just a physical manifestation of darkness with communicative abilities -- gave Curley. Johnny Bugseed? Pshaw. 

No word on how the Burners plan on decimating the interlopers. There has been talk of nukes. So far, news of the creepy crawlers is only slightly affecting the amount of pre-Burning Man enthusiasm on Twitter. 

Wait. Did you hear that? Ah. That was the collective exhale of millions of people who once again said "f**k no" when asked whether they'd enjoy spending days in the desert, bartering for water and food like a couple of Renaissance fair-goers who only wear tutus and glitter speedos.

Note to all those very respectable people still seeking the fiery comfort of an artistic effigy: If you start seeing diseased livestock and thunderstorms of hail and fire, know that the apocalypse is upon us.

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A British professor's new project is requiring him to go through bizarre ch-ch-changes.

Will Brooker, a film and cultural studies professor from Kingston University, is spending the next year becoming David Bowie in hopes of better understanding the music legend.

To do that, Brooker, 45, will dress like Bowie throughout his various personas. He will watch the same movies and read the same books that the singer enjoyed when he was, say, the Thin White Duke or Ziggy Stardust, according to Newser.

Brooker even plans to eat like Bowie, who reportedly ate only peppers and milk for a time.

“The idea is to inhabit Bowie’s head space at points in his life and career to understand his work from an original angle, while retaining a critical and objective perspective at the same time – a kind of split persona, perhaps,” Brooker told the Guardian.

Brooker admits the idea is strange, but figures it's worth it for an artist like Bowie.

“It’s an interesting experiment, isn’t it? You could say it’s a bit creepy," he told the Herald-Sun. "There are worse people to try and emulate. At least he’s a great artist and a very interesting person.”

There have been challenges, especially since yellow suits with huge shoulder pads like the one Bowie wore during his 1983 "Let's Dance" era, aren't exactly available off the rack.

Brooker says keeping a rational head is also difficult.

"If you're reading some strange science fiction and books about magic, you can kind of get into Bowie's head. It's sometimes quite a strange place, a dangerous place, a place you wouldn't want to live for too long," he said, according to London24.com.

Brooker admits that, no matter how hard he tries, there are some things about Bowie he won't be able to duplicate.

"His mansion in Beckenham has been demolished, for instance, and I'm unlikely to have a fling with Mick Jagger," Brooker told the Kingston University Press. "However, it is possible to engage with and get a feel for his experiences without immersing oneself to a dangerous extent."

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Your wedding ceremony will set the stage for the rest of your big day.

Make the right first impression by choosing a scenic location, adding some romantic decor and filling the space with lots and lots of love. Below are 24 inspiring ideas that couldn't be more beautiful. 

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Three firefighters were killed and as many as four more injured while battling a wildfire in Washington state's rural interior on Wednesday.

The fallen firefighters were responding to raging fire that has prompted evacuations near Twisp in Okanogan County. They became trapped by the fire as winds shifted, the local sheriff said.

"I was just told that three firefighters died while battling the Twisp fire and four were injured," Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement. "My heart breaks over the loss of life. I know all Washington joins me and Trudi in sending our prayers to the families of these brave firefighters. They gave their lives to protect others."

 The identities of the firefighters killed and injured had not been released. Conditions of the injured responders was not immediately available.

The Okanagan Complex fire has burned approximately 31,000 acres, and has forced the evacuation of about 3,000 people from the towns of Twisp and Winthrop. The town of Concully was evacuated on Tuesday.

The lightning-sparked blaze is a dangerous combination of several fires: the Lime Belt Fire, the Blue Lake Fire, the Tunk Block Fire, the Beaver Lake Fire, and the Nine Mile Fire.

It adds to 15 other fires sweeping through different parts of Washington. The state took the drastic step to  shutdown all industrial forest activities across most of Eastern Washington, the Seattle Times reported.

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"As a virgin, it was hard for me to talk about sex to horny men." 

"I share myself with individuals who're not getting what they need at home."

"My callers are people with a different sexual appetite."

These are just a few thoughts British photographer Phillip Toledano heard while interviewing phone sex operators for his book Phonesex.  Although the book came out in 2008, the voices and the people behind them are just as powerful today. 

“There is a contract that exists between phone sex operators and the people who call. It is a contract of self-delusion," Toledano wrote on his artist page. "The caller agrees to pretend that he (or she) is calling a young, beautiful girl, and the phone sex operator willingly plays the part."

The book includes images of 26 women and men working as phone sex operators, each accompanied by how they feel about their profession.

 I never thought I would work in the phone sex industry. All those years doing customer service, my customers would comment on my sexy voice. I thought I was being professional, not sexy. This work is customer service. It’s just your customers leave with more than a smile.  

Toledano found most of his participants after posting an ad on Craigslist in his area for operators who were willing to be photographed as part of his project.   

He told HuffPost that his entrance into this type of photography was indirect. The idea for the project evolved during a time after his mother died suddenly and he was left to care for his father who suffers from Alzheimer's. During the first few months of taking care of his father, Toledano had to repeatedly break the news to his dad that his mother had died. Finally, Toledano made up a story that his mother was on vacation in Paris.

"My father and I kind of lived in this illusion that I had created and we participated in that lie together," Toledano said. One day he was looking through a magazine and found ads for phone sex and realized: "It was exactly the same thing as what I was doing with my father," he told HuffPost. "Two people agree to participate in an illusion together." 

This work is customer service. It’s just your customers leave with more than a smile.

Head over to Amazon to order Phonesex or visit Toledano's website to see more of his work. 

H/T The Daily Beast

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Static images are out. GIFs are in.

You're already collecting, enjoying and sharing GIFs from sites like Giphy. Now you can make your own. 

Giphy, arguably the biggest GIF website online, has created a new app called Giphy Cam. The iOS app, released Thursday, lets you create moving images of anything you like -- right on your iPhone. It literally takes seconds to create a GIF, save it and share it with your friends. Look at how fun this is!

You use your iPhone's camera with the app's filters to create some personalized, animated fun. There are five different types of GIFs you can make with Giphy Cam. You can just use a filter to film yourself in black and white or other Instagram-like filters like "Film" or "Faded." There are also some sillier filters like "Pixel" and "VHS," seen below:

With any of the GIFs you create, you can choose to make them in burst mode, where the app takes a few photos of you in quick succession (seen above), or record mode, where the app records a smooth video of you (seen below).

The next option you have is "Reactions," which include overlaid images and animations that showcase a certain emotion, like happiness, love, gratitude, anger and more. Here's an especially sad reaction GIF we made:

The next option is the "Magic Wand," which puts an animated backdrop behind you. Some options include water, fireworks, hearts, trippy designs and glitter (seen below). All you need is a solid wall behind you for this one to work. It's shockingly easy. 

Next are "Overlays," which pop a fun little animation over your image. You can have cat ears, sunglasses, a crown a funny little animated friend sitting next to you and more. Check out this wiggly mustache:

The final type of filter is called a "Party" filter, which puts different animations in front of you, like falling money, roses or even popping champagne:

Giphy even made a special filter inspired by The Huffington Post and Arianna Huffington's favorite topic: sleep. Here's what that looks like:

"Giphy has been working closely with the good folks at The Huffington Post for a while; and, Arianna Huffington says that sleep is the key to success," Giphy's COO Adam Leibsohn says. "Well, 'sleep' and 'tired' are popular searches on Giphy; so, we saw this as a great opportunity to collaborate on the 'Zzzzzz' filter in Giphy Cam."

Here's what the app itself looks like:

You can use either your front-facing or normal camera, and whatever filter you're using shows on the screen as you create the GIF, so you'll have an idea of what it will look like. 

Once you make the GIF you have the option to save it to your phone, text it to someone, tweet it, send it in a Facebook message, post it to Instagram and more. You also have the option to redo the GIF. 

We've already spent a ridiculous amount of time enjoying this app, and we apologize in advance for all of the time you spend playing with it instead of working. 

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You probably haven't heard of the VICE-produced indie Dutch film "Prince," which mixes the visual aesthetic of Nicolas Winding Refn (think "Drive") with a playful take on the street crime of "City of God," all to moody synths reminiscent of "It Follows." However, you may have read about the film's stars. Page Six covered the recent arrest of lead Ayoub Elasri, while GQ.com admired the oddity of Dutch rapper Lil' Kleine (neé Jorik Scholten), whom "Prince" director Sam de Jong describes as "the Justin Bieber of the Netherlands." But if you haven't seen Lil' Kleine's music video "Drank & Drugs" yet, please stop what you're doing and watch it below. Song of the summer?

Super catchy, right? If that grabbed your attention, so will "Prince." The film stars Elasri as Ayoub, an Amsterdam kid who spends his days setting off firecrackers in mailboxes with his boys, a crew of three other teens which include Franky (Scholten), Oussama, played by 15-year-old kickboxing champ Oussama Addi, and Achraf (Achraf Meziani). In the movie, Ayoub falls for a girl and is determined to do whatever he can to win her attention, even working for the street's most respected gangster to prove himself. But Ayoub and BFF Franky soon have a falling out when Franky starts hooking up with Ayoub's sister Demi (Olivia Lonsdale, the girl in the leopard print in the "Drank & Drugs" music video).

"Prince" is a stunning first feature from de Jong, who previously directed shorts and music videos (including "Drank & Drugs."), with charged performances from its cast of mostly non-professional actors. But in a story about juvenile aggression starring amateur actors, there's the chance fiction will mirror reality. In an interview with The Huffington Post, de Jong told us about the on-set animosity that nearly led him to recast the leads. "It was more like social work," de Jong said of directing the boys. "Most of my work with them was making sure that raw energy came into the film without exploding." And it came close, many times.

The tension on the set of "Prince" was mainly an ego war between Elasri, 18, and Scholten, 21. "Ayoub was the alpha male because he was starring in [the movie], he’s the hero," the director said. "But [Scholten], he couldn’t deal with that. He has like 200,000 Instagram followers, he’s like the Justin Bieber of the Netherlands. And he wanted the highest status. So the second shooting day, they just exploded." The two boys had such a difficult time getting along on set that de Jong and the crew had to hold them back from one another. "They really wanted to just fuck each other up all the time."

But the boys' real-life beef played into the film in more ways than one. It became so impossible to have the actors on set at the same time that de Jong came up with the idea to shoot most of their group scenes as single close-ups, which largely informed the film's style. "It ended up being a stylistic choice, but I came on to it by necessity," he told us. "I was trying to find a way to work with them, and by sending the others away I could get this quirky sort of comedy by having them act to the camera. So it feels a little constructed."

Although de Jong says he didn't use the tension between Elasri and Scholten's to heighten their characters' on-screen fight, we can't help but wonder how much the two drew from it. In one scene, Ayoub rushes toward Franky and punches him in the face, a punch that plays even more charged knowing their real-life hostility. But struggling to stifle teenagers' hormone-fueled fights and avoid legal issues -- one of the actors even stole the production car keys for a joy ride -- is not something de Jong wants to do again in the future.

"It’s fucking with your head," de Jong said. "At the same time it’s cool because the movie is about that. But now, in my next project, I just want to save my energy for more creative stuff."

"Prince" is now playing.

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Peter Bogdanovich's name often appears alongside the likes of Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, Mike Nichols and Martin Scorsese -- 1970s directors who introduced fresh narrative structures and themes that illuminated the discomfort of the human experience. Think of movies like "Bonnie and Clyde," "The Graduate" and "Taxi Driver" -- or, in the case of Bogdanovich, "The Last Picture Show," "What's Up, Doc?" and "Paper Moon," a trifecta that cemented his status as a legend, despite what would ultimately become a topsy-turvy career suffused with as many misfires as there were triumphs. 

For proof that Bogdanovich's influence on American cinema is still felt today, look no further than his new comedy, "She's Funny That Way," which opens in limited release on Friday. The 76-year-old director recruited of-the-moment auteurs Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach as executive producers, largely because Hollywood economics have made it difficult to get such a project made with a top-tier, franchise-infatuated studio. In a way, this pop-culture mentor has become the mentee. Lucky for him, as Eileen Brennan says in "The Last Picture Show," "A person can't sneeze in this town without somebody offerin' him a handkerchief."  

Co-written with then wife Louise Stratten and originally titled "Squirrels to the Nuts," "She's Funny That Way" is a screwball farce about the intersecting lives of a philandering but big-hearted Broadway director (Owen Wilson) whose actress wife (Kathryn Hahn) discovers his assignation with a call girl (Imogen Poots) who gets cast in a new production by a playwright (Will Forte) who is dating the call girl's therapist (Jennifer Aniston). Also featuring Rhys Ifans, Cybill Shepherd, Debi Mazar and a few high-profile cameos, the film premiered at last August's Venice Film Festival, where Clarius Entertainment acquired it for $4.5 million before distribution shifted to Lionsgate. It's not easy out there, even for an Oscar-nominated director who is part of the National Film Registry. The Huffington Post hopped on the phone with Bogdanovich for a lively conversation about the drastic changes that have befallen the industry since he and his cohorts changed Hollywood in the '70s.

What made you decide to get it going again? 

A few years later, I got to know Owen Wilson. I spent a lot of time with him and decided that he could play it very well since he had the one really necessary thing that I felt was important for the character, which was that he was attractive and charming but not threatening sexually. I thought that was important. Also he’s a brilliant comic actor and a brilliant dramatic actor, plus he’s a got a star personality, I believe, and I like that kind of actor. They’re few and far between right now. That used to be the definition of a movie star -- a personality that comes across no matter what the part is.

Did you meet Owen through Wes Anderson?

I met Owen through Wes. I got to know Wes way back in the mid-‘90s when he was making “Bottle Rocket.” What happened was my ex-wife, Polly Platt, was the producer of “Bottle Rocket.” She brought Wes to James L. Brooks, and Jim Brooks agreed to make the picture. While they were making the picture in Texas, I spoke to Polly and she said, "I’m working with this director who’s the first director since I worked with you who knows exactly what he wants and won’t take any substitutes. And he’s a big fan of yours and he’d like to meet you.” So I met Wes while he was shooting “Bottle Rocket” and we got to be friendly when he moved to New York. We spent quite a bit of time together, and then I met Owen through Wes. I had been in New York, but when I moved out in California again, Owen and I hung out a lot at his place in Malibu. We binge-watched “Breaking Bad” and “Game of Thrones.” I decided I thought he could play this thing and I asked him to read it and he liked it, but felt that some of the physical humor should be eliminated and put in place some dialogue that he felt more comfortable with. We did that, and then we got Jennifer Aniston. I asked Wes and Noah Baumbach if they would come on as executive producers. They did and they turned us over to UTA, which was their agency, and UTA started to help get the money and put the producers into the mix. That’s how it went.

Was their involvement more about your appreciation of their filmmaking, or was it about the mechanics of needing to get the film financed?

They had read it before and they liked the script. I asked them quite candidly, “Could you come on as executive producers to help to get the money?” As I said to them, "Your attachment to this would help get it done." And they said, "Great, sure, we’ll do that." And it did help get it done. I was glad that they liked the script, but it wasn’t so much about artistic input. It was about getting the picture made.

But surely Peter Bogdanovich can get a movie financed, right? 

Well, it is very helpful to have a couple of guys who are currently making movies in the mainstream. I’ve been out of it a little bit, so it was very helpful and very nice of them to help me out like that. I think we could have gotten the movie if we had Owen and Jennifer, but it just made things a lot easier. 

How drastically has the landscape changed since you started making movies in the late '60s?

Oh, it’s changed, because the studios aren’t making those kinds of films. I said to the boys, “Do you think 'What’s Up, Doc?' would be a studio film today?" and they said no. And that’s pretty scary because it was a very commercial picture. In fact, "What’s Up, Doc?" was the third biggest grosser of the year. After "The Godfather" and "The Poseidon Adventure," we were No. 3 -- after two blockbusters. And our picture wasn’t that expensive; it just made a lot of money, and you’d think a studio would want to make that, but I’m told they wouldn’t.

What was the turning point when studios lost interest in those types of movies?

It started toward the second half of the ‘70s, with “Jaws” and “Star Wars” being such blockbusters. “Jaws” was the first A-list picture that was released like an exploitation picture. They made a lot of money with that picture because they could save a lot of money on advertising. Instead of having a full-page ad in The New York Times for one theater, they had it for 100 theaters. So that was a huge shift, and I think slowly the tides changed, so to speak, and the studios phased out the smaller pictures. For a while, all the studios had their art-house divisions, but that went by the by pretty quickly. Now they’re really focusing on these huge blockbusters, spending a fortune on cartoon pictures and comic-strip movies and superhero movies, and they aren’t making pictures like “How Green Was My Valley," which was an Oscar winner in its day.

What do you think of this trend of directors making idiosyncratic, dirt-cheap indies and then being poached for these behemoth CGI flicks? I'm thinking of Colin Trevorrow following up "Safety Not Guaranteed" with "Jurassic World," for example.

You know, they used to look for directors doing commercials or doing music videos. That was another way in. Now the way in is to make a picture that’s personal and that makes some money, and if it’s competently made and successful, they get hired for one of those blockbusters. And then it’s up to the artistic conscience of the specific director to make that decision. Does he want to do that, or does he want to continue to make those smaller films? It’s a difficult situation.

And, of course, you can't blame someone for wanting the fat paycheck that's impossible when you're making a little Sundance film. Were you ever faced with that dilemma?

Not that big. I was offered “Popeye,” which Robert Altman made. They offered me $2 million to direct that, which was good money. I wasn’t interested in it. I don’t like that kind of movie. But in its day, "What’s Up, Doc?" was considered a surprising choice for me after “The Last Picture Show” because they expected another “Last Picture Show” or something. I was offered to do a picture with Barbra Streisand and I turned it down, and then Warner Brothers said, “Look, if you had to do a picture with Streisand, what would you do?” And I said, “I’d do a screwball comedy, something like 'Bringing Up Baby.'" And they said, "Fine, do it." It was a blockbuster. That picture didn’t cost anything and it grossed a lot of money. In today’s dollars, it's something like $350 million. And then I was offered $1 million to do a sequel to "What’s Up, Doc?" immediately. Barbra, Ryan O'Neal and I were each offered $1 million to do the sequel and I said, “We just did that picture. Why would I do it again?” During that period, I was looking to do things that I hadn’t done. I kept challenging myself by doing the kinds of pictures that I hadn’t done, and that worked sometimes, and sometimes it didn’t.

You haven't made a theatrical film since "The Cat's Meow" in 2001. Is that an extension of how difficult it is to make the movies you want to nowadays?

I started acting in “The Sopranos” around 1999 and 2000. I did that for six years. That was quite a job and I loved it. And then I directed one of the “Sopranos” episodes, and I also directed a Natalie Wood movie for ABC and one about Pete Rose. Then I had published a fat, 600-page book about actors in 2004. I also did a four-hour documentary on Tom Petty, which took two years and won a Grammy. I redid a documentary on John Ford that I had done. I was pretty busy. I wasn’t looking to direct anything. In order words, I didn’t go around trying to get something done and just couldn’t do it. I was busy doing all those things I just mentioned. And the first picture I decided to do was this one because I had an actor that I liked that I thought would help get me the money. But it wasn’t like I was searching to make a picture and couldn’t get one done. I liked doing what I was doing -- it was a change of pace. I loved doing Tom Petty’s thing because I love Tom. We had a great time.

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“In case you haven’t realized, it’s somehow become necessary for old white men to tell me how to speak.”

That's how Melissa Lozada-Oliva begins her powerful spoken word poem "Like Totally Whatever" that she performed at the 2015 National Poetry Slam earlier this month. Lozada-Oliva details the subtle sexism engrained in the critiques of how women speak. 

“They like put my parentheticals, my ‘likes’ and ‘ums’ and ‘you knows,’ on a wait list," she tells the crowd. 

Lozada-Oliva vehemently defends the way women talk, calling out the "white man’s sentences" that women are told to mimic in order to be taken seriously. “It’s like maybe I am always speaking in questions, ‘cause I’m so used to being cut off," she says. “It's like maybe this is defense mechanism. Maybe everything girls do is evolution of defense mechanism.”  

She refers to the way women talk as "protection," telling the crowd, "Our ‘likes’ are our knee pads. Our ‘ums’ are the knives we tuck into our boots at night. Our ‘you knows’ are the best friends we call when we’re walking down a dark alley."

We are totally, like, on board with you Melissa.   

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Irish photographer Samantha Conlon explores the close-knit relationship between girls and their moms in an intimate series she calls "Daughters."

Featuring photos of her sisters and their daughters, as well as her own mother, the series shows everyday moments in their lives at home -- from morning cuddles to bath time. "I feel like the project really shows how touch, softness, vulnerability are all important aspects of life and are not just trivial things assigned to the 'feminine' side of life," Conlon told The Huffington Post. 

"Daughters" evolved from a previous project called "Girl As Weapon," which explored the way gendered kids' products affect young children and the way these messages inform their identities. After a few months of working on that project, she decided to "move away from the negative power influences in a child's life" and instead look more toward the positive. 

Having grown up in a very tight-knit, mostly female family, Conlon gravitated toward the idea of the mother-daughter relationship in all its physical and emotional closeness. "I feel like I have access to real intimacy and comfort that maybe a lot of people have to search for in their lives," she said, adding, "To me, there is a sort of secret world to female friendships that I find very refreshing and comforting." 

As she worked on the project, Conlon found herself drawn to the portraits of the daughters, her nieces. The photographer hopes other people, especially parents, are inspired by her depiction of the little girls' powerful bonds. "By interacting with young children and allowing them to be vulnerable and not always laying weight on strength and rationality, we teach them that there is no shame in being soft," she said.

She also believes "Daughters" has an important takeaway for everyone. "I hope it shows how important women supporting other women is, how forming female relationships is a really vital part to any female experience."

H/T Refinery29 

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Taylor Swift recently gave one powerful performance that is bound to move anyone who witnesses it. 

The singer wrote the song "Ronan," for Ronan Thompson, a boy who died in 2011 from neuroblastoma, a type of cancer, just days before his 4th birthday, according to the Ronan Thompson Foundation's website.

While Swift rarely performs the song live, the star, whose own mother, Andrea, was diagnosed with cancer, decided to sing it this past Monday at a concert in Glendale, Arizona, and dedicate it to Ronan's mother Maya Thompson, who was in the audience. Along with the song, Swift also offered some beautiful words about Ronan's mother Maya Thompson and her resilience. 

"In my opinion, one of the bravest things that a human being can ever do is to go through something absolutely unbearable and then share their experience with the world," Swift said during the performance of Thompson, who writes a blog called "Rockstar Ronan." "I’ve had cancer hit really close to me in my family, so because Maya’s right there, I would like you to give her a round of applause, please.”

While the family had met with Swift before the concert, the song came as a surprise to them. Thompson wrote in her blog that was she was shocked when Swift's manager approached her during the concert for permission for the singer to play the song.

Before singing "Ronan," an emotional Swift mentioned that she was a fan of Rockstar Ronan and had written the song inspired by parts of the blog. She even added Thompson as a co-writer. There's only been one other instance that Swift has performed "Ronan," the star mentioned, which was at a benefit concert, but she said she felt that Thompson should be honored with the performance. 

The star certainly didn't disappoint, and Thompson was overcome with emotion from the song. 

"I could literally feel your little arms wrapped around me," Thompson wrote on her blog, discussing the performance while addressing her late son. "I have not felt your presence so close to me since you were physically still here on this earth. It was absolutely one of the purest, most magical moments of my life."

To learn more about Ronan and the Ronan Thompson Foundation, visit the website here.  

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You are almost definitely going to get cheated on at some point in your life.

The only surefire way to prevent that from happening is to avoid dating altogether or, more specifically, to stay away from the Anthony who attended St. John Vianney High School in Holmdel, New Jersey. Otherwise, it is going to happen to you. It happens to everyone. It happened once, at least metaphorically, even to Beyoncé. The question is how to handle it.

This already tragic situation is even trickier when you and your philandering dickhead of a significant other are famous. What to do, what to do? Should you "stand by your man," proving that you are weak and acknowledging your role in everything that went wrong? Should you leave him, asserting yourself as a strong, independent old maid who is destined to die alone? Should you immediately forget both choices and just turn to dust as a result of your clear inability to deliver sexually?

Enter Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck and their nanny, proud Alicia Keys fan and Other Woman, Christine Ouzounian.

There are several articles now praising Ouzounian for taking ownership of her emergence into the spotlight as Affleck's alleged adultery accomplice, celebrations of her Sydney Leathers-esque subversiveness. Caught in the hyper-version of this scenario, the options are to 1) become a hermit monk searching for Englightenment in the Mogao caves, or 2) capitalize on the publicity and become a reality star ($$$)! 

It's a little harder to praise Ouzounian's confident seizing of that second option while acknowledging that Garner and Affleck have three kids who she was being paid to watch. But let's blithely ignore that and consider Garner's options.

The news of Garner and Affleck's divorce broke before nanny-gate, so unfortunately it's unlikely Garner and Affleck will get back together and invite you to join them for a boozy landscape painting class, while they talk about that episode of "Dinner for Five." Still, is there a version of this scenario where Garner is not left as the apparent loser? Is there something she might have done to avoid that fate?

Based on Jennifer Aniston's experience with her own reported cheating-cum-split 10 years ago, the next decade is not going to be so great for Garner. Poor Jen. Poor Jen(s). The tabloids just assume a stance of automatic pity for women in the fallout of infidelity, offering to help explore the heartbreak and ugliness of divorce from the perspective of her pain. It is always the wife who comes out on bottom, somehow branded as the lesser person, forever understood as a scorned woman.

Obviously, cheating is a garbage thing to have happen to you. But it is a less garbage thing when you are the man being cheated on. Kristen Stewart was the monster when she cheated on Robert Pattinson. LeAnn Rimes will forever be a villain unless she discovers she is at risk for breast cancer and gets a mastectomy.

Why do women have the burden of the mortification factor regardless of whether they cheat or are cheated on? Neither Garner or Aniston did anything to generate a pitying narrative. It's a bit icky that we're so capable of indulging in Ouzounian's apparent brazenness, while forcing all the shame on Garner.

It took Aniston a decade plus a marriage to liberate herself from the albatross of rejection. But what would it have looked like if there was news of Brangelina, and then they stayed together? We would likely still feel sorry for her as a woman who couldn't "keep" a man with far more intensity than Brad was ever trashed for being unfaithful. Of course, all this phenomena is just an offshoot of the evolutionary and misogynistic idea that men are entitled to multiple partners coupled with the insistence that women must maintain a single one. But that's getting a bit academic.

In short, the best way to be cheated on (especially if you are famous) is to not be a woman.

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

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"Saved by the Bell" premiered 26 years ago, which means you're old. 

In some ways, not much has changed since Zack, Kelly, Screech and the gang roamed the halls of Bayside High School -- crop tops are back, cheeseburgers never left and overdosing on caffeine pills still isn't recommended. In other ways, many of the plot-lines and certain dialogue couldn't exist today. You'd never see Zack hit on the school nurse or hear a laughtrack following Slater's sexist jokes in 2015. 

It's understandable, then, that the show's portrayal of sexism, and therefore feminism, has been criticized in more recent years. Jessie Spano was an outspoken feminist who was whiney, neurotic and purposely characterized as less attractive than easy-breezy Kelly Kapowski. Jessie's character didn't help the case for feminism being a positive thing, and she didn't make the word "feminist" seem like one young girls would want to wear.

But, it's important to remember: it was the '90s. "Feminist" wasn't a term you heard as commonly in mainstream pop culture as you do now, and there certainly weren't tons of young female characters on television overtly claiming the feminist label. Flawed or not, Jessie's commitment to equality influential on young viewers, including myself. Here's why:

1. She dated Bayside's biggest chauvinist AC Slater, but called him out constantly.

2. She set the record straight on labels, reminding AC not to call her "babe" or "chick." She gave young women watching permission to femine what's demeaning to them, or not.

3. She challenged masculinity and demonstrated why "macho" isn't something to strive for...

4. ... And again:

5. She called out unfair societal norms:

6. And confronted gender roles:

7. She tried her hand at acting "girly," and ultimately decided she was better off being true to herself. 

8. She was aware of social inequality, and didn't let her friends lose sight of their own privilege.

Bless your feminist heart, Jessie Spano.

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When you get the opportunity to drink sugary, vaguely-alcoholic beverages and paint with a former "Bachelorette" star, the only appropriate answer is, "YES. WHEN? WE'RE IN." So that's how we found ourselves at Painting Lounge's Chelsea Studio two weeks ago, alongside Andi Dorfman. 

We showed up after a 15-minute walk dripping sweat, hoping our carefully picked-out outfits were cute enough to mingle with a Bachelorette and her best friends ... and other media types. We identified the entrance to the "lounge" by a cluster of shiny Mylar Palm Breeze balloons. Bingo. 

Inside, we found an immaculate Andi, clad in white jeans and a long-sleeved blouse despite the warmth of the room. Only a former Bachelorette could have the self-assurance to wear white jeans to a painting class. We were already intimidated, and still sweating profusely.

Luckily, Andi didn't seem to notice our unkempt appearances -- or at least she was too much of a Georgia peach to comment on them. We sat down, untangled the equipment our podcast producer had handed us earlier that day, and got down to the business of asking questions and shoving the portable microphone in her face so she could answer them.

"So, what's the deal with all the Palm Breeze?" Emma asked. Andi explained how much she wanted to have a housewarming party that was warm, but not in her house, and involved canned sparkling wine spritzers. We couldn't wait to get tipsy. (Being tipsy makes you a better artist, right?)

Andi told us about her upcoming breakup-themed book, a "tongue-in-cheek diary of [her] breakup," which apparently will contain some "zingers" about her relationship with Josh Murray. She also seemed willing to laugh at herself a little bit: "My dad’s seen me make out on TV. I have no shame left." (Fair enough, girl.) 

“I dated 26 dudes on national television, I got engaged after eight weeks, and yes it was love and I will never deny that, but at the end of the day I have to sit back and kind of chuckle at it," she told us. "Like, oh my God, I dated on reality television."

Mission accomplished, we bundled away our aged microphone and cracked open cans of Palm Breeze, ready to relax with some stiff drinks and casual artistic activity while unobtrusively working our way into Andi's inner circle.

Then the class began.

Suddenly, both of us regressed to a very specific place: junior year AP classes. Our Type A, teacher's pet personalities, so long suppressed by adulthood, sprang back full force. Claire clutched her brush so tightly her hand spasmed, and utterly neglected to get tipsy on the 4.5 percent ABV of the ruby red citrus Palm Breeze she'd scored. We became obsessed with painting inside the lines, to the point of desperation. Emma has been berating herself over her lack of ability to paint in a straight line ever since. We're fairly certain even the laid-back instructor could sense our anxiety levels rising. "Don't worry if your painting doesn't look just like mine," he repeated several times, glancing meaningfully toward the two of us as we suppressed panic attacks.

Andi and her friends may have been somewhere in the room, but our worlds had narrowed to the small bubble containing our canvases. We later confirmed that they were, indeed, sitting directly behind us. But nothing matters when you have a self-imposed task at hand. 

Apparently, meanwhile, Andi was having a little more fun with her lipstick painting.

When the class finally, finally ended, we put down our brushes in exhausted relief. Sure, we'd gotten so far behind we'd missed a few steps. Sure, the Senior Web Editor of OK! Magazine, who made the error of picking the seat next to us, found herself forced to assure us that our paintings did come out nicely. But looking around the room, one thing was clear: We were better at blindly following instructions than just about anyone else there. Our inner high school nerds took modest satisfaction in this victory. 

Over at the cool kids' table, the mood was more upbeat. Andi and her friends flaunted creatively altered lipstick art and makeup unmarred by sweat rivulets even after hours of arduous painting. We grabbed a selfie with Andi, and bundled ourselves out the door as she and her friends kept the party going. We'd flown close enough to the sun for one night.

To hear our full interview with Andi Dorfman, listen to HuffPost's "Bachelor" podcast, "Here To Make Friends." (Skip to 29:00.)

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