There's been much debate stirring over whether or not the decades-old Burning Man festival has become too costly, and therefore stratified, in recent years, but according to Daily Beast columnist and veteran "burner" Jay Michaelson, those splurging at the event are only doing themselves a disservice.

"I don't agree that rich people have the best time at Burning Man. I actually think they have the worst time," Michaelson told HuffPost Live in a Tuesday conversation about the festival's changing socio-economic landscape.

"I had an awesome time and I didn't spend a whole lot of money," Michaelson recounted. "I taught massage, I led a Shabbat service for the Jewish camp, I was a temple guardian, I performed my poetry at the center camp. I had an awesome time and all of those activities were free."

While he feels that Burning Man could being doing more to "increase accessibility" for the less wealthy, Michaelson sees plenty of ways for the cash-strapped to get in on the action.

"You can show up at Burning Man if you have a low-income ticket for a couple hundred bucks. You get a ride on the ride share, you bring your water," Michaelson listed. "There's a lot of generosity and support that's gonna take care of your other expenses and your other needs."

Watch more from HuffPost Live's conversation about Burning Man here.

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Since the unit's inception in 2013, conditions have radically improved for endangered rhinos throughout the area. The number of snaring and illegal bush-meat incidents have reduced by 75 percent, nine poacher incursions were detected and the offenders were subsequently arrested. Most impressively, according to the United Nations, not a single rhino has been poached in ten months, while other reserves have lost around two dozen. The Mambas efforts were recently recognized by the United Nations who awarded them the much-deserved 2015 Champion of the Earth Award. 

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Burning Man, guys! How crazy was that? The post-apocalyptic chillness, that massive Medusa installation, the steampunk ensembles, the overgrown typewriter and that time Katy Perry fell off the Segway. Classic playa.

Just kidding. While you 2015 burners were off experiencing what it means to be alive, I was typing away at my laptop like the slave to the system I am. I did, however, scour Instagram for the most blissed-out images from this year's festivities, and I have to say, scrolling through the mega-list, I can practically taste the granules of hot sand flying into my mouth and coating my throat with dry dust. And boy do I feel alive!

Take a look for yourself and float away into a desert alien land full of art, pasties and psychedelic drugs experiences. You may want to wear a keffiyeh. 

A stack of books spirals in a helix around a black bar, reaching skyward. Elegant in its simplicity, it’s titled, “Reading Has Been My Way to Exit.” Its creator, Gary Cone, built it for an exhibition showcasing artworks made by death row inmates at a maximum security prison in Nashville, Tennessee.

“Life After Death and Beyond” displays a series of monuments or memorials addressing the death penalty directly or abstractly. Its organizers, Robin Paris and Tom Williams, have put on four previous exhibits highlighting the works of prison inmates, but this is their first to confront the topic head on. This particular showcase comes at a time when, according to a statement from the organizers, the state of Tennessee has scheduled the deaths of ten prisoners -- after executing fewer than ten in the past 55 years.

“These men have a lot to say about their experiences both inside and outside of prison, and their works show that they are much more than prisoners condemned to die,” Robins told The Huffington Post. “We think it’s important to get their voices into the world.” 

In conjunction with organizing these exhibits, he and Paris teach an arts program, focusing on artistic concepts as opposed to technical instruction. He ventures to guess that the act of creation is therapeutic for the inmates he works with, but asserts that the social value of projecting their voices is equally vital to his mission.

“Most of them would rather not make something that’s about themselves,” Robins said. “Nearly all of them would like to make a connection with the world outside using the modest resources at their disposal.”

This desire to connect with the outside world is a theme Williams sees resonating from most of his students’ work. This, he says, is due to the solitary nature of life on death row in Tennessee.

“Many of them haven’t walked on the grass or seen the stars in over 20 years,” Williams says. “Their lives take shape before a backdrop of concrete walls, razor wire, and chain link fences. As a consequence, they develop ways of escaping the realities that surround them. Some of them read. Some of them make art. Some of them turn to religion.”

So, while Cone’s spiral of literary tomes illustrates his desired escape, others create homages to their budding religious lives. One of the exhibit’s pieces, a model built by Derrick Quintero, depicts a prison cell adorned with a dreamcatcher, scroll and Buddhist sculpture.

Still others reject the concept of personal monuments altogether, instead opting to sketch designs for community centers, such as a prison yard recreation center or a sculpture of a prison uniform shoe, free in an open field.

Akil Jahi, the creator of the proposed shoe sculpture, wrote in a letter to The Huffington Post, “So many years have gone by without our very soles touching the grass.” He views artistic creation as an act of therapy, writing, “It has become a way to express my deepest emotions without feeling sad or happy. I really enjoy bringing joy to another person’s heart.”

Ron Cauthern, another participant in the exhibit, chose to confront his objections to the death penalty directly, by crafting a model airplane covered in drawings of sinewy veins. A music box is affixed to the outside of the plane, meant to represent the gentle perception of capital punishment by the general public. In his artist statement, he wrote, “It’s simple, nothing can be born out of a life for a life.”

In a letter explaining his personal connection with building sculptures, Cauthern wrote, “When a person is under the sentence of death, it is the perfect opportunity to slowly build a life from scratch. Art is a perfect example of creating something new and developing your own existence from that piece of art.”

See more from "Life After Death and Beyond" below.

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For Hawaii-based artist Kris Goto, even the smallest experiences warrant an illustration. Take a hankering for a spam musubi while surfing.

“You get so hungry,” the 27-year-old told The Huffington Post, “but you don't want to leave because the surf is too good. What I think would be fun is eating spam musubi while you’re surfing.” So, she drew it.

"My surf art," Goto said, "originates from what I would like to do or what I think would be fun," she says, adding that she likes to share relatable personal problems and feelings in her art. “I enjoy when people can totally relate to what they see. And they stand there talking about how they totally did this, or they say to a friend, 'That is so you!'”

Take, for instance, the conundrum many Hawaii locals feel when the surf is up, but they have to work:

Goto credits her whimsical but powerful style with her childhood in both Japan and New Zealand.  She was inspired by the characters in manga (Japanese cartoons) and the intricate tattoo art of Maori culture.

In high school, she says, her incessant doodling even gained popularity as a form of temporary tattoos. "At every lunch and recess," she added, "I was drawing on people for a nickel or 10 cents."

After moving with her family to Hawaii in 2006, her work now focuses almost exclusively on Hawaiian culture and surfing, including the sensation of being in the barrel of a wave or the constant wipeouts surfers have to endure to master new skills. Surfers and non-surfers alike, however, can relate to the challenges, triumphs and little joys in Goto's work.

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"Giselle isn't the role you prepare for once and dance the same way every time," prima ballerina Evgenia Obraztsova explained. "I've already had several eras of Giselle in my life. When my Giselle was softer, or stronger. When she was truly going crazy, and she couldn't comprehend how the world could be so harsh."

This fall the Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema opens with what's arguably the most devastating romance ever to be translated into dance, "Giselle." First performed in 1841, "Giselle" follows a young peasant girl who dies of a broken heart after discovering the love of her life, Albrecht, has betrayed her. In the second act, a group of supernatural women called the Wilis summon Giselle from her grave, eager to gain revenge on Albrecht by forcing him to dance until he dies of exhaustion. 

As you can likely intuit, "Giselle" is no simple ballet. The most obvious fact being, well, that for half of the piece, the protagonist is dead. "When I had my first show and the first act concludes when Giselle goes mad and dies," ballet dancer Anastasia Stashkevich said of her experience, "I opened my eyes when the curtain closed and I just didn't understand. I died with my heroine and couldn't imagine how I could compose myself and perform the second act." 

The unusual and supernatural storyline poses quite the challenge for the best contemporary ballerinas the world has to offer. How does one dance, for example, after she's risen from her grave? "Many people think that Giselle just dies and her ghost is a shell," Obraztsova said. "I personally think it is a soul. A soul that is alive and tells a real story that lives on after her death. A philosophical question, the second act is not easy, a hard nut for a ballerina."

On Oct. 11, 2015, "Giselle" will be shown in approximately 500 movie theaters throughout the United States and Canada. In anticipation of the cultural event, ballet icons Evgenia Obraztsova, Anastasia Stashkevich, Nina Kaptsova and Artem Ovcharenko discuss what, in their opinion, makes "Giselle" one of the most intense emotional performances of their legendary careers. See the interview, courtesy of the Bolshoi Ballet, below, and visit Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema to find a showing near you. 

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J.K. Rowling gently reminded us we've all been mispronouncing the name of the terrible, no good, very bad supervillain who gave us awful nightmares as kids as we drifted off to sleep next to our copy of Harry Potter.

On Wednesday, a Potter fan tweeted this bit of trivia:

And then J.K. Rowling, who received an "O" on her Twitter O.W.L., confirmed:

That's right -- the "T" is meant to be silent. It's Vol-de-mor, not Vol-de-mort. In retrospect, we maybe should've known better, seeing as how the name derives from the French meaning of approximately "flight from death." 

Hermione would be so disappointed in every one of us.

Yet, as Dumbledore so wisely stated in Book One, "Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself." In the Harry Potter universe, it's better to just say "Voldemort" instead of "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" -- presumably that still counts even if we're off by a letter.

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Old crayons are getting a new purpose thanks to one dad and his colorful organization. 

The Crayon Initiative, a nonprofit based in Danville, California, collects old crayons and recycles them to make fresh batches, which it then donates to kids in hospitals. The organization, which was founded by Bryan Ware, sent out its first boxes of crayons early this year and since then, about 2,000 boxes have been donated, he told The Huffington Post.

In addition to reducing waste, Ware says that the crayons are meant to provide the kids with some comfort. 

“From my perspective, the biggest goal is to give them an escape,” Ware said, according to The Mighty. “I can’t even fathom what these kids are going through. If these crayons give them an escape from that hospital room for 10 minutes, we did our job.”

The father told HuffPost that the initial idea sprouted from the his own curiosity during a dinner at a restaurant he had a few years ago. Ware, whose kids were coloring with crayons, asked the waitress about what happened to the creative utensils after the meal. When he learned that they'd just be thrown out, he began thinking about how to repurpose them.

Ware told HuffPost that the organization now receives old crayons from restaurants, schools and other donors. To make the fresh crayons, the old ones are first sorted by color. Afterwards, the utensils are melted down and molded right in Ware's own kitchen. 

The initiative's crayons don't look like your traditional crayon. But Ware explains that they're uniquely designed for a reason. 

"We worked with an occupational therapist to design the crayons so they are easy for children to hold and so they won't roll off of beds or trays," Ware told ABC7. "We do not wrap them in paper which can hold bacteria and we've had them tested to make sure bacteria from incoming crayons was killed during our processing." 

The crayons have made their way to kids at institutions including UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA and Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. 

The children, Ware told HuffPost, light up when they see the new crayons. He said that the utensils help give the kids a fun outlet while they're overcoming their own challenges. 

"It may be a brief amount of time, but [it's] something outside their current situation," Ware, who is a big art lover, told ABC7. "For that moment, they can be anyone or anywhere they want to be. It is their creativity that lives within them."

The Crayon Initiative has no plans of stopping its colorful journey anytime soon and later this year, it will make the first out-of-state delivery to Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, New York, ABC7 reported. 

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Instagram is a tool often credited for helping to democratize the field of photography, giving visibility to the amateur artists and photographers who otherwise lack a platform to showcase their work.

Yes, many people use the app to share images of perfectly organized brunch dishes, candid shots of their cats and a bevy of selfies, flooding feeds everywhere and amounting to a saturated field of expressive shots. But others are using Instagram to put a face to the communities that surround them, capturing local people and groups who rarely show up in mainstream media coverage. 

Getty Images, a photo service that predates the rise of social media, has not let Instagram's impact go unnoticed. The two have recently teamed up to launch an inaugural grant program aimed at rewarding photographers who are documenting the everyday lives of underrepresented groups around the globe. This year, they received more than 1,200 entries from photographers in 190 different countries, eventually choosing three recipients of the first Getty Images Instagram Grant who exemplify both exceptional photographic technique and storytelling ability.

Winning photographers Ismail Ferdous of Bangladesh, Adriana Zehbrauskas of Brazil and Dmitry Markov of Russia each received $10,000 from Getty and Instagram and the opportunity to engage with mentors from the judging panel. Those judges include National Geographic Photography Fellow David Guttenfelder, Director of Photography and Visual Enterprise for TIME Kira Pollack, documentary photographer Maggie Steber, documentary photographer Malin Fezehai, and co-founder of @EverydayIran and documentary photographer Ramin Talaie. 

Getty and Instagram also recognized the work of five other photographers worthy of mention -- Tasneem Asultan from UAE; Kevin Cook from the U.S.; Igor Pisuk from Sweden; Cassandra Giraldo from the U.S. and Ako Salemi from Iran -- all of whom will also receive mentorship from a member of the Getty Instagram Grant judging team. 

New Yorkers will be able to see the work of Ferdous, Zehbrauskas and Markov at the upcoming Photoville event in NYC. But for those not in the city, here's a preview of the winning photographers' works (along with their biographies courtesy of Getty Images Instagram Grant), featuring the faces of underrepresented people who deserve your attention.

To see more of the work of these three winners, check out their Instagram accounts: @afterranaplaza, @dcim.ru and @adrianazehbrauskas.

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Soon you can see Billie Holiday perform at the Apollo Theater in New York. The only catch is that she’ll be a hologram.

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Literacy is hot. Like CrossFit. Remember this Instagram account? Next time you're caught in a random girl's iPhone lens, make sure you've got your face buried in one of these puppies.*

* Burying your face in a puppy is also a surefire way of ending up in a girl's Instagram feed, FWIW.

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If you have seen swirling clouds of dust on your Instagram feed resembling a post-apocalyptic hellscape, that was probably Burning Man. Or maybe it was an anxiety dream which combined the terrors of social media and the end of the world. It was probably Burning Man, though.

"What even is Burning Man?" you may be asking yourself. Or, "Is Burning Man supposed to be fun?" 

The answers to both of those questions are: kind of unclear!

There is the combination of art and architecture that elevates the festival to a highbrow realm above extended raves like the the Electric Daisy Carnival and Coachella. But mostly, it seems like 70,000-plus people paying at least $900 to gather on inhospitable terrain and do drugs.

Here "inhospitable" means "literally dangerous, though." The official survival guide for braving the temporary metropolis of Black Rock City begins with the following warning:

The desert is governed by physical laws that cannot be ignored. You are responsible for your own survival, safety, comfort, and well-being, and for ensuring you Leave No Trace.

Which, okay, fine, that's a little dramatic-sounding, but could also just be a description of life on earth, considering that there is gravity and we all try to survive but die eventually either way.

Except Burning Man also includes a system of bartering for supplies in a realm where the exchange of money is forbidden and there are no showers. Additionally, swarms of bugs, undercover FBI agents and so many white people that the founder addressed the lack of diversity saying (pretty much) that black people don't like camping, because slavery.

Here, the question remains: "Wait, what?"

It all seems very unpleasant. Still, the most compelling part of Burning Man in 2015 is that it is now supposedly being "ruined" by the likes of Silicon Valley CEOs and Katy Perry. It's counterintuitive to think any place already swarming with the pestilence of law enforcement and also literal pestilence could be made worse in any way. But here we are!

There were already claims last year that the festival had jumped the shark. Black Rock manager Harley Dubois responded saying, "Our world keeps changing, and our event is going to keep changing because our world is changing."

True point. The only constant is change. Only here, it seems like the world is changing in the sense that super-privileged people are ruining an already mostly white-people drug festival by bringing in WiFi and basic amenities.

Ugh, ugh, ugh, can't the vegans just sit in traffic, wear weird outfits and choke on dust in peace? We have strayed so far from the pure and confusing intentions of Larry Harvey actually burning a man on a beach. The march of time has destroyed that beautiful simplicity with wealth and technological developments and children.

Alas, the idea that "filthy desert art events are really not what they used to be" unfortunately remains peak hipsterism. It's like we all want to be legit hippies so badly, and it sucks because we can't, because we have cell phones and basic knowledge of both STDs and the side effects of narcotics. For a short time, the community of Black Rock City allowed some of us to escape that reality, to be subsumed by dirt and fires, to pretend it wasn't true.

In conclusion, Burning Man was never fun and is even less fun now. Solutions to this non-problem include building a time machine to travel back to the year 1986 or just getting really high and going to a museum. At least museums have toilets.

The Huffington Post reached out to Katy Perry to double-check whether Burning Man is even supposed to be fun in the first place. She has yet to respond.

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.

Follow Lauren Duca on Twitter:@laurenduca

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British street artist Banksy has been trolling the world at large since the 1990s. He (or she) stencils rats and bobbies on walls across the U.K. and beyond, only taking breaks to direct documentaries or paint elephants or build parody amusement parks. The usual stuff. All while we have no idea who the man (or woman) behind the pseudonym is. 

That, however, has not stopped us from guessing.

The most recent attempt to pin the tail on the graffitist occurred this week, during the run of Banksy's much talked about "Dismaland" exhibition, in which he created an entire theme park filled with his typically dark and cheeky art. A staffer at the Disneyland-on-acid "bemusement park" claims he might have spotted the anonymous artist working as -- wait for it -- a parking attendant. 

Yup, according to The Daily Mail, Banksy just might be parking cars right. Under. Our. Noses. It's a haughty claim, coming from a media outlet notorious in its efforts to unmask the street artist. The reasoning? Well, they have a 2008 picture of someone they claim could be Banksy, and have compared that photo to an image of a parking attendant present at Dismaland this month and voila! The men in each picture look kind of similar, therefore they must be the same man, therefore they/he must be Banksy. Mystery solved. Cue hand wiping gesture.

Except, wait. We've seen this before. We've been all hot and bothered about the prospect of truly knowing the unknowable, to borrow a phrase from Donald Rumsfeld. And we've been let down. Because with every "Holy S**t! This Is Banksy!" headline comes a period of doubt and resentment. The street artist neither confirms nor denies the outings, we start to scrutinize the grainy photos and unreliable "sources," and we're left feeling like John Snow. WE KNOW NOTHING.

So before you pop your decades-old bottle of champagne, the one you've been saving for this very occasion, remember all the times we thought we'd caught Banksy, but dammit, we did not:

September 2006: Maybe his name is Robert Banksy? But, like, that seems silly. 

 

July 2008: Graffiti artist Banksy unmasked ... as a former public schoolboy from middle-class suburbia. Some people agree. There seems to be a bit of evidence. No confirmation though.

 

March 2011:Mrs. Banksy unmasked: pictured for the first time, the elusive wife of the world's most secretive artist. Mmmkay. Stetching a little.

 

September 2012: It's Gordon Banksy! Graffiti artist pictured on football tour of Mexico in 2001 taking time out to paint a mural. How nice of him!

 

February 2013: Banksy arrested, real identity revealed? Um, no. Ok, getting skpetical.

 

October 2013: Is this Banksy? Probably not.

 

April 2014: Has Banksy finally been caught on camera? Errrr, seems unlikely.

 

October 2014: Banksy identity revealed? Sigh. Nah, man. 

 

November 2014: Unmasking Banksy: is elusive street artist really a woman? 

 

January 2015: Graffiti artist Banksy SPOTTED for second time in a month -- this time in Lake District bistro. Yeesh, no.

 

April 2015: Banksy is a woman -- has handed herself into the police. Not real.

 

September 2015: Is Banksy working as a parking attendant at his own theme park? Lol, we give up. 

Now that we're all sufficiently inundated with information, feeling confused, exhausted and probably hungry, we leave you with the immortal words of Blink-182 frontman Mark Hoppus. Because it's all that makes sense to us right now.

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You've probably heard about fetishes before -- maybe you saw some tawdry show on late night TV or read something on Reddit -- but how much do you know about what it really means to live with one?

In the latest HuffPost Love+Sex podcast, co-hosts Carina Kolodny and Noah Michelson explore the world of fetishes, specifically focusing on one man who is sexually aroused by adult diapers.

"I want people to understand is that it’s not something I chose or wanted and a lot of times, I have wanted to get rid of it," Brian*, a 32-year-old Midwestern man, told Kolodny and Michelson. "It’s not in my capacity to alter this. After years of struggling with it, whatever I do, it’s there to stay and I know how it makes you feel when you hear about it. I know how weird and bizarre it seems and all I can say is that it’s beyond my control."

Brian also discusses how his adult diaper fetish is affecting his personal life, the origin of his fetish and why he decided to share his experiences with the world. Dr. Zhana Vrangalova, a sex expert and professor at New York University, also joins the podcast to offer her insight on the subject: 

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

*Not his real name 

This podcast was produced and edited by Katelyn Bogucki and sound engineered by Brad Shannon. Like Love + Sex? Subscribe, rate and review our podcast on iTunes.

Have an idea for an episode? Find us on Twitter at @HuffPostPodcast or email us at loveandsexpodcast@huffingtonpost.com.

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"Your child has cancer."

Every three minutes, a parent hears those devastating words. And every year, an estimated 91,250 children around the world die from cancer -- 250 each day. Yet only four percent of federal funding for cancer research goes toward childhood cancers. 

In honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, HuffPost Parents is shining a light on families affected by the disease.

Here are 15 young cancer fighters and their stories, written by their parents (plus, one mom's childhood photo.) 

Last year, we also invited families touched by childhood cancer in the HuffPost Parents Facebook community the opportunity to share their photos and stories. Here are more of the courageous faces of childhood cancer. 

Captions have been edited and condensed. 

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A female artist and activist serving a 12-year prison sentence in Iran is facing additional charges, including “indecent conduct,” after shaking her male lawyer’s hand.

Atena Farghadani, 29, was arrested in August 2014 after drawing a cartoon that depicted members of the Iranian Parliament as animals. After a trial lasting only half an hour, she was found guilty in June 2015 of multiple charges, including spreading propaganda, insulting the president and colluding against national security, according to Amnesty International.

Farghadani was sentenced to 12 years and nine months behind bars. After the trial, her lawyer, Mohammad Moghimi, shook her hand while visiting her in prison. This led to them being charged with “indecent conduct” and having an “illegitimate sexual relationship short of adultery.”

“The laws on the books in Iran are a kind of arsenal or tool kit always available for use by the authorities in their efforts to suppress any form of expression they don’t approve of,” Elise Auerbach, Iran country specialist at Amnesty International, told The Huffington Post.

The additional charges were handed down in June, but Farghadani's case is receiving renewed media attention after The Independent ran an article about her on Wednesday. Amnesty International told HuffPost the organization is not aware of any updates to Farghadani's case in the months since she was sentenced.

Auerbach said that a “typical” sentence for “indecent contact between unmarried people of the opposite sex” is “74 lashes.” She noted that was the sentence handed down to Mohammad Ali Taheri, a spiritual leader who touched the wrists of women in his group.

Both Farghadani and her lawyer are set to face trial at some point, but Auerbach did not know when, and noted that the date may not even be announced beforehand. 

When Farghadani was initially arrested in August 2014, she was incarcerated until November. After she was released, she recounted in a YouTube video and interviews the brutal treatment she had suffered in detention, including beatings and 9-hour interrogations. Amnesty International believes she was re-arrested in January 2015, and ultimately convicted, because she talked openly about her prison experience.

Contact the author of this article at Hilary.Hanson@huffingtonpost.com.

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This week, Yi-Fen Chou, author of a poem entitled “The Bees, the Flowers, Jesus, Ancient Tigers, Poseidon, Adam and Eve,” which appeared in Best American Poetry 2015, was revealed to be a nom de plume -- for Michael Derrick Hudson. 

The shocking nom de plume reveal has a long, storied position in the annals of literary gossip. Think Richard Galbraith’s unmasking as J.K. Rowling -- in turn a pen name for Joanne Rowling (the “K” is a phantom; she has no middle name). Surprise, a mild flutter of irritation from a few curmudgeons who don’t like to be “tricked,” the glee of the literary media at having some interesting news to chew over. These are fairly standard responses.

Michael Derrick Hudson’s reveal occasioned a less typical reaction. In short, the literary Internet exploded, with the backlash reaching well beyond the niche of “Poetry Twitter” to incorporate the ire of general “Book Twitter” and Asian-American activists. 

This maelstrom has left many white writers and defenders of Hudson wondering, perhaps a bit disingenuously: What makes a nom de plume… a not de plume? (Sorry.)

To start, what is the history of the pen name in literary history? Even fairly recent history abounds with them ... and there are a few common varietals.

George Eliot became one of the most celebrated Victorian novelists while using a male pseudonym. As Marian Evans, she had observed that “lady novelists” carried the reputation for writing fluff. The Brontë sisters became the Bell brothers for similar reasons. Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin wrote as George Sand and Karen Blixen as Isak Dinesen. J.K. Rowling added the phantom “K” to her pen name when her publisher suggested a woman’s name on Harry Potter might be off-putting to young boys.

Some male writers, of course, have used pen names with similar identity-camouflaging elements: Joseph Conrad, for example, abbreviated (and anglicized) his birth name, Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, when he embarked on his English-language writing career. Woody Allen may be the most iconic Jewish writer and director currently working, but he went with a more anglicized name rather than work under his birth name, Allan Stewart Konigsberg.

Many men, as well as women, have used pseudonyms to write in another genre without confusing readers. Agatha Christie, the grande dame of mystery, also wrote romance as Mary Westmacott. Irish novelist William John Banville writes literary fiction as just John Banville and crime fiction as Benjamin Black.

In this context, Hudson’s ploy may seem unexceptional, another obfuscating false identity among many. But it’s not irrelevant to note that the above examples of standard literary pseudonyms were either identity-neutral, intended only to allow a writer to establish themselves in new genres, or were deployed to circumvent deeply rooted cultural bias against marginalized groups.

Making a grab for the small portion of literary attention given to Asian-American writers smacks of obliviousness to the broader racial context in which Hudson is writing.

So here's the most irredeemable problem with the Yi-Fen Chou affair: Hudson, a white man, has no dearth of privilege in the publishing realm, and using a pen name from a marginalized group only serves to also earn him those few opportunities specifically given to Asian-American writers -- at the cost of undermining actual Asian-American authors, who had far less opportunity than Hudson to start with. "The difference between J.K. Rowling and Yi-Fen Chou is the difference between theater and yellowface," explained poet Franny Choi. "Hudson exploited one of the few moments in which an editor of color was in a position to give a tiny bit of space to historically marginalized voices -- so that one more white man's voice could be heard."

Making a grab for the small portion of literary attention given to Asian-American writers smacks of obliviousness to the broader racial context in which Hudson is writing. “He puppeted and exploited an entire continent's history (which is not homogenous, by the way) for the sake of getting a poem published,” poet Wendy Xu told The Huffington Post via email.

It certainly doesn’t help that Hudson seemed uninterested in the identity of his alter-ego, which, writer and editor Soleil Ho pointed out, would be that of a Chinese woman. (In fact, the family of a real Yi-Fen Chou who attended high school with Hudson has come forward, raising warranted speculation that he used an acquaintance's name without permission.) In his author note, Hudson describes his "strategy" of using the pen name flippantly, without making any reference to the cultural heritage behind it: "After a poem of mine has been rejected a multitude of times under my real name, I put Yi-Fen's name on it and sent it out again. As a strategy for 'placing' poems this has been quite successful for me." Yi-Fen Chou is merely a convenient subterfuge. 

What’s more, his use of the name erases the real struggle many Asian-American writers face: to be taken seriously as mainstream literary voices while submitting under their own names, which are often perceived as “other.” Unsurprisingly, Asian-American writers typically face a steeper climb to publication and critical attention than white writers. Author Mike Jung, who writes children’s books, recalls numerous examples of blatant bias: “An author I know parted with an agent when the agent wouldn't stop asking why the characters in a manuscript ‘had to be’ Japanese,” he said. A bookseller once told him, as he held a book by writer and illustrator Grace Lin, “The Chinese books just don't sell.” (The book, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, was a bestseller.)

A white man swimming in privilege (compared to POC in this country) wanted more, and made the calculated and systematic decision to get it at our expense.
Wendy Xu

Hudson’s pose as “Yi-Fen Chou” intrigued Best American Poetry guest editor Sherman Alexie, who has been open about his desire to compile a more diverse anthology for 2015. (Best American Poetry 2015 ultimately included 60 percent women writers and 40 percent writers of color, an unusually representative sample of the actual population of the U.S.) In this case, an editor was actively seeking to combat the subconscious bias that leads many to pay less close attention to writers with names that sound “ethnic” or with author photos that show them to be non-white. 

Hudson’s pseudonym happened to strike the right chord with Alexie, who admitted, “Bluntly stated, I was more amenable to the poem because I thought the author was Chinese-American ... In paying more initial attention to Yi-Fen Chou's poem, I was also practicing a form of nepotism.”

But there’s no denying that presenting as a white man is almost universally better for a writer’s career. In 2012, writer Roxane Gay published a breakdown of the diversity of The New York Times Book Review, which showed an enormous overrepresentation of white writers reviewed. Asian and Asian American writers represented 4.4 percent, compared to the 5.6 percent Asian Americans constituted of the American population, according to the 2010 census. This deficit may not be shocking, but consider the context -- that's roughly a 20 percent gap in representation. Then consider the disproportionate representation of white writers: 89.6 percent of the writers reviewed were non-Hispanic whites, while 63 percent of Americans are. The Michael Derrick Hudsons of the world, statistically, have an enormous overall advantage compared to the Yi-Fen Chous.

“Hudson didn't use an Asian pseudonym in order to escape racially fueled bias,” argued Jung. “He used it as a submission strategy designed to fool editors who actively work to combat such bias.” Basically, when Hudson couldn’t get a poem published in an industry that heavily favors white, male writers, he threw a thoughtlessly chosen Chinese pen name on it to capture the eye of those few editors who do attempt to give due attention to writers of color. “A white man swimming in privilege (compared to POC in this country) wanted more, and made the calculated and systematic decision to get it at our expense,” summed up Xu.

Nor, she and Choi pointed out, is this a new strategy -- privileged white men frequently use the labor and cultural markers of the less privileged to accrue marginal benefits to themselves while the original group remains oppressed. 

In a poem posted "in response to m.d.h., white poet who used a Chinese pseudonym," Choi laid bare the secret youthful fears of an aspiring Asian-American writer:

                               [...] in fourth grade

 

i wanted to be a writer & worried
about how to escape my surname -- choi

 

is nothing if not korean, if not garlic breath,
if not seaweed & sesame & food stamps

 

during the lean years -- could i go by f.j.c.? could i be
paper thin & raceless? dust jacket & coffee stain,

 

boneless rumor smoldering behind the curtain
& speaking through an ink-stained puppet?

For Choi, her Korean name felt like a liability; camouflaging it -- at least by taking the name "Frances" instead of going by her full Korean name -- might allow acceptance in the American publishing world.

For a white man to skip the pain and obstruction of anti-Asian prejudice, then appropriate a Chinese name to exploit attempts to give those Asian-American poets a fair shake -- that's an insult."Yellowface is old news, and it's always painful," explained Choi. Xu agreed: “The wound gets picked freshly open each time a white man thinks he's the first one to give the plan a try."

Just recently, a white woman, Catherine Nichols, drew a far more positive reaction when she revealed on Jezebel that she’d conducted an experiment by sending her novel out to agents under her own name and under a male name. (Spoiler: the male name drew far more interest from agents.) There’s at least one crucial difference, however: She actually sent her manuscript out to a large number of agents under each name and gathered a representative sample of responses. What’s more, her experience bore out broader, documented biases in the industry -- see the VIDA Count -- while Hudson’s trick was geared to undercut the efforts of marginalized writers to gain an equal playing field.

Though he stopped at his first positive response, Hudson seems to infer that it was the pen name, not a fluke, that led the journal Prairie Schooner, and then Best American Poetry, to accept his poem, attempting to suggest, on slim evidence, that Asian-American writers have an advantage over white writers.

Though Alexie eloquently explained his reasoning for keeping the poem in Best American Poetry 2015 after discovering Hudson's deception, many continue to take issue with his choice -- and some of his reasoning behind it. Pulling the poem, said Xu, "Would have said 'we acknowledge the actual Asian-American life behind the poem.'" Both Xu and Jung echo others who've called Alexie's response too apologetic for his original consideration of the poem. "What he calls 'racial nepotism' is nothing like actual nepotism," said Jung. "Asian-American authors do not wield disproportionate power in the world of publishing." 

Xu was more blunt: "If you think editing with an eye toward including people who have been erased, discriminated against, exploited, deported, and exterminated throughout history is 'injustice,' your cup must runneth over with privilege."

Now that the deed has been done, Hudson's use of the name Yi-Fen Chou could very easily exacerbate those challenges for the real Yi-Fen Chous of the literary world, who already struggle for recognition. "I hope people know the names Cathy Linh Che, Wang Ping, Tarfia Faizullah, Kazim Ali, and Barbara Jane Reyes as well as they now know Yi-Fen Chou," said Choi, expressing a wish that this kerfuffle will spur readers to pay greater attention to real Asian-American writers. 

The predominant expectation, however, is bleaker. “How many submissions will be read with an extra dollop of suspicion or doubt because they arrive with an obviously Asian name on them?” pointed out Jung. “How many opponents of diversity will use this incident to inaccurately discredit diversity advocates, or wrongfully argue that Asian Americans are not subject to subtle bias or outright racism? I'm sure there'll be some. I worry there'll be many.”

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In the riveting 2010 documentary "Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work," the film's namesake comedy legend shows off the physical embodiment of her life's work: an enormous filing cabinet that contains every joke she'd ever written, neatly catalogued on index cards and sorted alphabetically by topic. Now, one year after Rivers's death and two months after her palatial Manhattan apartment was sold for $28 million, that treasure trove of stand-up history is looking for a new home.

During a conversation with HuffPost Live on Thursday about the return of her E! series "Fashion Police," Rivers's daughter Melissa Rivers told host Caitlyn Becker she's in conversation with "a number of different institutions that would like them," including the Smithsonian. Watch Rivers discuss her plans for the catalog -- and her biggest fear about passing it on -- in the video above, and catch her full HuffPost Live conversation here. 

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

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The grass-skirted, bobbling dashboard decorations would have you believe that the Hawaiian art of hula dancing is decidedly feminine.

History would disagree.

In traditional Hawaiian culture, men and women alike participated in the dances, with the masculine aspects being equally celebrated and respected. The now pervasive stereotype that hula is a seductive, feminine dance emerged somewhere in the past two centuries, but thankfully, many modern Hawaiian men are getting back to their cultural roots and reclaiming hula. 

"Hawaiian men are becoming more empowered to be proud of who they are," Snowbird Bento, a hula teacher, told the Hawaiian channel Oiwi TV. "Here is a group of people who are taking stereotypes head on and saying, 'No, we’re not going to be a stereotype -- we want to change that.'"

Native Hawaiians used hula as a ceremonial ritual and a form of communication to pass down stories from generation to generation. King Kalakaua famously proclaimed it "the language of the heart and therefore the heartbeat of the Hawaiian people."

But throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the practice of hula has been suppressed several times due to western influences in Hawaii. First, missionaries in the islands discouraged the practice of hula, effectively banning it for religious reasons.

Then, decades later, when the United States annexed Hawaii in 1898, Hawaiian culture, and hula along with it, was again subdued in favor of more Western customs.

It wasn't until the Hawaiian renaissance of the 1970s that traditional hula became widespread once again -- among women, at least. A stigma had developed in conjunction with the westernization of modern Hawaii, reducing the numbers of men who danced hula. 

It's difficult to understand why. Many forms of male hula are distinct from women's dances, since movements often mimic the Hawaiian martial art of "Lua." 

Cazimero has been working tirelessly ever since to reverse the stigma. His halau introduced a modernized image of the male hula dancer, bringing the grace and power of men's hula to center stage and, perhaps most importantly, instilling pride in its members.

In the past five years, Cazimero says he has more young dancers than he's had in at least 30 years. 

"It’s becoming more comfortably status quo to be Hawaiian ... to like being Hawaiian ... to love our culture," he told The Huffington Post. The art of hula is benefiting from this renewed pride.

"I think that in this new generation of young people here in the islands -- I call them the 'Generation Fearless' -- I think that they are grasping and holding on tighter to things of our culture that are very important to us in all different facets," Cazimero said. "I’m really glad that hula is one of them."

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Have you ever fallen in love with a word? Not for its meaning or the way it rolls off your tongue. Not for the idea it communicates or the vision it summons. How about for the way the letters, laid out before you, greet your eyes? The way W cozies up to O which leads into R and ends sharply with a D. Word. 

Alan Peckolick most certainly has. In fact, he's dedicated his life to what he calls his "naive love of letterform," by which he means, love without particular logic or reason. Now 75 years old, Peckolick is one of the great icons of American typography -- the art and technique of arranging type. 

The task of a typographer involves, on a technical level, determining line length, line spacing, letter spacing and point size. The heart of the matter, however, is the hefty task of making letters speak, and sometimes scream, expressing concepts and feelings through a certain combination of serifs and strokes. 

Peckolick, who grew up in New York, arose on the graphic design scene when the very concept of expressive typography was just coming into being. It wasn't long before Peckolick was at the vanguard of the movement, designing iconic corporate logos for Revlon and New York University and partnering with design icon Herb Lubalin. 

After 35 years in the game, Peckolick transitioned from graphic design to painting, still incorporating a heavy dose of type into his work. Many of his newer works depict signs as they appear not in the designer's mind but in everyday life, weathered and bleached, occasionally sprinkled with bird droppings. Today Peckolick, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, paints daily and occasionally takes on design projects to his liking. 

Read on for a Q&A with one of typography's living legends, as he discusses everything from growing up in the Bronx to the most overrated font there is. 

To start off, can you tell me about your upbringing? Where are you from? 

I'm from Mars. No. I was born in the Bronx. I came from a definitely blue collar family. My father was a letter carrier, my mother was a housewife. 

A letter carrier? That's interesting considering your future in letters. 

Those don't exist anymore. In the old days, they used to carry the mail on their backs like ponies. But there was very little culture around. I grew up with a brother and a sister. The only books you'd usually find around the house were a couple of mystery novels, science fiction novels, nothing I'd call "cultured." So I really started off as a blank canvas or a dry sponge, however you want to put it. 

Did you take art classes growing up? 

Along with the blue collar family came a blue collar high school. Almost everyone I was associated with in high school was going into the military when they left or going into auto mechanics. I never knew anything about design or graphics or any of those fancy words. But, I used to draw. I used to draw everything. When my mother used to send me out to get groceries, by the time I was back there were little drawings on the grocery bags. 

Growing up in New York, did you eventually explore some of the culture the city has to offer? 

My mother, when I was doing the little drawings all over the place, she was smart enough to know that this kid should go to art school. One Saturday she said to me, "You're not going to go out and play ball with your friends today. Put a tie and a shirt on and go to a museum." I said, "What do I need to go to a museum for?" She said, "I don't know!" So I put on a little bow tie and my bar mitzvah suit and I went in to New York, but the museum she wrote down for me was the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. So I spent half a day going uptown and downtown and thought, well, whatever, this is not worth it!  

When did you decide to pursue art?

When it was time to go to college, my mother put together a portfolio which was made of anything I drew on -- handkerchiefs, scraps, whatever -- and put it literally into a brown paper bag. She sent me out into the world to go to places like Cooper Union and the School of Visual Arts who immediately saw there was no talent here and they rejected me. Finally, for some reason, Pratt Institute was willing to accept my on a trial basis. They put me in the illustration department. I remember feeling very awkward when I realized most students had gone to Music and Art, a high school in New York that I had never heard of. When I saw their portfolios I knew I was in big trouble. 

Did you end up adjusting to the program?

About three months into the semester they called me into the head office and they said my work was not getting any better, I was way behind everyone else. They asked me to leave. I went down to a coffee shop they had in Pratt and I sat there very dejected. A friend came up and asked me what the problem was. I explained to him that I was kicked out of art school because I couldn't draw very well. He said, "Well that's no problem. Why don't you just become a graphic designer?" I said, "What's that?" He said, "Don't worry about what it is, but you don't have to know how to draw!"

So you entered into graphic design.

So I entered into graphic design, and it was almost like going into the frying pan into the fire. My first instructors were professional senior designers at places like CBS, NBC. They were talking about things I had never heard about -- shape and form and letter spacing and fonts -- I might as well have been in a French class. He would scream at me and tear up my assignments in front of the whole class. But then it started to change and by the time the end of the year exhibition came about half of the exhibition was my work. I don't know if it was magic or what!

What would you say you absorbed during this time? What changed?

Basically, for me, if a word was a beautiful word, it wasn't the sound of the word that intrigued me but the look of the word. I saw each letterform as a piece of design. Cat is not "cat" it's c-a-t. That's what led to the beginning of the expressive topography that we talk about. Letterforms themselves can support the visual idea of what the message is. You've got to have a love and understanding of the letterform itself before you can put this stuff together.

Was this understanding of typography just coming into the public consciousness during your first years in the business?

I was on the edge of typography. See, graphic design really comes from Europe, Switzerland was the mainstay of it. We, in the early '20s and '30s, began to start taking the design, the look, the feeling of something, and plugging it into a conceptual idea. They didn't do that in Europe. In Europe they could do a beautiful painting or illustration but it wasn't necessarily tied together around a certain concept. In the United States, the idea itself is the thing that you're trying to visualize. 

But before you started working in type, you worked in advertising. What was that like?

I was working as a junior designer, which was basically just following other people's layouts. I kept getting fired from these agencies because I spent too much time worrying about what the type looked like instead of selling the soap. I didn't care about selling the soap! 

Tell me more about this soap. 

The way things usually work is, you're selling a bar of soap, so you're getting a beautiful model and you're getting an expensive photographer and a beautiful bathroom and on the bottom of the whole thing you have this little line of type. A lot of us designers at the time -- we were kids and ego-driven -- we were so concerned about that type on the bottom. We wanted to do away with that pesky image. We were rebels. 

How did you move away from the advertising world? 

Just about that time I started seeing work by Herb Lubalin. He was the man who really created the movement of expressive design and conceptual design in the United States. I was very fortunate to get a job as his assistant way in the beginning of his career. That's when I learned about type. Up until then it was like a dry desert; there was nobody there to teach me anything. Through him, I discovered other peope like Saul Bass, Lou Dorfsman, George Lois, people who could think as well as design. Then I was in the lap of luxury; I could steal from the best. 

Saul Bass! What was your relationship with him like? 

He and I sort of fell in love with each other on our first meeting. I had gone to see him in Los Angeles and the day our appointment was set for he was called back to New York. An associate of his said the next time Saul was in New York he would look me up and maybe we could do something. Under my breath I said, "Bulldunkers, that is never going to happen." 

A year passes and I'm still living at home with mom and dad, and my mother calls me at the office and says Saul Bass is at the Plaza Hotel in New York and he wants to see you this afternoon. I almost had a heart attack. So I ran up there and when the interview was over he offered me a job. The bad part was I was so immature and naive I didn't have the guts to say goodbye to mom and dad and move to California.

How old were you?

I must have been 18, 19, something like that. Maturity-wise I was about 11 or 12. 

Wow, that is young. 

I know, but what came out of that is a lifelong friendship. And he was an icon. That's the thing, I got lucky. Through a bunch of icons you meet a bunch of icons, and if you're not careful you'll become an icon yourself.

What kind of imagery did you incorporate into your letterform designs?

By loving the letterform in a naive way, not knowing why, I discovered more and more of it was coming out of different places. Not only was I starting to see things in magazines and books, I noticed signage, and I started traveling a lot, all around the world, mostly for business reasons. This gave me the opportunity to see typefaces I had never seen before -- letterfaces, wood type, handdrawn type which was a thing that's very European -- it broadened my base of resources. I was surprised to find out I could alter these typefaces and from them, create my own. 

Also, I think I was one of the first people who started photographing graffiti. If I liked the way a certain curve or line looked in a single letter, I would start with that and then expand. 

You designed the logo for NYU. Can you walk me through that process? 

The interesting thing about that is I came up with two solves for it. First, there is the New York University as you see it with all the letterforms modified. Every one of those letters is modified and does not come from a type shop. In other words no one else can use it because I created it. But in the process of creating the New York University logo you'll see there is an emphasis on the NYU which is the way the school is spoken of. The more formal identity is the whole thing but having that NYU pop out was the cherry on top I thought. It gave me the chance to say two things at once. 

What do you think is the most overrated font? 

I think the most overrated typeface in the world is Helvetica. It has no sexuality, no spirit. It just lays there on the table. I cannot believe a typeface that could be a solution to an identity for an international airline would function just as well on a cake mix box. 

How did you transition into painting? Did you feel there was something missing in graphic design?

I was called on to do more teaching and more presenting and more business aspects. The companies I worked for wanted to use me as a pigeon to get new clients. I was not interested in that. What happened was, at a certain point, I got frustrated. These demands were made on me that took away from creative time. At one point, I decided subconsciously that I was going to make a move. I stopped meeting deadlines, I stopped returning calls to clients. In other words, I was cutting my own throat on purpose. One day I did the ultimate sin, I actually took the afternoon off and went to a movie. When I went out of the theater I happened to be standing in front of an art supply store. I thought I've never painted before, I've never held a paintbrush in my hand. Let's start something fresh. 

What were some of the challenges of painting that you didn't have to deal with in graphic design? 

The biggest difference I find, and a very difficult difference it is, is when you are working for a graphic design client you are solving the client's problem. When you are a fine artist you have to come up with the problem and the solution. When I started, there was nothing more frightening than looking at a blank canvas. 

Is it easier for you to look at a blank canvas now? 

No. There's just a broader range of aggravations. 

So what are some of the potential problems you are trying to solve through your paintings? 

The simplest thing is: what do you want to paint? I read stories and plays about the starving young artist who wants to send the world a message. I don't have a message for anybody except I want to keep busy and not go nuts. 

Are there any particular visual artists who've inspired you? 

I'm definitely an Edward Hopper man, there is no two ways about it. 

How is the world different today for a budding typographer than when you were entering the field? 

When I started there was very limited availability of new, good, fresh typefaces. There were only the old classics. One of the problems with typography is that when I got into the business type was still hot lead, which means each character was its own piece of lead, and they couldn't be letter spaced or word spaced. You were really locked in. At the same time that I was entering the business the technology was changing, so you could overlap letters, make ligatures, all these things. It opened up a whole world, all these new possibilities. 

Are there any downsides, in your opinion, that come with the technological advancements? 

They're all relying too much on the computer. I think the computer is a brilliant electric pencil. But it can't think. The way I work is, you gotta think first, you gotta solve the problem in your own head, then you scribble it out on paper and see if it's gonna function graphically. Then you go to the computer. 

Do you use a computer now or do you still hand letter? 

I still draw all my letters with a pen and paper. I've never used a computer. I still can't even get my email! 

How has living with Parkinson's affected your ability to make art? 

Parkinson's is interesting. It's a hard disease but I always say to people, if it really gets bad I can become an abstract painter. 

Has art making provided any healing or therapeutic benefits for you?

Yes, it does. The passion is still there. I never get up and sit down in front of a blank pad, I'm never bored. Even if I'm scared as hell, I'm never bored. Life is too short to spend my time doing boring things. 

Do you have any advice for aspiring typographers trying to break into the field? 

Think, think, think. The only thing that should come before design is think. 

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