In a recent interview with HuffPost, Goosebumps author R.L. Stine said he thought most fears were “universal,” and, for him at least, linked closely with humor. “It’s that same guttural reaction,” he said.

Unlike Stine, I’ve never equated scary with funny -- my guttural reaction to reading a scary book is to dwell on the images conjured from its pages as I shift around in bed, unable to sleep. The first book that sent my heartrate soaring higher than after a decent cardio workout was The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, which I listened to on audiobook while carpooling to swim practice. A narrator described a tiny, wormlike cat that wriggled around, possessed. I felt possessed myself, unable to shirk off the thought of a seemingly helpless but actually evil baby animal.

This is the power of scary books: a character like Worm would seem like a farce in a movie, but Snyder’s book, a cult YA classic, describes the anxious feelings of those affected by him -- and that, to me, is scarier than clowns and ghouls jumping out from behind corners.

So, in the spirit of Halloween, I’ve gathered up a few books that are psychologically eerie in the way some horror movies just aren’t.

The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Jessica buys a runt of a kitten -- a tiny creature that her neighbor helps her nurse to health. Adorable, right? NO. WRONG. There is nothing adorable about this story. Jessica names the kitten Worm, which is already a horrible sign. Then, timed perfectly with her acquisition of said kitten, Jessica begins committing increasingly violent acts against her family. She can’t tell whether it’s buried grudges held against her flaky mother that’s making her act this way, or whether her uncharacteristic behavior is due to the fact that she is being possessed by the kitten, which is itself possessed by a bunch of witches. This book may center on a furry creature, but it’s creepy enough to have been banned from school libraries.

Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes

As its cover implies, Beukes’s horror novel has a “True Detective”-like air about it -- season one, to be clear (R.I.P.). In the book, a detective stumbles upon a super-unsettling scene -- a victim’s body seems to have been fused together with animal parts, making him part human, part woodland creature. You won’t hear many philosophical musings à la Rust Cole in this book, but there’s an added layer of plot amping up the intrigue: the detective’s daughter is busy chatting with the suspected killer online. The book is set in Detroit, and the characters, like the city, bravely try to hold themselves together in the face of danger.  

Diary by Chuck Palahniuk 

What this story lacks in plausibility it makes up for in fantastic plot twists and -- if you’re into it -- very gritty, scary scenes. Aspiring artist Misty Marie Wilmot gives up on her creative dreams to move to a tiny island and raise her child with her husband, Peter. Her waitressing job definitely has gotten her down, but things get much, much worse when Peter falls into a coma after a suicide attempt. A contractor, he left horrible messages hidden inside the houses he built, and owners begin suing Misty once they catch wise. And that’s not even the eerie part: Misty soon learns that her home on Waytansea Island isn’t a coincidence, but part of a strange conspiracy theory going back for generations. Diary is written in a diary-style format, granting the mysterious happenings a “Yellow Wallpaper”-like spookiness. Misty feels trapped and the reader is granted access to all of her uneasy thoughts as she tries to escape.

Threats by Amelia Gray

Gray’s novel doesn’t set out to be a horror book, but rather an analysis of how disassociating the experience of grief can be. David’s wife, Franny, has died, but he isn’t sure why, or how. All he knows is he can’t exactly think straight, and he keeps finding mysterious pieces of paper scattered around his house, containing threats that are loud and disturbing, if a little surreal. David hires a detective to look into the case, but he isn’t much help. Gray’s ability to pack even the shortest of sentences densely with emotion makes this book a spastic, almost jumpy read.

Read our review of Amelia Gray’s latest book, Gutshot

Voices in the Night by Steven Millhauser

Steven Millhauser’s stories are timeless: although his collection was released relatively recently, the horrors at the center of each aren’t hinged upon technological malfunctions or social media trends. Instead, they examine the way gossip can travel in small towns by telling the story of a mermaid washed up on shore, or an unsettling rash of suicides. In one particularly poignant story, a man buys mirror polish from a traveling salesman, and becomes obsessed with the image of his wife in the mirror, rather than in person, causing marital tumult.

Read our review of Voices in the Night

The Collector by John Fowles

In a mega-scary riff on “The Tempest,” Fowles tells the story of an art student, Miranda, who’s captured by a man who’s been following her, and forced to live in a room he’s set up to appeal to her wishes. The man, Frederick Clegg, has won a small fortune from football pools and uses his winnings to try to transcend his social standing. The book is narrated from his point of view first, then Miranda’s, who keeps a diary logging her plans and hopes for escaping. The book may be more metaphorical than any gritty true crime story you’ll find, but that doesn’t take away from Fowles’ artful construction of feelings of suffocation.

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

The stories in The Illustrated Man are connected only by the fact that each is represented by a tattoo on a man who’s fully inked up (a look that used to be less common among non-carnival-performing citizens). Some of them you might’ve read in high school English class, but they’d be at home as episodes on “Black Mirror” or “The Twilight Zone.” In “The Veldt,” a pair of kids addicted to their very immersive TV room will the scenes from the screens to life. In “The Long Rain,” a group of men lands on a planet that is plagued by nonstop, suffocating rain. The appeal of this story is that the fear seeps in slowly, operating much like actual fear or paranoia might.  

Blind Date by R.L. Stine

Kids who grew up with Goosebumps in the '90s: It’s time to graduate onto R.L. Stine’s teen and adult horror books -- stories that are meant to scare you deeply and sincerely, rather than rattle you, but with a safety net always in place, reminding you that the book is just a book. Stine has a new horror book out called The Lost Girl, and you can read it in a couple of hours, but it’d be best to start with the very first horror novel he ever wrote -- Blind Date.

Read our interview with R.L. Stine

Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link

You probably won’t be losing sleep over Kelly Link’s stories, although they do feature a cast of weirdos, including shape-shifters, wizards, and far stranger creatures. In “The Faery Handbag,” a woman learns of a handbag that possesses an entire village, with its own tragedies and customs. Link’s characters are strange but mostly badass, and her female monsters don’t take on the stereotypically anti-woman cliches. Instead, they’re empowering agents in her weird worlds, worth exploring.

Hemlock Grove by Brian McGreevy

Before it was a show on Netflix, McGreevy’s horror story was a novel starring werewolves and a few gypsies, too. In a small town that seems straight out of a David Lynch film, residents are turning against each other after the tragic closing of a steel mill. If that isn’t “Twin Peaks”-inspired enough for you, the death of a teenage girl leads to a lot of finger-pointing, especially toward Peter, who’s suspected to be a werewolf (Spoiler alert: He totally is).

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Nikolai Tolstyh describes himself as a "natural craftsman." So it makes sense that the artist has begun a project carving animal silhouettes from paper and taking them into nature to photograph for his Instagram account.

Using his French Opinel blade, he carves a variety of animals and artfully juxtaposes them with woodland scenes. His earthy images have already gained over 13,000 followers. Behold:

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Sometimes, all you need is 60 seconds to break down even the most complicated idea. 

Take the above clip, for instance, from a 1968 episode of "The Dick Cavett Show." In it, writer and activist James Baldwin deftly explains the realities of racism in America -- and his words eerily still apply to the present day. 

In the video, which has been viewed over 3 million times since being posted to writer Shaun King's Facebook account, Baldwin speaks about the numerous structural inequalities that plagued black people at the time, saying, "I don't know if the real estate lobbies have anything against black people," Baldwin says in , "But I know the real estate lobbies keep me in the ghetto."

After going in on the inherent racism in education and employment in America Baldwin concluded: "Now, this is the evidence. You want me to make an act of faith risking myself, my life, my woman, my sister, my children, on some idealism which you assure me exists in America which I have never seen!"

What's so profound about the clip is the fact that almost 50 years later, Baldwin's words still resonate. From #BlackLivesMatter to housing discrimination, while the country has come a long way since Baldwin's time, the reality is that black people are still affected by institutional racism every day.

Thank you, Mr. Baldwin, for explaining an experience that's sometimes impossible to describe. 

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When Monica Morrison gave the University of Miami copies of explicit emails and text messages she'd received from star philosophy professor Colin McGinn, the school got him off campus, but didn't charge him with sexual harassment.

McGinn had told the university in fall 2012 that the messages he sent Morrison -- complimenting her legs, discussing his erections, floating the idea of having sex with her and asking to kiss her -- were not a problem because they were in a relationship, though Morrison said otherwise. The university charged him with failing to report a consensual relationship and he resigned in 2013.

Last week, Morrison filed a federal lawsuit against the university over its handling of the case, partly because it failed to charge McGinn with sexual harassment. She also sued McGinn for sexual harassment and civil assault.

The suit came just days after the University of California, Berkeley defended its own handling of harassment allegations against astronomy professor Geoffrey Marcy. Like The University of Miami, UC Berkeley said it crafted an agreement that led to a quick resolution and the resignation of a tenured faculty member.

Both schools made similar points: It's difficult to simply fire a tenured professor, even if there's strong evidence of their guilt. They avoided a lengthy investigation, and in the end, they got a problem professor off campus.

"It's the culture of employment management bumping up against the Title IX realm," said Peter Lake, director of the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy at Stetson University. Lake believes increased scrutiny over how schools handle campus rape has led advocates to demand more public condemnation of sexual harassment offenders.

"I could see where you might see it as a great victory to eliminate the problem from campus," Lake said. "But I think [advocates] really do want, and come to expect, the public justice. They want to be able to see them openly and visibly punished for their wrongdoing and not be able to walk away with a slap on the hand."

Eric Isicoff, a lawyer for the University of Miami, defended how the school handled the McGinn case. The school reached a "very positive" and "very efficient" outcome, he said.

"In academic circles, it is very difficult [to terminate someone], particularly when you're dealing with a tenured professor," Isicoff said. "The extraordinary thing about this case, it was a very good and prompt resolution that was achieved at stellar speed."

"It's ironic," he added. "If this is being put in a bad light, I don't know any situation where you have one in a good light."

Supporters of the students reporting sexual harassment say that the schools have let professors like McGinn off too easily for egregious behavior.

"If the offender is no longer there, then the university feels they are no longer responsible, and the next university can justifiably claim they had no knowledge," said Heidi Lockwood, a philosophy professor at Southern Connecticut State University.

McGinn lost a job offer at East Carolina University as the details of some of his emails to Morrison became public in June 2013. Morrison then filed an anonymous complaint in March 2014 with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying the University of Miami mishandled the case and failed to protect her from retaliation. She allowed her name to go on record once she filed the lawsuit based on her EEOC claims.

When news of McGinn’s resignation became public -- along with suggestion he was forced out -- philosophy professors from other top universities defended him, and some still think he was treated unjustly.  

Esa Saarinen, a philosophy professor at Aalto University in Finland, wrote a letter in 2013 saying he was astonished over the "utterly unfair treatment" of McGinn based on "false allegations." He predicted McGinn's ousting would set "a landmark for unfairness that is likely to become historic," and recently said his opinion has not changed.

Steven Pinker at Harvard University said he still believes "that the academic equivalent of the death penalty was excessive in McGinn’s case."

Philosophy professors Stephen Schiffer at New York University and Stephen Neale at the City University of New York raised concerns in 2013 that McGinn was denied due process. "Since then, new evidence has emerged which I'm not competent to interpret, nor have I tried to interpret it," Schiffer said this month.

McGinn declined an interview request from The Huffington Post, but has discussed his situation on his blog. He’s shown a keen interest in other faculty who lose their jobs and compares himself to Steven Salaita, who lost an employment offer from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign after he tweeted about the conflict in Gaza.

"There is a clear lesson here about excessive power in university administrators, as well as lack of basic understanding about free speech," McGinn wrote. "I find many analogies here to what happened to me." McGinn also said that Tim Hunt, the English scientist caught up in a controversy over sexist comments, "is still being excluded from positions that are rightfully his."

McGinn added that he and other philosophy professionals "have been subject to administrative actions that have seriously damaged our careers and lives, in ways that are politically motivated, heavy-handed, and fundamentally unjust."

Since McGinn's resignation, there are some "pretty notorious sexual harassers in the philosophy land that are cooling their heels," according to Brian Leiter, director of the University of Chicago's Center for Law, Philosophy, and Human Values.

"I am certainly one of those people who think there was an awful lot of unpunished sexual harassment in academic philosophy that's been shrouded in so much secrecy," Leiter said.

Jennifer Saul, who teaches at the University of Sheffield and is director of the Society for Women in Philosophy UK, believes few supporters of McGinn remain. "There is, from what I can tell, near universal agreement that he acted appallingly," she said.

Coming forward as a victim of sexual harassment in the philosophy world is incredibly risky, Saul said, but she believes things are changing.  

"There's an increasing understanding of these dynamics, and so I think a lessened tendency to view victims as 'troublemakers,' and actually increasing admiration for their bravery in speaking out," Saul said.

"I have worked behind the scenes to help some victims move from one department to another and I've found that there are a lot of people -- and not just women -- very eager to help, to welcome them and help them to get their careers back on track."

______

Tyler Kingkade covers higher education and sexual violence, and is based in New York. You can contact him at tyler.kingkade@huffingtonpost.com, or on Twitter: @tylerkingkade

______

Related Coverage:

• The Emails About Hand Jobs, Erections, And A Grad Student's Foot Being His 'Beloved Pet'


• University Of California Will Review How Harassment Complaints Against Tenured Faculty Are Handled


• Berkeley Professor Resigns Amid Sexual Harassment Allegations

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Ding-dong!

Halloween is almost here, and cozying up on the couch with a scary movie can be a great way to get in the spooky spirit.

But for the faint-hearted among us, watching classic horror films might feel like more of a trick than a treat.

To help keep this holiday fun -- not frightful -- we've lined up some of our favorite Halloween flicks that are just the right amount of spooky.

Check them out below!

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WASHINGTON -- The crowd at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was already cheering Tuesday night before Kendrick Lamar walked onstage. But when Lamar strolled into the spotlight, dragging a mic stand, the cheers rose to almost unbearable levels.

The Compton-born, Grammy Award-winning rapper is powerful. His presence alone commanded attention from the 2,500 or so people there to see his first orchestral collaboration. Lamar is the just the third musician ever to partner with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center for a one-night-only performance. The New York rapper Nas performed his classic album “Illmatic” with the symphony last year, and Phish’s Trey Anastasio took the stage in 2013.

In the early part of the evening, The Mellow Tones, a jazz group composed of students from D.C.’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts, gave a hint of what kind of night it was going to be with a performance of Marvin Gaye’s protest song “What’s Going On.”

Mark Meadows, the group’s director, told the crowd they'd chosen this song because Lamar is “at the forefront of what we need to be talking about.”

It’s safe to say many people agree. Young activists with the Black Lives Matter movement have made “Alright” -- a warm, encouraging and honest track from "To Pimp A Butterfly," Lamar's most recent album -- into a protest anthem, shouting the lyrics at demonstrations on multiple occasions. (At least one concertgoer was heard shouting "Black lives matter" Tuesday night.) "Alright" is not a song about how everything is great in America: The refrain includes the lines "We hate po-po / Want to kill us dead in the street for sure," lyrics that too accurately describe black life in the U.S. But the track also insists that when everything is said and done, black people are going to be just fine.

“His politics ruffles feathers -- and there’s nothing wrong with that in hip-hop,” David Rhodes, who came to D.C. from Rhode Island to see the performance, told The Huffington Post before the concert. “Hip-hop can’t progress without that.” 

With stage presence to spare, Lamar walked his fans through his repertoire in a way that -- while it zigzagged the actual chronology of Lamar's releases -- seemed appropriate.

“For Free?” gave way to “Wesley’s Theory,” followed by “Backseat Freestyle” and “Swimming Pools” -- two tunes from Lamar's breakthrough sophomore album "good kid, m.A.A.d city" -- during the first act.

Lamar allowed the symbolism of water and the metaphor of entrapment to lead him to "These Walls," a song from "Butterfly" that hints at the dark undercurrents of fame while also touching on the ways that mass incarceration takes people who've fallen victim to the system and isolates them from the ones they love most.

Lamar’s second act introduced the crowd to Lucy, a recurring character on "Butterfly" -- a temptress who is actually Lucifer in female form. After “Hood Politics” and “Complexion (A Zulu Love),” Lamar welcomed the crowd to “m.A.A.d City,” a place that murders hope and dreams along with black bodies. Even this wasn't the bleakest part of the evening -- that arrived with "u," a raw song from "Butterfly" where Lamar gasps and sobs and rages at himself, remembering a time when he spoke to a dying friend over video chat "instead of a hospital visit." Lamar told the crowd that "u" was the sound of a dark time in his life.

In the sequencing of the album, “u” is immediately followed by "Alright." On Tuesday, Lamar switched out one defiant anthem for another, going from the lows of "u" to the strutting “King Kunta,” which evokes Alex Haley's Roots in telling the story of how the song's narrator evolved “from a peasant to a prince to a motherfucking king.” Then he moved into the album version of “i,” an uplifting song of self-love, before dancing his way through “How Much A Dollar Cost,” “The Blacker The Berry” and “Mortal Man.”

In 2015, very few artists are making music as complex or ambitious as Lamar's -- something the rapper seemed to acknowledge near the end of Tuesday's show. Before taking the crowd into “Alright,” the final song of the night, Lamar asked everyone to observe a moment of silence. He then delivered a message to his fans.

“Since day one, it’s always been about doing music that people relate to and people can live their day-to-day lives to,” he said. “And I wanted to go times 10 -- I did it on my first album -- but I wanted to go times 10 with 'To Pimp A Butterfly,' where only a selected few will get to understand it and live by it and learn from it the same way I’m learning from it. So, with that being said, give me something deep.”

The emcee then turned his back to the crowd, adjusted his earpiece and began shouting the track’s opening lines, as the song's jubilant chords, reminiscent of a choir singing on Sunday morning, rang out in the concert hall.

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Yes, yes. Simmer down, class. Drake luvs him some James Turrell. So much so, in fact, that he put on his best sweatpants and turtleneck and bobbed around like a hot dad at a middle school dance before simulacrums of Turrell's alien lightscapes. 

In case you need more convincing, there is this: 

And this:

And this: 

BUT.  

What if it wasn't Turrell's illuminated geo-caves that set Drizzy's heart aflutter? What if Lord OVO instead cha-cha-ed before a Kusama?

A Flavin?

A Judd?

A Burden?

A Serra?

A Walter De Maria?  

  Dare I even suggest -- the "Rain Room"?

Riddle me this: would Aubrey's Elaine Benes-esque dance moves still have broken so many hearts? Think about it. These questions are DEEP. 

BTW, in case you were curious, it's not an actual Turrell in Drake's vid. Mr. Turrell revealed this fact on Donn Zaretsky’s The Art Law Blog (Zaretsky represents Turrell). 

While I am truly flattered to learn that Drake f**ks with me, I nevertheless wish to make clear that neither I nor any of my woes was involved in any way in the making of the Hotline Bling video.

Spoken like a boss, James. See some of the cosmic cowboy's greatest hits below.

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 Since I was 5 years old, nearly every Halloween someone has told me to go as Princess Jasmine from "Aladdin." I mean, I get it -- we're both stunningly gorgeous and brown -- but it always felt so limiting. I contain multitudes and I can go as any princess (or animal or superhero or pun) I want.

YouTuber and makeup artist Deepica Mutyala decided to take tired assumptions about what women of color should -- and shouldn't -- be, and turn them on their head in a fun video. Through the power of makeup (and fast-forward), she proves that skin and hair color have little to do with what makes an incredible and believable costume. Jasmine? Cinderella? Little Mermaid? You name it, Mutyala can be it.

"Whether you’re black, white, brown, yellow, blue, or any color in between, we all deserve to be whoever/whatever we want to be," Mutyala wrote in an Instagram post about the video.

And if you think a woman needs a man on her arm to make her costume (or life) complete, think again. As Mutyala says, "I can be my own Prince Charming." Watch to the end of the video to see just how serious she is about that statement.

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Attending Vikings home games just got a little bit easier for nursing moms.

On Oct. 18, the Minnesota Vikings became the first NFL team to offer designated in-stadium spaces for nursing moms who wish to pump or breastfeed in private. At a ribbon-cutting ceremony before their home game against the Kansas City Chiefs, the team unveiled two nursing suites that were installed in TCF Bank Stadium through a partnership with Mamava -- a business that manufactures lactation "pods" with comfortable seats, power outlets and fold down tables. 

"We certainly encourage mothers to breastfeed wherever they feel comfortable, but these suites provide clean, private and comfortable options outside of a family bathroom or a first-aid station," Vikings Chief Operating Officer Kevin Warren told The Huffington Post. "This gives mothers flexibility while attending a three-hour game and allows them to also keep a small child in tow during the process."

Warren says that the idea to create lactation spaces came from separate one-on-one meetings with two female employees, Erin Swartz and Alicia Dreyer. "Within our discussions, Erin and Alicia made me aware of the breastfeeding challenges that they and other female employees have faced both at the team’s training facility and on Vikings game days at our previous stadium," he explained. 

Shortly after those meetings, Warren noticed a Mamava pod at General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, which prompted him to contact the company's co-founder Sascha Mayer. They developed a partnership between the Vikings and Mamava and in September announced plans to install lactation suites in TCF Bank Stadium.

The two Mamava stations debuted over the weekend -- with one located just off the main concourse near Gate A and the other inside the lodge and club seating area. Both are available to all fans, Warren said, adding that the reaction to the new additions during the Chiefs game was "extremely positive."

"We had nearly 20 mothers use the stations with many more expressing their appreciation and noting they would use them moving forward," he said. "We received some constructive feedback about how to make the suites better, and we will implement those changes in time for the next home game on November 8."

In addition to the two in-stadium Mamava pods, there is one at the Vikings Winter Park training facility in Eden Prairie and one in their downtown Minneapolis offices. 

But their support for parents will extend beyond those four new fixtures, Warren said. "While this is certainly a positive step for nursing mothers, we plan to further create a family-friendly environment within U.S. Bank Stadium when it opens next year with the continuation of the Mamava suites, as well as the exploration of a nursing area that will allow moms to stay connected to the game."

Warren also emphasized the franchise's broader goal to support female fans. "We will continue to find ways to grow the Vikings relationship with women, who are an incredibly important component of our fan base," he said.

The Vikings are one of several U.S. sports teams that have been implementing stadium resources for nursing mothers. Back in March, the Cincinnati Reds unveiled the Pampers Nursing Suite for moms who want to feed their babies away from the stands at Great American Ball Park. In August, the Washington Nationals opened a breastfeeding lounge at Nationals Park.

Three cheers for professional sports leagues supporting their female fans!

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In honor of Asexuality Awareness Week, a poignant new video is shedding some much-needed insight into what it means to [truly] be asexual in the modern age. 

The Asexual Portraits Collaboration Project shares the experience of asexual and asexual-spectrum people from all walks of life. The clip is particularly captivating in its silence: as each person or couple appears, a quote attributed to them appears on the screen, with just a simple music box chiming occasionally.  

The statements are incredibly personal and quite riveting.

"Some people have never understood my asexuality no matter how clearly I explained it," one of the clip's subjects says. "Some have tried to change and fix it. But I've always liked to say that if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." 

Added another: "It seems like everyone knows or wants to know about your sexual feelings than yourself." 

The project was the brainchild of Amy Liang, who told The Huffington Post that she was inspired by Humans of New York as well as Laia Abril's Asexuals project in her goal to "showcase the human [experience] behind the label." 

"Asexuality isn't just some fad or trend or inconsequential label," she said. "It's an aspect of many people's lives -- a small aspect, but still an aspect -- and it shapes how we see and experience the world. And I wanted to capture that."

The project "has made me feel more grounded to the asexual community as a whole," she said. "I feel like I'm telling these people's stories, as if I carry this responsibility to do it justice because they barred their souls to the world." 

Bravo, Amy, for this incredible project!

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What do the Chicago skyline, a cat, a subway map, a Van Gogh, and a skull all have in common?

They've all been re-created into beautiful masterpieces using... bacteria.

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Seven inmates in a South Carolina prison were punished with a combined total of nearly 20 years of solitary confinement — for making a rap music video and posting it on WorldStar.

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Japan is so well known for all their talented child rappers, I can see how this guy got a little jealous, but jeez. #pervmagnet #childrappers

A photo posted by Mia Matsumiya (@perv_magnet) on Sep 25, 2015 at 7:38am PDT

Even would-be seducers insult Matsumiya, with absurdly graphic come-ons laced with racism. One guy begged to lose his "Asian virginity," meaning sleep with an Asian girl. Women reduce her to the stuff of fetish too, building convoluted arguments all to prove that she's not attractive. 

Either you're used to this degree of harassment (hi, young women!), or you can't believe it. The latter reaction partly explains the strength of this strain of verbal abuse. Online hate thrives in comment sections and inboxes -- the alleys of the Internet -- where the only witness is often the victim. 

Luckily, some victims know how to fight back. In the past few years, female artists with a knack for social media have flooded light on the trolls of the Internet. Their simple formula deserves notice: use their own words against them.

1. Anna Gensler

Last year, 23-year-old Anna Gensler joined Tinder. Cue the creepy pick-up lines. Rather than cut her losses and join, uh, Glimpse? Gensler, an artist, mined the provided material for artistic inspiration.

Her series of portraits of the men who harass her -- found on her Instagram account, @instagranniepants -- look nearly like the Tinder profile photos of the men themselves, except for a few key differences. Major one: they're nude. Secondarily, certain elements are slanted to suit the function of the project, as Gensler explained to Slate's Double XX blog:

"Well, I didn’t want to draw them in a way that would make them happy. They’re all based off of these guys’ profile pictures, so their faces and their general positions are the same, but from there I tried to make them look a little chubbier or scrawnier or just not particularly well-endowed. I wanted to prevent a reaction that was like, “Oh, she loves me and my hot body, let’s have sex.”

Gensler's efforts seem to be working. On her account, she often includes screenshots of text chats with the men in question, many of whom take issue with their portrayal.

Ms. knew boobies #rockineverywhere

A photo posted by @annageeze (@instagranniepants) on Sep 8, 2015 at 2:30pm PDT

2.  Ann Hirsch

Online sexual politics is kind of Ann Hirsch's thing.

The multimedia artist's avant-garde iPad app Twelve made a performance of a fictional vintage summer romance between a 12-year-old girl and a 27-year-old man in an AOL chat room. Years before came a prescient two-year YouTube project, staged between 2008 and 2009. Before online comments became the stuff of PhD dissertations, Hirsch was performing the part of Caroline the "camwhore," an alter-ego of sorts whose presence elicited a now predictable litany of gross reactions.

In a 2013 interview about Twelve, Hirsch recalled how the attempts to tear her down ironically made her more confident:

If you subject yourself to something so horrible and you get through it, you come out stronger. People would be like, Die in a gas chamber, Anne Frank. Now I feel like I’m at a point in my life that there’s very little that someone could say online that would insult me.

 3. Lindsay Bottos

If simplicity is a virtue, Lindsay Bottos is the saintliest of viral art stars. A 21-year-old art student at the time, Bottos ushered in 2014 with a series of selfies that electrified the Internet in a way the genre typically doesn't.

The twist was Bottos' decision to superimpose comments on her self-portraits, a juxtaposition that brought home the truism that people type things they'd never ever say to someone in person.  

The subjects were her friends; the captions came not from the harassers, but from the words the women wished they'd said back. The real world campaign struck a nerve online, with Fazlalizadeh's images going viral.

5. Rupi Kaur

Even if you don't know the Canadian poet Rupi Kaur, you probably know her most viral photograph. Snapped by her sister, and art-directed by Kaur, the portrait -- removed twice by Instagram -- shows Kaur in bed, her back to the viewer. Splotches of fake blood mar her sweatpants and the sheets, loud points of color in a muted scene.

In a long-ranging interview with HuffPost, Kaur, whose parents are Sikh, talked about the cultural and personal reasons she was drawn to explore the stigma of a woman's period. When the Instagram photo produced a tidal wave of negative commentary -- much of it sexist and racist -- the photo sharing site took it down without warning.

The hypocrisy of this stance struck Kaur as worth fighting against (she suggests Instagram users search the hashtag #girls for a read of some of the misogynistic content that hasn't yet been flagged on the platform). Her reposted photo was eventually reinstated, its comment log a record of exactly what she sought to expose:

"You ugly feminist this and you ugly that," and like, "In a few years we won't even need women anymore because we'll just breed our babies in labs." The women were like, "I get it's natural but I hate my period. I don't like it so you shouldn't either. Why are you celebrating it?"

thank you @instagram for providing me with the exact response my work was created to critique. you deleted a photo of a woman who is fully covered and menstruating stating that it goes against community guidelines when your guidelines outline that it is nothing but acceptable. the girl is fully clothed. the photo is mine. it is not attacking a certain group. nor is it spam. and because it does not break those guidelines i will repost it again. i will not apologize for not feeding the ego and pride of misogynist society that will have my body in an underwear but not be okay with a small leak. when your pages are filled with countless photos/accounts where women (so many who are underage) are objectified. pornified. and treated less than human. thank you. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ this image is a part of my photoseries project for my visual rhetoric course. you can view the full series at rupikaur.com the photos were shot by myself and @prabhkaur1 (and no. the blood. is not real.) ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ i bleed each month to help make humankind a possibility. my womb is home to the divine. a source of life for our species. whether i choose to create or not. but very few times it is seen that way. in older civilizations this blood was considered holy. in some it still is. but a majority of people. societies. and communities shun this natural process. some are more comfortable with the pornification of women. the sexualization of women. the violence and degradation of women than this. they cannot be bothered to express their disgust about all that. but will be angered and bothered by this. we menstruate and they see it as dirty. attention seeking. sick. a burden. as if this process is less natural than breathing. as if it is not a bridge between this universe and the last. as if this process is not love. labour. life. selfless and strikingly beautiful.

A photo posted by rupi kaur (@rupikaur_) on Mar 24, 2015 at 9:02pm PDT

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Noted amazing person Misty Copeland is making a TV drama about ballet.

According to Deadline, Copeland will work with writer Tracy Oliver -- the same behind the sitcom based on John Legend and Chrissy Teigen's relationship -- to create a show for Fox about a diverse young group of aspiring dancers competing for spots in a premier ballet company. 

The dancer, who rose to viral Internet fame after her 2014 Under Armour commercial, was recently made the first black female American Ballet Theater principal dancer in history. 

To tide you over until the first glimpse at the show, here's Copeland performing with Yo-Yo Ma on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert": 

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Following up on their mega-viral "Sisterhood of Motherhood" ad, Similac just released a powerful video about judgment and the "mommy wars."

Directed by Academy Award winner Cynthia Wade, the video offers a glimpse into the daily lives and routines of seven moms with young babies. The moms represent a variety of experiences -- from single motherhood to gender-neutral parenting to breastfeeding, pumping and formula-feeding.

When the moms all come together, they unpack their differences, admit to their judging and work to #EndMommyWars -- which is the title of the seven-minute video.

"We want to transform mommy wars into mommy support by changing the conversation," Similac's Brand Director, Misha Pardubicka-Jenkins, told The Huffington Post.

“This film is extremely personal to me because as a mom I know firsthand how painful parental judgment can be," added Wade. "I made this film because I want to end the judgment. Despite our differences as moms, I believe that we can create a community where we really support each other.”

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For any struggling author who can't get a book deal, there's something particularly galling about self-admitted semi-literate celebrities scoring huge advances for ghostwritten novels and memoirs. Sure, some turn out to be good; others, while not particularly literary, at least offer a compelling glimpse into the mind and life of a popular personality. 

Often, however, even the celebs themselves seem aware of their shortcomings. Many of them reportedly kept their works under wraps until numerous friends and associates urged them to publish (I'm sure an entirely unbiased wave of support for artistic genius). Macaulay Culkin published a memoir/poetry/comic book hodgepodge for which he makes repeated apologies in the introduction, saying, "I am not a writer. I couldn't possibly be a writer"; "Writing could not be my calling after the mess I've made of all this"; "I'm no writer. This is not my calling." 

What Culkin and his cohort have given us, instead of polished poetry and prose, are the kinds of bizarre fun facts and absurdly funny reading experiences that add a charming new dimension to their public images. ("Did you know David Duchovny wrote a book about talking cows? Crazy, right??") 

In celebration of highly questionable celebrity books, and their courage in publishing them, here are 18 of the most side-eyeable books authored by the famous, including an eminently painful passage from each:

Rebels: City of Indra by Kylie and Kendall Jenner

Kylie and Kendall totally wrote this sci-fi book. (Let’s just say they did, because otherwise their poor ghostwriter will be saddled with the blame for this dud.) A tale of haves and have-nots, it’s a dystopia set in a bifurcated society -- half a shining city above, the other half a desolate underworld. Maybe not the young Jenners’ savviest move to draw attention to a world in which some are undeservedly given far more than others. 

Holy Cow by David Duchovny

Duchovny studied English at Princeton and Yale before he was ever on "The X-Files," so his debut novel didn’t lack for ambition and complexity. Still, a convoluted parable of talking farm animals, industrial meat farming and Israeli-Palestinian politics might not have been the best idea.

Selfish by Kim Kardashian

Reviews of Kim Kardashian’s selfie compendium were mixed, with some contending it’s a cutting-edge artistic statement of feminine self-empowerment. Still, there’s undeniably something cringeworthy about a full book of every selfie you’ve ever taken, garnished with dull commentary (“Bikini selfies are my fave”; “I love that we have these memories”).

In the Making (Celebrity Sex Tape) by Farrah Abraham

Abraham not only made a celebrity sex tape, she wrote about the making of a celebrity sex tape, which sounds like a truly scintillating premise for a novel, yet isn’t. The sex tape starlet, Fallon Opal, seems to share many of Abraham's own experiences ... and qualities ... and grudges. Gosh, it's almost like it's not really fiction.

A Shore Thing by Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi

You know when you were watching "The Jersey Shore" and you thought, “This is all great, but I wish these hijinks were available as a sloppily written novel as well”? Nicole Polizzi, authoress and alter-ego of reality star Snooki, read your mind. Though, according to Snooki herself, she hasn’t really read much else, and it shows.

The Truth About Diamonds by Nicole Richie

The adopted daughter of a famous rocker grows up to become a household name, only to be betrayed by her socialite bestie: That’s both the author bio and the plot of this book by former Paris Hilton pal Nicole Richie. Hmmm. Maybe just woman up and write the nonfiction takedown of those who’ve wronged you, Nicole.

It’s Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong

This book is not about Armstrong’s long-running con on the bicycling world, nor is it necessarily about bikes. It is, however, kind of embarrassing -- post-doping revelations -- as it attributes his biking triumphs to hard work, perseverance and sheer force of will as opposed to, say, sophisticated performance-enhancement boosters.

Star by Pamela Anderson

Just a modern-day fairytale about a voluptuous blond beauty who’s sighted in the crowd at a football game and launched to stardom, Star is, um, basically Pamela Anderson’s own life story. But with worse writing.  

Elixir by Hilary Duff

In an unexpected twist, Duff’s fiction debut was a sparkly YA romance about a stunning and special young woman. Like only around half of such celebrity-penned YA books, this one has a fantasy element. Duff’s heroine is a talented photojournalist, a senator’s daughter, beautiful and virtuous, and she’s caught in a love triangle. Basically, Twilight + perfect heroine - vampires + celebrity author = WHY?!

Here’s the Situation by Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino

We all still live by “GTL,” The Situation’s formula for an ideal beauty routine, right? (That’s “gym, tan, laundry,” every day, of course.) But how else can we be more like the house douchecanoe of "Jersey Shore"? Here, he fleshes out his full life philosophy on “creeping in da club,” “wingmen and grenades” and how to join the Mile High Club.

Modelland by Tyra Banks

Heroine Tookie De La Crème (yes) makes her way through a sort of YA fantasy version of "America’s Next Top Model," in which modeling is both the ultimate prize and the ultimate hell. Just the message young women today need to hear, especially in Banks’ dreadful prose.  

Viking by Fabio

Fabio’s ghostwritten plunge into fiction includes two series; this historical romance stars Fabio -- er, Marco -- a stunningly handsome actor whose girlfriend rudely won't give up her career for him. Fortunately, he's sent back in time to the Viking days, where he can force a woman (who looks just like his ruined-by-feminism girlfriend!) to marry him and have his babies happily ever after. Swoon. Plus, he saves the Vikings with healthier, LA-inspired diets! 

Directing Herbert White by James Franco

Franco, the Renaissance man, has a few publications under his belt. They are universally cringeworthy. This book of poems, which frequently seems to operate under the assumption that you can just format a few factual statements with line breaks and create good poetry, might be the most irritating.

Junior by Macaulay Culkin

I know, I know, these are supposed to be “books,” and Culkin’s magnum opus only vaguely fits that description. However, it was published as one. It’s not a novel, a memoir, or anything else -- it’s a semi-stream-of-consciousness collection of vignettes drawn from his life, cartoons and meditations. Even the introduction sounds apologetic.

L.A. Candy by Lauren Conrad

When Conrad isn’t destroying books for dubious crafting videos, she’s also … DUN DUN DUNNN … writing books herself! The first in a series, L.A. Candy tells the story of the creatively named Jane Roberts, who moves to Los Angeles and finds herself reaping the rewards, and discovering the dark side, of reality TV stardom. Again, creativity is not Conrad’s strength.

A Peace of My Mind by Charlie Sheen

In addition to being an actor, a #winner, an alleged domestic abuser and overall Hollywood troublemaker, Charlie Sheen is a poet, and you didn’t even know it! Seriously, he self-published this volume of verse in 1999. Wondering whether to throw down upwards of $100 for a copy? Amazon reviewer “john stamos” says, “Charlie is a personal friend of mine, and i have been reading his poetry for years. This collection is the best of the best as far as Chas's art is concerned… Sheen steals part of ourselves and gives us a chunk of humanity and sheenathan.” Yeah, it’s even better than “Two and a Half Men." 

Swan by Naomi Campbell

Campbell has claimed that she co-wrote this book (by sending her thoughts on tape to her ghostwriter) in order to get back at those who she thought tried to tear her down. It’s unclear whether she ever even read the book, but buried within the hacky writing and an absurd plot surrounding five young women competing to win the contract of retiring supermodel Swan, there’s definitely plenty of venom toward journalists and enemies. So … success?

If I Did It by O.J. Simpson

Simpson reportedly (he’s since denied involvement) worked with a ghostwriter to write this theoretical account of how he would have murdered Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. If he did it. The families of the victims were outraged; the media was appalled. The book was pulled prior to publication and Judith Regan, the publisher, lost her job in the firestorm. Basically, everything about this book was a Bad Idea. We can't even guiltily enjoy this steaming pile of grossness.

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"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" holds a special place in the hearts of filmgoers. The cult classic we know and love today only became successful after it was lovingly revived by fans on the midnight movie circuit. Audiences continue to be inspired by the way the film challenges traditional notions of gender and sexuality, while providing the requisite flash and fun we've come to expect from a musical. 

There is no better person to star in the upcoming Fox TV remake than Laverne Cox, an actress who breaks down barriers in the entertainment industry. She also knows her way around a stage. 

According to Deadline, the Emmy-nominated actress will star in the role originated by Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a sexually ambiguous alien who has a penchant for corsets and leather.

Cox shared the news on Twitter with her near 500,000 followers. 

I am so excited that the news is out. I am so honored to be a part of the Rocky Horror legacy.… https://t.co/5guzt7WTyd

— Laverne Cox (@Lavernecox) October 22, 2015

Congratulations from friends and fans alike came pouring across the actress's social media accounts. Adam Lambert was one of many to share their excitement about Cox's involvement in the remake. 

I'm sooooooooo excited to see you in Rocky Horror @Lavernecox.

— ADAM LAMBERT (@adamlambert) October 22, 2015

The two-hour taped TV event, which is set to debut in fall of 2016, will be directed and choreographed by Kenny Ortega. Until then, you can still catch a screening of the original "Rocky Horror," which still plays in movie theaters across the country 40 years after its premiere. 

Everyone cross your fingers this remake won't go the way of the "Rocky Horror"-inspired Glee episode "The Rocky Horror Glee Show." Is nothing sacred?

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These photos may look ripped straight from the pages of a 1970s textbook on robotics, but don’t be fooled: David Vintiner’s mesmerizing photos are so modern they’re practically in the future.

In his photo series “Futurists,” Vintiner captures the scientifically adventurous among us at work. Inventors and experimenters sport their own electrode devices and brain implants, or stare meditatively at whiteboards blanketed with equations.

“I'm always fascinated by enthusiastic amateurs and people who think in a different way to the mainstream,” Vintiner told The Huffington Post via email about the project, a collaboration with art director Gem Fletcher. “Gemma had attended a meeting with a group called the London Futurists and our initial contacts came from this group,” he explained. “It was a good opportunity to explore something completely new to me.”

Though some of the figures in the photos may look familiar -- HuffPost Arts & Culture profiled one subject, cyborg Neil Harbisson earlier this year -- these amateur innovators are dabbling in areas most of us rarely think about. “I really knew very little about some of the things they were interested in such as brain hacking and transhumanism,” said Vintiner.

Brain hacks, such as electric stimulation of the brain in order to enhance its performance, may be the way of the future. Biotech advances might ultimately lead to a whole race of cyborgs with capabilities beyond what sci-fi writers have dreamed. Or, as The Economist argued about electric brain stimulation specifically, they may not pan out; they noted that studies suggest the benefits may be illusory, or at the expense of other brain capabilities.

Vintiner’s photos capture this tension between the crystallization of history and the uncertainty of the future. Combining flash with ambient light, he aimed for “a slightly static, clinical look ... kind of like an instruction manual or textbook.”

The aesthetic suggests the prescriptivism and certainty of established science, but the bizarre, otherworldly looking devices indicate that something more dangerous and envelope-pushing is at play. These inventors are at the cutting edge, still waiting to see whether their experiments will become part of the textbooks of the future… or be lost to history with such useless technologies as the anti-eating face mask.

What is unchanging, as “Futurists” show, is the human drive to innovate. Vintiner agrees. “By using technology in partnership with humans, incredible things can be achieved,” he said.

Check out the series below, and more of Vintiner's work on his website:

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Honestly, we don't know nothing about putting up Halloween lights. But we can all agree this is AMAZING.  

Brandon Bullis, a 46-year-old who lives in Leesburg, Virginia, creates a Halloween light show on his house every year, synced up to popular songs. This year, the spectacular, called "Edwards Landing Lights" features his house "singing" the hit Macklemore and Ryan Lewis song "Downtown" -- among other tracks -- and it's bananas in the best way.

What's more, the father of three and his family have put out a donation box outside their display to raise money for the Johns Hopkins Children's Center. Over the past two years, they have raised $10,000 for the cause, Bullis told The Huffington Post.

Watch in the video above as kooky faces appear on the house and starts "rapping" perfectly on time with the music. The light show is so impressive that it received a thumbs up from Macklemore himself, who tweeted that the Bullis' residence is "definitely the kind of house that gives out full-sized candy bars."

The full light show runs for 30 minutes and replays from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. every night. The spectacular also includes performances to Sam Hunt's "House Party" and Fall Out Boy's "Uma Thurman," in addition to "Downtown." We know what you're thinking, but the show isn't noisy for the neighbors -- to hear the music synced up to the lights, viewers can set their radios to 98.1 FM. According to the videos' descriptions, the light show includes about 8,500 different lights and more than 2,500 channels of computer animation. 

And if you think that Bullis' electric bill is enormous because of the show, think again! The video descriptions note that the majority of the lights are energy-saving LEDs and will only cost the family about $25-$35 the entire Halloween season. 

We know which house all the cool kids will be flocking to this year! 

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