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Prince Harry Manspreading Makes Everything Better. Here's Proof.

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Prince Harry has impressive beard-growing abilities, uses his royal status to shed light on important issues, and has an unfortunate tendency to manspread. 


Manspreading is a wide-legged, space-hogging male phenomenon originally pinpointed on Tumblr but often seen in its most natural habitat on the New York City subway. It's  evolved into quite a hot button issue over the years, with the MTA encouraging male passengers to "stop the spread." Think pieces on the topic have examined what exactly is the thought process, if any, behind it (if it's not comfort, the theory goes, it's an "assertion of power.") Even President Obama's been accused of manspreading.


So when the prince himself put on an epic 'spread display during tea with first lady Michelle Obama in June, needless to say, the Internet noticed. When it happened again during his trip to the United States on Wednesday, well, let's just say our imagination started to do some spreading of its own.


Here are seven "real life" situations made a little bit better by Prince Harry and his manspread. Each of them is definitely to scale. 


Sitting on a bench:



Taking in the majestic Grand Canyon:



Riding a horse:



Crossing the Delaware River:



Enjoying some gymnastics:



Listening to Michelle Obama's speech ("His spread is THIS big!"): 



And of course, riding the subway:



 


Also on HuffPost Style:


 


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Church Of Satan Might Be Just The Faith You're Looking For

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Do you feel like your religion isn't the stable rock you wish it was? Well, it's time you gave a good, long look at the Church of Satan.


The Second City thinks it may be the right fit for you and your devious lifestyle.





 


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'Serial' Season 2 Will Launch On Pandora

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NEW YORK (AP) -- The top-rated and popular podcast "Serial," which became a white-hot success on iTunes last year, is expanding its reach to streaming service Pandora this year.


Pandora announced Monday that it would begin hosting the award-winning podcast as well as "This American Life," of which "Serial" is a spin-off. The series will still be available on iTunes and other podcast apps.


A premiere date for season two of "Serial" hasn't been announced, but season one will be available on Pandora on Nov. 24.


The first season, which included 12 episodes, told the story of Adnan Syed, a Baltimore high school student who was found guilty in 2000 of murdering his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. "Serial," hosted by veteran radio producer and former Baltimore Sun reporter Sarah Koenig, won a Peabody Award this year.


"For people already listening to 'Serial' and 'This American Life,' nothing will change. But we believe lots of people who'd like our shows simply haven't heard of them, or haven't started listening to podcasts," Ira Glass, editorial adviser of "Serial" and host of "This American Life," said in a statement.


"'Serial' is the biggest podcast in the world, but only 17 percent of Americans listen to podcasts at all," he said. "That's why it's so exciting for us to work with Pandora. Pandora reaches millions of people who never listen to public radio or download podcasts. This'll get our shows to them."


Once "Serial" premieres, episodes will be available Thursdays at 6 a.m. EST, Pandora said.


Syed, the subject of season one, is serving life in prison. The podcast raised questions about evidence, witnesses and the effectiveness of Syed's attorney, who was later disbarred. The series grew more popular as each episode aired, and inspired listeners to debate Syed's guilt or innocence.



Pandora said more than 8 million people have downloaded each episode of the first season of "Serial." Pandora will air episodes in five-minute chunks, though listeners who wish to listen to the entire podcast can do so without interruption.


Pandora's CEO called "Serial" and the streaming service "a perfect fit."


"We are always looking to delight our listeners with engaging and cutting-edge programming, while 'Serial' is looking to reach the largest audience possible. This gives Pandora listeners yet another reason to tune in," Brian McAndrews said in a statement.


In September, Maryland attorneys said Syed shouldn't be granted a new trial after his lawyer argued that cell tower data placing Syed near the murder scene was unreliable.


 


CORRECTION: This story corrects that while "Serial" has expanded to Pandora, it will still be available on iTunes and other podcast apps.

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The New 'Art Therapy App' Turned My iPhone Into A Coloring Book

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When looking to de-stress and unleash whatever creative urges are bottled up inside, I don't usually turn to my iPhone for help. How naive I've been.


A new app called Chromaldry, billing itself as the "art therapy app," hopes to turn you from a sweating ball of stress into a chill, creative goddess without leaving home. (And by home, I mean your iPhone screen.) The brainchild of Toronto-based indie app studio Honeycombinatorics, the exercise hops on the adult coloring book bandwagon, aiming to inspire similarly zen results without all the pesky baggage, like the coloring book.



In my time covering the field of art therapy, I've learned one key lesson that stands out from the rest: art therapy is only officially Art Therapy if conducted in the presence of a licensed art therapist. So, although Chromaldry can't officially be qualified as art therapy, unless you rent a therapist to hang out with you while you play it, that's not to say it can't yield some of the same relaxing and healing effects. 


Simply put, Chromaldry turns your iPhone (or iWatch or iPad) into a coloring book. Specifically, it transforms any of photo you take or upload into a black-and-white template ready to be colored. And by colored, I mean finger painted. 


After selecting your photo-cum-canvas, you click on a region to color. A sort of paint palette appears along with the color swatches which must be mixed in a mysterious ratio to yield the desired hue. Mostly, this results in blindly clicking on the different colors and swirling your fingers around, watching them blur together until you land upon the desired pigment. It's pretty addictive, and though frustrating at first, soon becomes a sort of mindless and relaxing exercise in watching colors mix and merge like a finger painting ballet. 



Also, you get to watch your selfies become objets d'art. Which, though I don't think has any direct therapeutic effect, is a cool bonus. 


The game doesn't really feel like coloring in a coloring book, though. Finger painting is more on point, for better or worse, without the mess. There's also no way to color outside the lines, which is denying the colorer a major part of the coloring book experience; instead, promising an impeccable final product. 


So, while I don't know if it can quite be categorized as art therapy, Chromaldry is an absorbing mix of old school nostalgia and new fangled tech that is surprisingly meditative, especially for an iPhone app.


Chromaldry officially launches Nov. 5, when you can download it from your app store for $2.99. 



Also on HuffPost:


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Here's Something Easy You Can Do To Support The Future Of Women's Rights

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Equal rights have come a long way since the events depicted in "Suffragette," but the studio that distributed the movie is fighting to eradicate the gender inequality that is still pervasive nearly 100 years after women secured the ballot. 


Focus Features is launching a campaign called #HopeForOurDaughters, which asks social media users to post a photo with a message for their wishes for future generations of women. Focus will donate $1 to Equality Now for every image shared with the hashtag. The Huffington Post and its parent company, AOL, are premiering the video that launches the campaign. It features jarring stats that prove we actually haven't come that far, as well as a message from the film's star, Carey Mulligan.


Watch below and start preparing your own message.





 


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Smokey Robinson Opens Up About His 'Hell Of A Drug Trip'

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Like many famous musicians, Smokey Robinson went through a period in his life when drugs became a central focus -- but for the Motown great, this descent into addiction ultimately led to an unexpected blessing.


In the 1980s, Smokey had already had success both on stage and behind the scenes in the music industry. He had made it through his early career without spiraling out of control due to drug use, but in his forties, Smokey began using cocaine and quickly fell down a dangerous path. Ultimately, this downward spiral led Smokey to find himself and find God, but before that could happen, he had to reach his own breaking point. And he did, after several years of abusing coke.


"I went on a hell of a drug trip," Smokey tells "Oprah's Master Class" in a recent interview. "For two-and-a-half years, I went on a drug trip. And it was horrendous."


Smokey may have thought that his maturity, life experience and celebrity would protect him from the pitfalls of addiction, but looking back, he now knows the harsh reality of drug use.


"Drugs do not discriminate. They don't care who you are or what you're doing or what your status in life is or where you live -- none of that," he says. "When you open yourself up to them, they're going to come in. So if you do that, then you're going to suffer the consequences of what goes along with it."


For those dark years, Smokey suffered those consequences.


"I was a walking corpse," he says.


At the time, however, Smokey was in denial about how addiction was affecting him and believed he was managing his drug use just fine. His friends and family all tried to intervene, but Smokey wasn't having it. Then, one of his closest friends, Leon Kennedy, stepped in.


"When I was doing the drugs like that, I was ducking everybody," Smokey says. "So [Leon] came to my house one night, and he looks at me and he said, 'Man, you look terrible. I heard you were doing this, but I haven't been able to find you . You've been ducking me, and you don't ever duck me... Why are you doing this?'"


Smokey dismissed his friend's concerns and again insisted that he was fine. Leon persisted.


"He said, 'Sit down. I'm going to pray for you,'" Smokey says. "He prayed for me [for] probably five hours, without stopping... He just prayed for me."


Leon wouldn't leave Smokey's home and instead came up with a clear plan to help his friend. "He said, 'I'm staying here tonight, man, and tomorrow night, I'm taking you to a prayer service that I go to,'" Smokey recalls.


Already feeling the two-plus-years of drugs taking its toll, Smokey agreed.


"I was done with me anyway," he says. "I could not stand me at that point."


In the video below, Smokey reveals what happened during that prayer service, including the incredibly profound spiritual moment that he says changed everything.


<video embed>


"Oprah's Master Class" airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on OWN.


More from Oprah.com:


The first song Smokey Robinson ever wrote -- at age 5


Smokey's childhood friendships with future music icons


What happened behind closed doors in Motown's private meetings


Also on HuffPost:


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Inktober Is Ending, But These Awesome Drawings Will Live On Forever

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The writing world has NaNoWriMoThe facial hair enthusiasts have Movember. And for the artsy crowd, there's Inktober


For the uninitiated, Inktober is that special time of year (read: the month of October) during which artists from all over the world (read: people across the Internet) unite to put pen to paper every single day for a full month.


Started by Jake Parker in 2009 as a way to challenge himself, the initiative motivates professional artists, amateur doodlers and everyone in between to push past that creative anxiety and just start making stuff. The rules for Inktober, as detailed by Parker, are as follows:



InkTober rules:


1) Make a drawing in ink (you can do a pencil under-drawing if you want).
2) Post it on your blog (or Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, flickr, Pinterest or just pin it on your wall.)
3) Hashtag it with #inktober
4) Repeat


Note: you can do it daily, or go the half-marathon route and post every other day, or just do the 5K and post once a week. What ever you decide, just be consistent with it. INKtober is about growing and improving and forming positive habits, so the more you’re consistent, the better.


That's it! Now go make something beautiful.



As you can see by perusing the various hashtags, the resulting stuff is really, really cool. Now that October is finally over, we're rounding up some of our favorite examples of #Inktober. If you missed out this year, you have over 330 days to prepare yourself for next year's festivities. 



A photo posted by Gaia Alessi (@hiyaitsgaia) on







A photo posted by BEUGISM (@beugism) on









A photo posted by Alkemium (@atzaart) on





A photo posted by Audrey Alim (@find_auna) on





A photo posted by Akire Bubar (@akirebubar) on







A photo posted by Sean Gallagher (@mrseang) on







A photo posted by Diah Didi (@diahdidi) on





A photo posted by TomWillTell (@tomwilltell) on





A photo posted by Jens K Styve (@jenskstyve) on





A photo posted by sirpangur (@sirpangur) on




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Van Gogh Crop Circle Unfortunately Not Made By Aliens

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Congratulations, people who fly into Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport! A recently completed, Vincent van Gogh-themed crop circle in Eagan, Minnesota, has provided a delightful upgrade to the standard Instagram of a plane wing.


The Minneapolis Institute of Art commissioned landscape artist and painter Stan Herd to create an earthen likeness of van Gogh's "Olive Trees" (1889), which is now on display at MIA. Planting pumpkins, squash and watermelon, Herd sculpted his 1.5-acre version of the painting in honor of the 125th anniversary of the artist's death.


"The amazing thing about van Gogh's painting is that there's not a single straight line in the whole canvas," said Herd in a video produced by the museum to accompany his work. "Everything is organic and curved and flowing, and it's like a pulse. I'm just amazed that after months of looking at one painting, that I continued to discover things in it."





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How To Take The Perfect Selfie, According To Science

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Let us get over the fact that we care about taking the perfect selfie and get down to business, shall we?


Andrej Karpathy, a computer science graduate student at Stanford University, tasked an image-recognizing deep neural network to determine what it is that makes a good selfie. His findings? Women who abide by the rule of thirds, use a filter and let their long locks fall over their shoulders achieve the greatest selfie success.  




1.2 million likes: Not too shabby.


Karpathy trained a Convolutional Neural Network, a type of data mining network capable of processing 140 million different specifications, to judge whether a selfie was successful or not. He began his experiment by running a script through ConvNet to collect images tagged with #selfie. He then whittled his database of more than 5 million photos down to 2 million, all of which contained at least one face.


Next, Karpathy analyzed the number of likes per followers, labeling the ones with the highest rates as good selfies, and giving those with the least number of proportional "likes" a negative label. "I took all the users and sorted them by their number of followers," Karparthy wrote on his blog. "I gave a small bonus for each additional tag on the image, assuming that extra tags bring more eyes. Then I marched down this sorted list in groups of 100, and sorted those 100 selfies based on their number of likes. I only used selfies that were online for more than a month to ensure a near-stable like count."


Once it was clear his ConvNet parameters were working, Karpathy ran a batch of 50,000 previously unanalyzed selfies through the network. He reviewed the top 100 images it scored, and noticed the following: 



  • Being a woman makes for a better selfie. "There is not a single guy in the top 100," Karpathy wrote.

  • The rule of thirds is important for likes: "Notice that the position and pose of the face is quite consistent among the top images. The face always occupies about 1/3 of the image, is slightly tilted, and is positioned in the center and at the top."

  • Long hair, particularly when it runs down the shoulders, makes a "good" selfie.

  • Filters work. Whether black and white or a color scheme that provides contrast, don't leave your selfie with some kind of filter.

  • Add a border to the selfie. Borders earn "double taps."


Karpathy discovered that the selfie success rules change when it comes to men and celebrities. His experiment also revealed some major selfie no-nos (lighting is KEY, folks). You can read more about these selfie findings and tips on his blog.


H/T FastCo Design 


Also on HuffPost:


 


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Filmmakers Rally Support To Release Maya Angelou Documentary

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A little more than a year after her death, Maya Angelou is finally getting her own documentary and directors Rita Coburn Whack and Bob Hercules have created a Kickstarter to help fund it. 


The film, titled "The Maya Angelou Documentary,will "reflect on how the events of history, culture, and the arts shaped Dr. Angelou’s life and how she, in turn, helped shape our own worldview through her autobiographical literature and activism," the directors wrote on the Kickstarter page. "We hope to shed light on the untold aspects of her life and to educate audiences about her story."


Whack and Hercules, who were close friends of Angelou, have been working on "The Maya Angelou Documentary" for four years. The directors note that they have had "remarkable and unmatched access" to the prolific writer's life and up until now, they have been funding the film out of their own pockets. However, they note on their Kickstarter campaign that they need additional funding to pay licensing fees on archival footage and technical edits. 


They set a goal of raising $150,000 on Kickstarter by December 1. So far, they've received more than $30,122 in donations. The film will feature the creators last interview with the late poet and civil rights activists in January 2014, four months before her death, and include interviews with former president Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Common, and Dr. Angelou’s son, Guy Johnson.


The documentary will premiere on television in 2016 if the directors' goal is met. 


H/T Entertainment Weekly


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The Fat Jew Wants You To Get To Know Him In His New Memoir 'Money, Pizza, Respect'

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The Fat Jew dominated bloggers' headlines earlier this year when critics accused the 33-year-old Internet personality of committing one of the baddest crimes in the comedy world: joke theft. Word had quickly traveled that Josh Ostrovsky, best known for his self-given epithet and the 6.5 million people who follow him on Instagram, signed to a top-notch Hollywood talent agency in August 2015. The news sparked a wave of online outrage, because the posts that afforded Ostrovsky the most followers, that had granted him the most fame -- funny pictures he'd found online and posted to his Instagram feed -- were not wholly original material.


Fast forward a few months later. If you're still looking for Ostrovsky's thoughts on joke ownership, or copyright in the age of the Internet, you won't find it in his new memoir, Money, Pizza, Respect. What you'll discover instead is a personal scrapbook (named after one of his tattoos) filled with stories of child acting gigs, coupons for sexual favors, tales of drug-fueled nights, Xeroxed "Joshua" stationery covered in child's handwriting, coloring pages, more drug tales, one erotic short story starring Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, and several pages containing just the word "boobs." 



When I met Ostrovsky in an arcade in New York's Chinatown last week, he was sporting the vertical ponytail he's known for, wearing a T-shirt that read "The Smiths" alongside a picture of the actor Will Smith and his family. Despite the nickname, The Fat Jew seems somewhat smaller in person. Every so often, he tightened the ponytail. 


"I want people to get to know me," Ostrovsky -- who calls himself an "influencer," the "Magellan of Internet horrendous-ness" and, in his Instagram bio, an "idiot" -- told me. "I've been living my life as performance artist for a long time. Way before the Internet. Which was, like, doing ridiculous things just to have stories so one day I could fill a book with them."


His book's medium -- print -- might seem a bit off-brand for an Internet star like Ostrovsky, who told me he was "trying to be more Asian and more 16 at all times." But the decision to go offline was not a careless one. 


"I think we’re, like, super URL right now," the new author explained. "I think we’re going to have some social media burnout. So, I think IRL is about to get kind of hot [and] I’m at the forefront of that. I wanted to do the thing that seemed like the most antiquated." Writing an ink-and-paper book, it seems, still casts the widest net in terms of affecting public opinion -- where social media is a stage, a book is hosting a guest in your living room.



New slogan: "Pizza Bites: It's like Satan jizzing volcanic fire marinara lava into your mouth." (@prozac_morris)

A photo posted by thefatjewish (@thefatjewish) on




If Ostrovsky wants us to get to know him, it makes sense to go back to the beginning. A healthy portion of the book is devoted to specific events in his childhood and young adulthood. His mother (who is "always like, 'You can be whatever you want, like a woman, or an astronaut'"), his father (who is "always like, 'Get a job'"), his younger brother and a smattering of friends illustrate nascent aspects of The Fat Jew's over-the-top Internet persona: the fame-seeking, the eccentric exterior, the drugs.


The dichotomy between his parents, one endlessly supportive and the other rigidly practical, is most memorably illuminated in an anecdote about his bar mitzvah. The theme, "fall," delighted his mother. In Ostrovsky's retelling, however, it fed his father's suspicion that his son was gay. And so, on the night of the big event, Ostrovsky's father drove him to a strip club, which not only allowed the 13-year-old inside, but allowed him to receive a lap dance. In the end, his father was, to his satisfaction, proven wrong about Ostrovsky's sexual identity.


Maybe it was that early tension with his father, the memory of the strip club, or something else entirely not reliant on armchair psychology, but Ostrovsky consistently references his younger "gayness" in the book with phrases that would be miles from winning GLAAD approval. (See: "I could be wearing a turtleneck made of interracial dicks and it wouldn't be as gay as this shirt.") His descriptions of sex workers and, more generally, women, will easily shock -- one chapter finds Ostrovsky in a hotel room with two sex workers, whom he asks to act out a scene from "Braveheart." One bails, the other stays. In Ostrovsky's words: "You can hire a working girl to do any number of random tasks, sexual or otherwise."


"It's really so much fun," he writes, deftly transforming the women into mere commodities, "And then you can still have sex with them, if you feel like it." (He did.)


It's worth noting that a disclaimer at the start of the book calls into doubt the accuracy of any of it. Which parts actually happened, what's been embellished for the sake of storytelling, and what is pure fiction is all -- for legal reasons, surely -- unclear. But the equivocation of Ostrovsky's reality does not absolve him of responsibility for things like bragging that he got to boss a woman around for a predetermined number of hours on account of the fact that his social privilege allowed him to do it. 


(N.B.: Disclaimer aside, the author told me he has actually met half the inspiration behind the erotic story in his book -- Kanye. They talked wasabi peas at brunch after a brief email exchange in which the Instagram star introduced himself. "He wrote back like, ‘YO, LET’S MEET.’ But like, all caps. And huge spaces between the words. Like, giant gaps," Ostrovsky recalled.) 



It's hard to avoid drawing comparisons between Ostrovsky's writing and that of another man who published a collection of debaucherous tales: Tucker Max. Max's 2006 anthology I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell sold millions of copies with ego-driven stories also starring alcohol, drugs and one-night stands, with an undertone of unabashed pride disguised as embarrassment. The Internet star sees that resemblance, to a point.


"We’re probably not too much dissimilar," Ostrovsky contemplated. "We’re both relatively fun to hang out with, but his scene is a lot more 'bro.' A lot more dudes with leg tats. For sure. Who wear, like, maybe, flip flops." 


He added, "I’d like to think this book is for, like, a beautiful, tall, transgender, you know, model. From space."


And as for any other backlash to the contents of his latest project, Ostrovsky isn't sweating it.


"People just need to have a good time," he said, with an air of fatigue. "We’re partying -- let’s not get caught up in the particulars. I know everyone loves to be outraged about something on the Internet every day, but these stories are fun." And he hopes they might help people see him as more than that guy who got accused of plagiarism online.


"I’m not, like, some kid in his basement at his mom’s house, who’s just like, ‘I find memes!’ who’s on the spectrum and horrendous in person," Ostrovsky said. "There are a lot of different things that I try to do. Some of them are funny, some maybe not," he said, adding that he's working on a cologne with electronic music artist Diplo in addition to continuing his White Girl Rosé wine label, a plus-size modeling career, and maintaining the social media presence of his dog Toast, who advocates against puppy mills.



My tongue is trying to escape the tub without me! #soggytoast

A photo posted by TOAST MEETS WORLD™ (@toastmeetsworld) on




For all the ugly reactions the August controversy won him, Ostrovsky seems to welcome opinions from every corner of the Internet, even from people who aren't impressed with his antics. That's why he loves the Wild West of the World Wide Web. In "the rave that is the Internet," he says, everyone is essentially free to do what they want. Once in a while, Ostrovsky admitted he'll get "a little stoned" and delve into the most dangerous part of the Internet for any content creator: the comment section.


"It's scary in there," Ostrovsky said, describing his Instagram comments like a cacophony of all-caps elation and quiet loathing.


"A girl’s being like, ‘I wanna rip your dick off and bronze it and wear it because I’m obsessed with you!’ And I’m like, that’s too much. And then a kid's being like, ‘You’re literally the worst. Like, die.’ And I’m like, that seems too much, also? I feel like we’re all screaming. But I respect the screaming. If you’re mad, that’s okay. But read the book."


Money, Pizza, Respect is, in the end, a breezy read that's part bizarre stunts, part creative writing, and part frat guy boasting about his super awesome night because he did a bunch of drugs. (Again!) Love it or hate it, The Fat Jew plans to keep on doing his "performance art" thing.


"I want to get good stories out of it. Because that’s really all that matters, right?" he said. "You have to have fucking good stories."


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Adorable Siblings 'Race' To Help Mom And Dad Announce Baby Number Three

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The heat is on in this pregnancy announcement for baby number three.


Excited announcers: Louisa and Richard Kopp, along with their two kids, Owen and Carmendy.


Due date: April 3, 2016


Announcement method of choice: The Kopps shared their news with an adorably epic video called "Crossing the Finish Line." In the race-themed short, big brother and big sister vie for a boys vs. girls majority, and baby number three will be the "tiebreaker." 


Reaction to the news: "We were not planning to have another baby, so I was very surprised at first and more than a little apprehensive," Louisa told The Huffington Post. "I'm still worried about managing life with three kids, but I'm happy and excited now."


Special helper: Dad Richard, who works a local university, recruited a film student to help create the video. "We would not have been able to pull off our vision without him," Louisa said. "Luckily he had lots of patience and we had lots of treats to keep the 'actors' happy."


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Giant Interactive Flowers Have Jerusalem's City Center Blossoming

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An artist's colorful installation is giving these city residents a touch of spring all year long. 


Israeli design group, HQ Architects, has brought the city center to life with fantastical flower sculptures that blossom and move as people walk by, Contemporist reported. Located in Vallero Square, one of Jerusalem’s hubs, the bright installation, built in 2014, aims to bring some color to the metropolis.




According to Designboom, HQ architects chose Vallero Square as the site of their installation because of the area's poor condition. A tram line divides the square, which is surrounded by unsightly structures like waste composters and electrical distribution systems. Taking inspiration from the natural world, the designers wanted to provide a bold and beautiful contrast to the industrial space. 



The four sculptures -- titled “Warde” --  are 30-feet-high and 30-feet-wide, according to the site Architizer. As large groups of people walk out of the tram stops, the flowers inflate, and then close back up as the crowd dissipates.



The large petals provide shade to passersby on sunny days, but also simply add a touch of whimsy and delight to citizens’ busy days.





On Designboom, HQ Architects describe the project as an “attempt [to not] fight the chaos but instead to try and lighten up the urban space, by spreading around these four elements that have a hint of fantasy, and with their help, overcome the reality of the square.”



Watch a video of the installation below:





H/T Bored Panda


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Alice Walker Dishes On Broadway Revival Of 'The Color Purple'

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This month, Alice Walker's classic 1982 novel, "The Color Purple," will once again make its way to the Broadway stage, this time directed by Tony winning director John Doyle and starring Jennifer Hudson. 


During a recent interview with The Huffington Post, Walker expressed her excitement to see Doyle’s interpretation of her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.


“I’m glad, because the play now is the version that they did in London and I never saw it,” she said of Doyle’s acclaimed 2013 London production. “I went in yesterday to see the rehearsal, and I was amazed that the set was just 12 chairs. So that alone was quite interesting. When it was [previously] on Broadway, it was opulent. People had furniture. But I think it’s going to be quite beautiful, because I think it’s going to make the attention go to the words, so the story will be moved along very well.”


Since making its debut as a stage production on Broadway in 2005, the Scott Sanders-produced musical has earned 11 Tony Award nominations and 1 win, for LaChanze's 2006 award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical. Walker noted that her good relationship with Sanders has resulted in the stage production restoring elements of the story that were omitted from the 1985 motion picture.


“Scott Sanders and I developed a very close working relationship and he was very attentive to my feelings about certain things that were left out of the movie,” she said. “For instance, I always wanted Mister to be included in the family toward the end of the play, as he was not at the end of the movie. And so, they restored that reintegration of him into the fabric of the play.”


Moving forward, the author wants the legacy of “The Color Purple” to stand as an expression of “freedom” in the black community.


I want it to stand as an expression of the possibility of our absolute freedom. And especially our spiritual freedom. Because until the spirit is free it’s very hard to free any other part. And we desperately need to be freed from so many shackles,” she said.


A special reissue edition of “The Color Purple” will be available November 10 -- the same day that Broadway previews begin. The show's opening night is set for December 10.


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The Creators Of 'Supergirl' Know That Title Is A Bit Misogynistic

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The "Supergirl" premiere scored some impressive ratings last Monday night, fighting alien crime and the pesky idea that no one wants female superheroes.


The pilot earned approximately 16 million viewers, making it the highest-rated new show this fall. While the critical reception has been lukewarm in comparison, there's a gleeful general consensus that the show is feminist, in spite of its deceptively dismissive title.


Among the crowded roster of superhero shows, it seems the one about a woman is what we'll be talking about. As the CBS hit follows up on its heroic debut, The Huffington Post spoke to co-creator Andrew Kreisberg about crafting the character of Kara, making the decision to call her "Supergirl," and having Melissa Benoist wear that impractical-looking miniskirt.





Tell me about creating the character of Kara.


It started with [co-creator] Greg Berlanti. He finally cracked what was important when he realized that Kara is like Ginger Rogers: Fred Astaire got all the credit, but she did it backwards and in heels. You know, that was sort of the jumping-off point.


Another thing that was really important for me was this notion that, unlike her cousin [Superman] -- who came here when he was a baby, grew up in Kansas, and for all intents and purposes is an American -- Kara grew up on Krypton. You know, she lived there until she was 13 and then suddenly lost everything. So, she’s very different. She really remembers living in this advanced society. She remembers her mother, her father, her friends, her teachers and a different world. Suddenly, all of that was taken away from her and she was a junior high school student in California.


How does that fundamental difference distinguish Kara from Superman?


I think she has a little bit of this refugee PTSD that makes her hopefulness, strength, desire to protect people and see justice that much more potent. In some ways her origin story could have sent her down a very different path. I mean, she could have been blackened and beset by this very tragic backstory. Instead, she turned into something beautiful and that’s why I love her.



Kara is like Ginger Rogers: Fred Astaire got all the credit, but she did it backwards and in heels.



How do you think Kara's backstory mirrors the struggles of modern adolescence?


The story speaks to an experience that a lot of young women go through, which is that they’re told to behave, to smile and look pretty. Young women are told to suppress the things that make them unique, because women aren’t supposed to be loud, brash and funny. They’re not supposed to be kick-ass. You know, [the idea is that] boys are the ones who do that.


Watching a young woman shake all that off to embrace and revel in it is what’s amazing about her. I think that is definitely part of the infrastructure of the series. But I think it’s also a kind of universal thing. Every one of us feels like we don’t always get to be who we want to be sometimes, you know? We wish we had that opportunity to just sort of open the window and show the world what we can do. So, I think that’s why, even though it’s very much a woman’s story, it also speaks to everyone.


In the pilot, Kara directly confronts the show's title, asking why she is not called "Superwoman." How did you decide to address certain elements of her comic book history, like her name or costume?


You know, Greg and I have had so much success with “Arrow” and “Flash” embracing what these things are instead of trying to turn them into something that they aren’t. There’s always a concern, whether it’s on the part of the studio or the network or even the public that these things are going to come off as silly or campy. But the success that we’ve had is that we’ve really embraced the DNA of these characters and the worlds that they live in.


With "Supergirl," I think it was even more of a challenge because you could look at some of these things as being very silly or misogynistic. For example, with the title, there was even some early talk of, you know, "Maybe we shouldn’t call it 'Supergirl.'" There are certain generational concerns, whether it’s the skirt or the name, but we thought rather than ignore it, that that was what the show itself was. It was a commentary on those things and actually having those discussions made the show much richer and deeper than just a superhero flying around and catching planes.



Young women are told to suppress the things that make them unique, because women aren’t supposed to be loud, brash and funny. They’re not supposed to be kick-ass.



What was the decision with the costume like?


In terms of the costume, you look at Kara in the comic books and she’s wearing next to nothing or some iteration of that. So, again, that was an attempt on our part to address the silliness of a female superhero wearing essentially a bra and bike shorts. Again, the outfit sort of speaks to that.


Colleen Atwood, who designed the "Arrow" and "Flash" outfits, was so eager to do a female superhero. She'd never gotten to do that before. She looked at the classic look and said, "There’s a way to update this without doing something that doesn't feel like Supergirl." On camera, you know she is Supergirl [right away], but the outfit has been updated and modernized in a way that doesn’t feel driven by market forces or test audiences. It just is what it is.


What do you hope the impact of "Supergirl" will be? What kind of reactions have you gotten so far?


I hope that the ratings we had this week and [will have] in the future show that there really was a need and a desire for a character like this. I certainly don’t think we’re the first to do this. I think recently, if you look at “Frozen," the success of “Wicked” on Broadway or “Cinderella” last year or anything that Shonda Rhimes has done, there’s certainly been a strong desire in the marketplace for women to see more stories about themselves and to see more stories where women are at the center of shows and movies. So, I think there was certainly a desire and a need for it and we’re just really proud that we get to bring this character to life for a whole new generation of people.


So far, the best response I personally have gotten is to see the response of children, young girls and young boys enjoying the show. That is so exciting ... To think that there’s a whole new generation of kids for whom Melissa [Benoist] is gonna be their superhero is amazing. We are so proud and honored to get to be the stewards of these characters for this length of their journey, because there was a Supergirl before us and there will be a Supergirl after us, but for this part of the journey, we’re at the helm. We realize what a privilege that is, and it's something we take very seriously.


This interview has been edited and condensed.


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These Vintage Photos Recount Nigeria's History, Dissolving Stereotypes Along The Way

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"We're connecting people with their own history, their own past, through photography," Amy Staples, curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, poetically explained to The Huffington Post.


Staples is specifically referencing the photography of Nigerian artist Chief Solomon Osagie Alonge. The photographer's work is currently on view, in an exhibition titled "Chief S.O. Alonge: Photographer to the Royal Court of Benin, Nigeria." The show attempts to tell the unique story of Alonge, who, born in 1911 in Benin City, Nigeria, became his country's first indigenous court photographer.


Before Alonge's tenure, imported British artists dominated the colonial nation's photography scene, most of whom adhered to a strict European aesthetic. The self-taught Alonge, on the other hand, immersed in the ever-fluctuating political and social environments of Nigeria, was intent upon chronicling the emerging country on his own terms. Starting in 1933, he memorialized the rising members of the royal court and the Nigerian elite, particularly the Benin Social Circle, a group of respected businessmen, teachers, and educated figures, blurring the line between tradition and modernity along the way. Throughout his 50-year photographic journey, Alonge not only documented history, he shaped Nigeria's photographic traditions, leaving room for each of these two accomplishments to inflect the other. 



"We acquired the collection in 2009 from the Alonge family in Benin City, Nigeria, through Dr. Flora Kaplan, a professor at NYU," Staples recalled to HuffPost. "She knew Alonge, who had entrusted the materials to her personally. He had in mind that he wanted the materials to be preserved and exhibited in the United States. So this is a long-term vision that Alonge himself had before he died in 1994."


The rare collection of photographs documents the people, both iconic and anonymous, who comprised the Benin kingdom between the time Britain installed a new oba, or king, in the early 20th century to the country's first years as an independent state in 1960 and beyond. "He covered the royal court, the royal family, the cultural festivals and the oba. We knew it was a great collection in terms of its history and documentation, but also the quality of the images is amazing."


Alonge worked with Kodak glass plate negatives until the late 1960s, when he switched to large format black-and-white film. "He never shot in color, but he would hand color his photographs, a skill he taught himself. Generally he would only hand color an image if he had a personal relationship to the subject and wanted to give a gift to them. Or if it was a famous subject, like when Queen Elizabeth met the oba Benin."



Alonge's studio portraits of the rising elite are particularly moving, including images of government officials, teachers, lawyers, doctors, professionals and businessmen. "He really had two very different aspects of his work," Staples said. "He was the official court photographer to the king, and this was much of a documentary-type photography. When you start looking at his portraits of people, that's where you start to see the artistic and composition of the portraits that truly speak about his artistry." 



I see his artistic practice more in the studio portraits, the way he collaborated with his subjects to pose their hands and feet in particular ways, to get the best image impression. Also the sense of style, sophistication and cosmopolitan nature of how people dress and comport themselves for a portrait. The whole process was really important in terms of crafting people's identities, their sense of style, dress. The question of how do you want to be seen?
Amy Staples


The images don't just capture a nostalgic look at Nigeria's past. They've forged a connection between then and now, providing for many Nigerians at home and abroad a visual history they never knew they had. "It's allowed people to connect with relatives they haven't seen in a while, or maybe never knew existed," Staples said. "The exhibit has become a pilgrimage site for Nigerian people in the diaspora. They come here, find pictures of their relatives and of course start taking out their cell phones and iPhones and tablets and sending them back to Benin. It's actually connecting and opening up a dialogue with the whole community of Benin City."



As NPR reported, one of Alonge's subjects, 80-year-old Stella Osarhiere Gbinigie, was able to revisit her portrait, taken 65 years ago, at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. "He was a true gentleman,"Gbinigie said of Alonge. "He was always calm. He treated us like his own children, not a client."


Next year, the exhibition will travel to Benin, hopefully providing more subjects and their friends and family to share a similar experience. As for the exhibition's run in the United States, Staples hopes it will dislodge some of the ignorant stereotypes that persist regarding African culture and history. "I think a certain kind of American audience comes in with stereotypes about Africa. In the United States, what we saw of Africa in the '30s and '40s was Tarzan swinging through the trees and cannibals and savages and no distinction about African ethnicities or cultures, they were all just primitives. We carry around those stereotypes with us."


"One of the things this exhibit does immediately is break down those barriers," Staples said. "We have these very cosmopolitan, well-dressed people from Africa in the 1930s and '40s. That immediately derails stereotypes and dissolves them."


"Chief S.O. Alonge: Photographer to the Royal Court of Benin, Nigeria" runs until January 10, 2016 at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. 



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'I Smile Back' Tackles Mental Illness With Excruciating Realness

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Warning: This interview contains spoilers. 




Be warned: watching "I Smile Back," the film based on Amy Koppelman's book of the same name, will leave you very sad. Not have-a-good-cry-and-get-on-with-your-day sad, but a slow-burning, cold-bones sad. A sadness that makes you want to crawl under your covers and sleep for the foreseeable future. 


The film follows Laney, played by Sarah Silverman, a suburban mom with a loving husband, two adorable children and a big, pretty white house. Between carpool runs and tucking her kids in at night, she downs wine glasses of vodka, snorts cocaine in the bathroom and skips her meds. She's crippled by depression, anxiety and addiction, and a short stint in rehab can't assuage her paralyzing fear that the people she loves so much will leave her. As a result, she ends up leaving them.  


"I started working on Laney in like 2000 or 1999," Koppelman explained in a phone interview with The Huffington Post. "I didn't know her before I started, I just knew I was writing about a character who, every choice she made was rooted in fear and anxiety about hurting the people she loves and being hurt by the people she loves. When I wrote the scene where Laney gets banged against the wall I realized, 'Oh, that's what this story is about.' How she, in a way, feels happy because she finally looks on the outside how she feels on the inside." 


In the brutal penultimate scene of the film, Laney finds herself post-bender, near the bathroom at a bar, nearly blacked out, having sex with a stranger. When she tries to end it, he slams her face against a brick wall to which she replies, "I don't even feel it" before passing out on the floor. He steals some cash and leaves her, face bloody and purple. 




In the film, Laney comes to in the early hours of the morning, takes a cab home and makes her kids brown paper bag lunches, adorning them with bubble letters and hearts. She briefly makes eye contact with her husband and leaves. This last scene, however, was not in Koppelman's original book. "The story ended for me after Laney gets beaten up in the bar," Koppelman said. "She drives home in a taxi and it slows down and she sees the light on in Eli's room. The book ends saying, 'Regret is vivid and whole. Brazen.'"


It was Silverman who suggested the final visit home. "When we were working with Sarah she said, 'I just want to come home and do one last thing for my kids.' That second to last scene we wrote in for her, and I think that's a very important scene because it's so crucial to me to convey that this woman really loves her family. She loves her children, she loves her husband, and yet she can't help but destroy the people around her before they have a chance to destroy her."


"I felt like it was both the least and most Laney could do for her kids at that point," Silverman said, regarding the choice. "To lean on literal muscle memory to do that one mom thing for your kids -- making lunch. It was something she did for them at her strongest and weakest." The gesture also references an earlier interaction between Laney and her father, who abandoned her as a child, and who later apologizes for not making her lunch growing up.


Silverman herself commented on this echo via an email to HuffPost: "In comedy, we call it a callback!"


Laney's time on screen is characterized by a string of ever-worse decisions, endangering the well-being and safety of those around her. Viewers may be sympathetic, disgusted, enraged, empathetic, or all of the above. "It changes all the time," Silverman added, contemplating her own reactions to the character. "Makes me think of that notion that someone might go to a museum and look at the same painting every day, and one might wonder, 'Why look at that same thing over and over?' But the answer is [that] what you’re seeing changes as you change.  So it all depends on not just how I look at Laney but when, you know?"




The polarizing film received both positive and negative feedback -- it currently boasts a 44 percent on Rotten Tomatoes -- but the reaction to Silverman's dramatic performance has been unequivocal. As Peter Travers put it in Rolling Stone: "Silverman, digging so deep into her character that we can feel her nerve endings, is like nothing we've seen before."


Did Silverman know taking on a role like Laney was something she was capable of? "A bit," she revealed. "I knew I had more inside me than what I've shown in my public work but don't we all? I remember asking my agents at the time to submit me for dramas and they said, 'Well, we don't have any tape on you for drama,' and I suggested my part in 'The Aristocrats.' They laughed and I get it, but to me there's no difference in my performance in that and dramatic acting. [My character in 'The Aristocrats'] doesn't know she's in a comedy. Just like, I suppose, Laney doesn't know she's in this bleak drama."


Koppelman had her eye on Silverman before "I Smile Back" was a film at all. Listening to Silverman talk on Howard Stern, Koppelman strangely magnetized to the sound of her voice. "I just heard her on the radio and there was something about her voice that made me think she would understand me," Koppelman said. "And I think all we want as human beings is to be understood. First I just wanted to get the book to her, and the amazing thing was, she read it."


Koppelman asked Silverman almost as a joke: Would she star in a film based on the book if it were ever made? Silverman agreed, "As long as it doesn't suck." Koppelman's mission was set. Because of Silverman's performance, Koppelman explains, little was lost in the adaptation of book to film. "When I watch Sarah on screen all the internal storytelling that is in the book is all there, it's all in her eyes. She is more Laney than I could have even envisioned."




Koppelman's next book Hesitation Wounds, about a psychiatrist who specializes in treatment-resistant depression, comes out next week. "With this book I'm learning to forgive myself for being OK. I'm saying it's OK to love, and yes, everyone you love will be taken away, because we all die -- the best we can hope for is that it goes in the right order -- but while we're alive, we might as well live and love the most that we can."


As for what happens to Laney after she closes the door to her home and her life, Silverman is not too optimistic. "Well, if my eldest sis Susie is asking, I would tell her it all works out: Laney finds her bottom and builds her life back, becomes a sponsor, gets her family back, maybe goes on speaking tours ...  Susie needs to know things will work out.  But, yeah, no -- I suspect it doesn't go well for poor Laney."


"I Smile Back" was written by Amy Koppelman and Paige Dylan and directed by Adam Salky. It is now playing in select theaters. Watch the trailer below.





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There Is Now A Kama Sutra Of Architecture

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Italian artist Federico Babina has created a sort of Kama Sutra for buildings. The series, titled "Archisutra," imbues structures with the life of their inhabitants. This is not unlike his previous work -- which focuses on architecture and its connections to humanity -- but it is easily the sexiest.


"It's always fun to play with the architectural forms and volumes," Babina wrote in a statement sent to The Huffington Post. "Many architectural constructions lean, voluntarily or involuntarily, on metaphorical values and on sexual symbolism."


Anyway, this series is definitely closer to the "voluntary" end of that spectrum.



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Why One Man Is Documenting The Tattooed Bodies Infiltrating Mainstream Fashion

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Modeling isn’t really about self-expression. In fact, posing for a commercial photo might be one of the easiest ways to suppress your individuality. You’re told how to pose, and how to look appealing. Often, you’re Photoshopped to look inhumanly gorgeous.


But photographer Danny Baldwin has noticed a shifting tide -- if not a full-on sea change -- in his industry. Once working to conform to conventional beauty standards, staging models as palettes for consumers’ aesthetic aspirations, fashion photographers have begun highlighting models’ human quirks, including their tattoos.


“Over the past few years, I started to notice that the models who worked in front of my camera had changed from being fresh-faced and clean-cut, blank canvases, to the sort of models usually referred to as alternative -- individuals with an edge of defiance, whose tattoos represent the ownership they have over their bodies,” Baldwin said in an interview with The Huffington Post.


Baldwin set out to collect images of these expressive models in an anthology called Skin Deep, which currently has its own Kickstarter campaign. He’s demonstrated his commitment to the project by inking its title onto the inside of his lower lip, adding it to his growing collection of tattoos.


“I currently have my left arm, finger, both feet, all my toes,” Baldwin said. “All my tattoos have a deep-rooted, significant meaning to me and are connected to parts of my job as a photographer, people who have impacted my life, and the evolution of myself. They may look quite macabre but they are actually more my own personal affirmations.”


In addition to posing the models in his project in unconventional positions -- one kicks his feet up in a playful handstand, another crouches forward to reveal a pair of stunning, inky wings -- Baldwin asked his subjects about their connections with their tattoos, and whether their outwardly expressive bodies have led to discrimination. One model named Borja commented: “Yes [...] but I developed a stronger confidence, and what felt like a handicap at the beginning of my career has become a signature now.”


Sure, it’s not easy to empathize with someone who has confidence struggles that supersede his conventional good looks. But that the fashion photography industry has begun to allow for individuality, and difference bodes well for further inclusiveness. And, Baldwin emphasizes that the rise of tattooed models seems to be the result of a greater industry shift, rather than a passing trend.


“I think the fashion industry is very quick with trends normally, but tattooed models have started to make their way into the mainstream,” Baldwin says. “They are being true to themselves in an elite industry and expressing who they are through the medium of tattooing. I think the bigger picture is about encouraging acceptance and celebrating individuality, freedom of expression and creativity.”


Support the Skin Deep Kickstarter campaign here.










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J.K. Rowling Is Writing Her First Children's Book Since 'Harry Potter'

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In an interview with BBC Radio 2's Simon Mayo, author J.K. Rowling revealed that she's partway done with a new children's book -- her first since the "Harry Potter" series.


Rowling has, of course, written since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows debuted in 2007. She penned the adult novel The Casual Vacancy under her own name, and the Cormoran Strike series of crime novels under a pseudonym, Robert Galbraith. 


But she won't try to fool us again with another pen name. Rowling said she has plans to write under "J.K. Rowling" in the future, before hinting, "Novels in the plural." The first one just might be another book for young readers.


"I have written part of a children's book that I really love, so I'm definitely going to finish that. There will will be another children's book," the author said. She didn't give any other details about it or whether it might relate in any way to the Harry Potter universe. But, since she's already written a play to cover the years after our last glimpse of young Harry, Ron and Hermione -- "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," which debuts in London next summer -- and stated she doesn't want to tell that story in novel-form, it seems unlikely. 


Rowling, though, admitted she'll never be short on story ideas.


"I sometimes worry I'll die before I've written them all out," she said. "That's my mid-life crisis."


 


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