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For all of 2016, Charles Vestal is going to be an ass man.

The 32-year-old from Portland, Oregon, made a New Year's resolution to draw at least one butt everyday and post it to his Tumblr.

On Jan. 1 he got off to an excellent start.

"Every year, I try and set a year-long challenge for myself," he explained to The Huffington Post on Tuesday. "This year, I figured why not try and draw a butt ... Each person on this planet has a butt, but probably rarely sees it."

Vestal, who works in software, says he's just learning to draw and paint derrieres. He figured when the butts.lol domain became available, he'd go to work. "Butts are funny, and it's a funny word." 

Vestal is rendering his bums on an iPad using Procreate and promises that no day will get left behind.

"They're all just butts," he said. "And we're all just butts on this Earth."

H/T Design Taxi

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George R.R. Martin recently ‘fessed up that the final installment of Game of Throneswon’t be done anytime soon -- or at least not quickly enough to please his ravenous fans, whose love for him has proven to have limits.

If you’re of the hungrier and hungrier population of readers who just can’t wait to find out how the series ends, I’m here to tell you something you definitely don’t want to hear: other books exist. So many other books exist, that it’d be literally impossible for you read a sliver of them in the time between now and the release of the next GoT book.

This might be as futile as telling the newly heartbroken that there are other fish in the sea. But it might do you well to get back in the reading game.

This Census-Taker by China Miéville

Miéville’s work runs the gamut of genres, but each of his books fits squarely into the genre of “weird fiction,” a type of writing that combines absurdist elements with the banality of everyday life. This Census-Taker is a slim story with a few fantastical elements -- there’s a key maker, a gang of orphans who hunt bats, and a dusty old provincial town hungry for gossip -- but it’s not brimming with facts about its world the way George R. R. Martin’s books are. This mood-oriented ambiguity might be a deal-breaker for die-hard GoT fans, but for anyone more interested in fantasy in general, it’s a fresh take on the genre.

Read our review of This Census-Taker

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Nobility, romance and warring societal factions are all at play in Aveyard’s YA series, which features protagonist Mare Barrow. Mare lives in a world divided into red-blooded citizens and silver-blooded citizens, the latter given special privileges due to their special powers, which they claim are genetic. But when Mare shows off her own magical skills, she’s quickly married off to a Silver, to cover up a secret that could spark a revolution.

The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis

Okay, Ian Tregillis’ series couldn’t be more different from GoT -- BUT! -- George R.R. Martin praised it effusively (“A major new talent”) and that should count for something, right? The Mechanical doesn’t have the air of being set in the distant past or far-off lands, but instead in the actual, recent past, in a world populated by enslaved robots. It’s as fast-paced as it is philosophical, but doesn’t promise any twisted love stories or undeniably treacherous villains.

The Just City by Jo Walton

Ancient past and possible futures converge in Walton’s inventive story about a meticulously constructed community, made up of thousands of kids and far fewer adults (and robots!) to offer them guidance. The god Apollo features prominently, reincarnated as a human kid, but you needn’t be a mythology geek to enjoy this wild mashup of characters and ideas.

The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

If you’re looking to dive into another books-long series rather than a satisfying one-off, Johansen’s is a worthy contender for your TBR pile. Finally, a YA lady protagonist is celebrated for something more than her looks with Princess Kelsea Raleigh Glynn, who’s just learning the ropes with the whole leader thing. She’s got big shoes to fill -- her mother’s -- and she’s got a few magical tricks up her sleeve to help her along.

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

If the idyllic lands of Westeros are the series’ biggest draw for you, there are tons of other Medieval-like fantasies to explore. Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest novel is set during Arthurian times and centers on a couple whose hazy memories and quiet days are interrupted by a spontaneous adventure. Bonus: there’s a knight and a dragon.

Read our interview with Kazuo Ishiguro

Slade House by David Mitchell

If labyrinthine plots with sudden twists and turns are sort of your thing, you can whet your appetite by jumping into David Mitchell’s long and varied list of publications. Cloud Atlas may have the most expansive universe -- it’s an ambitious novel with a scope meant to match the ebbs and flows of history itself -- but Slade House could be a less intimidating introduction. It’s a haunted house story with a twist that’s far from mundane.

Read our review of Slade House

Half a King by Joe Abercrombie

Probably the most overtly similar to GoT both thematically and stylistically, Abercrombie is your best bet if you’re not really looking to branch out. His The Shattered Sea series is definitely not a YA take on fantasy -- these books reach Red Wedding levels of grittiness. Take it from George R.R. Martin himself, who said, “It grabbed me from page one and refused to let me go.”

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The he's-in-everything phase of Michael Shannon's career has begun. Shannon's IMDb page lists 11 films on his 2016 slate, proceeding memorable supporting work in four movies from 2015: He played a hoggish real-estate tyrant in "99 Homes" (which netted him Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations), an eccentric drug dealer in dude-pal comedy "The Night Before," a gay-rights convert in "Freeheld" and a Macy's security guard in a "She's Funny That Way" cameo. When Shannon called up The Huffington Post right before Christmas, he had just finished a play in Chicago and was taking a deserved breather in New York, hanging out with his family before heading to this month's Sundance Film Festival to promote two movies. It sounds exhausting, but Shannon was in good spirits while we discussed his recent roles, including a forthcoming stint as Elvis Presley and an appearance in "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice."

You wrapped "99 Homes" in early 2014, and you're still talking about it as 2016 begins. That's par for the course with a lot of indie movies, especially ones that play the festival circuit. Does this feel like just another average year in the life of Michael Shannon?

Well, I was very excited for “99 Homes” to come out. It’s a movie that I care deeply about and am proud to be associated with. I was very excited for it to be seen by the general public. Showing it at festivals is one thing, but particularly with a movie about this, which is about real people, getting it out to the said real people is very satisfying. Not that real people don’t go to festivals, but it’s a little bit more of a cloistered environment. But I don’t know -- I worked a lot both last year and this year. I’ve made a lot of, I guess what you would call indie films, that had very quick schedules, like five weeks or so. I was able to accumulate quite a long list of them. You make them so quickly. I rattled off like six in a row at one point, so now it’s just a question of when they’re all going to come out.

A lot of cinephiles know you for smaller films like "Take Shelter" and "Mud." When you do so many little movies, how attached can you get to their shelf life?

Yeah, you can’t have big expectations, really. I’ve done some pictures that no one has ever really seen or heard of. I think every actor or actress probably has similar stories. It’s something you hooked onto and then you feel like maybe five people saw it, if you’re lucky. But you just have to enjoy the fact that you’re there working, regardless of what the final end product is. It’s what I love to do, so as long as I get to do it. The only thing is, if you’re in films that don’t make a lot of money, then sometimes it makes it harder to get your films financed. That’s the one thing I get kind of paranoid about sometimes.

Is there a movie you look back on that didn’t find an audience that you hoped would catch on?

Oh yeah, there’s a couple, for sure. I made this movie with Jake Paltrow recently, “Young Ones,” that I thought was really lovely. And another movie I made a few years ago, “The Missing Person” -- I really like that movie a lot. But there’s a lot of movies out there, and people have a limited amount of time to watch them. Plus, TV’s so popular nowadays, it seems like most people would rather watch a TV show than a movie. 

Do you feel like people know you best for “Boardwalk Empire,” then?

Oh, definitely. That’s what I seem to be most commonly associated with, if someone stops me on the street or whatever.

You’re often affiliated with dark, menacing characters, from General Zod to the guys in "Revolutionary Road" and "99 Homes." It's not quite typecasting since every role has its own spark, but it's certainly part of your image. Where do you think that comes from?

Hmm, I don’t really know. I guess I just seem to project a certain kind of gravity. I can’t account for it personally. I know I’m drawn to stories that are complicated and tend to have a lot of conflict in them, but that’s kind of the name of the game, really. You look at Greek drama and it’s pretty full of conflict. And I’m willing to take those parts on. I’m not afraid of some of the darker elements of humanity. I’m not judgmental about it -- I just try and understand why people do the things they do.

In "99 Homes," your character, Rick, capitalizes from evicting people who are trapped in deceitful loans after the housing-bubble burst. He's pretty relentless. Does it matter to you whether you can sympathize with someone like that before playing him?

Well, I don’t think I necessarily need to have sympathy for him, but particularly in the case of “99 Homes,” a fellow like Rick Carver, as much as every other character in that story, is trying to figure out what to do. There’s a situation and a system, and you have to figure out what you’re going to do with that system. Dennis, the character that Andrew Garfield plays, is just trying to figure out how to deal with it, and Rick’s come up with his method of dealing with it. But at the end of the day, it’s the solution that makes sense to him.

"The Night Before" plays on that dark image, too. It's a broad Seth Rogen comedy, but your character is still this edgy stoner guy, and that was fun to watch. What was the pitch you received for that movie?

Well, it wasn’t a huge commitment -- just a few days. They were like, “Oh, this would be something fun to do.” I enjoy comedy as much as anybody. It seemed like it would be a fun thing to do. It didn’t take a lot of time. I’ve spent a lot of time in Chicago and I actually did some improv, so I have some history in that area and it was nice to get to use it. I’ve never made a movie like that before, really.

The stoner-burnout adult can be a cliché, but you bring something very casual and fresh to it. Did you have a particular approach in mind in terms of Mr. Green's mannerisms and persona, or, since you’re on the set for only a few days, does it just come to you when “action” is called? 

I didn’t think about it too much going into it. I just got there, and you put on the costume and come up with the look, and a lot of it is from my imagination, really. I see what you mean -- it can definitely be a cliché. But part of having fun with something, I think, is not over-analyzing it. It’s about just going off the cuff.

Did you watch the “Dawn of Justice” trailer?

No, I haven’t seen it. People say I’m in it. Am I in it? There’s some trailer or clip or something that has me in it. I’ve got people asking me about it, anyway. I haven’t seen anything to do with it. Does it look good? 

It does. I wanted to know if it captures the essence of the movie. The movie seems big, for lack of a better word. It’s a very big trailer.

Yeah, well, I’m sure they’re coming up with something because they’re trying to build up this whole Justice League thing and they’re going up against the Avengers, so it’s pretty stiff competition.

How long were you on the set?

I wasn’t around it very much. It focuses a lot more on Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and, of course, Lex Luther.

Is there a chance we'll see General Zod outside of “Batman v Superman”? 

Ha. Well, we’ll see how this one goes. Zod is, for all intents and purposes, dead, but I guess maybe some Frankenstein version of him could come back to life. I don’t know. 

Before I let you go, I have to ask about Elvis Presley. You're playing him in "Elvis & Nixon" this year. How did you prepare?

To get into it, it was a real process of immersion. I went down to Memphis and hit all the spots that people go through, like Graceland and Sun Studio and the Lauderdale Courts -- where he lived as a teenager -- and downtown Memphis. It was just walking around, trying to soak that up, and watching his movies and listening to his music. I did a lot of reading and spent time with Jerry Schilling, who was one of Elvis’ closest friends. I spent a lot of time talking to Jerry.

What advice did he offer?

His primary concern was that a lot of the time the way Elvis is represented is very flamboyant, very over-the-top and almost kind of goofy. He was interested in taking a more sophisticated approach and thinking about the psychology of it, rather than getting the moves down or whatever. It was less about the external and more about the inner workings of the guy. We wanted to take a respectful approach and not just make him seem like a silly person.

Will there be musical numbers?

No, there are no musical numbers in the film. It’s a very contained film. It’s really about this trip that Elvis took to D.C., and it’s contained in a two-day period. Sometimes I feel like that can be more revealing than a giant biopic that tries to encapsulate someone’s whole life. It’s kind of hard to tell someone’s life story in 90 minutes, but sometimes if you really just focus on one particular incident, it gives you more time to get into the specifics. And Kevin Spacey does a bang-up job as Nixon, too.

Snapshots are almost always better than cradle-to-grave biopics. Did you catch “The End of the Tour”? What you’re describing reminds me of Jason Segel in that movie.

Oh, I loved “The End of the Tour.” I thought Jason was phenomenal in that. I saw that at Sundance last year and it really knocked my socks off. I really like that director, too, James Ponsoldt; I think he’s really great.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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While poking fun at astronomer Carl Sagan in a now infamous sketch, comedy duo Tim and Eric once stated you wouldn't want to put the universe into a tube.

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The designation "outsider art" immediately implies a binary structure for the art world -- an inside and an outside.

Many contemporary and historical outsider artists fall clearly into the latter realm, their life stories almost mythical in their radical eccentricity. There's the artist who makes work while in a divine trance, the artist who spent a lifetime secretly building incredibly lifelike dolls, the artist who stopped speaking at the age of four and communicated solely through images. For many outsider artists, biographical details read like folklore, functioning alongside the artwork as sources of fascination and value in themselves. 

But there are many artists who identify as outsiders who live and work not so much on the fringes, who aren't quite so easy to classify. They don't have an MFA and their work is far from the typical Chelsea fare, but they function independently, hold steady jobs, visit museums from time to time. They occupy the cracks that often creep in between the pillars of binary distinctions.

New York artist Daniel Swanigan Snow is one such artist. After working for years as a character actor, making a name for himself in a string of cult B movies, Snow became an assemblage artist at the age of 54. Long possessing a penchant for shapeshifting himself, Snow shifted his focus to transforming objects, turning, for example, a discarded pizza box into a flat, illuminated carnival vaguely reminiscent of sauce and cheese. 

Snow, born in 1951, studied dramatic arts at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in the early 1970s. Far before this, however, he had a short-lived brush with the visual arts. 

"My first intro to art was back in junior high school," Snow explained to The Huffington Post. "I made a decent sculpture. It was so good the teacher was going to send it to a show in Cleveland. But she put the head into the kiln and it had an air bubble aneurysm and it exploded."

Approximately 40 years later, Snow put the untimely demise of his first piece behind him and took another shot. His present assemblage sculptures offer discarded objects a shot at the afterlife -- something his original work was denied -- an entryway from obsolescence into immortality. Instead of playing God, Snow plays Frankenstein. (Perhaps this is why he refers to his workspace as a laboratory.) 

Snow was first introduced to his now art dealer, Cathouse FUNeral founding director, David Dixon, while acting in his films. (Dixon, too, is somewhat of a chameleon when it comes to creativity, playing the roles of both director and gallerist.) Dixon soon realized Snow's uncanny ability to change shape. In the two films Snow acted in, he played two roles in each. There were other eccentric aspects of his personality that hinted at a constant desire to metamorphose.

"In the first film we worked on together, Snow played a camp detective, a Scooby Doo type," Dixon explained to HuffPost. "We went shopping for a costume, but Snow soon told me he wanted to work on the costume himself, to develop the character on his own."

Snow showed up on set wearing everything Dixon had suggested at the same time, garments layered atop one another. "He is always constructing his image," Dixon continued. "He likes to dress up, likes to transform in costume." 

Soon after Dixon and Snow began collaborating on screen, Snow began making art. And Dixon adjusted accordingly, shifting from a cinematic director to an art dealer. "Rather than directing him as a physical character, I get to represent him as an artist in the gallery space," Dixon said. "Before I was constructing an identity, now I'm constructing an identity around the work."

Snow begins his artistic process with an object, any durable doodad or thingamajig that happens to catch his eye. "I walk around the city a lot," Snow says, though he finds more in Brooklyn and Long Island than Manhattan. "There's all kind of stuff to be found. There's urban detritus, metal and glass, and stuff from nature, seashells and driftwood. I'm always on the lookout."

He has no particular qualifications for selecting a base. If something manages to stand out amongst the constant visual stimuli flooding New York's many boroughs at seemingly all times of day and night, it fits the bill. "It’s love at first sight," Snow says.

"I like the idea that things get a second chance," Snow added. "They might have been intended to serve one purpose and now they have another."

His three-dimensional collages resemble those of insider artists like Robert Rauschenberg and Isa Genzken, as well as outsiders like Lonnie Holley. Though Holley's practice centers around notions of sustainability and survival, Snow's is purely for the joy of the act itself. As his artist statement puts it: "Pop! The sounds of creation tearing apart old things to make new things is fun, educational and rewarding."

Dixon agrees. "He finds interesting artists on a material level, and he builds context," he explained. Starting with a cardboard box or a plastic bag or a slab of metal, Snow constructs glorious odes to unwanted waste, odd sculpted masses that show the vibrant potential of what's left behind. A babydoll head is placed atop a stool to resemble a geometric vintage robot, topped with a neon buddha. They're hybrid visions with no place of origin, an ambient collage of things, places and times that barely converge in glorious discord.

And yet, meanings and messages find ways to communicate through Snow's motley totems, like aliens communicating from the beyond. Some of his works take on environmental undertones, while many allude to contemporary civil rights issues. Back in his life as an actor, Snow starred in a one-man show based on W.E.B. Dubois, and has since incorporated themes of racial equality and justice in his work. 

One memorable piece, called "I had a Nightmare," features a photograph of a little girl shot during a Martin Luther King, Jr. rally. "It's like a Pieta," Dixon said. "It has a lot of relevance now. The Black Lives Matter movement showed us how these issues aren't new, they're just now being talked about."

Snow's exhibition at the Outsider Art Fair is titled "Sober Don't Make Art," based off an offhand quote from Snow that Dixon managed to jot down. Although he does enjoy a drink when working in his laboratory, Snow wasn't necessarily referring to alcoholic intoxication. 

"You can be stoned without drinking anything or smoking anything," Dixon explained. "He’s working with an altered state of mind. True poetry doesn’t necessarily come from inebriation. It comes from an altered state." Meditation, hypnosis, simply being open -- any of the above will do the trick. In Snow's words: "Judges don’t make art."

The exhibition chronicles one man's creative metamorphosis from actor to visual artist, a mid-life rebirth that provides Snow the artistic curiosity and unbridled creativity of a child. In art years, he's only ten.  

And yet, of course, there are similarities between acting and art that transcend the differences in technique, media and result. "When I’m working, no matter what else is going on, when I get down to the laboratory, everything is left behind and I can feel myself completely into the object," Snow said. "It’s like when I go into a character."

He mentioned another connection between art and acting, the way both possess multiple entities in one. "Most of my pieces have an electric component to them," Snow said. "They're three pieces in one — in daylight, in darkness, and when they cast a shadow. What got me into theater is how different the stage looked in regular light and when the theatrical light hit."

Snow too possesses multitudes. Multiple characters, multiple talents, multiple visions. He's not an outsider artist by the strictest Art Brut definition of the word, but he's eccentric, self-taught, outside the norm. He is showing at the Outsider Art Fair, after all. 

"I asked Dan if it’s okay to call him an outsider artist and he said every artist has to be on the outside before you are on the inside," Dixon said. By Snow's model, outside and inside are not exclusive opposites, but different phases, stages, roles, to be alternated or layered one atop the other like so many costumes. 

Daniel Swanigan Snow's work will be on view at the Cathouse FUNeral booth at the Outsider Art Fair, from Jan. 21-24, 2016, at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City. 

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I'm the kind of person who doesn't like playing games on their iPhone. I'm not much for Candy Crush or Angry Birds or Words with Friends, and I don't play Solitaire. I know there are more sophisticated games out there too, like Framed. But I already spend enough time scrolling through Twitter, checking up on Instagram and reloading Facebook that I just feel guilty anytime I attempt to play a game.

There are moments when I don't want to be bogged down by the weight of social media, though, and I turn to an outlet on my phone. I don't want to glaze over as a cache of tiny squares flash before my eyes at a million miles a minute, but I want to partake in a semi-mindless activity that helps me relax or pass the time at an inopportune moment. Games just don't do it for me.

I am the kind of person who likes to make art on my phone, even if it's just doodling on a digital sketchpad. There are a lot of us out there. And we're hungry for a new app that can satisfy our attention, but not numb our senses. Here is a list of my favorites -- from painting to mixing music to creating animations to coloring books. Let me know your recs in the comments.

(Warning: I am an Apple user, but there are a few Android recs on the list.)

Art Set

What is it? A virtual art set, equipped with paints, oil pastels, wax crayons, colored pencils and marker pens. You can draw and paint new images or import existing ones; you can blend, zoom for detail, add texture, and undo and redo. ALL THE THINGS, basically.

Who would like it? Anyone who wants to create art on the go.

Available on:Apple

Price: $0.99

Chromaldry

What is it? Coloring book art therapy. You can turn your photos into black-and-white versions of themselves, and add pigments just like you would any other coloring book. Remember, coloring is a stress-

Who would like it? Anyone searching for mindfulness without actually being able to let go of their phones.

Available on: Apple

Price: $2.99

Loop

What is it? A hand-drawn animation tool! 

Who would like it? Anyone's who dying to make their own cartoons from a mobile device.

Available on: Apple and Android

Price: Free

Field

What is it? This one was designed by Austrian video artist Rainer Kohlberger. As its description states, the apps works through an iPad or iPhone's camera, reacting to the light and colors in your environment and translating them into tones, sounds and geometric patterns. Essentially, your taking pictures, but instead of realistic depictions of your friends sticking out their tongues, the end result will look a little like the one above, accompanied by audio determined by an algorithm.

Who would like it? Your nerdiest AV friend.

Available on:Apple

Price: $1.99

Brushes

What is it? A painting app with various brush sizes and settings, simulated pressures, adjustable color opacity and layering capabilities. Bonus, you can record the making of a painting.

Who would like it? Painters, duh.

Available on: Apple

Price: Free

Bubble Harp

What is it? Created by quirky app guru and visual artist Scott Snibbe, Bubble Harp records and replays fingertip movements (long movements from a single point or several) as bubbles and translates them into music. The experience is a combination of drawing, animation, music, art, geometry and gaming. 

Who would like it? An avant-garde gamer.

Available on: Apple

Price: $1.99

Bamboo Paper

What is it? A digital sketch pad for drawings, notes and random scrawls that lets you zoom, import photos and share. (Best used with a Bamboo Stylus.)

Who would like it? Doodlers.

Available on: Apple and Android

Price: Free

Keezy

What is it? An app-turned-musical-instrument that lets event the most amateur of musicians master the art of a sound board using just eight colored tiles. 

Who would like it? Musicians and wannabe musicians. Also, baby musicians and Reggie Watts, according to the iTunes description.

Available on: Apple

Price: Free

Colorfly

What is it? Another coloring book app, except this one is a digital version of Johanna Basford's Secret Garden images (you know, the coloring books you see at the front of your local bookstore and are practically leaping off the shelves).

Who would like it? Real, serious coloring book enthusiasts.

Available on: Apple and Android

Price: Free

Uzu

What is it? You might have to try this one out to see exactly what it involves, but I highly recommend it. From the iTunes description: "Uzu is a Generative Design Playground -- a sort-of math-physics-art-toy for anyone who ever loved spirographs, fireworks, planetariums, lava lamps, light sabers, pen lasers, tesla coils, christmas lights, or graphing calculators."

Who would like it? The kinds of people who spend hours staring at their iPads and wish they were doing something more intelligent.

Available on: Apple

Price: $1.99

Tayasui Sketches

What is it? This drawing app includes digital pencils, Rotrings, watercolor brushes, and felt pens. I personally like it for the watercolor aspect.

Who would like it? People who like creating simple, daily drawings.

Available on: Apple

Price: Free (but you can purchase a pro toolbox)

Glitche

What is it? An app that let's you make glitch art. Lily Allen called it "sick" and I agree.

Who would like it? Lily Allen.

Available on: Apple

Price: $0.99

Penultimate

What is it? Really, just a notebook. But it let's you take handwritten notes, something that I love to do on the train or in a waiting room. 

Who would like it? Those of us who miss the lost art of handwriting, or habitual doodlers, whose college course notes are littered with impromptu comic characters.

Available on: Apple

Price: Free

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Another disappointing season for the Philadelphia Eagles has left the franchise down a coach and its fan base incensed, willing and wanting to hurl the worst possible insults at the organization and its players. 

For one fan, that insult came in its laziest form: emasculation. The fan wrote on Facebook that the Eagles “played like they were wearing tutus!!!” -- suggesting that those who don tutus are weak and ineffectual, fundamentally lesser than those who, say, suit up in pads and helmets every week.

Of course, that claim is entirely incorrect. Year after year, these dancers work endless hours, train until they can barely stand, in order to perfect the pas de bourrées and sautés requisite for a given performance.

Seriously, has this man not seen "Black Swan"?

Last week, the Pennsylvania Ballet decided to say as much when it responded to the Eagles fan, shutting down the derisive remark so entirely that the post has subsequently garnered over 30,000 Facebook likes. 

Here is the ballet's response in its entirety: 

With all due respect to the Eagles, let's take a minute to look at what our tutu wearing women have done this month:

By tomorrow afternoon, the ballerinas that wear tutus at Pennsylvania Ballet will have performed The Nutcracker 27 times in 21 days. Some of those women have performed the Snow scene and the Waltz of the Flowers without an understudy or second cast. No 'second string' to come in and spell them when they needed a break. When they have been sick they have come to the theater, put on make up and costume, smiled and performed. When they have felt an injury in the middle of a show there have been no injury timeouts. They have kept smiling, finished their job, bowed, left the stage, and then dealt with what hurts. Some of these tutu wearers have been tossed into a new position with only a moments notice. That's like a cornerback being told at halftime that they're going to play wide receiver for the second half, but they need to make sure that no one can tell they've never played wide receiver before. They have done all of this with such artistry and grace that audience after audience has clapped and cheered (no Boo Birds at the Academy) and the Philadelphia Inquirer has said this production looks "better than ever."

The Pennsylvania Ballet has once again proved that there is no room for sexism at the barre or on the gridiron. Looks like the Eagles lost this one by way of their fan, too. 

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Bachelor Ben Higgins's journey toward lovability kicked off Monday night, and, as promised, it will include twins.

Slender, fawn-like blondes who waitress in Las Vegas, 22-year-old Haley and Emily stepped out of the limo together, hugged Ben together, flanked him on a Bachelor mansion couch for "one-on-one" time, and gave joint in-the-moment confessionals as the evening unfolded. "Group hug?" he proposed, with a disbelieving grin plastered all over his face, as the two girls emerged from the car.

We already knew from their too-cute bios ("Occupation: Twin") and brief glimpses in promos that their genetically cozy relationship would be played as a gimmick on the show. What actually went down Episode 1, however, wasn't just gimmicky: It was creepy.

Emily and Haley, admittedly, play up their hot twin-ness throughout the premiere. They say "Yes, please!" in unison, giggle musically in unison, ride a tandem bicycle (rather badly) in their intro video, and claim to be able to finish each other's sentences.

But come on, the producers know exactly what they're doing by casting beautiful, barely adult twins, having them exit the limo together, and positioning them together on a couch with Ben for what is, traditionally, his moment to get to know a contestant individually.

Emily and Haley are presented as a nubile, blonde package deal, though "The Bachelor" can get away with exploiting the sexual twin fantasy in early episodes by virtue of its marriage-based trajectory, which gives it plausible deniability for any sort of tawdry sexual tactics. 

Now, it's not entirely fair to ask why "The Bachelor" is obsessed with sexualizing twins. The show is simply the great mirror to our most tortured-Puritanical national neuroses. So it's more like ... why is American culture so wink-wink weird about twins?

Nothing encapsulates this preoccupation like those beer ad jingles you've had stuck in your head for the last decade-plus. In 2002, Coors Light commercials shredded eardrums across the nation with a Kid Rock wannabe drawling, "I. Love. Football on TV. Shots of Gina Lee. Hanging with my friends. And twinnnnsss!" You probably remember that song, those ads. And twins! 

The sexualized fascination with twins doesn't originate with that ad campaign, which was dreamed up by ad agency Foote Cone & Belding, but that song managed to crystallize it in a powerful, all-American package. In interviews about their hit campaign in 2003, the men behind the concept, Aaron Evanson and John Godsey, almost struggle to put the appeal of twins into words. "We were trying to think of what rhymes with friends, and then it hit -- guys like twins!" Evanson told The New York Times.

Godsey chimed in, "Triplets didn't rhyme." Charming. (Worse yet, octuplets didn't even come close.)

But seriously, what is it with guys liking twins? The creative director for the group at FCB behind the campaign, Chuck Rudnick, mused to USA Today, "Nobody would argue men love women, so why not two of them? That's why twins rings so true." Indeed, why not two?

Twins aren't just two women, though, especially in this commercial and on "The Bachelor": They're a matching set. The thrill, for a red-blooded, straight man (2003 was, it seems, a time before hot takes about heteronormativity) is almost blatantly consumerist. If you were buying two throw cushions, a matching set would be visually pleasing; if you have two hot women, it would be even sexier if they also matched each other! 

Throw pillows, of course, don't have an inner life or personality. Looking at women, who very much do, with the same "what if they matched?" superficiality might be the height of objectification. Their dreams, values, senses of humor, all are flushed down the toilet in favor of salivating over the fact that you can get double the sexy in the same model. 

The softcore wink at what men "really want" allows the incestuous undertones to be glossed over. But come on, we're not stupid. If the ultimate fantasy of twins were to be fulfilled -- not just looking at them, but having them there in front of you, interested and eager -- a threesome with matching hot women would be the logical conclusion of all this swooning over, as the ad puts it, "twiiinnnsss!"

Witness the group hug Ben Higgins is treated to by Emily and Haley, or the staging of the two of them seated next to him for their "private" conversation. The girls even repeat to him that they never date the same man; he's an exception. He's special, deserving of both. It's not just that they're there, confusing him with their identicality, it's that he can have two with the looks of one. 

And yes, the insinuation that twins will want to have sex with you, a normal American man, ignores the reality that this scenario is, basically, incest. In a patriarchal, heteronormative society, two women having sex with each other, or participating in a sexual act together, often isn't treated as real sex -- but it is. And for two sisters, as close as sisters can be, participating in a threesome together means sexualizing their closest family member. In the every-dude's fantasy, these just happen to be hot, matching women, but in reality, twins are real sisters with a real family relationship.

Am I being a feminist killjoy, trying to ruin the fun of "twiiinsss" for simple, goodhearted men across America? Yes. Yes, I am. But I kinda think treating women who happen to be born as twins with respect is a bit more important, and "The Bachelor" should be the one TV institution prudish enough to at least pretend to agree.

For more on the twins and beyond, check out HuffPost's Here to Make Friends podcast on the premiere episode of Season 20:

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Three words. One image. On Jan. 7, 2015, at 12:52 p.m., Joachim Roncin published a personal message on Twitter: "Je suis Charlie."He had no idea that his message would become, in the span of only a few minutes, one the entire world would pick up as a symbol of solidarity.

Since that day, "Je suis Charlie" has appeared on social media profile pictures, posters and front pages the world over. One year later, the passion has not subsided. Without intending to, this Parisian artistic director and music journalist created a slogan for demonstrations of unity across the planet.

Roncin is quick to say that "Je suis Charlie" does not belong to him. It’s for that reason that he has not been very vocal on the subject.

But one year after the events, as a week of commemorations and tributes begin, the creator of "Je suis Charlie" agreed to revisit this phenomenon with HuffPost France.

Where were you on Jan. 7, 2015?

I was at an editorial meeting at Stylist magazine. A journalist who was scanning Twitter alerted us. We stopped our meeting, without really knowing what had happened. There was talk of "attacks," of "gunshots" at Charlie Hebdo at that time, and we rushed to our computers to find out more.

On Twitter, I saw the news come in, piece by piece. I began to understand that something horrible had just happened.

And when no one could find words, you created a phrase and an image ...

In a rather automatic way, as I do every day as a news artistic director, I started gathering elements related to the subject. In this case, the covers of Charlie Hebdo. Their logo.

I sat for two seconds, with all the material laid out in front of me, and I tried to understand what they inspired within me.

What emerged was stupefaction, bewilderment. It's hard to say how it came to me. Everything happened within a fraction of a second. I tweeted this thing a few minutes after the announcement of the attacks, around 12:50 p.m., then everything certainly moved very quickly.

Were you a regular reader of Charlie Hebdo? 

Not at all. I had picked it up before, but I didn't buy it every week. But there were some issues at home, at my father's house. I read Hara-Kiri. For me, it evokes an entire period. This possibility to laugh at everything and to protest with laughter.

And your reaction was to create an image and publish it on Twitter?

Yes, but I never intended to create something that would go viral. At no point did I want to put on a publicity stunt. The idea was really to relay a personal message. Something rather pure.

When I said "Je suis Charlie" on Jan. 7, these three words were not at all politicized, and that's still the case for me. It is only a way to express the fact that I am not afraid, that they did not affect me, my vision of democracy, or my vision for freedom of expression. These are the things I wanted to express immediately. 

In the days that followed, we saw various analyses on the profound meaning of these three words. The Washington Post discussed the collective spirit surrounding the words "Je suis." Others debated the "suis" of your slogan. They tried to figure out if it was a form of the verb "etre" [to be] or the verb "suivre" [to follow]. What do you think of all these interpretations, and this quest for meaning?

When I wrote it, my intentions weren’t as advanced as that. The message was pure. It was also a form of respect for the families of the victims. A simple way of saying, "I am in solidarity."

Later, I cited my sources. Obviously I cited "Spartacus" by [Stanley] Kubrick, as it's a film I know well. I cited Kennedy ("Ich bin ein Berliner"). There is also "We are all Americans" after the attacks of Sept. 11. These are all the relevant references.

But with analysis and post hoc analysis, people can say what they want in images and words. Notably, there is Emmanuel Todd, who has written volumes about it. There is an analysis, which is not my own, on the march of Jan. 11, saying that it’s all a big masquerade and that it’s not representative of the French demographic. What I take from it is that on Jan. 11, there was a communion, a solidarity with the victims, from the 7th, 8th or 9th of January. 

What must be remembered is that there are people who are dead because they made drawings. We cannot dispute that. It is as stupid as that. No one has the right to kill someone else over drawings. It is something Miss France could have said, but that's it! This is what I wanted to say on Jan. 7.

When a slogan has a global impact, at a given time, there will be contrary opinions. And that leads to arguments. In that way, we begin to criticize, to take positions. 

Me, a little guy in front of his screen, dropping three words on the Internet -- and the image makes its way around the world several times. It was beyond surreal.

Do you have the impression that the slogan got away from you?

That's what I really wanted. I very quickly detached myself from it. I didn't want it to belong to me. 

It's a personal message that I tweeted to 400 followers. It just happened that the slogan gained ground, but it was not me who made it successful. It was social networks. So if people identify with and approve of the message, very well. It belongs to everyone.

I never patented the brand. Rather, I quickly approached INPI [National Industrial Property Institute] when I found out that people were trying to trademark the slogan "Je suis Charlie." For me, it was important that it be free, that no one could patent this slogan, not even me. I don’t know if I played a role there, but INPI issued a press release to announce that they would not accept any patent request regarding "Je suis Charlie."

But that did not prevent people from appropriating the slogan. There have been very beautiful things, very funny things, but also very awful things such as "Je suis Charlie Coulibaly" or "Je suis Charlie Martel," which came out even before the victims were buried. That was hard for me to believe.

Did you reach out to the survivors of Charlie Hebdo after Jan. 7?

Yes, definitely. There was an outburst around the slogan. It was crazy. Me, a little guy in front of his screen, dropping three words on the Internet -- and the image makes its way around the world several times. It was beyond surreal ... Really, I still haven't understood why.

But there was something that bothered me: I was not in contact with the people at Charlie Hebdo and I didn't know what they would think. I was very concerned that they would not understand my intentions. It was also for this reason that I wasn't very vocal! I didn't want to be indecent. The victims are the people at Charlie Hebdo, the people at the Hyper Cacher, the police ... not me!

The night a number of survivors were released, Tuesday, Jan. 13, Canal+ asked me to participate in the nightly show "Grand Journal" with the members of Charlie Hebdo. I declined, and I told them that instead I would be delighted to meet the team and talk. They said yes, and I went backstage.

I met Zineb [El Rhazoui] and Luz and it was an absolutely wonderful meeting. They took me in their arms, told me positive things about the slogan and that really lifted a weight off my shoulders! I said to myself, "OK then, they understand it."

Luz told me something sublime that I will never forget, and it brought me to tears. He told me, with respect to the march of Jan. 11: "Honestly, Joachim, I don't know if Sunday would have been as important if you had not written those words." That deeply moved me, and in that moment I cried from my heart.

There are also variations of "Je suis Charlie" as signs of solidarity. We can name "Je suis Raif" in support of the Saudi blogger Raif Badawi and "Je suis Tunis" after the attack on the Bardo Museum. Do you approve of those?

Definitely! When we start to find the DNA of a slogan which defends freedom of expression, freedom of the press, democracy, yes, I can only embrace it.

But I am also not here to evaluate it. That is not my role since "Je suis Charlie" does not belong to me. 

Gradually, we have seen more lighthearted and even humorous variations appear. "Je suis, je suis, je suis Julien Lepers" for example. What is your view of these diversions?

It's funny! It says that this thing has become a pop icon. And you know when I realized it? When I saw it at the end of a Simpsons episode. I said "Ah, yes, OK, it has gone into the pop sphere."

But this thing is like dough that can take the form of different causes, different kinds of humor, etc. I am thinking of "Je suis Chablis" for example.

And on the night of Nov. 13, people sent me rather quickly: "Je suis en terrasse." Some versions still have the mark of a real fight.

But, it doesn't work for everything! Excuse me, but I don’t think that the plumbers and locksmiths need to make flyers for our mailboxes saying "Je suis utile" ["I am useful"]. When it’s pure communication, with nothing behind it, I think it doesn't work.

Have you ever spoken up to condemn a specific use of "Je suis Charlie?"

Initially, I did when I saw people selling "Je suis Charlie" T-shirts or caps. There are still many vendors doing so. They say that a part of the proceeds is given to the families of the victims, which is obviously not true. I don't doubt the sincerity of the people who are going to buy it to show their solidarity, but the people who sell it do it simply for money ...

I only work with Reporters Without Borders, who have produced T-shirts. And in that case, the funds go to support freedom of the press.

Have you been working much with Reporters Without Borders?

They were the first to contact me about using "Je suis Charlie." I said yes, no problem. And since then, I have worked with them. I am on theReporters Without Borders board, and I participate in their fight for the defense of freedom of expression throughout the world.

What has "Je suis Charlie" changed for you, personally and professionally?

I always had conviction, but I wasn’t always a very involved person. Now I am. I am involved with Reporters Without Borders as I told you. I also go to schools. I explain to them what freedom of expression is, what defamation is, I show them examples from the press, and I try to show young people that they shouldn’t take everything they see on the Internet literally.

From a professional point of view, nothing has changed. I got offers but I declined. I think that those who approached me at the time, did so for the wrong reasons. I don’t wish to encourage people who only see me through the prism of "Je suis Charlie."

One year after the January attacks, what remains of "Je suis Charlie"?

There is an ongoing fight for freedom of expression. That's something that should be cherished. Until Jan. 7, it was something acknowledged a priori in France. Until we saw that this was not the case.

It’s still the same. In Jan. 7, 2015, or January 2016, and it will not change.

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Because elements of Quentin Tarantino's stories interconnect, each of his movies is like a time capsule, cherry-picking minutiae from previous (or future) films to create a shared universe in which, say, Mia Wallace describes the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad from "Kill Bill" and the Hollywood producer in "True Romance" is the son of the nefarious Bear Jew from "Inglourious Basterds." 

Before Tarantino's new movie, "The Hateful Eight," opened in theaters, The Huffington Post got Tim Roth to confirm that his character also has a connection to "Basterds." And on Tuesday, during an Oscar-campaign brunch for "Hateful" in Manhattan, Samuel L. Jackson revealed the Western boasts a couple of subtle nods to "Django Unchained."

When we first meet Jackson's character, a former Union soldier turned bounty hunter named Marquis Warren, he is stranded in the snow. Transporting the bodies of three outlaws so they can be hanged in an adjacent Wyoming town, Warren hops a ride on a stagecoach in which a primo bounty hunter (Kurt Russell) is escorting a fugitive (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to her own hanging. Before Warren peers up at the wagon to request a ride, we see him standing behind three stacked corpses. Sitting on top of them is a saddle.

As it turns out, that saddle belongs to another Civil War-era bounty hunter: Django, whom Jamie Foxx played in the lucrative 2012 dark comedy.

Jackson told us that an even subtler callback occurs later in "Hateful," after the stagecoach stops to ride out a blizzard at Minnie's Haberdashery, a lodge where most of the film takes place. Look closely at the assorted goods sprinkled throughout Minnie's, and you may spot Django's green corduroy jacket. Jackson said it's sitting on the floor. 

Got room for one more tie-in? What about Marquis himself? Could he be affiliated with another inhabitant of the Tarantino cosmos? Perhaps he has an unlikely connection to "Pulp Fiction" hitman Jules Winnfield, we wagered? 

"You know what, we'd go through things like that," Jackson said with a smile, referring to discussions he and Tarantino had about Marquis' lineage. "We actually talked about it, laughed about it and said we won't create that connection just yet. But it's a very real possibility. Jules is a Winnfield, not a Warren. But who knows?"

Starting to see pictures, ain't ya?

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I watched "The Cosby Show" for the first time in a year over the holiday weekend. Last fall, I'd unofficially sworn off the series that had raised me after the numerous allegations of rape and sexual assault against Bill Cosby resurfaced in the news. My decision not to watch the show (which, before the scandal erupted I had marathoned every year), wasn't wholly moralistic. It didn't feel "right," but not just because of the nature of the allegations against the 78-year-old comedian. To be perfectly honest, I was afraid I would no longer be able to enjoy my favorite black sitcom or, worse, I would actually enjoy it and then I'd feel guilty. 

By refusing to watch something I had once loved, I was protecting my own nostalgia. Nostalgia is a powerful thing. It shapes identity, distorts memory, and sits precariously at the intersection of the bitter and the sweet. Re-watching "The Cosby Show," in light of Cosby's recent arraignment, was the very definition of bittersweet. There's so much weight in this show, its legacy, its cultural impact, and the impact it had on me as an individual. For me, like so many other black people who grew up with the show either during its original run or through re-runs, the Huxtables weren't just a collection of colorful, fictional TV characters. They were something closer to family. 

I watched my two favorite episodes -- the one where Vanessa runs away to go have "big fun with The Wretched" and gets chewed out by Claire Huxtable in a way only a black mother could, and the one where Theo is desperate to get an expensive Gordon Gartrell shirt to impress a girl. My favorite part: the screech of Theo's cracking voice as he screams "Denise!" from upstairs, and the subsequent reveal of the knockoff shirt his sister sewed for him in all its hilarious, discombobulated glory. 

I chuckled at a few jokes, even at the moments I've seen hundreds of times. I got the same warm fuzzies I've always felt when I saw the Huxtable family huddled together on the couch of their brownstone living room, or heard the jazzy theme song go over the iconic credits. But mixed in with all that familiarity was, as expected, a feeling of unease and uncertainty whenever Cliff Huxtable was on screen. His knowing smile, his playful teasing and his witty one-liners all felt disjointed and out of place. Maybe even a little sinister. It was fascinating, because nothing has changed about this show. But everything has changed. 

There's been so much debate about what to do with "The Cosby Show" in the wake of Cosby's rape scandal. Some people have questioned how justified it is to pull the series from syndication and streaming services. They've argued that, regardless of whether or not you "believe" that Bill Cosby is a rapist, people should be able to separate the man from the character and the legacy of the show. And yet, how can you separate two things that are so intrinsically linked? 

When reports of Bill Cosby's alleged history of sexual abuse resurfaced last year, a part of me wanted to hold on to the distinction between Bill Cosby, the accused serial rapist and Cliff Huxtable, America's Dad. I think an argument can be made, in some cases, for separating an entertainer's personal life, however messy it is, from how one feels about their art. But the fact that Cosby used his Cliff Huxtable persona as leverage for allegedly perpetrating and hiding his assaults makes that impossible for me to do. 

During its heyday, "The Cosby Show" was groundbreaking. But its cultural importance and impact were very much tied to the time in which it was released, and to the way American pop culture interacted with blackness. Its legacy has reverberated through television and pop culture, informing and paving the way for TV shows from "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" to "Black-ish."

The show, its legacy, and Cosby's persona as the wholesome savior of the black community have been used as "proof" of his innocence in the aftermath of the numerous allegations against him. "I'm respecting a man who has done more for the image of Brown people that almost anyone EVER," singer Jill Scott said in 2014. It's a sentiment that so many Cosby defenders stand by. 

One cannot deny the impact the show made during its prime, or the significance it held for the black community. But what "The Cosby Show" meant in 1984 is very different than what it means in 2016. And to insinuate that the show's social impact alone is a more convincing marker of Cosby's innocence than the testimony of 60 women is of his guilt is to fall into the trap of nostalgia. Being talented and building a legacy does not prevent you from being a monster. 

Letting go of "The Cosby Show" means letting go of Bill Cosby as we knew him. And that's scary. It's a kind of loss of innocence. The innocence lost from the Cosby scandal strangely dovetails with a kind of innocence lost surrounding the idea of the Black American Dream, something we have tightly clung to. "The Cosby Show" exemplified the idea that black people could be "good,""relatable" people -- if they were respectable enough. It's a narrative that Cosby himself has clung to in the decades since the show ended, chiding black folk for "ghetto" names and baggy pants. 

But today, in the age of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and Ferguson, it's clearer than ever that respectability has very little to do with the way black people are perceived and treated. Indeed, it is completely irrelevant. And in that sense, "The Cosby Show" is completely irrelevant. It feels almost heretical to make that declaration. But the false deference and reverence that so many black people have placed on this show, and by association, Bill Cosby, is equally strange. 

So many of the defenses surrounding Cosby have hinged on race. People have denounced the allegations as a "conspiracy," have pointed out a double standard between the treatment of Cosby and white celebrities who've faced allegations of sexual assault or had sex scandals, like Woody Allen and Bill Clinton. They've questioned why these women would wait so long to speak out, or even choose to be alone with a "known married man." They've done mental and emotional gymnastics to protect their own feelings of nostalgia. 

Last week, when comedian Eddie Griffin came to Cosby's defense in an interview for Vlad TV, insisting that there is "a systematic effort to destroy every black male entertainer's image," user comments on the gossip site The Shade Room responding to his stance were overwhelmingly in agreement:

What's disturbing is that, in seeking to defend Cosby's reputation, so many of his defenders have done so by shaming and blaming his accusers. It makes sense to feel an attachment to the legacies and personas of our black heroes. So many of them have been unfairly vilified and demonized in the name of white supremacy. Our black heroes are, after all, reflections of ourselves. When they fall, a little bit of us goes with them. 

Watching "The Cosby Show" in the wake of Cosby's trial doesn't make you a bad person. But using "The Cosby Show" to defend Bill Cosby, perhaps, does. That is my biggest takeaway after returning to the series.

"The Cosby Show" was and is a great sitcom. But a work of fiction, no matter how culturally potent it is in the minds of the viewers who loved it, is still ultimately just that. Maybe, as we strive to redefine what it means to be black in America, it's time to take our American Dream into the future and leave the shadow of Bill Cosby behind. 

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Cheyenne Jackson, currently co-starring in "American Horror Story: Hotel," which returns tonight on FX, has had a multi-faceted career on Broadway, in films, on television and as a recording star. Still, the intense sex scenes in "Horror Story" — in which his character, bisexual fashion icon Will Drake, marries the Countess, played by Lady Gaga — were something new to him. And he was a bit nervous.

“It was the first time I’d ever done that,” he said in an interview with me on SiriusXM Progress, about his role in the fifth season of Ryan Murphy’s "American Horror Story" franchise. “I had to look to [co-star] Matt Bomer, who’s done a lot of nudity — who’s nude a lot [in 'American Horror Story'], as he should be [laughter]. But you know, Matt is just so very pragmatic about it. He’s like, 'Well, here’s my costume,' and holds up his little string that we put on to cover our junk. But it’s part of the deal. It’s how it goes. I had to sign my first nudity rider — at 40. I was like, ‘Man.’ But you know, that’s what you do. “

It was in fact the scenes with Gaga in "Horror Story" that helped prepare Jackson for the sex scenes in the upcoming film adaptation of the Off-Broadway musical Hello Again with Audra McDonald. After a day of shooting, he recently posted a photo of himself and McDonald on Instagram, with the caption: “Love this lady…Had rough fake sex with this lady all day.”

“It’s kind of a crazy part of my job,” he said in our interview. “But it’s been really fun. And Audra was totally down. And the show, Hello Again… is all about sex. And it’s all about these desires and how they manifest between these relationships with people, so you kinda gotta go there. It was my time with Gaga on "Horror Story" that prepped me to do the stuff I did in the movie.”

”For a gay dude,” he joked, “I’m getting a lot of pussy.”

Of those first sex scenes with Gaga, the quips kept coming. “Yeah, it was hard. it was scary,” he said, adding, “Well, it wasn’t hard, but you know.”

“The first time you do it, it’s totally bizarre,” Jackson further explained. “And there’s 50 people standing around and you’re simulating a sex act…Luckily [Lady Gaga is] so comfortable with her body. She’s very free and she takes care of you in the scene. She wants you to be your best and to be comfortable, which is so great. I wasn’t expecting that. She was definitely taking care of me and making sure that I felt comfortable and good. And so, it made it easy. So then, after six hours of doing it, you know, you don’t even reach for your robe between takes. You’re just like, ‘Eh, fuck it.'”

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Asem Hasna, a 21-year-old Syrian student from Qatana, near Damascus, left his studies to volunteer in hospitals to help war victims in his country. When a bomb hit his ambulance, several children lost their lives and Hasna was so badly injured his leg had to be amputated.

He traveled to neighboring Jordan for medical treatment, where he met two other Syrians being treated for war injuries -- 23-year-old Ahmad Orab, who lost his sight after being shot by a sniper, and 28-year-old Deeb Alkhateeb, who was also hit by sniper fire and is partially paralyzed.

Last year, the three Syrians set off to Europe, along with a 28-year-old Syrian friend named Moaead Arafa, who was helping escort Orab, as well as the family of Hasna's aunt and uncle.

Award-winning Greek photographer Maro Kouri heard about the group’s perilous journey through a mutual friend, and decided to document their odyssey. Once they reached the Greek island of Lesbos on a flimsy smuggler boat from Turkey, she accompanied them through the Balkans all the way to the German capital of Berlin.

The most challenging part of the journey was crossing the Serbian-Croatian border, Kouri said. “It felt like we had arrived in the middle of nowhere ... There were no tents, no infrastructure, nothing,” she said. “But there was a great number of volunteers who had come from around the world saying, ‘I want to help,’ and they handed out raincoats, tea and dry clothes.”

Traveling with the refugees gave Kouri the opportunity to share their hopes and dreams, she said. “Everyone kept saying how they just wanted to turn their life around,” she said. “These are people who were in a war just a few days ago. Now they want to work and live. And one day, they hope to return to their country.”

Kouri’s photographs will be shown at an exhibition called “The Journey of the Refugee: From the Aegean Sea to Berlin -- Following Asem” at the Athens School of Fine Arts until Jan. 10.

This story was first published in HuffPost Greece and has been translated and adapted for an international audience.

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 This article originally appeared on artnet News.

Using cutting-edge, non-invasive technology, chemical engineer Dr José Francisco García Martínez of the University of Barcelona, in collaboration with the Museu Picasso, Barcelona analyzed works from the artist's early period, prior to the advent of Cubism.

“We didn't work invasively, only with light. Spectrometry is a proven and long-used method, but the analytical equipment, up to now, did not allow us to examine large objects such as a work of art," Garcia Martinez told Der Standardin an interview.

“It is similar to space research, whereby the chemical composition of far-away planets is analyzed based on the light they reflect," he explained. "Reflectometry in the infrared region provides an insight into its layers and its composition."

The study not only reveals information about the composition of the artist's early work—which will be of great interest for art historians—but also provides what García Martínez calls “a chemical fingerprint of the young Picasso's process," which could prove to be invaluable for authentication and the detection of fakes.

“This chemical fingerprint is unique to the painter and allows us to characterize him. It is not only about the materials used but also about traces, which for example give us clues about where Picasso bought his pigments. This is a solid scientific basis for research," García Martínez explained.

Despite the important findings, the chemical engineer said there's still work to be done. "That's the way it is in science. When you answer a question, the answer raises even more questions," he said.

The chemical fingerprint isn't the only science-based authentication system that's helping the art world tackle fraud. In October, scientists developed a unique synthetic DNA tagging system for artworks with the aim of preventing forgery.

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This article first appeared on QuietRev.com

Breakups suck. It’s an inescapable fact. They turn the wisest of us—even your sage yoga teacher who meditates every day perched upon the petals of a lotus blossom—into goblin-like creatures, hunched over and bellowing about the misery of our shriveled, broken hearts. (Accurate description, no?) As introverts, we’re hit especially hard by these circumstances. Our groups of friends and connections are very intimate, so it’s pretty difficult to watch circles of trust grow even smaller while attempting to bid adieu to an important part of your life.

But I’m here to say that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. You’ve loved and lost, but this is a transient state. You will not be down and out forever, however much you feel like subsisting on nothing but ice cream and packages of Oreos. (And no, this is not a cliché. Oreos help with the pain—it’s a scientific fact.) You’re probably crying over your keyboard right now, so I’m going to give you some pointed reminders. You might need to repeat them to yourself ad nauseam until you feel better. Are you ready? First…

Take a deep breathe and chill out

In especially important matters of the heart, my brain can spin the situation out of control. Dating becomes less, “Hurray! The potential for love and companionship and a rad travel buddy!” and more, “Everything’s on the line! This is life or death, people!” If this happens on a good day of dating, imagine what it’s like during a breakup. (Compound the anxiety times a million, and you’ll be in the general vicinity of my state of mind.) The amount of energy I’ve spent trying to decide if I should reactivate an online dating profile could power a small city. And all that it requires is the click of a stupid computer button.

Sound familiar?

Breakups are the time when you have to tell yourself to CHILL. THE. F**K. OUT. And look, I get it. This is the simplest advice, but it’s far from easy. Your heart is fractured into pieces; you’re crying in the bathroom at work; and it requires all your strength to get off the couch and shower. When I ask you to dig down deep and find the resources of willpower already beneath whatever little you’ve got left over, I know it’s a big ask. I know you’re trying to grasp onto anything that’ll make you feel better. You think if you can form a plan, you’ll spare yourself a little pain. (We’ll get to that in a bit.) But there’s time. There’s time for all these kinds of decisions, and it’s certainly not a day when you can’t remember the last time you washed your hair.

So please, calm down. Go wash your hair. Take all major life decisions off the table. All you’re responsible for right now is feeding and clothing yourself, and doing the bare minimum not to get fired. Maybe remember to pay your rent too.

Now, tell your friends to chill out

You know what you’re not responsible for at the moment? Being a particularly great friend. You’ve got at least a month of canceling plans on a whim, crying at the bar, and talking non-stop about the demise of your relationship. You will be annoying, but this is your right for a small window of time. I hereby endow you with the permission to be irritating.

The upside?

You get to tell all your wonderfully doofy, well-meaning extrovert friends to cool it. You know the ones. They’ll say, “You need to get under someone to get over someone!” and create dating profiles for you without permission and try to drag you to every party known to man in order to shove you in front of anything with a pulse that seems relatively unattached. Bless these friends. They’re so lovely. They want you to feel better. They want you to be happy. They don’t understand how hopelessly clueless they’re being. And it’s not your job to educate them right now.

Sure, on a normal day, you may pause and say to yourself, “Oh, Marcia! She doesn’t understand I’m an introvert who doesn’t want to karaoke. She’s trying to draw me out of my shell!” (We’re introverts, Marcia. We like our shells, okay?) You know, on a regular ol’ day, you may even consider singing with a large group if you can stand in the back. But today? You get to tell Marcia to shut up and back off.

Don’t let anyone rush you through your heartbreak. (Which brings us to the next point…)

You have to process and grieve

Remember all the pain I referenced earlier? You poor thing. I wish I could hug you through the computer. You have to feel this pain at some point, and I’d suggest sooner rather than later. Trust me, later gets super messy. (Says the person who has been known to cry in the middle of a dance floor at 3 a.m. six months after a breakup has gone down. I speak from experience. And yes, alcoholic beverages were involved. Of course they were.) During most of my breakups, the majority of my friends have not understood that I actually wanted to be alone. They’re confused because, after all, it seems contrary to the most commonplace relationship advice, which is to surround yourself with people. Replace the time you were spending with one person with all the other people, and you’ll be okay, right?! Er, not exactly.

For us introverts, our social interaction tends to be measured and thoughtful. We can be a little more sensitive, and we’re careful about choosing who gets our limited attention and resources. When it comes to romantic connections—when it comes to that special person who gets the top priority pick of our time (whoo, boy!)—we’re cautious. And now, even though you were ever so logical about your selection, it didn’t work out.

And the person on the other end of the equation, the one who broke your heart, may not even get it. They might not understand they were the lucky recipient of your focus or appreciate that it was a big deal for you to start a romantic relationship. So you have to grieve their absence, yes. But you have to grieve the miscommunications too. Even if your breakup was thoughtful, kind, and mature, your special sparkly person doesn’t get replaced overnight. This is true of any breakup, no matter who you are, but if this loss seems profound and devastating in a way you can’t quite describe to family and friends? It’s okay.

Take the time alone to process and grieve until you can explain it. Free yourself from other people’s expectations and timelines (because there’s nothing worse than seeing a friend mentally calculating whatever rule they have for how many days it should take you to get over someone). In order to build the story of my relationship and its demise, I need to process the situation first. I need to take stock and find comfort in the activities I love—reading, yoga, solitary hikes—before I can face the barrage of advice that’s about to hit. Because guess what?

You have to get over it

Ah, balance! You tricky son of a gun! There will come a time when you’ll have to talk about the breakup, and it’s appropriate to start listening to that advice. Meaning everything I just told you—all of this stuff about chilling out, processing, grieving, taking time for yourself, and not worrying much about being a great friend—it has an expiration date. (I mean, eventually you’ll want to reconnect with Marcia. She really is a good buddy, and you guys have known each other a long time.) But I want to stress to all you introverts out there: it’s okay if your expiration date is a little further in the future than you’d like it to be.

However, you do have to put this breakup behind you. (Remember, you still have to go on dates.) The good news is that as introverts, we are built with a lot of quiet fortitude. While some of your friends might think you’re moping about, all sad and sulky in your apartment, really what you’re doing is healing. You’re stockpiling lessons; you’re thinking about your behavior; and you’re considering different choices. You’re taking care of yourself so that when another shot at the big L-O-V-E rolls around, even though you’ll be scared out of your damn mind, you’ll jump on that bandwagon again.

So, sure. You’re hurting right now, and you need to take a break. But you’ll have the strength and courage to love again. I know it. Tell that to your silly little mind until it listens (and it will eventually, I promise), and you’ll be okay.

This article originally appeared on QuietRev.com.

You can find more insights from Quiet Revolution on work, life, and parenting as an introvert at QuietRev.com.

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As the mother of a toddler, Argentinian illustrator Natalia Sabransky knows the ups and downs of parenting all too well.

The artist records her day-to-day experiences with her 2-year-old son Santiago in a series of hilarious comics named "Mamá Ilustrada," or as she's calling her English language version "Mom Illustrated." 

"My son and the situations that I live with are my main inspiration,"Sabransky told The Huffington Post, adding, "The main idea of Mamá Ilustrada is that the parents identify with the situations that every illustration expresses -- to know that they are not alone in this work."

Keep scrolling and visit the Mamá Ilustrada website and Facebook page for some spot-on parenting comics. 

H/T BoredPanda

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One of the most popular inspirational works of the last century was a collection of prose poems called The Prophet. Its author, Lebanese-American poet and artist Kahlil Gibran, was born 133 years ago this Wednesday.

The Prophet offers the philosophical musings of a wise man named Al Mustapha, who shares insight about love, family, work, death and other common threads that unite humanity. Though panned by critics when it was first published in 1923, the book was embraced by the public and translated into multiple languages. It achieved a cult status in the United States during the Vietnam War, becoming what some called the "bible of the counter culture."

Much of Gibran's work in both Arabic and English is infused with a deep sense of spirituality. In addition to his family's Maronite Catholic faith, his views on God were influenced by Sufi mysticism and other religious traditions. He became convinced of the "fundamental unity of all religions."

In honor of his Jan. 6 birthday, here are 14 life lessons from Gibran's writings that may speak particularly to those spiritual seekers who, like many Americans, do not identify with one organized faith.

"You are my brother, and I love you. I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit." -- Kahlil Gibran 

"Is not religion all deeds and all reflection, and that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?" -- Kahlil Gibran

"If you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children." -- Kahlil Gibran

"The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold." -- Kahlil Gibran

"What is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?" -- Kahlil Gibran 

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars." -- Kahlil Gibran  

"Accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief." -- Kahlil Gibran

 "Spare me the political events and power struggles, as the whole earth is my homeland and all men are my fellow countrymen." -- Kahlil Gibran

"Only great sorrow or great joy can reveal your truth." -- Kahlil Gibran 

"When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that, in truth, you are weeping for that which has been your delight." -- Kahlil Gibran 

"When you love you should not say, 'God is in my heart,' but rather,
'I am in the heart of God.'" -- Kahlil Gibran

Quotes were collected from online versions of The Prophet, The Vision and articles on Al Arabiya, The Daily Beast and The Huffington Post.

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If you were to shrink the entire universe to fit inside your computer screen, it would look a little something like this: 

Using Photoshop and logarithmic maps created by scientists at Princeton, artist and musician Pablo Carlos Budassi combined images from NASA with original sketches to create this stunning illustration that captures the unimaginably vast observable universe. 

Our sun and solar system are at the center of the gorgeous disc of color. Encircling them are the inner and outer planets; the Kuiper belt; Oort cloud; Alpha Centauri star; Perseus Arm; Milky Way galaxy; other nearby galaxies including the Andromeda galaxy; the cosmic web; cosmic microwave radiation; and, at the very edges of the image, quark-gluon plasma produced by the Big Bang. 

Budassi told Tech Insider that he got the idea to create the complex image while creating hexaflaxagons (neat paper hexagons that reveal different faces as they are flexed) for his son’s birthday.

“When I was drawing hexaflexagons … I started drawing central views of the cosmos and the solar system,” Budassi said. “That day the idea of a logarithmic view came and in the next days I was able to [assemble] it with Photoshop using images from NASA and some textures created by my own.”

As ScienceAlert notes, logarithmic maps are very helpful in the visualization of very large areas as the scale of the map decreases as you move outwards from the center. In other words, the objects in the middle of the map -- in this case, the solar system -- are much larger in scale than those at the edges.

For a more immersive experience, click here to see a zoomable, full-sized version of Budassi's image. 

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Black cats get a bad rap. Despite the fact that the Cat Fanciers’ Association recognizes 22 distinct cat breeds that carry a solidly inky coat, the black cat is more often viewed as a single species shrouded in superstition and bad luck. From Gobbolino to Thackery Binx, black cats can't seem to shake that spooky factor.

Enter Amy Goldwasser and Peter Arkle, a couple of creative people (who happen to be married to each other) behind the tongue-in-cheek book All Black Cats Are Not Alike. A distinctly non-spooky -- and, for that matter, non-cutesy -- take on the surprisingly diverse world of black cats.

Goldwasser and Arkle, who operate together under the name Studio Goldsparkle (a near-portmanteau of their names), started the project on Kickstarter. There, they outlined their story -- yes, they are cat owners, who habitually send out New Year's cards featuring their cats. One year, they recount, they included an illustration of their black cat Mimi, and recipients had one common response: "Hey, that's my black cat!"

"We started getting responses, including, most entertaining, from those with all-black cats in their homes and their holidays ... accusing us of putting their all-black cats in our specs on our card!" they wrote on the Kickstarter campaign. Goldwasser countered the claims with a sketch aimed at pointing out the differences in black cats, using his own as examples. "Seeing them gato-a-gato, friends noted that Coco looks like a Parisian librarian, while round-faced gallerina Mimi will steal your SoulCycle and only pretends to like books."

The black cat debacle of 2015 ended up stoking the fire that would become All Black Cats, consisting of 50 hand-drawn images accompanied by hand-lettered biographies that celebrate "the wild range of personality, originality, charisma and character" of ebony kitties. Based on a selection of cat stories sourced from Kickstarter funders, the book not only spotlights the real, sometimes darkly hilarious quirks that set black cats apart, but also the real, sometimes darkly hilarious people who love and mythologize their feline friends.

I had the chance to speak with the Goldsparkles just as All Black Cats is close to selling out its limited, 1,000-copy run.

On a scale of 1 to Jesse Eisenberg, how big of cat fans are you both?

Amy: I love cats -- I pretty much love all animals -- but in the case of this book, I’m just as much in it for the humans. The cats are incredible characters, each one a delightful weirdo in a little black fur coat. But it’s the humans who get to tell their stories, with whatever issues, dramas, eccentricities they chose to include or omit.

We set out to make a cat book that was never cutesy in that cat book way, but more about people -- and who they choose to share their homes and lives with every day. Some of our favorite responses have been from people who tell us they don’t like cats but they like the book.

Peter: I am in a constant love-hate relationship with cats. Any I have met annoy me as much as they charm me. But at least they don’t bore me. It’s funny how quickly something annoying done by a cat can turn into a funny story. I think lots of people feel this way about cats.

Do your cats run the house, or are they mere renters?

Peter: Our cats are definitely NOT renters… well, at least they don’t pay anything. Also judging by their lack of respect for our home, as shown by their love of scratching chunks out of our doors. They could be worse: For some reason they have not figured out how to wake us up in the morning. They just stare at us. I know plenty of other cats that would not be patient like that. But who knows how they view the situation. For all we know, they could think that we feed them in return for the precious gifts of poop they create for us each day.

Amy: They do both think they run the house though. Mimi always has to be higher than anyone else -- literally, physically, she’s usually up in this teenage emo loft space in our home. Often cutting/self-mutilating (she licks her own fur off). May is a fearless bully; she’s all of seven pounds but will take swings not just at Mimi, as well as at Peter and me. For obvious reasons, neither is allowed in Studio Goldsparkle. Though recipients of our books still say they’ve found pieces of fur, black and otherwise, in the packing tape and such.

I love that you allowed your Kickstarter funders to lead the Black Cat Casting Call. Did it end up this way in the book?

Amy: Every cat in the book came out of the Kickstarter campaign, from our backers -- that’s 48 of them, minus our two, Mimi and the late Sonny Goldsparkle. There were different tiers, options for them within. People could either outright pay to guarantee a place for their cat, or they could sponsor someone else’s cat (including cats who were up for adoption at Meow Parlour/KittyKind), or they could nominate their ABC for inclusion.

Ultimately 31 places in the book were paid for or sponsored, and then the All Black Cats casting call really began. Competition was fierce. We had hundreds of cats campaigning for those remaining 19 spots.

Then we had to make what were truly some of the most difficult professional decisions of our lives. They haunted us. We’d go home on Sunday night and see their faces in "Game of Thrones" characters. Every cat we got to meet was unique, adorable, charming, winning in his/her own way. That was the whole point of the book. At the same time, we had to cull. It would turn into this game of if you have one giant, round fluffball representing, then the next should be a small, sleek pointy cat and so on.

Peter: Looking weird or extra cute or different and having a human around who could take a clear photo helped the chosen few get their places.

Did the cat biographies you encountered strengthen your belief in the diversity of black cats?

Peter: We certainly did learn that our original thesis -- that all black cats are not alike -- was correct. But we also realized that the book was also very much about people and the kind of things they think about their cats.

Amy: The bios were particularly fun because they got past the appearance or mistaken identity or not showing up in selfies part -- the clichés about the way black cats look or their mythology. Where the basic physical features of any cat are only going to vary so much, the room for every kind of personality is infinite.

Plus, we like to think of the bios as nonfiction, memoir in a sense -- as much as they can be when the memoir subject is unable to speak. But these are real cats and their real stories, as true as their people told them.

What kinds of techniques or strategies do you use to differentiate your cat portraits?

Peter: Photoshop was a very useful tool for enlarging and clarifying many small fuzzy photos. Black cats are famous for being hard to photograph, and some times we had only the blurriest of jpegs to work from. The first task was to get a basic shape down and then to find any unique details or hints of other colors. Yes, all black cats are all black, but that means some are blue-black or green-black or orange- or red-black. And some have the odd white whisker. Eye colors were fun, as lots of cats have eyes that appear as different colors depending on what light they’re photographed in. One cat in the book even has the David Bowie-style two different eye colors.

Have you learned to hone in on precise features and traits?

Peter: Getting the details in the eye is most important. The highlights in the eyes give the cat life. Get these right and you capture the cat (or any other animal’s) soul.

How exactly did the biographies take shape?

Amy: They all came out of a standard questionnaire I sent out to the people behind the cats. My questions were aimed at generating the my-cat-and-only-my-cat-does-this singular qualities. Again, we’re both allergic to “cat person” cutesie. We didn’t want any typical, My baby curls up with me every night and purrs. We wanted their OCD habits, essentially their personality disorders. The kinds of things we’d all be embarrassed to admit were we talking about people—what you do when you’re home and nobody is watching, reporting. At least you think they’re not.

Peter: People, including us, LOVE to talk about their cats.

What was it like collaborating on a book like this as a married couple? Did Peter, in fact, go all Miranda Priestly? Would you do it again?

Amy: Only Mimi went all Miranda Priestly. Peter was great. I think there were days that we both got maxed out on looking at All Black Cat faces, getting All Black Cat photos in our emails, hearing All Black Cats stories and so on -- to the point where looking at Mimi could feel like work. Fortunately we are not married to her, and fortunately we were not doing a book about 50 Scottish illustrators or anything.

We are definitely planning to collaborate again, cat realm or elsewhere.

Peter: Let’s just say that the project would have gotten nowhere without Amy’s crazy multitasking skills. Drawing 50 cats is easy compared to wrangling hundreds of cat owners via email and running a Kickstarter campaign and then keeping track of hundreds more cat owners and PayPal orders and tracking shipments (warning to anyone thinking about doing this: it’s really hard work). She’s probably worked on this to some degree nearly every day for nearly a year now.

What's next for the All Black Cats project. Do you plan to extend it? Illustrate more cats?

Peter: First we still have a lot of visits to the local post office to get through. It’s been nice getting to know the people who work there so well. One of them, Daisy, even hugged us when she met us in the street one day.

Amy: Yeah, for now we fill in customs forms and make post office runs. We’re usually covered in Sharpie marks (also all black!). We intentionally made this a very limited print run, only 1,000 copies in the world, and we’re close to sold-out already, which is incredibly exciting. They’ll be collector’s items any moment now. As soon as our lives are less postally driven, we’ll figure out what’s next in keeping All Black Cats alive.

See a sample of the biographies that accompany the All Black Cats illustrations below. For more on the book, check out the website here.

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