Renee Zellweger is over all the bullsh*t aging talk in Hollywood. 

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Thursday morning, Zellweger discussed her upcoming film “Bridget Jones’ Baby” and what it’s like coming back to Hollywood after a 6-year hiatus.  

One thing the 47-year-old star doesn’t miss? The media’s obsession with women aging in the film industry. 

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“On my worst day I can’t think of this type of hate to put out.”

That was the response from Leslie Jones in July when she was bullied on Twitter by racist trolls who attacked her portrayal of a leading character in the all-female remake of “Ghostbusters.” 

But this wasn’t the last attack on the actress. Jones’ website was hacked Wednesday in yet another twisted and targeted racial strike. 

Her personal information was stolen, nude photos of her were leaked and a video of Harambe the gorilla was posted at the top of her site. The website was eventually taken down but the pain it prompted had already done enough damage.

Sickeningly, this is far from the first time racists have mocked Jones with pictures of animals and other vile images.  

As a result, Jones declared her departure from Twitter in July and reluctantly decided to return to the social media site days later. She received a triumphant response from fans who helped to encourage her return through messages of support and the hashtag #LoveForLeslieJ. Since July, Jones entertained fans by live-tweeting “Game of Thrones,” and she even landed herself an official invitation from NBC to tweet about the Olympics from Rio. After she assumed the role, she didn’t disappoint.

Despite her talent and wit, Jones ― like many other black Americans ― will only be seen to some as a black woman not worthy of even the most basic levels of dignity and respect.

The bullying Jones constantly combats as a black comedienne is emblematic of the larger racial issues America still battles today. Racism is so deeply embedded into the fabric of this country that it is far from surprising, albeit painful to experience, when it is so frequently and casually expressed online.

Sunday marks the 53rd anniversary of the iconic “I Have A Dream” speech by the late great civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr., in which he said:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

The work it will take to dismantle racism is long, arduous and impossible without collective, practical change. Racism breeds everywhere, especially on open platforms like Twitter, and it will require a lot more than words to rid the world of its ills.  

Since the hacking of Jones’ website, celebrities, fans and admirers, alike, have poured their support and shared their love for the “SNL” star through thoughtful and well-articulated tweets, which serve as a nice reminder of the good that still exists in the world. But it is not nearly enough to face a challenge as big and beastly as racism. 

Jones is amid plenty of company. Black users on Twitter who are in the public eye are subjected to racism online frequently. As a black journalist who covers issues of race in America, I, too, have been victim to the same racial hate I seek to dismantle ― and, sadly, so have countless others.

Jones is a statuesque and strong black woman and these are features that should be celebrated ― but that has not always been the case.

In June, Jones called out designers who she said did not want to dress her for the premiere of “Ghostbusters.” Her callout, although not explicitly stated, reeks of the discrimination and body shaming that plagues the fashion industry. 

Within the hour, American fashion designer Cristian Siriano responded to express interest in dressing Jones for the big event. In that moment, he stepped up to take action which is what we should encourage everyone to do every time any form of racism, sexism, bigotry or discrimination are exposed. 

Hopefully, Jones’ worst days are officially behind her but, ultimately, that fate will be decided by the the actions of her fellow Americans. 

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UPDATE: Oxford Dictionaries suspended its #OneWordMap most-hated words project today. An update to the blog post describing the feature stated: “We regret to inform users that due to severe misuse we have had to remove this feature from our website.”

It’s possible that the suspension stemmed from the apparent outpouring of anti-Islam sentiment in the submissions to the project. Some Twitter accounts posted screenshots purporting to show that Oxford Dictionaries had barred certain sensitive words, like “Islam,” from submission prior to the decision to take down the project.

However, the nature of the misuse was not specified in the site’s statement, and as of this update, Oxford Dictionaries had not responded to a request for more details about why the program was halted.

PREVIOUSLY: Do you hate the word “moist”? Well, congratulations: You’re in excellent company.

The word ― usually applied with varying degrees of ickiness to cake or to bodily orifices ― holds a legendary power of repulsion, and a new project by Oxford Dictionaries to compile people’s most hated English-language words is confirming this. 

The #OneWordMap project aims to gather responses to one-word language questions, starting with the most fun one: What word do you hate the most?

As of this writing, the website counts over 14,000 submissions, broken down by country, and “moist” hovers at or near the top of the list in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. 

Why moist? Science and journalism have struggled to explain why people hate this specific, relatively inoffensive word and come up with a number of theories: that the combination of phonemes, especially “oi,” sounds unpleasant, or that it’s associated with grimy bodily functions like sweating and... well, worse. One study, led by Dr. Paul Thibodeau, found that it’s more likely the latter ― if you hate “moist,” you probably don’t like hearing “phlegm” or “vomit” either, but “foist” won’t bother you terribly. 

As to why “moist” has become more universally loathed? Well, maybe it’s just because we’ve all talked about how gross it is so much, speculated Thibodeau.

The #OneWordMap responses offer some more unsettling insights into the current linguistic climate than Oxford Dictionaries may have anticipated. In the U.K., “Islam” has received by far the most votes for most-hated word, and in the U.S. the religion appears second on the list. Other top picks: “Brexit,” and, in Ireland, “Islamophobia.”

In Japan, where only a few submissions have been tallied as of this writing, “consent” appears as one of the most-loathed words.

“There’s a chance we might see some submissions related to politics,” Oxford University Press’ Daniel Braddock told The Guardian in what might be considered a slight understatement.

Braddock did consider some other words that might enjoy mass hatred for reasons other than classic word aversion: “Our expectation is that they will be fueled by a multitude of reasons,” he said. “‘Cancer,’ for example, has affected most people in the world, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see that make an appearance.” 

According to Braddock, Oxford Dictionaries is hoping to gather at least 30,000 submissions, so there’s a long way to go before any final conclusions can be drawn. Will “moist” claim its crown, or will rising socioreligious tensions unseat it? 

Whichever word comes out on top, the trends already appearing speak volumes about our modern global society ― what they have to say is as icky as “moist panties.” (We’re so sorry.)

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A highly-anticipated documentary about James Baldwin is set for its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. 

Directed by filmmaker Raoul Peck, “I Am Not Your Negro” will be based on a hypothetical book that Baldwin never got to write. According to Shadow and Act, the book Baldwin envisioned was about three important black leaders who were assassinated: Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. 

According to TIFF, Baldwin was unable to finish the ambitious book idea before his death, so all that remains of the idea are letters sent to his literary agent and 30 pages of preliminary notes for the book. “I Am Not Your Negro” will be based mostly on Baldwin’s notes, and will explore not only the writer and activist’s life, but race in America as a whole. Samuel L. Jackson narrates the film.

Though a trailer has yet to be released for the documentary, TIFF artistic director Cameron Bailey writes that it “matches Baldwin’s lyrical rhetoric with rich archival footage of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.” 

“I Am Not Your Negro” will debut at TIFF next month, and then screen in October at the New York Film Festival. 

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This article originally appeared on artnet News. 

Tourism to Paris is in bad shape — and the city’s cultural institutions have been feeling the pain.

In a report from the Associated Press, the string of terrorist attacks and floods in France have resulted in a significant decline in visitors to Paris, notably among tourists from Japan, Russia, and China. The state’s minister of foreign affairs, Jean-Marc Ayrault, has even announced a summit this September to develop strategies of reviving the tourism sector, which accounts for roughly seven percent of the country’s economy.

In a phone conversation with a representative for the Louvre — which is the most-visited museum in the world — artnet News discovered that attendance from January through June dropped 20 percent compared to the previous year.

“It’s quite mathematical,” the representative explained. “If you have less visitors in Paris, there are less visitors at the Louvre. So it’s not the Louvre. It’s a drop in tourism to Paris as a destination because of the attacks and security concerns.”

Visitors from the United States and Italy, however, remain undeterred; the representative told artnet News that they tend to make up the bulk of the Louvre’s foreign museum guests.

Despite the museum’s long-standing success with securing visitors’ safety, the representative told artnet News that the Louvre has nonetheless fortified its security measures since the series of coordinated shootings and bombings swept Paris last November. “We have more police outside and in front of the pyramid, so there’s a greater military presence.”

According to Reuters, Paris lost a whopping €750 million ($844 million) in revenue due to one million fewer visitors in the first half of 2016.

“It’s quite the same across the board,” the representative told artnet News. “It’s about Paris, not the cultural institutions.”

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Fairytale weddings are totally possible ― just pick a castle as your wedding venue.

Below, 17 brides and grooms who got in touch with their inner kings and queens.

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Good morning, class. Raise your hand if you actually read your summer assignments, Great Expectations and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Yes, raise your hand if you did read those books. Did read, yes. What’s that you say? An extension, you say? Too hot outside to focus? Well. I don’t know if I ― OK. But just this once. 

Now that school’s back in sesh, and the oppressive gloom of the heat dome is giving way to crisp, snuggle-inducing air, we think it’s time for students and former students alike to push the boundaries of the usual syllabi and curl up with something new. Not that classics aren’t classics for a reason ― although some, if we’re to take students’ words for it, are a little outmoded in their language and themes.

But the Western canon is largely made up of a monolithic scheme of writers (read: white, male), so adding in variety would not only expand readers’ understanding of American life, it would better represent American readership.

We’ve rounded up a few books ― some of them new, some of them newish ― that we think should be required reading. Some directly confront women’s issues like infertility; others are lyrical explorations of black life in America. Have a look, and read on.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Whitehead pulls no punches in this deftly structured, brilliantly written novel, which takes on slavery, the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, a white supremacist state similar to Nazi Germany, and the United States’ full history of white brutality against black people. The Underground Railroad is a necessary antidote to sanitized histories of America’s racial divide, as well as a stunning example of both historical and speculative fiction at their most powerful. ― Claire Fallon, Books and Culture Writer

Read our review of The Underground Railroad

I Love Dick by Chris Kraus

Kraus’ game-changing fictionalized memoir begins familiar enough, with a woman obsessed with a man. Yet over time the book changes shape, as Kraus’ emotional fixation becomes in itself an object of intellectual fascination, a work of art and a thing of beauty. She becomes empowered in her abilities as a writer and artist, unashamed of her feelings, sloppy and maniacal as they may be. The stunning piece of writing, a predecessor to brilliant and proudly difficult women like Lena Dunham and Sheila Heti, is a must-read for feminist writers and those who crush super hard. ― Priscilla Frank, Arts and Culture Writer

Read our interview with Chris Kraus

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Americanah is a story about immigration that follows two teenagers, Ifemelu and Obinze, who, after falling in love in dictatorial Nigeria, wish to move to America. Alas, only Ifemelu sees her dream come true, while Obinze temporarily lives as an undocumented immigrant in London. In the U.S. though, Ifemelu is confronted with what she calls Racial Disorder Syndrome, a byproduct of the complex American power structures she decides to explore on her blog. The rest of the novel is heart-wrenching and smart, illuminating an incredibly human story tied to the legacies of boundaries, nationalism and injustice. ― Katherine Brooks, Senior Arts & Culture Editor

Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson

Woodson’s seamless transition from lyrical young adult novelist to author of a heartfelt, socially significant book for adults speaks to her breadth as a writer. Both Brown Girl Dreaming ― winner of the National Book Award and the Newbery Medal ― and Another Brooklyn are written in her distinctly spare and poetic style, but the latter carries an emotional weight with buoyancy. It’s about a young girl, August, who moves to Brooklyn from the South after her mother grows tragically absent, and fills the void with blossoming friendships. When she first sees three confident, quirky girls from her school walking arm-in-arm, she instantly longs for their companionship. But, as the group of young women grow out of their gangly frames and into the sometimes restrictive shape of adulthood, their relationships with one another change, too. Woodson writes as touchingly about friendship as she does about jazz, gentrification and the ‘70s. ― Maddie Crum, Books and Culture Writer

Read our review of Another Brooklyn 

The Art of Waiting by Belle Boggs

Does having kids really kill your dreams? How does in vitro fertilization actually work, and how much does it cost? Why do so many refuse to believe young women when they say they don’t want children? What are the logistics of pursuing adoption, in the United States and abroad? These are some of the questions answered in Belle Boggs’ collection of nuanced and unsparing essays. They revolve around the question of infertility, a disease which, for too long, has remained quarantined to women’s blogs and medical offices. Boggs interweaves her own experience with infertility with those of doctors, professors, unconventional families and even gorillas at the North Carolina zoo, shedding light on a complex human health issue that has remained cloaked in silence and shame. ― Priscilla Frank

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Octavia E. Butler’s Afrofuturist novel follows a black woman caught between two time periods ― California in the 1970s and Maryland before the Civil War. With the sci-fi/fantasy twist of time travel, Butler explores the inhumanities and cruel sacrifices black people faced during antebellum slavery, investigating how issues of power, gender and race can persist in America today. If it’s not already on your required reading list (and it might be, because it was published in 1979!), add it. ― Katherine Brooks

The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan

While “9/11” remains a national invocation of grief in the U.S., it’s less common for Americans to openly grapple with the quotidian terroristic violence elsewhere in the world: suicide blasts that kill a handful of bystanders, car bombs that tear through crowds. In Mahajan’s eye-opening novel, a single small terror attack in an Indian marketplace forms the crux of a saga that profoundly damages many people over the course of years. He delves into the psychology and troubled background of the bombmaker, the grief of the parents of two young boys who die, and the guilt and lingering bodily pain of their friend who survives. Though the justice system is eager to simply convict someone and get it all over with, and the victims of the attack quickly feel forgotten and alone, Mahajan’s empathetic and artistically startling exploration of the story offers one richly literary entry point into the important work of facing the global human impact of terror. ― Claire Fallon

Read our review of The Association of Small Bombs

Zero K by Don DeLillo

We live in a cultural landscape where a media outlet that prided itself in its scrappiness, its watchdog role, and its dedication to its readers can be shuttered due to the money, power and whims of an inordinately wealthy individual. That alone answers the question of why dystopian stories are popular; they mirror life’s grimmer realities. And Don DeLillo’s Zero K ― which may not be so neatly categorized as a dystopia ― speaks to those realities in a critical but uncynical way. DeLillo mocks the jargon-filled language of Silicon Valley types, but he also questions the value of technologies such as cryonics in an even-handed and fascinating way. ― Maddie Crum

Read our review of Zero K

Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching by Mychal Denzel Smith

Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching is a coming-of-age story from a young black man who never fully expected to come of age. How could he when he grew up amid countless stories of other young black men whose lives were stolen from them, both in his community and on the news? Smith communicates the devastating reality for black men today, interweaving his own story with those of individuals from Trayvon Martin to Barack Obama. “The everyday condition of blackness in America is enough to drive you crazy,” he writes, and the message is impossible to look away from. ― Priscilla Frank

On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee

Looking for a fresh dystopian read? Chang-rae Lee’s On Such a Full Sea paints a fascinating picture of future America, where “New Chinese” populations ― forced to leave China after environmental decline ― dominate urban centers like Baltimore. The story rests on the actions of Fan, a young woman who decides to leave the comforts of her self-contained and surveilled neighborhood ― B-Mor ― to search for her disappeared boyfriend. As she moves within the various social strata of her universe, readers are given a glimpse into what economic inequality and environmental degradation can amount to. ― Katherine Brooks

Chelsea Girls by Eileen Myles

Chelsea Girls is not a memoir, but it’s written in the same luringly confessional tone. The narrator, Eileen, reflects on her childhood in Massachusetts, where she obliquely came to the realization that she identifies as queer. She remembers, with equal emotional weight, the death of her father (an alcoholic) and the Halloween when he dressed up as a woman, taking his children from door-to-door, playing the part of a goofy older sibling rather than a true authority figure. She reflects on first heartbreaks and first jobs in New York City, and stumbles into nuanced retellings of adulterous affairs and pill addictions. Myles’ style predates that of the first confessional bloggers, wearing her womanhood proudly, as a badge, rather than cowering behind the shame she’s been made to feel. ― Maddie Crum

Eleven Hours by Pamela Erens

What if, instead of making tender youths watch “The Miracle of Life” in health class, risking numerous teenagers passing out on the linoleum, we regularly exposed them to honest narratives about the experiences of pregnancy and childbirth? This slim, carefully observed novel about two women at different stages of pregnancy ― a nurse guarding an early, precarious one and her patient, a lonely woman going through labor without her partner, who left her for their best friend ― portrays childbirth with a clear-eyed simplicity that is both poetic and very educational. ― Claire Fallon

Read our review of Eleven Hours 

Swamplandia by Karen Russell

Throughout the course of high school, students are typically tasked with reading a few coming-of-age stories ― you know, those books that introduce you to the term “bildungsroman.” Teachers assign Catcher in the Rye and This Boy’s Life, but they should consider Karen Russell’s Swamplandia, the story of an alligator-wrestling girl growing up in the isolated Everglades, who ― in one gorgeously written story ― experiences a fairy tale’s worth of death, trauma, and abandonment, with moments of familial bliss mixed in. It’s certainly not a traditional coming-of-age tale, but the ghosts, Seths, and gothic swamp vibes make it all the more worthy of a spot on a required reading list. ― Katherine Brooks

Check out the books we recommended in 2015 here.

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When photographer Alexandra Sophie became pregnant, the way she viewed her body changed entirely.

“I felt like a seed was planted in a personal garden,” she explained in an email to The Huffington Post, “and it was growing each day until the clock would ring and the baby would know when he is ready to see the world.”

More unimaginable yet was the fact that such a miracle, at once surreal and commonplace, was happening so many times a day on all corners of the earth ― according to UNICEF, approximately 353,000 babies are born every day around the world.

Inspired by the powers of her own body, along with those of the many women around her both strangers and friends, Sophie embarked on a photography series titled “Blooming Garden.” Although the images pay homage to all the areas of resilience and vulnerability housed within a woman’s form, she photographs one region in particular.

The first photograph in the series, also titled “Blooming Garden,” visualized the fantastical sensation of containing within oneself the power to create, nourish, blossom and give birth. The simple and striking image, shot from above, depicts a rose, a daisy, various grasses and mossy patches adorning a woman’s pelvis.

To Sophie, this image represented motherhood, and specifically, the power of a woman’s body to bring life into the world. She soon realized, however, that her “Blooming Garden” represented one aspect of womanhood out of myriad possibilities ― some joyous, some strange, some painful and some taboo. 

“At first, I simply wanted [the project] to depict my personal feelings,” Sophie said. “Not especially to share with the world but simply with my family or husband, so they could understand and see a bit of what I felt. Later, when the series took shape, it became [apparent] that it was, simply, an homage to all women and how amazing we are!”

“It came all naturally, I didn’t have to overthink,” Sophie added. One piece titled “Virgin Territory” represents, yes, virginity, as symbolized by furry moss sprouting two diminutive mushrooms. Then there’s “Mûres,” which in French means both “blackberry” and “mature.” The photograph, meant to depict the act of menstruating, features a mound of blackberry’s between a woman’s thighs, dripping a deep, reddish juice. Another, called “Broken Eggs,” features splayed feathers and cracked eggshells, the remnants of a potential life lost.  

Sophie is also in the process of adding more works to the series, addressing issues including miscarriage, illness, old age, transsexuality, abortion, prenatal and postpartum depression. She also hopes, in future shoots, to capture a more diverse range of models, specifically in terms of age and body type. 

Through her series, Sophie hopes to represent a wide range of women ― the trials they endure, the transformations they undergo and the triumphs they achieve. “I take a special care to portray models within their natural strength,” she concluded. “What is more strong and fierce, anyway, than a person being themselves and assuming their choices?”

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Krishna is a prominent figure in the Bhagavad Gita, a 700-verse scripture set on a battlefield that contains some of the most important teachings of Hinduism. The god is often depicted in the form of a dark-skinned young boy playing a flute, wearing a peacock feather crown and yellow garments.

Damon Scheleur contributed to this article.

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This article first appeared on QuietRev.com

As the ice-cold applesauce poured over my head, I kept telling myself that it was for the kids. My humiliation was their gain. I would be the cool, hip teacher who was willing to embarrass himself instead of the stodgy taskmaster with high standards.

But after the completion of the all-school rally, in which several teachers and I agreed to be slimed with applesauce by students who met specific academic goals, I just felt sticky, gross, and humiliated. This is how I was going to inspire and encourage the next generation?

I know now that attempt to be cool and hip was utterly useless. My teaching and interactions with students were none the better for participating in such sophomoric stunts. In fact, for the students in my class, it was more startling than supportive, particularly for the quiet, thoughtful ones who had bonded with me because they had finally found a teacher to whom they could relate. I was a safe space—a teacher who wouldn’t constantly nag them to “be more social” or pair them up with the struggling students to push them through their work when the quiet ones had finished their own. They were happy to do well, participate when needed, and carry on with being good students; they felt comfort in having found a quiet role model in me. My departure from my quiet self shocked them.

A larger push for collaboration

Sadly, such quiet students and teachers won’t be left alone much longer. There’s a growing movement in education to turn teachers into performers and students into non-stop collaborators. This is the effect of the Extrovert Ideal. Teachers are increasingly expected to be not just knowledgeable about content and good at the art and science of teaching but also outgoing and exciting on stage. It’s the Ron Clark method run amok: in meeting after meeting, I’d constantly hear the need to excite students with learning. Unfortunately, that meant entertaining them, which doesn’t always go hand in hand with appealing to their intellect.

Every couple of weeks a YouTube video goes viral of a teacher dancing with their class orperforming a hip hop routine, which is supposed to show how well the students learned the content and bonded with their teacher. The problem is that sometimes learning isn’t that exciting. You may not have enjoyed grammar rules or algebraic problem solving, but for such disciplines, persistent focus is good for the mind. Deliberate practice and the road to mastery can be thrilling, but not for the entertainment value.

Oftentimes, the best teachers are exactly the opposite of those dancers above. Think of the patient but firm and knowledgeable sage who may have guided you to a breakthrough when you were interpreting the events of history, struggling to understand a challenging piece of literature, or trying to interpret data in the lab. And even if you’re an extrovert, you may have come to value that time alone to think through a problem. As has been noted, the best and most innovative thinking often comes to us when we are alone.

A tough road for quiet students

The outlook isn’t bleak just for quiet teachers. Introverted students are pushed more and more towards group work and collaboration throughout the school day. Movements like the flipped classroom and blended learning encourage students to constantly find a solution together. Group writing, problem solving, and presentations are the future. Yes, these play a part in the world of work. However, such demands will leave our quiet students exhausted by the end of the day. And quiet teachers will be forced to facilitate a nonstop parade where no one will learn the ability to take time to reflect.

This is unfortunate because introverts bring a lot of good to the teaching profession: we value deep and meaningful conversations and content. Tackling a complex math problem after patiently and silently assessing the problem yourself causes the learning to stick far more than chatting with a partner about what methods to employ. And everyone has been in that group where a couple of people struggle through the work while trying to wrangle the others to stay on task. Introvert teachers cherish taking and granting quiet time to think—something that students are being robbed of in the push for working with groups and partners. Worst of all, quiet students face little autonomy as more lessons are designed to elevate the Extrovert Experience. Parents of quiet children may have to watch out for social burnout or even consider a different placement if things become too overwhelming.

What are quiet teachers to do?

Whether teacher or student, an introvert finds it tough enough to be in today’s classroom. Even when you value your students, want the best for them, and have structured your classroom to include both quiet and group activities, there’s a small relief at sending them off at the end of the day. But if everything moves to a model that requires a teacher to be on stage and pushing conversation all the time, the job may be untenable for those with a quiet temperament.

Quiet teachers will have to find ways to carve out time for themselves when they can even if it means declining lunch invites or using that rare prep time to reflect on their practices. If it comes down to it, have a ready-made list of alternative obligations in your mind to ensure you get the quiet time you need: you may need to catch up on grading, plan for a parent conference, or finish up an independent study packet for a student about to go on vacation. In a profession where being social is a significant part of the day, you have to allow yourself moments to catch your breath. There’s also value in just being upfront with those with whom you work: people can be surprisingly understanding if you tell them that you just need a little time alone to recharge.

Yet, there’s also value in seeking out fellow introverted teachers as a way to build camaraderie and generate new ideas. Additionally, a tiny drop of rebellion is sometimes a good thing: bucking the extrovert trend by building in reflective time for students will not only benefit the introverts in class but provide some needed thinking time for everyone.

Extroverts certainly deserve the ability to interact with one another and engage in collaborative efforts during the school day. It’s not that this shouldn’t be a component of education. It’s just the scale is tipping profoundly in one direction. Forcing introverted kids and teachers to live as extroverts throughout the day would be the equivalent of asking all the extroverts to take a vow of silence. Finding the right balance and meeting everyone’s needs is the right approach, which is what education is supposed to be about.

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 lowest and one of the saltiest places on Earth, the Dead Sea plays host to hordes of tourists and the production of nutrient rich skincare.

For two months in 2014, it was also home to a dress, weighted down and submerged in its waters by Israeli artist Sigalit Landau. 

The dress, which went into the lake a stark black, almost magically transformed in just two months as it became covered in white crystallized salt. 

Landau worked with photographer Yotam From to capture the dress as it transformed, revealing the finished product in stunning imagery. The photos are now on display in the exhibition “Salt Bride” at the Marlborough Contemporary gallery in London.

Using the Dead Sea to salt items is a process Landau has used before with shoes, flags, and even a violin. According to the gallery, this particular project was inspired by “The Dybbuk,” a Yiddish play written between 1913 and 1916 that follows a young bride as she is possessed by an evil spirit and undergoes an exorcism. 

The dress, designed after the traditional gown of the bride character, likewise turns into something completely different. Marlborough explains that “over time, the sea’s alchemy transforms the plain garment from a symbol associated with death and madness into the wedding dress it was always intended to be.”

Always intended to be, indeed. Check out more incredible images from the work below.

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Everything Floyd Norman says is worth writing down. The longtime Disney animator carries an impossibly sunny disposition, almost always speaking in complete sentences with enviable poise.

That’s not empty flattery. Norman’s colleagues seem to agree. For proof, see the new documentary “Floyd Norman: An Animated Life.”

Opening in limited release and premiering on VOD platforms this weekend, the movie traces its 81-year-old subject’s boundless devotion to Disney. In 1956, Norman became the studio’s first black animator, working alongside Walt Disney himself as a story artist on such classics as “Sleeping Beauty,” “Mary Poppins,” “The Jungle Book” and “Robin Hood.”

Norman left Disney after Walt’s death in 1966, instead capturing footage of the civil-rights movement and working on other animated properties, including “The Smurfs,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and “Fat Albert.” His devotion brought him back to Disney in the ‘90s, when he contributed to “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “Mulan,” “Monsters, Inc.” and more. But Norman was forced into retirement at age 65. He was understandably bitter, but Disney was home. Norman began showing up with his wife, who works at Disney Publishing, and his celebrity status around the campus grew. That led, inevitably, to more gigs, meaning he is, once again, employed at Disney. 

The documentary, directed by Michael Fiore and Erik Sharkey, is a sweet take on a life devoted to merriment. That Norman broke boundaries along the way is, in his eyes, happenstance. I hopped on the phone with Norman earlier this week to gab about Disney’s history.

You arrived at the tail end of Disney’s golden days, and you left right as the quality waned in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Then you returned after the proverbial Disney Renaissance hit in the ‘90s. So you’ve pretty much only been there when the studio was thriving.

I never felt like I really left, though. Even though I wasn’t part of that ‘80s and early ‘90s renaissance, I was still nearby because I was working at Disney Publishing. So I was still able to watch it all firsthand.

It’s easy for us to make assessments from the outside looking in, but was everyone aware internally of the changing perceptions of Disney’s quality?

Oh, sure, sure. I came to Disney in the last of the golden era with Walt Disney and a lot of the people who had been with him nearly from the start, some dating back to the 1930s. I got in on the last 10 years of that golden era, an amazing decade, and I stuck around to see a new resurgence of animation with a new generation of animation artists who began coming in in the 1970s. Those artists who were just out of school, and many of them quite young, would be the leaders of the animation renaissance in the ‘90s and early 2000s. 

How much did the Disney brothers’ deaths affect creativity?

Well, you know, times had changed. One era had come to a close and we had a new generation eager to prove themselves, so it was only fitting that, as the old guys began to retire and to die out, we had a young generation in the 1970s, pretty much the way the Disney company had been back in the 1930s, when all of the people who made “Snow White,” “Pinocchio” and “Dumbo” were pretty much kids themselves. It was time for the old guard to move on and time for the new kids to come in.

The section in this documentary about the making of “The Jungle Book” stands out. Someone could make an entire movie about “The Jungle Book.” Its lore is fascinating. The original version was supposed to be much darker.

Oh yes, it was quite a bit different. Now, keep in mind that our original screenwriter, Bill Peet, was trying to do a faithful adaptation of the Kipling novel. Bill had spent nearly a year crafting that screenplay and the storyboards. Bill was basically Walt Disney’s finest story man. He’d been with the company since the 1930s, so he was Walt’s go-to guy. But in this case, after a number of successful years, Walt did not agree with what Bill had done, and the two of them could not see eye-to-eye on this Kipling adaptation. Walt wanted to throw it all out and start over again. Being the boss, that’s exactly what he did.

Did you work on the darker version and then start over again?

No, not at all. The darker version was all Bill. He liked to work alone. By that time, in the middle of the ‘60s, Bill was pretty much his own guy. He liked to work on his own films ― he liked to write them, he liked to storyboard them, he liked to do the entire job by himself. We had no connection to “The Jungle Book” until Bill walked off the film, which he did early in 1966. He basically said, “I quit,” and he walked out of the Disney studio.

Was there a panic moment about the money spent on that first year of storyboarding?

One of the advantages of animation is story development is not a very expensive process, in the sense that a film doesn’t really become expensive until production begins. The film was not in full production ― it was in story development, and that’s not all that costly in terms of motion-picture production. The fact that we had to start over didn’t really impact the budget all that much. However, it did concern us in the sense that we had limited time. We had to turn a movie around and we had about a year to do it. That’s not a lot of time when you consider an animated film and what it takes to get a film to production. We had our work cut out for us. We had to work very quickly, but one of the good things we had is a boss who was able to make decisions on the spot, and Walt Disney was not slow to making decisions. 

About how long would you say a movie, on average, takes?

The average animated feature film takes at least three years. That’s been kind of the rule.

You say in the documentary that “Robin Hood” is not particularly good. What do you remember about it poaching some of the animation from “The Jungle Book”? Would you link that to the creative dip that started to set in in the ‘70s? 

You know, it’s really funny ― there’s been a lot of talk about the reused scenes in “Robin Hood.” A lot of us animators found that stuff annoying because we really didn’t like the idea. When you think about it as a cost savings, it didn’t save us that much money to pull scenes from existing films. It was just kind of a quirky thing that our director had. Wolfgang Reitherman, who was our director, loved to reach back into the archives and pull out old footage and find ways to repurpose scenes form the earlier films. We would much rather just animate from scratch, but Wolly had this thing about “Well, we’ve done this dance before, let’s go back and use what we did a few years ago.” We’ve since been criticized for reusing the footage. But it was never our idea, and we never really liked doing it. 

Disney is now rebooting its animated properties as live-action films. How does it feel to have your work still influencing these movies today?

They’ve been quite popular. Overall, they’ve had more hits than misses. Disney finds themselves in a remarkable position, having a backlog of material that they can reach back and reuse. Most studios can’t go back into their archives and pull out older properties and redo them as easily as Disney. Because these stories are so engaging, they still work, whether as an animated film or a live-action film. It’s kind of like having money in the bank. 

Have you seen the new “Jungle Book”? Are you able to see where your fingerprints have carried over to the live-action version?

Very much so. You’ll find that Jon Favreau’s adaptation follows our film pretty closely. You have the same story beats throughout.

Are you proud, or do you feel nostalgic for an earlier time?

It’s a good feeling. It’s good to know that work we’ve done decades ago still has the power to entertain and to move people today. It’s really a compliment to all of us animated filmmakers to see that ideas we developed over 50 years ago are still viable ideas. I was just delighted with what Jon Favreau did with “The Jungle Book.” It is an excellent retelling of our animated film. It gives it a new life, in a way. I’m looking forward to “Beauty and the Beast,” which will be our next animated film that’s moving into live action. These properties have value. The Disney company has been smart enough to know how to take advantage of these incredible resources. Audiences seem to be satisfied with what we’re putting on the screen, so I think it’s a win for everybody.

Now that you’ve seen animation become computerized, would you want to tackle a live-action/CGI blend like that?

Oh, I think it opens up a world of possibilities. One of the things that’s so great about filmmaking today, and I tell this to my young film students, is that they have incredible tools. CGI technology and the new sound systems and digital cameras are amazing tools that enable filmmakers to do things that we could only have dreamed of a few decades past. To me, I think it’s very exciting. It’s true that I come from a tradition of old-fashioned animation. We made our films by hand. Our process was totally analog. Today, with digital filmmaking, it’s like the sky is the limit. Anything that can be imagined can be put on screen, so I find it very exciting. I think there’s probably no greater time to be a filmmaker than today because anything is possible.

We can talk about art and storytelling all day, but Hollywood, at its core, has always been a business. Now more than ever, though, the corporatization of filmmaking is astronomical. What do you think of the franchise culture that’s taken hold, where superheroes are biggest money-makers? 

I think the movie business goes through these cycles. Right now we’ve been going through this crazy superhero phase. We’ve been going through a series of remakes, like the recent remake of “Ben-Hur.” Why? Why would anyone think we needed a remake of “Ben-Hur”? These are business decisions that I don’t always agree with, but it’s just part of our business, I guess, and it’s always going to be this way. I tend to look back at this era of special effects and digital blockbusters. I like an old-fashioned, simple film. I recently saw “Hell or High Water,” the new Jeff Bridges movie, which probably doesn’t have a single special effect. It’s just a good, old-fashioned movie taking place in Texas about two bank robbers and the sheriff who’s pursuing them. This could easily have been a cowboy movie set in the 1800s instead of present-day. It’s a simple story, but it’s an effective story, and it really works. For those of us who love film and storytelling, sometimes there’s nothing better than a good, old-fashioned story with interesting characters. You don’t need explosions every five minutes. You don’t need special effects. You don’t need a climax every half an hour.

In 2009, “The Princess and the Frog” featured Disney’s first African-American princess. What did that mean to you?

You know, it was something that was a long time coming. I didn’t work on the film, but I was certainly around when the film was being produced. A lot of the guys who worked on the film were guys I know. Some of the animators I even helped train when they came into the business as kids. So I felt very close to “The Princess and the Frog,” and it was a delight to see an African-American princess on the screen. It just showed that things are changing for the best. We were very excited about it. I think there’s going to be even more changes in the future. I look forward to this business. I’ve always had a very positive outlook on animation storytelling, and I think this new generation of filmmakers is going to take us in new directions. I’m very excited about it. I probably won’t be participating, but I’ll be watching from the sidelines.

What is your proudest Disney contribution?

Being able to work with the old man himself ― being able to work side by side with Walt Disney. That’s gotta be the biggest thing that’s ever happened in my life.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

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Somewhere between the invention of MySpace and the release of Kim Kardashian’s magnum opus Selfish, selfies went from a guilty indulgence to a straight-up movement. Some argued that they offered people, especially women and people of color, a chance to take control of their own images, offering underrepresented individuals a source of empowerment, creativity, and self-love. Others were like, what? No.

Nonetheless, before long, everyone from Meryl Streep to Barack Obama was getting in on the selfie craze. Indian artist Adrita Das wondered, why shouldn’t traditional South Asian gods get in on the fun? With her series “Gods Taking Selfies,” Das imagines Indian deities engaging in all sorts of divine activities ― dancing, loving, warring, etc. Only this time, they’re documenting the whole process, ostensibly to humblebrag and get lots of likes. 

Das, based in Pune, India, a city outside of Mumbai, has long been interested in religious iconography, particularly how it relates to contemporary life. While exploring traditional South Asian visual iconography, she noticed something unusual.

So many of the sacred figures engaging in their daily duties were posed almost as if they were about to snap a selfie. Das then Photoshopped smartphones into the hands of the holy figures, and began a Tumblr compiling her masterpieces. 

“One of the challenges I still face is finding archived imagery online with a good resolution,” Das explained to The Huffington Post. “I also look at magazines and books which can be scanned easily but finding the right images to suit the project is hard.”

A more abstract challenge is explaining her project ― which is not at all intended as a sign of disrespect ― to more conservative and religious audiences. “Unfortunately a lot of people take offense very easily and don’t really understand the reason behind me keeping the blog, which is my genuine interest in religion.”

Das knows she can’t please everyone, but hopes her work creates a humorous dialogue between past and present that can incite real contemplation and debate through creativity and humor.

“I wanted to create a parallel between life in those ages versus now, where we are constantly surrounded by our need to document everything,” she said. “’Gods Taking Selfies’ is just a subtle remark about our culture, in some ways like a glitch in the time machine that may make the viewer think and laugh about themselves.”

CLARIFICATION: A previous version of this post described the work as depicting Southeast Asian gods. As the project is quite inclusive and ongoing, we have since changed to “South Asian” gods to reflect this.

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While it’s hard to believe that celebrities are just like us, there are a few situations in which that cliché may ring true ... like breastfeeding. When it comes to nursing, famous moms have dealt with the pain and the shaming and the beautiful moments of serenity that their non-famous counterparts know all too well.

In honor of National Breastfeeding Month, here is a compilation of memorable moments when celebrities opened up about nursing their babies.

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You’d be forgiven for assuming the team behind the podcast “Harry Potter and the Sacred Text,” in which two hosts dissect J.K. Rowling’s classic series as if it were the Torah or the Bible, were raving tinfoil-hat superfans.

But while they adore the boy wizard anthology, the team approaches their subject matter with reasoned academic discipline like the Harvard Divinity School members and graduates they are. Each episode allows hosts Vanessa Zoltan and Casper ter Kuile, along with producer Ariana Nedelman, the chance to reread a chapter of the series (starting from the beginning, with one chapter given to each episode) and analyze the characters’ struggles and motivations, picking out moral teachings along the way. (Give it a listen here.)

The show got its start through Zoltan and ter Kuile’s friendship (notably, an essential Harry Potter theme). After they briefly considered giving Jane Eyre a “sacred text” treatment, the co-hosts ― one an assistant Humanist chaplain at Harvard and the other a minister-in-training for non-religious people ― settled on the Potter series due to its length and popularity. Both connected with the books in their own way: Zoltan as she discovered them for the first time in her mid-20s, and her co-host as he reread them in divinity school only to realize they resonated more with him than the Bible. 

“The same things are in these books as are in the traditional sacred texts,” Zoltan explained. As of this writing, they’ve made it through Chapter 13 of The Sorcerer’s Stone, but plan to dissect all 199 in the series. 

The Huffington Post spoke with Zoltan about blessings, why talking about a children’s book series like a sacred text isn’t as crazy as it sounds, and whether aliens might confuse Harry Potter for a real religion.

How much do you think J.K. Rowling legitimately thought about the themes you talk about on the podcast, and how much does that even matter?

We took the position that it doesn’t matter. I think that it’s completely valid way to read a text, and sometimes I think it’s a really interesting way to read a text. You know, that’s the way that I’ve read Phillip Roth novels ― I think a lot more about his intentions, and the arguments he’s trying to make, and the way that his arguments matured and evolved over the years that he wrote. And I think that there’s a lot to be said for doing that with these books, with Rowling’s.

It’s just not how we chose to do it here. We’re trying to talk about the books the way that people talk about religious texts in religious settings. The way that you talk about the Bible in church, the way that you talk about the Torah in temple, the way that you talk about the Quran in mosques. And authorial intent is not the way that those things get discussed in those spaces. You know, you don’t go to church, or you don’t go to most churches, [to discuss authorial intent.] There are certainly some churches and certainly some temples and obviously some mosques in which we talk about historical, critical theory ― you know, who were the people who sat around and actually transcribed these texts? ― but most places of worship aren’t like that. And we think it is to the benefit of our hearts and our spirits to not get tripped up by that.

We’ll never know what Rowling intended. If you do a Freudian interpretation of Rowling, Rowling will never know what she intended. So we don’t want to get distracted by that.

Do you think people naturally want to analyze any entertainment media they love to this extent and try to draw meaning from it? As such a powerful communication tool, the internet has certainly given fans a way to do that, and we’ve seen so many fandoms crop up there.

The way that we talk about it is: If you love something, and it’s complicated enough, we encourage you to practice treating something as sacred. What you’re doing is practicing loving something, and practicing loving things can only be a good thing. You get better at loving, and it’s a time in which you’re having a positive emotional experience. We just think that is always good.

But I think that it depends on the intention. I think that if you’re on “The Bachelorette” website, you can think that being absorbed by this is really interesting ― [maybe] it’s distracting from something really stressful in your life ― but I don’t think that’s treating “The Bachelorette” as sacred. And I think that is fine. If you’re on the website because you love the gossip, and no judgment in that, I just don’t think that your heart is being fed by that exercise. I certainly do a lot of things in which my heart is not being fed! But I just think that if you pick these things with intention, and apply practice to it, a lot of things can end up being sacred texts.

At the end of each episode, the two of you each pick a character from that chapter to bless. Why?

We do it for two main reasons. One is that so much goodness is invisible in the world, and so we want to call out people’s goodness that isn’t entirely obvious. So you reread a positive quality on a character that we had negative associations with ― seeing something positive in Aunt Petunia or Aunt Marge ― or draw attention to secondary or tertiary characters, pointing out that just because somebody isn’t a primary character in your life doesn’t mean they don’t have an entire inner life. And we’re trying to draw attention to that.

But then the secondary purpose is that we’re hoping, in some ways, that we’re offering blessings to our listeners. So if we are blessing the fact that Hermione is a recreational reader, we’re hoping that people who feel introverted and alone in their reading ― and feel like that’s something private about them ― that they feel recognized in that blessing. We hope that people feel a sense of community and feel a lack of aloneness in hearing these blessings. 

What is your take on the fundamentalists who tried to ban Harry Potter from school libraries in the early 2000s on religious grounds?

First of all, I’m just against banning books. So there’s just that. But I also think that they haven’t read the books. I went and gave a talk at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, which is one of the most conservative Christian seminaries on the East Coast, and I was talking about Harry Potter. And somebody said to me, “Well, it makes sense that you’re treating Harry Potter as a sacred text because it’s such a Christian text.” And I grew up atheist and Jewish so I was like, “How is it a Christian text?” And the guy was like, “Well, he literally dies and rises from the dead in order to save humanity.” And I was like, “Oh, right.”

It certainly has very traditional Christian values like generosity and love and non-violence, and [based on] my understanding of Jesus from [divinity] school and my minister friends, I think Jesus would really dig the Harry Potter books. People ban things because they’re afraid of them. I don’t think that there’s a lot of hate involved ― it’s just fear. They were really popular. They were capturing kids’ imaginations, and [people] want to control the narrative of what is capturing kids’ imaginations. The irony of all of it is that the Church was playing the same role that the Ministry of Magic was. They’re such loving, traditional-values-oriented texts that it’s funny.

So, 5,000 years from now, do you think archeologists or aliens might look at the rubble of our lost civilization and legitimately confuse Harry Potter for a religious text?

Yes and no. I think the artifacts of Judaism and Christianity and Islam and Zoroastrianism or whatever ― they have much more archeological history of, you know, buildings and churches that go back thousands of years. So it depends on the sophistication of their tools. But certainly we have Harry Potter World, which is a church, of sorts, and you only have one Bible on your shelf but you have seven Harry Potter books on your shelf. 

Not to mention all the book parties and movies.

Right! And costumes. Absolutely. The Harry Potter universe has a lot of things that look a lot like a religion. It has rituals. It has sayings. You say, “mischief managed!” Or, “Raise a glass to the Boy who Lived!” You have certain arguments; there are these [conventions] where they do all sorts of rituals. I haven’t been to a con yet but we’re supposed to be going in the spring and I’m really excited to see it. The midnight release parties are absolute rituals. There are movie-watching parties. There are all sorts of rituals associated with it. There’s a central text associated with it. I mean, it has a lot of the requirements of being a religion. 

I, at minimum, think it would confuse them. I also think football stadiums will confuse the aliens in 10,000 years.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

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Is there anything in the world ― or even, on the internet ― more disturbing than a giant statue of a naked Donald Trump without testicles? 

For a while, this idea seemed impossible. And yet a new anonymous Instagram posting gnarly pictures of Trump’s face superimposed onto his body are making us long for the days of simply seeing the Republican presidential candidate in the buff. 

The Instagram chronicles what appears to be Trump’s busted cousin, who goes by the name of Dinild Trimp, a knotted wad of orange flesh that resembles the lovechild of a burned hot dog and an iguana. Not much is known about the sick, twisted mind behind the Instagram, except that, according to the account’s description, he or she wants to “Make AGAIN Make.” So, there’s that.

There’s also the fact that Trimp only follows one account, a man named Michael Feldman. We have reached out to Feldman to determine if he is the artist in question (or if he’s about to be terribly disturbed by Dinild Trimp’s interest in him).

Aside from having the ability to conjure up nightmares, the mysterious Instagram account also, it should be noted, has a flair for hashtags.

Along with more obvious ones like #donaldtrump and the always accurate #dumpsterfire, the account will send chills down your spine with tags like #viscousfluid, #wetsuckingnoise, and #bloatedskinmonster. Though, to be fair, if people are searching on Instagram for #bloatedskinmonster, they’re about to get exactly what they’re looking for. 

If you’re so inclined, head to Trimp’s Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter to see the corpulent wound in the flesh ... all the flesh, so much flesh. He’s like a dinosaur chicken finger. An alien-possessed chunk of spam. Please. Think about something else. Help us! Isn’t election season fun?! 

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.

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New York actor-singer Kevin Smith Kirkwood can trace his passion for the stage back to one woman: Whitney Houston.

“Ever since I was a skinny, little, black gay boy singing in church, dreaming of one day performing myself, I was infatuated with Whitney Houston,” Kirkwood, who can currently be seen in Broadway’s “Kinky Boots,” told The Huffington Post. “To me, she represented tremendous talent, grace, beauty, poise, class and definitely success. Since I was always a high belter as a kid, it also made her voice the one to emulate.”

On Aug. 31, Kirkwood will take his enduring love of Houston to an entirely new level in “Classic Whitney: Alive!” The show, which plays Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater in New York less than a year after its premiere, begins with a simple premise: Houston, who died in 2012 at age 48, is reincarnated in the body of Kirkwood to deliver a retrospective, one-night-only concert of her greatest hits in the present day. The evening is billed as “the ultimate Whitney tribute from the ultimate Whitney fan,” and based on the above clip of Kirkwood’s pitch-perfect take on “I Will Always Love You” in full Houston drag, it’s hard to disagree with that assessment.

Aside from music, “Classic Whitney: Alive!” features a script by Kirkwood that’s compiled from real-life Houston interviews and concert banter. It also features a trio of co-stars who play Houston’s mother, Cissy, brother Gary and ex-husband Bobby Brown at different points in the show. Still, the performer insists that his show is intended as an homage to Houston and, as such, he does not play the diva for camp effect.  

“Being a trained actor, I wanted to really try to capture the essence of her stage persona and approach the show from an acting standpoint. My goal was to treat it as any other character I’ve played, and really play her for truth, specificity and not camp,” he said. “I obviously have an unending respect for her talent and legacy, and I wanted the show to reflect that.” Still, he added, “It’s a fun show because Whitney was fun onstage.”

Kirkwood acknowledged that performing as Houston on the rare night he has off from his stint in “Kinky Boots” can be a challenge, but ultimately, a fulfilling one. “As an artist, I feel that you’ll honestly make time for things you are passionate about, no matter what it takes,” he said. “And I’m definitely passionate about Whitney.”

As to what he’d say to the late icon if he had the chance to meet her, Kirkwood said, “Most importantly, I’d want to tell her thank you! Thank you for sharing your crazy ridiculous God-given talent with the world for so many years. It couldn’t have been easy … and thank you for inspiring me and giving me someone to look up to and love.”

Kevin Smith Kirkwood performs in “Classic Whitney: Alive!” at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater in New York on Aug. 31. For more information, head here. 

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An emotional photo of a mom in labor is touching parents across the interwebs.

When mom Nikki Colquitt gave birth to her third child, birth photographer Laura Paulescu was on hand to document the experience. While the mom was in labor, Paulescu captured this beautiful moment she shared with her then-youngest child before welcoming a new baby into the family.

Nikki Colquitt is married to Denver Broncos punter Britton Colquitt, and they are parents to 4-year-old Nash, 2-year-old Everly and 7-month-old Isla. In an interview with The Huffington Post, the mom shared the story behind her viral birth photo.

“The photo was taken during labor with my daughter Isla, just before my older two went home to spend the night with their grandmother,” she said. “In that moment my daughter Everly, had taken a break from bouncing around the room (literally, on one of those birthing balls) to climb on the bed. I can just hear her saying ‘hold me mommy,’ so in that moment I took the opportunity to savor holding my littlest before I had a new ‘littlest.’”

“It’s such a strange phenomenon in motherhood to feel guilty or sad saying goodbye to one baby as you are so excited to be introduced to another,” Colquitt continued. “I always ask myself if I gave my youngest child enough time as ‘the baby’ before having the next baby.”

Although the photo is from January, it’s been making the viral rounds this week, as several parenting-themed sites shared the image on social media. Colquitt said she believes the image has resonated with so many viewers because this feeling of goodbye is universal for parents with multiple kids.

Paulescu echoed her client’s sentiment. “Holding your ‘little’ one so close one last time, before they aren’t the little one anymore,” she said. “That’s a moment that stays with you forever ― the gut-wrenching mixture of overwhelming joy, coupled with heartbreak letting your ‘baby’ go, and scared every time as you wonder how your love can grow even more.”

The photographer, who has two children of her own, added that she feels “honored” to have been able to capture that moment.

“Every mother of two or more children has had this moment, whether it’s a kiss on their forehead in the dark of night, a final tearful hug before leaving the driveway for a scheduled induction, or a last snuggle in the hospital bed before they leave with grandma,” she said. “No matter how it happens, the feeling is the same, and seeing this moment frozen in a photo brings you right back to how that felt.”

Both Paulescu and Colquitt said they were blown away by the response to the photo and enjoyed reading stories from other moms in the comments sections. 

“I hope this photo reminds people of love in its purest form, love from a mother,” Colquitt said. “I appreciate the bond that us mothers have. I love that this photo has brought so many mothers together to share their own experiences.”

Added Paulescu, “Giving birth is so much more than ‘THE MOMENT’ when a baby is born ― it’s a whole beautiful mess of hellos, goodbyes, joy, sadness, sacrifice... and love that overwhelms you more than anything in your entire life. 

Keep scrolling and visit Paulescu’s website and Facebook page for more beautiful moments from baby Isla’s birth (including a birth film). 

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When her flavor of the month, a man she likens to a Greek god, marvels at her voluptuousness, Eve Babitz dismisses him confidently, but not unkindly. “Any old fool could want to sleep with me,” she says. “I mean look at me, the only thing one can think about me is sex.”

It’s a quote characteristic of Babitz’s writing style: wry, forthright, and unapologetically self-aware. Her novel, Slow Days Fast Company: The World, the Flesh and L.A., skirts the line between fiction and memoir. It’s written in a diaristic style, chronicling love affairs, fast friendships, and quotidian outings to bars and baseball games. But her observations, while personal, aren’t meandering. There’s an intricate structure lacing each entry together. Memories of past romances ripple into new ones, and her biting, Dorothy Parker-like humor persists throughout. 

Like Marilyn Monroe, whom she idolizes, Babitz irreverently embraces her sexuality, using it as a tool while thinking of it as inextricably linked to her personality. In this way, her writing is very much of its time and place – Los Angeles in the ‘70s. That’s when much of her writing was originally published, eventually falling out of print before it was recently resurrected by the New York Review of Books.

There are a few good reasons for revisiting Babitz, who’s been compared to a swath of influential women as varied as Andy Warhol’s muse Edie Sedgwick and fellow California chronicler Joan Didion, whom Babitz knew, read and admired.

One is the simple fact of her storied life: the daughter of an artist and a violinist, she ran in artistic circles, gaining notoriety after a picture was taken of her playing chess with Marcel Duchamp, completely naked, at age 20.

More interesting, though, is Babitz’s writing style, which feels tonally similar to today’s confessional blogging and the fiction it has inspired. Her hilarious take-down of baseball before finding herself immersed in the game in spite of herself, would make sense on Gawker (RIP). It’s critical, a little smug, personal, and uses a specific situation to illustrate a larger picture — in this case, the queasy appeal of old-fashioned American values.

When her date is in the middle of mansplaining the sport, telling her which team they’re there to root for, she writes, “’My team?’ I almost scoffed. I mean, I’ll go along with him to a baseball game gracefully, but he didn’t expect me to take sides, did he?” But, she observes, “The tension in baseball comes in spurts between long waits where everyone can forget about it, a perfectly lifelike rhythm.”

Babitz writes with the same insight and humor about Los Angeles, which she defends as more complex than its shallow reputation; sex, which she says is an act of genius on par with any work of art; and beauty — her own — which she attributes to a meticulous makeup regimen. “Without rouge I am nothing,” she confesses before recommending her favorite brand. “It makes most people look like they’ve just stepped out of an English landscape one hundred years ago.”

In fact, Babitz seems to have a fixation with skin, both in a literal sense, and, perhaps, as a metaphor. Her attractiveness, like her writing, and like the lives of those inhabiting the shimmering city she represents, may look easy, but it’s actually the result of a deliberately planned performance.

What we think:

Babitz’s slim novel will transport you to its sunny setting, by virtue of the author’s love for and immersion in the place. Her insights are shared offhandedly, showing her effortless, if glib, intellect. Read this book if you want to laugh, and laugh again later when recalling certain lines. 

What other reviewers think:

Vanity Fair: “Eve had what artist Chris Blum dubbed ‘major radar,’ a sort of next-order intuition that allowed her to see connections and affinities between people and things that others couldn’t, not until she brought them together. 

Who wrote it:

Eve Babitz is a novelist who wrote wryly and prolifically about her home, Los Angeles, in the ‘70s. Her book Slow Days, Fast Company was out of print until it was recently reissued. 

Who will read it:

Those interested in writing with a confessional tone, funny stories, or stories about California. Those interested in bold women writers who write unabashedly about womanhood. 

Opening lines:

“This was a love story and I apologize; it was inadvertent. But I want it clearly understood from the start that I don’t expect it to turn out well.” 

Notable passage:

“I did not become famous but I got near enough to smell the stench of success. It smelt like burnt cloth and rancid gardenias, and I realized that the truly awful thing about success is that it’s held up all those years as the thing that would make everything all right. And the only thing that makes things even slightly bearable is a friend who knows what you’re talking about.”

Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A.
by Eve Babitz
New York Review of Books
Reissued Aug. 30, 2016

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Self-taught artist Lady Shalimar, born Frances Montague in 1906, adopted the name in the middle of her life, inspired by a brand of fancy perfume. The remainder of Shalimar’s life would similarly be dominated by an interest in fantasy and adornment, with every element of her being exaggerated, embellished and dripping in sparkles.

For the last 20 years of her life, Montague made autobiographical artworks of her life at New York’s Healing Arts Initiative (HAI), decadent line drawings depicting what she believed to be her many accomplishments, punctuated with swells of watercolor and squiggles of glitter.

In Montague’s drawings, she switches chameleon-like between roles as an opera singer, belly dancer, lion tamer and ballerina. Notes scribbled alongside the drawings designate particular locations, including the Moscow State Circus, the Canton China Peoples Theatre, and New York’s Diamond Horseshoe nightclub. And yet, according to HAI, Montague suffered from agoraphobia, a fear of the outdoors. It’s not clear whether or not she ever visited the specific places noted in her work.

“That’s the funny thing about it, you can’t know what she really did or what she just knew about or made up,” gallerist and collector Kerry Schuss explained in an interview with The Huffington Post. “They’re all self-portraits but it’s kind of impossible that she did all these things.” 

Schuss currently has a series of Montague’s work on view at his Lower East Side Gallery. With the drawings, there’s a massive book in which Montague, who passed away in 1996, recounts the fantastical details of her life. “Lady Montague made her debut in a fascinating place!” Montague writes. “The Paris Opera Theatre, her mother’s dressing room.” 

Whether she was really born in the Paris Opera house dressing room seems dubious, but as Schuss expressed, “when you spoke with her, she made it sound so real.”

Montague began creating art at the age of 70 years old, when, if the stories are true, she already had lifetimes of experience under her belt. She’d chronicled her adventures in delicate ballpoint pen drawings, in which factual and anatomical accuracy gave way to the magical melding of memory and imagination. Alongside her images, Montague kept notes, recounting supposed performances at theaters and clubs. Occasionally, she’d add snippets of reviews as well, most of which were quite complimentary. “Very exciting!” “A wonderful presentation!” “Star!”

In one drawing, Montague dons a gauzy lime green gown accented with pink roses, an orange cape, and matching green fingerless gloves. The garment slips down to reveal her breasts, though she seems anything but bashful at the wardrobe malfunction. In another, illustrating her role in a “Chinatown Theatre,” Montague wears an elaborate Chinese-style headdress, drizzling gold medallions from its turquoise wings. All images contain Montague’s signature sharp eyebrows, parentheses flipped on their sides, and a large birthmark beneath her lips. She had both in real life, although she drew them on.

In the early 1990s, Montague suffered a debilitating stroke, temporarily shattering her ability to draw. She eventually relearned the skill as part of her rehabilitation process, through her line took on a fragile, shaky quality, like that of a kid first learning to render her own likeness. “I love her line,” Schuss mentions when describing the work. “It’s from another era, when people were taught penmanship.”

Operating in a realm between confession and fantasy, Montague’s works communicate the pure power of self-expression, the radical act of projecting oneself onto the outside world as loudly, colorfully and extravagantly as possible. Combining Cindy Sherman’s passion for role-play with Aloïse Corbaz’s flair for the dramatic, Montague drafts the unlikely story of her fabulous life in deliciously surreal detail.

The dazzling drawings render traditional understandings of verisimilitude irrelevant; it’s abundantly clear that throughout her days Montague was no one but her truest self. 

Lady Shalimar’s work is currently on view, by appointment only, at Kerry Schuss Gallery in New York. 

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