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Singer-Songwriter Anna Ash Talks Indie Music's Privilege Problem

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You’re on a road trip, stopped for the evening in some small town you can’t quite remember the name of. After walking for what feels like hours through darkened fields lined with skeletal tree silhouettes, you find a small dive bar. Inside, a song is playing ― one you don’t recognize though it sounds strangely familiar. You wonder, perhaps, if you’ve heard it before, even in a dream, or if maybe you’ve got it wrong and you’re dreaming right now. 


Singer-songwriter Anna Ash makes songs so eerily nostalgic they feel like classics you loved in a past life. Born and raised in rural Michigan, Ash grew up listening to Pasty Cline and Bonnie Raitt, whose expressive, lovesick voices clawed their way into her being. Ash currently lives in Los Angeles, which in part explains the surreal aftertaste her tunes leave behind, channeling the city’s mix of authenticity and make-believe. The title track off her most recent album “Floodlights” talks about the peculiar experience of living in LA.


Specifically, she talks about getting lost while driving and winding up on a movie set. “It was the first time I felt comfortable referencing LA as a city and feeling what it’s like to be there,” Ash said. “I realized, oh, the surreal nature of Los Angeles can destroy you if you want it to destroy you. But if you are strong enough to love it for all its strangeness, it’s a really special place.”





“Floodlights” mirrors the strange deja vu of being in a city that’s at once real and illusory. “I know it’s not the end, I know it’s not the start, I know it’s not the time to cry,” Ash sings in a voice so old-soul knowing its almost shaman-like. “It ain’t going to kill you to sleep alone once in a while.”


Ash started singing in college, first studying classical voice before veering into jazz on a teacher’s suggestion. Since she began writing and performing her music, one of the main struggles has been unlearning what she’d been taught. “It took a lot to think less when I sing,” she said. “To fully let the song be whatever it is.” For her current album, Ash was most concerned with using her voice as a vehicle for the lyrics and the emotion they convey.


“My question is ―- how do I serve this tune? How do I give it what it deserves?”


For the most part, Ash writes love songs, plain and simple. Perhaps one aspect of their strange familiarity stems from the universal vulnerability she taps into with her lyrics. “Wanna tell you how it is now, tell you how it’s gonna be,” she sings on “Let Me Love You,” in a witchy soprano that feels like a little voice whispering advice from another realm. “Wish I could tell you that it works out. It works out with you and me. But you won’t let me love you how I want to.”


Although romance is clearly the main drag of Ash’s music, she’s recently become interested in another, far less widespread, theme ― class. “We don’t hear people directly talking about money in their songs,” Ash said. “Especially in the indie rock zone. It’s just never a lyric.”


For the musician, money is a pressing issue, one that will determine how long she can pursue music to the degree that she has thus far. “I still don’t make a living off of music,” Ash explained. She normally spends days working in the studio and nights waiting tables. “I’m not trying not to be like, woe is me, I wait tables and come from a poor family. It’s just pretty intense to be working in a creative field where there are so few voices talking about money and what it’s like to be poor.”





Ash compares the lack of socio-economic diversity expressed in indie and folk music to other genres, like country or hip-hop. It’s true, rap songs often reference the hardship experienced growing up in rough neighborhoods, plagued by violence and poverty.


“We ain’t doing crime for the sake of doing crime, we movin’ dimes cause we ain’t doin’ fine,” Jay Z raps in “Say Hello.” And in country or roots rock, working class struggles are a universal point of commiseration. Take “Factory,” by Bruce Springsteen, for example. “I see my daddy walking through them factory gates in the rain. Factory takes his hearing, factory gives him life. The working, the working, just the working life.”


Ash wants middle and lower class musicians to feel like a musical career is a possibility. For that to happen, the next generation needs to hear their voices, their lyrics and their stories. “There is an entire voice of people that we don’t get to hear. That void is so intimidating and so overwhelming, for most folks who are like, man, I want to be in a rock band but I don’t know anybody in a rock band who has ever made it.”


When asked what changes she’d like to see in the future, Ash answers with the sort of raw frankness she channels into her lyrics. “I don’t know what the solution is because I also don’t know if I’ll be able to keep doing what I’m doing financially,” she sighed. “I don’t have that many examples of people who came from middle class families and were able to make it.”


Purchase a copy of “Floodlights” here.


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A Day In The Life Of This Musical Theater Star Is Anything But Dull

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Though his stage résumé includes four Broadway musicals and countless other shows on the road, Josh Walden believes his latest role showcases his talents in a way like never before.


The New Hampshire-born actor-singer is one of the six principal stars of “Cagney,” the off-Broadway musical based on the life of James Cagney, the legendary star of “The Public Enemy,” “Angels with Dirty Faces,” “White Heat” and other gangster-style films released during Hollywood’s Golden Age. In the musical, which transferred to New York’s Westside Theatre in April after a smash run at the more intimate York Theatre, Walden plays Cagney’s brother, Bill, as well as nine other characters over the course of a single evening.



As a seasoned performer who sings, dances and acts “equally,” Walden, 40, told The Huffington Post that the show is very much a “dream come true.”


“I’ve been looking for something to do in the city that could showcase what I love to do, and this came along at the right time,” Walden, whose Broadway résumé includes “Ragtime,” “La Cage aux Folles” and “A Chorus Line,” said. “When I tell people I’m not exhausted after this show, I’m truly not exhausted. If I were to complain, I’d have to slap myself.”



With that in mind, HuffPost Queer Voices asked Walden to give readers a behind-the-scenes look at his typical “Cagney” routine. Even though it was a two-performance day, the actor-singer teased us with 17 sassy snapshots that showed him working just as hard as he was playing. (If you like what you see, be sure to follow Walden’s further adventures on Instagram.) 


Check out Walden’s action-filled day below. 


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Here's Why There's Nothing More American Than Speaking Spanish

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Despite the proven cognitive benefits of being bilingual or, gasp, multilingual ― speaking Spanish isn’t always welcomed in the United States. 


In recent years, even on the political stage we hear presidential candidates like Donald Trump promote “English only” rhetoric. During a CNN debate last year, the now GOP presidential nominee criticized Jeb Bush’s use of Spanish on the campaign trail.


“This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish,” Trump said.


But here’s the twist, Spanish isn’t a foreign language in the U.S. In fact, settlers from Spain set foot in what is now the mainland United States in 1565, well before the English founded Jamestown. 


Not entirely convinced? Watch the video above and find out why there’s nothing more American than speaking Spanish. 

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Radical 'Dress Tents' Imagine A World Where Women Carry Everything They Need

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Women are pretty adept at carrying just about everything we could possibly need around with us at all times. You know, in case of emergencies, or, even worse, slightly chapped lips. Lip balm? Snack? Tissue? Pen? Check, check, check and check.


Artists Robin Lasser and Adrienne Pao take this idea to absurd and quite beautiful extremes with their project “Dress Tents,” which imagines a world in which women wear or carry everything they need on their backs ― including food and shelter. Turns out women can have it all, if they carry it around in a tent-dress hybrid.


The artists met at San Jose State University in 2004 when Lasser was an art professor and Pao a graduate student. The two began musing about a world in which women could wear the basic necessities of life, thus transforming a dress ― sometimes considered a frivolous luxury ― into a means of survival.


“During this time I was very interested in artists who addressed the female form with unusual, absurd or curious appendages,” Pao explained in an email to The Huffington Post. “A few artists who I was very interested in then were Ana Mendieta, Janaina Tschape, Lucy Orta and Amy Cutler.”



Over the past 12 years, Lasser and Pao have collaborated on over 20 dress tents ― avant-garde outfits that unite person, fashion, architecture and nature. “The dress tent installations and photographs provide a forum for connecting our bodies to the landscape,” Lasser told HuffPost.


Not only do the dresses converge with natural landscapes, but also the various social and environmental ones surrounding each and every locale. One example, dubbed “Ms. Homeland Security: Illegal Entry Dress Tent,” blends with the surrounding San Diego terrain, or more specifically, the area right next to the California-Mexico border fence. 


“’The Illegal Entry Dress Tent’ is a ‘gatekeeper,’ figuratively and literally,” Lasser said. “She mimics minutemen vigilantes and patrol guards. Viewers are invited to step inside, crossing the border between a public and private space. Inside, viewers find a camping cot and are encouraged to write on the canvas and consider their own relationship to border issues.”



Each dress combines fashion, photography and performance art in a lengthy process that takes three months to complete. Lasser and Rao first have to build the dress, scout a location to position it in a specific context, and, finally, document the entire scene in a photo. As the project has grown, the duo has enlisted a team of sewing assistants, fabricators and illustrators to facilitate the job. 


“Our photo shoots are typically filled with challenges ― heat, wind, potential snow fall,” Rao said. “The process for these pieces is not quick.” An additional hurdle is taking the dress tents on international flights, which requires folding the massive robes into duffel bags. “Airport security has always given us a questionable look.”


Despite the arduous process involved, Lasser and Rao have been working on “Dress Tents” for over a decade, and they don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. One particularly rewarding work, the artists said, has been their “Ice Queen Glacial Retreat Dress Tent,” installed at Mount Shasta, California, underneath one of the few advancing glaciers in the world. 



The piece, inextricably linked to the glaciers surrounding it, presents a haunting reminder of the dangerous effects of global warming. “The dress tent is fashioned as a polar weather station and research lab, offering a space to ponder the earth, global warming and glaciers,” Lasser said. Her niece dons the dress in the performance.


“When visitors enter the dress tent they hear a chorus of crickets. Crickets are natural thermometers, if you count the beat of their tiny wings, the temperature is revealed. Inside the tent, a chorus of crickets varies their tune, in direct relationship to the climate changes that have occurred across the globe, from the industrial revolution to the present and beyond.”


Along with highlighting the individual issues affecting various landscapes around the world, Rao and Lasser hope to create an unusual portrait of women interacting with the world around them. “I hope viewers contemplate the fashions of times past and present, and how the roles of women shift,” Rao said. “I hope it encourages people to ask pertinent questions about these landscapes and our roles within them.”


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Photographer Who Lost His Sight Snaps Stunning Photos Of Paralympians

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Athletes aren’t the only people defying the odds at the 2016 Paralympics.


Joao Maia, a photographer who is visually impaired, is covering the international sporting event in Rio by taking beautiful photos.


He is the first photographer with visual impairments to cover the Paralympic Games, according to the below video by Rio 2016.






You don’t need to see to take photographs. My eyes are in my heart
Joao Maia


“You don’t need to see to take photographs. My eyes are in my heart,” Maia told Firstpost, an Indian news organization.


Maia, 41, is a former postman from Sao Paulo, Brazil. He lost his sight when he was 28 after developing uveitis, an inflammation of the middle layer of the eye. He can now only see some shapes and colors when he’s close up.


“My life is a huge water color painting,” he explained in the above video.


While Maia learned Braille and how to use a cane, he developed an interest in photography. He explains to World is One News, an international English-speaking news source, that photography allows him to express himself


 “I think photography gives me the opportunity to tell people I am visually impaired, that I exist, that I am here. I am registering what I see, in my way: out of focus [and] blurry. But, the way I see it, photography gives shape to my view.”



Maia started taking pictures with a traditional camera but now uses a smartphone to snap his photos, which helps with focusing.


According to Rio 16’s video, Maia also relies on able-sighted people around him for help. He asks them questions such as what the athlete looks like and what they are wearing.


He then looks for a color contrast he likes or the right moment, and then starts snapping away.


“When I am close enough I feel the runners’ heartbeats, their steps and then I’m ready to take the picture,” he told Firstpost but admits that he still has his struggles. “But with noise and distance I find it difficult.”


He also gets help from others in regards to editing and posting his photos to social media, like his Instagram, according to the outlet.


Yet, the photos are still his own. He told Firstpost:


“It’s not just action I want to capture but the intimacy.”


See some of Maia’s photography below:













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The Stripped-Down History Of Underwear, From Whalebone Girdles To Spanx

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They’re hidden in drawers. They’re tucked away at the bottoms of bins. They’re the open secret of the sartorial world: Underthings, those articles of clothing that shape the way our jeans and shirts look and feel on our bodies.


Today, there are trainers and push-up bras, Spanx and boxers, all serving different purposes for their wearers. Certain underthings may be meant to boost the confidence of the wearer, while others ― looking at you, thongs ― are purely aesthetic.


A new exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum titled “Undressed: A Brief History of Underwear,” reminds us that underwear wasn’t always a form of comfy loungewear. On the contrary, it mainly forced its wearers to conform to desired shapes, sometimes with medical costs attached.


The show begins with underwear from the mid-1800s, including a pair of cotton drawers worn by Queen Victoria along with a waist belt from 1842 that a man wore on his wedding day, demonstrating the moral implications of some underthings.


It then moves through the 19th century, when the dangers of corset-wearing, including compressed lungs and fractured ribs, are called into question. Although an alternative was eventually presented ― the still-restrictive, yet less medically threatening, bra ― corsets are still worn by women looking to achieve an hourglass shape.


However, the show is less a condemnation of the ways underwear can enforce gender stereotypes and more a celebration of one taboo corner of the fashion world. A vibrant pink corset from 1890 is displayed as an example of how underwear has helped people explore fantasies in the past. A pair of chiffon knickers from 1930 is shown as an example of how underwear transitioned from form-shaping to shapeless, comfy getups to wear around the home.


One of the most recent underthing artifacts on display is a pair of gender-neutral briefs, designed by Acne Studios, showing that underwear, once a hush-hush element of everyday dressing, is sometimes a way to outwardly display your views on social issues, like gender fluidity.


All of which is to say: We’ve come a long way from whalebone girdles.


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These Kids Dressed As 'SNL' Characters And It Was Comedic Gold

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Have you ever wanted to know what your favorite “Saturday Night Live” characters were like as kids? Photographer Brandon Hill can help.


The photographer had seven kids dress as iconic “SNL” characters, like Tracy Morgan’s Brian Fellow and Molly Shannon’s Mary Katherine Gallagher, for one adorably funny photo series.


Stefon, originally played by Bill Hader



Hill told The Huffington Post that he wanted to show his love for “SNL” through the photo series, and that picking out which characters to spotlight was difficult since there are so many “great ones to choose from.”


“‘SNL’ writers and actors have created some characters in a matter of days that eventually became part of our pop culture,” he said. “I’m so impressed by that and how re-watchable these characters are.”


Mary Katherine Gallagher, originally played by Molly Shannon



Hill said he chose the kids from a traditional casting call, which meant he didn’t know them before the photo shoots. To prepare them to channel their inner “SNL” icons, Hill sat down with the models and their parents and watched clips of the kids’ respective characters with them. With spot-on wardrobes from Kimberlee Ibblings, and hair and makeup from Lauren Young and Renee Saia, Hill’s team brought the characters to life — and the kids loved it. 


“They had a great time and we laughed so much during every shoot,” he said. “They saw the photos in the studio while we shot and most of them barely recognized themselves.”


Based on these photos, “SNL” makes for one hilarious game of dress-up.


See more kids dressed as “SNL” characters below and check out Hill’s work on FacebookTwitter and Instagram.



H/T BuzzFeed

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11 Jaw-Dropping Photos Of A Mom Breastfeeding While Practicing Yoga

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A Texas mom of three is taking multitasking to a new level. Carlee Benear of The Woodlands is attracting quite a following with her stunning Instagram photos, which show the mom breastfeeding while practicing yoga. 


Benear is mom to 5-year-old Milam, 2-year-old Cale and 1-month-old Maramaylee. She started practicing yoga after the birth of her second child.



A photo posted by Carlee Benear (@carleebyoga) on



“Being a stay-at-home mom, I needed some kind of release,” Benear told The Huffington Post. “Yoga was the best discovery for me and my family. My practice took off, I embarked with my children, on an incredible journey of self discovery.”


When she became pregnant with Maramaylee, the mom continued with her yoga routine and said she sensed a special connection with her unborn daughter. This bond continued after Maramaylee’s birth.


“Once she was born we were inseparable as well,” Benear said. “After a few weeks of staring at her every move, I felt the urge to get back on my mat and step back into my practice with this fresh new joy surrounding me.”



A photo posted by Carlee Benear (@carleebyoga) on



Breastfeeding and caring for Maramaylee felt like a full-time job, but as Benear’s Instagram account shows, she found a way to make yoga part of her parenting routine. “Gradually I took her on the mat with me,” the mom explained.


“Once we started feeding and flowing, a spark ignited,” she added. “Having her there with me flowing off of my energy helped me stay relaxed through the struggles of early breastfeeding. Some people relax by sitting in a chair or on a couch, I find my zen within my body.”


Benear noted that she doesn’t always breastfeed Maramaylee while doing yoga. “We enjoy our snuggled feedings, but sometimes we need energy contact instead of eye contact,” she said. 



A photo posted by Carlee Benear (@carleebyoga) on



Benear also emphasized she would never do anything to put her children in danger. “That’s the funny thing about some poses,” she said. “It may look impossible, to the untrained eye especially, until you discover how it’s done and what your own body is capable of.”


The mom told HuffPost that yoga has been great for her kids as well. “They love yoga,” she said. “I find them practicing on my mat and in everyday situations often. It has really spiked their confidence, something I find important for a child to have.”


Benear’s breastfeeding yoga photos have pushed her Instagram following up to over 6,000 and counting. But she says her mission is much simpler than that.


“What do I want to come from this?” she said. “Just to plant a seed of inspiration in one person would make me the happiest person in the world. Move your body, explore your mind, find what makes you happy and take care of yourself too.”


Keep scrolling and follow Benear’s Instagram account to see stunning photos (and videos) of this breastfeeding yogi.



A photo posted by Carlee Benear (@carleebyoga) on




A photo posted by Carlee Benear (@carleebyoga) on







A photo posted by Carlee Benear (@carleebyoga) on




A photo posted by Carlee Benear (@carleebyoga) on




A photo posted by Carlee Benear (@carleebyoga) on










A photo posted by Carlee Benear (@carleebyoga) on


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6 Documentaries You Should Watch 'Now!'

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The second season of “Documentary Now!” started this week, with Bill Hader and Fred Armisen returning to parody famous documentaries. The series is very much a passion project for Hader, Armisen and fellow creator Seth Meyers, who all spoke to The Huffington Post about how they chose the films they would take on this season.


Below is a list of the documentaries the show parodies in Season 2. You should watch them now to get ready for the upcoming episodes ― and just because they’re worth watching.


 


1. “The War Room”: James Carville and George Stephanopoulos try to get Bill Clinton elected president.



Given this is an election year, Meyers said that “The War Room” was a natural choice to parody as it’s “the best campaign documentary that was ever made.” Further convincing the team they should go with “The War Room” was the fact that Hader could pull off a great impression of James Carville ― one of the featured political operators in the documentary ― and that 1992 fashion styles might be fun.


Hader stressed that this episode is not an attempt to comment about Donald Trump or the current election, though. “The key line of the episode is when the Carville character says, ‘We changed the way election narratives can be hijacked,’ and that is not about who they are running for or whatever. It’s just about winning,” said Hader. “It was never like, ‘Oh, Trump said this, we should do a [parody].’ It was never coming from that place.” 





 


2. “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”: Jiro Ono is the first sushi chef to receive three Michelin stars. His son is unsure whether he can take over the restaurant.



The “Documentary Now!” parody balances having to simultaneously joke about the documentary cliché of presenting a touching narrative while still making the story legitimately touching. Hader talked about the struggle of trying to have it both ways. “We knew we wanted to be funny, but we also knew that it should be legitimately sweet. You don’t sell out the characters,” said Hader. 


“We aim for actually having some genuine emotion in it, and, to Fred’s credit, he did a great job with it,” Meyers added. 





 


3. “Swimming to Cambodia”: Spalding Gray gives a monologue about his role in “The Killing Fields.”



According to Meyers, both Hader and writer John Mulaney are “big fans” of Spalding Gray. They decided to do this episode because of all the fancy camerawork that would be needed, as it’s more or less just a person sitting at a table.


“It was so different than other documentaries because it’s really filming over performance,” said Meyers. “So it wouldn’t be like anything we’d ever done before.”





 


4. “Stop Making Sense”: The Talking Heads stage an elaborate concert in 1983.



Armisen is practically a musician as much as he is a comedian ― he fronted Meyer’s house band during “Late Night” and was once a professional drummer. Considering his love for The Talking Heads, parodying the group’s famous music documentary was an “easy pick,” as Armisen described it.


Trying to recreate elements of the film made Armisen appreciate it even more as he realized how technical even small moments in the film had been. “It was really crazy seeing like, the original David Byrne shoes. He’s walking towards the stage, but, to recreate it, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, someone had to film that,’” said Armisen. “As a viewer I forget that that’s something that had to be filmed, as dumb as that sounds, you take for granted that he’s walking on to the stage.”


Meyers further said that Armisen wrote an “album’s worth of songs” for this episode.





 


5. “Salesman”: Traveling Bible salesmen are often down on their luck.



Similar to the “Jiro” episode, Hader said that crafting a touching storyline for the “Salesman” parody was tricky. “Fred’s character is really going through a legitimately hard time,” said Hader. “Not only making it funny, but [so] you say, ‘How is this guy actually [reacting] to this’? He would be angry ... It doesn’t necessarily need to be funny.”


Meyers added that the group was interested in the challenge of filming something with an old-fashioned black-and-white aesthetic. “The black-and-white look for us was a fun challenge,” said Meyers. “Making sure it didn’t look like we shot it in color and then digitally switched it. So we wanted to have something that had a look unlike anything we’ve ever done before, and it’s really beautiful.”





 


6. “The Kid Stays in the Picture”: Robert Evans is a Hollywood producer who rose, fell, and then rose again.



This episode, Hader explained, doesn’t have much emotional depth ― it just tries to be as ridiculous as possible.


“We have an episode where we make fun of ‘Kid Stays in the Picture,’ which is a documentary that is already very insane and funny,” said Hader. “So, you have to go, ‘That one is just crazy.’ It’s an episode where my character basically starts dumb and ends a little dumber. There’s no giant emotional arch to it. It’s just funny.” 





 


Bonus: “O.J.: Made In America”: An over-seven-hour look at O.J. Simpson and the American culture surrounding his life.



This film isn’t the subject of any “Documentary Now!” episode; Hader, Meyers and Armisen just really recommend watching it. “This year, the O.J. Simpson documentary was almost instantly one of the greatest of all time,” said Meyers.


“It’s going to go down as one of the best documentaries ever made,” said Hader. “It’s so good,” Armisen added.


Will they ever consider doing their own epic, seven-hour comedy parody documentary? Armisen and Hader immediately said “no” in unison. Hader added, “I don’t think comedy lasts that long. It’s hard to keep things funny. I’m learning that, too. Comedy, a lot of the times, is kind of like when you have a tennis ball on a racket and you’re just trying to keep it up for awhile. It’s kind of fun, but five hours of that would make you want to ― you’d just be like, ‘Can we please stop and do something else?’” 




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You Can Now Take A Dump In A Solid-Gold Toilet And Call It Art

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It’s easy to mistake New York’s newest site-specific artwork for a common toilet.


That would be because Maurizio Cattelan’s “America” looks and functions exactly like a commode, save for the fact that it’s cast in solid gold. Yes, if you so wish, you can defecate into Cattelan’s luxury appliance, fulfilling your morose dream to shit on a piece of contemporary art.


You’ll just have to pay the compulsory $15 admission fee at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum to do so.



”America” ― henceforth referred to as The Toilet ― sits in one of the Guggenheim’s actual restrooms, awaiting patrons in dire need of a pee. Eager users will find a security guard posted outside the public space, making sure Cattalan’s work is kept clean and free of enthusiastic tributes to its splendor vandalism. 


According to Fox News, the golden thrown will require cleaning crews to use medical wipes to clean The Toilet after each user, regularly steaming and polishing it to keep the 18-karat glimmer in check.



But what are we actually to make of what appears to be a simple golden toilet masquerading as art? 


The Toilet functions as an homage to Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain,” that other famous artsy receptacle ― a ready-made sculpture that looked just like a urinal, because it was one. According to the Guggenheim, The Toilet also alludes to Piero Manzoni’s “Artist’s Shit (1961),” for which Manzoni supposedly sold his own excrement for a cost equivalent to its own weight in gold. (Cans of his excrement ended up at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Tate museum in London.)


Other artists have dabbled in the realm where human waste meets art before Cattalan. Tobias “Tobi” Wong created a pill that would allegedly turn a wealth-loving individual’s feces into sparkling packages. And, of course, who can forget “Piss Christ,” a 1987 photograph that depicted a plastic crucifix submerged in a jar of artist Andre Serrano’s own urine.



Cattelan was born to a working class family in Padua, Italy, in 1960, and is known for making playful sculptures that illicit an immediate “WTF?” His “La Nona Ora (The Ninth Hour)” shows the figure of Pope John Paul II lying on the ground after having been struck by a meteorite.


His Toilet, a touch less absurd than the sci-fi sculpture of a pope, is meant to provoke much more than a satisfied trip to the loo. According to The Guggenheim:



The new work makes available to the public an extravagant luxury product seemingly intended for the one percent. Its participatory nature, in which viewers are invited to make use of the fixture individually and privately, allows for an experience of unprecedented intimacy with an artwork. Cattelan’s toilet offers a wink to the excesses of the art market, but also evokes the American dream of opportunity for all, its utility ultimately reminding us of the inescapable physical realities of our shared humanity.



The artist himself has a similarly serious explanation:



“There’s the risk that people will think of it as a joke, maybe, but I don’t see it as a joke,” he explained to The New York Times. “I was born in a [low-income] condition where I was — how do you say? — forced to think about that. It’s not my job to tell people what a work means. But I think people might see meaning in this piece.”




On the one hand, it’s hard not to see The Toilet as an opportunity for those frustrated with the state of contemporary art ― It’s indulgent! It’s arbitrary! It doesn’t reflect the thoughts or cares of the common people! ― to feel validated in their beliefs. Plus, The Toilet allows these dissenters to come face-to-face with their enemy and perform one of the most triumphant acts in its presence: taking a dump in its face.


And perhaps Cattalan is aware of the allure. Maybe he’s tempting the loudest decriers, luring them into the confines of an art museum to gawk at the thing they hate most. “Gotcha!” Cattalan could say. Because in the process, he’s brought reluctant new patrons to a space filled with objects beyond a gaping gold toilet. Maybe they won’t like “America,” but what about art from the Middle East and North Africa, or an exhibition dedicated to Frank Lloyd Wright?


As The New York Times has already pointed out, The Toilet seems especially relevant today, when a presidential candidate with a penchant for gold-plated decor continues to campaign for dangerous immigration reform and an incomplete maternity leave policy.


If you think a golden toilet in the middle of the Guggenheim is a ridiculous spectacle, what do you make of Donald Trump?

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We Hypnotized A Bunch Of Our Coworkers And It Was Insane

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This is barking mad!


We gathered together three of our editors and paired them with hypnotist Richard Barker to see what sort of mayhem would ensue ― and we were not disappointed.


Barker has been featured on “The Late Late Show With James Corden” and “The Today Show,” so we knew he’d put on a great show, but we didn’t know how far he could make our editors go.


And, believe us, things got... weird.


First, Richard Barker put our editors all under his spell.





He made them do all sorts of things ― from swimming like a goldfish to barking like a German shepherd. Multiple times.





He was able to wake them up and put them back to sleep with just the tug of an arm.





 He made them fall asleep while standing up.





He even made them forget their own first names! But when they woke up, they remembered almost none of it.





 Skeptical? Watch the whole thing for yourself here:


 





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Science Says Selfies Can Make You Happier And More Confident

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Step aside, selfie haters. That front-facing camera may be a secret to increased happiness, according to a new study.


Researchers from the University of California, Irvine studied college students and found that snapping selfies and sharing images with friends had a positive effect on their psychological and emotional states. The results were published in the journal Psychology of Well-Being.


The study’s authors examined 41 college students ― 28 females and 13 males ― as they went about their normal school routine, including going to class and doing homework. (Let’s be real: That’s enough to influence anyone’s mood. You can only go up from there, right?)


The first week, which served as the control week, the students were told to document their mood three times per day using an app, writing down any events that happened that may have influenced how they felt. The next three weeks, the students were instructed to also take photos when they recorded their moods.


The volunteers were randomly assigned to a group that took one of three types of photos: A selfie in which they were smiling, a shot of something that made them happy, and a picture of something they thought would make another person happy, which was then sent to that individual. 


At the end of the study, researchers had collected more than 2,000 mood documentations from all of the subjects. They discovered that positive moods increased in each group, but those in the selfie group reported becoming more confident and comfortable with themselves over time.


It’s worth noting that this is a relatively small study in terms of participants, and it had an uneven number of females and males. That can make it hard to be totally conclusive when it comes to a larger population.


But the research does provide some rather encouraging insight when it comes to technology, especially given the fact that a lot of previous research shows that it can take a toll on mental well-being.


“You see a lot of reports in the media about the negative impacts of technology use ... but there have been expanded efforts over the past decade to study what’s become known as ‘positive computing,’ and I think this study shows that sometimes our gadgets can offer benefits to users,” senior author Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at UC Irvine, said in a statement.


Maybe Kim Kardashian really is onto something.






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Buy F. Scott Fitzgerald's Old Home And Make It Your Side Of Paradise

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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 120th birthday is Sept. 24th, and what better way to celebrate than buying the acclaimed author’s old house?


OK, so at $625,000, that’s a pretty expensive birthday celebration. But for The Great Gatsby author, isn’t that kind of fitting?



The three-story row house, located in St. Paul, Minnesota, has been on the market since June and actually belonged to Fitzgerald’s parents, according to the Washington Post. But it was the home in which, at age 22, he wrote This Side of Paradisethe debut novel that launched Fitzgerald’s career and helped him land jazz age dream girl Zelda Sayre.



Besides Fitzgerald’s brooding ghost, (he died of a heart attack in 1940), the home’s assets include natural woodwork, vaulted ceilings, and a whirlpool in one of the multiple bathrooms. Oh yeah, it’s also freaking gorgeous, inside and out.



And frankly, it kind of sounds like the place could use owners who are a little more appreciative of its former owner’s eccentricities.


“You know Scott, was, umm, a leader in the moment of decadence,” Michael Jones, who has shared the home with his wife, Nancy, for the past 19 years, told WaPo. “He and Zelda were the leading partyers of the day. I’ve thought of myself as having more middle-class American values.”


Jones also said that of Fitzgerald’s works, he’s read The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise, adding, “I didn’t feel compelled to read any others.”


Wow, burn.


Keep in mind, though, that moving into the home means dealing with a slew of fans making a Fitzgerald pilgrimage — Jones told the Pioneer Press back in June that someone shows up at the home “every single day.”

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11 Of The Best Animal Photographs You'll See All Year

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A baby baboon with a tire, a snake slithering on a rock and three resting polar bears — they’re all winners in our book! 


On top of that, they’re also winners according to the Zoological Society of London, which announced the champion images for the 2016 ZSL Animal Photography Prize


The images will be on display starting Friday through February 2017 at the ZSL London Zoo. The top prize went to a photograph of a fan-throated lizard by Pratik Pradhan.


Check out the images!


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This Pizza Camp For Adults Looks Like Heaven On Earth

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Get your cheesy camp songs ready, because there is a real-life pizza sleepaway camp for adults in this world, and it’s about to go down.


Pizza Camp is exactly what it sounds like: A summer camp experience for people who love pizza (aka probably all of us). It’s taking place this weekend in the woods near Minneapolis, but don’t worry, because it’s been happening since 2014 and will likely happen again next year. And it wouldn’t even be too hard to organize your own pizza camp, either!




At the official Pizza Camp, you do many of the activities of regular summer camp, but with pizza so they’re much better. Campers are greeted with swag like a pizza T-shirt, tote bag and beer koozie. They’re treated to a mega pizza dinner with delivery pizza, pizza snacks and a make-your own pizza bar. Then, a cover band plays only songs about pizza


There are wilderness lessons, archery and canoeing. There’s also free beer, and you can BYOB, too.


Is this heaven, or the woods of Minnesota?!




Great news: This year’s one-night Pizza Camp was just $100 for those who registered in advance. The bad news? It’s happening this weekend, so you can’t go this time. But the tradition is likely to continue next year, Pizza Camp cofounder Chris Cloud told HuffPost, so just keep an eye on the website and mark your calendars as necessary. 


In the meantime, you can grab some friends, some tents and some dough, and you’ve got your own pizza camp whenever you please. 


Say cheese!

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The Best Astronomy Photos Of 2016 Are Simply Stellar

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A dramatic photo of the total solar eclipse on March 9, 2016, has earned top honors in the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition this year.


Scroll down to see a gallery of winning photos.


The composite image spotlights a phenomenon known as Baily’s beads, in which “beads” of sunlight peek around the dark disc of the moon during a total solar eclipse. The picture beat out submissions from thousands of amateur and professional photographers from more than 80 countries ― and earned Chinese photographer Yu Jun a 10,000-pound ($13,000) prize.


“This is such a visually striking image, with its succession of fiery arcs all perfectly balanced around the pitch black circle of totality,” Dr. Marek Kukula, the public astronomer at the Greenwich Royal Observatory in England and one of the judges of the competition, said in a news release. “It’s even more impressive when you realize what it shows: the progress of a solar eclipse, all compressed into a single frame with consummate skill and precision.”





Now in its eighth year, the photo competition is run by the observatory in association with the London-based asset management firm Insight Investment and BBC’s Sky at Night magazine.


Other top images in the contest include a colorful composite of the star Sirius and a picture of the moon that shows its rugged terrain in detail not seen in many conventional photos of our natural satellite.


The photos will be on display at the observatory’s Astronomy Centre from Sept. 17, 2016, through June 28, 2017 ― but you can just scroll down here to see some of the best.


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Join HuffPost Comedy For 'Cargo Shorts Awareness Half-Week' #YesCargo

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With so many injustices in the world, it’s easy for the powerless to fall through the cracks.


Few are more vulnerable to judgment than those in the cargo short community. Pocket aficionados find themselves ridiculed for their interest in these storage wearables, and it’s time this intolerance came to an end.


It’s with great excitement that we announce the first and last annual Cargo Shorts Awareness Half-week. An abbreviated week for an abbreviated garb. Also, we just couldn’t get the funding.


Starting Sept. 19th, HuffPost Comedy and The Other Stuff will be spearheading an initiative to raise awareness about the issues surrounding our excessively pocketed brothers and sisters.


Join us for PSAs, testimonials from comedians like Judd Apatow, Dane Cook and Jen Kirkman, and a look at what the future holds for the wearers of cargo shorts.


They carry so much. But who’s going to carry them?




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Here's What Idina Menzel Thinks About A Gay Elsa In 'Frozen 2'

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In 2013, Disney was applauded for breaking its princess mold with Queen Elsa, a strong, independent female protagonist, in its animated smash, “Frozen.” Subsequently, a number of LGBT rights advocates began petitioning the company to make the character a lesbian in a “Frozen” sequel, going as far as launching a trending hashtag, #GiveElsaAGirlfriend, on Twitter in May.


The movement came as a surprise to Idina Menzel, the Tony-winning Broadway star who lent her voice to Queen Elsa. The singer-actress, 45, told PrideSource that she was “really happy” that it was her “Frozen” character that sparked the conversation. 


“Maybe at first I was a little surprised because it’s Disney, but I can say that I’m excited that the conversation is happening,” Menzel said. Still, she seemed skeptical that the Walt Disney Company would respond to the #GiveElsaAGirlfriend effort in any profound way. “I can’t promise anybody that that’s what’s gonna happen... But deep down am I really happy that it’s causing people to talk about it and have these kinds of conversations? Yeah, I am.”


Thanks to her acclaimed turns in “Rent” and “Wicked,” Menzel enjoyed scores of LGBT admirers long before “Frozen” came along. The star said she first became aware of that fanbase after she originated the role of the bisexual performance artist Maureen in “Rent,” which nabbed her a Tony Award nomination


“I’d get all these amazing letters from young kids struggling with their sexual orientation and who they were and how they wanted to come out,” she recalled. “And it’s continued to be like that, really, with ‘Wicked’ and ‘Frozen,’ with Elsa. There are always these characters who are literally trying to come out of the closet ― they’re hiding something within them that they’re afraid to let people see, and then finally they embrace it and change the world around them.”


She’ll likely earn a few more LGBT fans with a new album, due out Sept. 23, and a forthcoming Lifetime remake of “Beaches,” the 1988 drama which starred Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey. 


She shrugged off some of the online snark she’s received from some of those fans after it was announced she’d be playing Midler’s role in the TV version. 


“It’s just such a great role for me and the experience of being on set and working every day on this beautiful woman that is funny and talented and she gets to do drama and comedy ― it was such a great experience for me and it was just hard to turn down,” she said. “So I hope they’ll forgive me!”


Check out the full PrideSource interview with Idina Menzel here






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The 20 Funniest Tweets From Women This Week

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The ladies of Twitter never fail to brighten our days with their brilliant ― but succinct ― wisdom. Each week, HuffPost Women rounds up hilarious 140-character musings. For this week’s great tweets from women, scroll through the list below. Then visit our Funniest Tweets From Women page for our past collections.     

















































































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Paralympian Made TV Host Who Wears Prosthetic Leg ‘Proud To Be Disabled'

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A Paralympic hand-cyclist’s spin on having a disability is so refreshing it’s inspiring some in the community.
Alex Zanardi’s self-accepting comments after he won a gold in a Paralympics cycling race inspired a TV host, who has a prosthetic leg, to make a very moving speech about having pride in one’s disability.


On Sept. 14, Alex Zanardi, an Italian Paralympic hand-cyclist, won the gold in a race called the H5 road time trial, a kneeling cycling event for people with disabilities.



Zanardi, a former professional car racer, just happened to win the medal on the day before the 15th year anniversary of a devastating car crash in which he lost both his legs.


“I feel very lucky,” Zanardi told reporters after his win. “I feel my life is a never-ending privilege.”



The athlete’s comment touched Alex Brooker, a co-host of the British talk show “The Last Leg,” who was born with hand and arm disabilities, and wears a prosthetic leg.



His attitude to disability is unlike anything I’ve ever heard before.
Alex Brooker on Alex Zanardi, a medal-winning Paralympian


“His attitude to disability is unlike anything I’ve ever heard before,” Brooker said on a Sept. 15 episode of his show, which is featured in the clip above.


Brooker went on to say, holding back tears:



“As a disabled man he inspires me. I’ve overcome a lot of issues with my disability over the years and as I get into later life I’ve got new ones to come: I wonder about how I’m going to cope when I have a child, how’ll I hold my child for the first time? These are things that I think about and I worry about, even though I portray on here I am confident. But to see someone like that talk the way he does, to me it means the world and it inspires me and it makes me proud to be disabled, and that optimizes the Paralympic Games for me.”



The moving speech ended with the audience applauding loudly and a sweet hug from fellow co-host, Josh Widdecombe:



Fans of the show also went to Twitter to shower Brooker with praise for his beautiful words:














And Brooker humbly responded to all the love:






Yet, even after his tear-jerking speech, Brooker kept a good sense of humor, admitting that is was hard not to cry:


“I was worried about getting makeup on my top,” he said with a laugh.

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