In an era of endless Instagram feeds and around-the-clock photo sharing, the timing seems ripe for a beautiful, visually-centered Bible to come into being. Enter “Alabaster” ― a Kinfolk-esque reimagining of the four gospels in the New Testament.

The books seem to have fulfilled an unspoken need. In less than two weeks, a Kickstarter for the project has already surpassed the initial goal of $35,000, and the project’s creators hope to see it spread far and wide.

The masterminds of “Alabaster,” Brian Chung, 28, and Bryan Chung, 22, share a name, a passion for visual art and a deep rootedness in the Christian faith. The two met at The University of Southern California through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a campus ministry, and started working on “Alabaster” in May.

“Alabaster is for people who are drawn to beauty and faith in our modern culture,” Bryan told The Huffington Post. “Our hope is that not only Christians will pick up this book, but also those that are spiritually curious who have an inkling towards beauty.”

Bryan is an artist and photographer and shot many of the photos included in the four books that make up “Alabaster.” 

“We want people to engage with the text and the images side by side to point towards the beauty of God,” he said. 

Beauty is a theme of key importance that speaks throughout the pages of the books. Even the name, “Alabaster,” comes from a biblical passage that references beauty. 

In Mark 14, a woman breaks an alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume and pours it onto Jesus’ head to anoint him before his crucifixion. Onlookers berate the woman for wasting such an expensive good, the worth of which could have been used to feed the poor. But Jesus intercedes.

“Leave her alone,” he says. “Why do you bother her? What she has done is a beautiful thing.”

Bryan and Brian illustrated the theme of beauty by featuring photographs of alabaster on the covers of each of the four books. And throughout the pages of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, text from the New Living Translation of the Bible is paired with stunning, representational images that help bring the gospels alive.

“We started with the entire Gospel of Mark, printed it page by page, and taped it onto a large wall so we could see all the pages at once,” Brian told HuffPost. “As we zoomed out and saw the entirety of the Gospel of Mark, the beauty took us aback and imagery portrayed in the scriptures, and we were simply led to pray.”

They looked for key themes and repetition, hoping to convey a visual message that would complement and not detract from the text. Bryan shot the majority of the photographs around Los Angeles, using friends as models, and said the process of bringing imagery to the scripture was a spiritual experience unto itself.

“As a visual artist, where so much of my daily experience is visual instead of verbal, to have the ability to create images based on my Christian beliefs was truly profound. It was the first time I saw my identity as an artist and my identity as a Christian so directly tied together,” he said.

Learn more about “Alabaster” in the video above and scroll down to see a sampling from the books:

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Date night was a great night for couple Corinne Larsen and Brandon Scully.

On Sept. 3, Brandon took his girlfriend of seven years by surprise when he popped the question during a night out at Painting with a Twist ― a group painting and wine class ― in Jacksonville, Florida.

Originally the plan was to go out to dinner and then head to the paint party afterwards. Because they were running behind schedule, they cancelled their dinner reservation. But Brandon was set on making it to the second part of the evening. 

“We were driving through pouring rain to get to the painting place, thanks to some storms following Hurricane Hermine,” Corinne told The Huffington Post. “In hindsight, I should have noticed that Brandon was uncharacteristically persistent about painting, but I was happily oblivious.”

The instructor informed the class that they would be playing games throughout the evening. One game involved putting each of the participants’ names on a piece of paper in a bucket; if your name was drawn, you won a prize. Unbeknownst to Corinne, Brandon was in cahoots with the instructor and made sure his girlfriend’s name was called. 

“I was excited to win ― who doesn’t like winning? ― and since she mispronounced my name, it didn’t seem out of the ordinary,” Corinne told HuffPost. 

The “prize” was a painting with the words, “Will you marry me?” It took a second for Corinne to realize what was happening. 

“At first, I was confused,” she said. “Frankly, a bright blue painting with some words on it didn’t seem like a painting worth hanging. When I read it, I was so surprised! My eyes welled up and I didn’t know what to say – even though I knew exactly what to say! Yes! Then there was kissing, and then crying, and more kissing, and more crying.”

The sweet couple first met in the summer of 2009 while they were both working at a Pizza Hut in Alachua, Florida ― she as a waitress and he as a delivery driver. Corinne was headed to a 4th of July fireworks show one night and asked Brandon if he would drop her off somewhere nearby so she didn’t have to deal with parking. 

“On the way there, we got stuck in some traffic, and had a chance to talk,” she told HuffPost. “We talked about our lives and our families. The conversation was easy, and if given the choice, I would’ve missed the fireworks to stay in traffic in the truck with him. Eventually I did get out to walk the rest of the way, but I knew I was in trouble!” 

Corinne and Brandon are currently in a long-distance relationship with her living in Boston and him living in Merritt Island, Florida.

“We’ve been able to live together a handful of times, and before the wedding we’ll have to settle on where to settle down, but for now we’re just happy,” she said. “When people ask where we’re going to live, I usually just tell them Cloud 9.”

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A demographic crisis is unfolding across Europe, with birth rates plummeting at alarming rates.

For a photo project titled “Negative Zero,” English-Swedish artist and journalist Anastasia Taylor-Lind grabbed her camera and embarked on a road trip to photograph some of the communities hardest hit by the disaster. Driving from London to the country of Georgia, Taylor-Lind visited a number of cities with declining populations in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Russia, and the Caucasus.

“Negative Zero” will be showcased as part of PhEST, a multi-arts festival held in the Italian town of Monopoli. It runs from September 15 to October 10 this year. See a preview of the project below:

This piece originally appeared on HuffPost Italy. It has been translated into English and translated for clarity.

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A subject sits for the camera. His eyes are forlorn, his expression sorrowful. His long ears, covered in fur. A few milliseconds later, he’s run off to find food.

As an involved experiment testing the power of portraiture, photographer Kevin Horan decided to start taking pictures of farm animals ― namely, a crew of unruly goats.

“I thought I was going to photograph sheep,” Horan explained in an email with The Huffington Post. “I was originally inspired by the dozen sheep living across the lane from me when we moved to semi-rural Washington State. They greeted me with a whole range of voices, and I wondered if I might be able to make classic studio portraits of the different characters.”

But the sheep proved to be tough subjects. They wouldn’t sit still, and Horan was wary of letting them near his lighting equipment. So, he decided to search for a tamer lot and discovered a goat dairy farm nearby. His new animal subjects were used to sitting still; they were milked twice a day and had grown to be somewhat domesticated because of their frequent human interaction.

The result was a series of photos that revealed his goat subjects to be ― at least during their brief moments caught on camera ― expressive creatures. A heavily bearded goat looks contemplatively off into the distance. A stringy-haired goat faces the camera head-on, confrontationally.

“When people look at the pictures, they like to read a lot of human qualities into the goats. Whether that’s an accurate assessment or not, I can’t say,” Horan said. “The pictures do invite us in, however, to consider what’s going on in that other brain. Isn’t that what pet owners do almost constantly? When I had a dog, I would stare at her and ask, ‘Lulu, what are you thinking?’”

The act of photographing the goats was a tricky one for Horan. Bringing the goats to his studio proved impossible, so he set up equipment at farms and goat rescue sanctuaries to place his subjects in a makeshift studio. “Some will stay, some will not,” he said. Like photographing babies, he added, patience is key and coercion is useless. But, for Horan, the time investment is worth it.

“What I’m trying to do with this project is to look into these other creatures and see if I can find someone in there,” he said. “It’s not unlike human portraiture, where the goal is to capture gestures that lead us to some understanding. Yes, when treated seriously as portrait subjects, these animals definitely seem to have personalities.”

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Lin-Manuel Miranda has a way with words, even if those words are written by someone like Donald Trump. 

In a new video released by GQ, the “Hamilton” creator puts his own spin on the Republican presidential nominee’s oft-ridiculous tweets, offering a glimpse at what might be his next Tony-winning musical, aptly titled “Trump: The Musical.” 

(OK, we’re kidding about the whole being his next musical thing, but if anyone could turn Trump’s tweets into something we actually want to pay attention to, it’s Miranda.) 

“I have not changed a word of these,” Miranda notes in the clip, “only added melody.”

Watch above as the Broadway star belts out a collection of The Donald’s various culturally insensitive/tone-deaf tweets. We think the “haters and losers” can agree, this clip is amazing. 

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly
incites
political violence and is a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-911_565b1950e4b08e945feb7326"> style="font-weight: 400;">serial liar, href="http://www.huffingtonpost
.com/entry/9-outrageous-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-latinos_55e483a1e4b0c818f618904b"> style="font-weight: 400;">rampant xenophobe,
racist, style="font-weight: 400;">misogynist and href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-stephen-colbert-birther_56022a33e4b00310edf92f7a"> >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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Spanish accents are as diverse as the Latino community. Just ask the six Latinos in The Flama’s latest video.

The comedy site recently assembled a group of Latinos from Nicaragua, Uruguay, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Venezuela to try their hand at imitating each other’s accents in Spanish. The video, published Monday, is not surprisingly mostly a string of hilarious epic fails.

“I would describe a Mexican accent like Mickey Mouse singing a song,” says one Puerto Rican in the video.

To which her Mexican counterpart responds: “I’ve never heard any Puerto Rican speak quietly. You guys yell.”

And now we’re rethinking the whole “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” thing.  

Watch Flama’s video above. 

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New Yorkers can get a behind-the-scenes look at Israel’s first-ever transgender beauty pageant as part of Brooklyn’s annual “pop-up” photography festival.  

Oded Balilty, who nabbed a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography in 2007, is bringing his colorful series, “Miss Trans Israel,” to Photoville, which opens Sept. 21 at the Brooklyn Bridge Plaza. Balilty’s photographs feature each of the 12 Miss Trans Israel contestants, who participated in a swimsuit competition, two formalwear competitions and a question-and-answer segment as part of the pageant, held May 27 in Tel Aviv. 

The 37-year-old photographer, who has been working for the Associated Press since 2003, told The Huffington Post that he received “complete access” to all 12 women, including the winner, Ta’alin Abu Hanna. 

“I feel it is our job as photographers to open the windows to the world, and also the Israeli community,” Balilty said. Noting that he rarely encountered trans people on the street, he added, “There are many parts of Israel that are very religious, and are against this way of life and the only way for them to experience the community is through my pictures.”

Although Israel continues to be fraught with religious and political turmoil, Balilty said each of the contestants were able to “look beyond ethnic barriers” as they aimed for pageant glory. 

“Some of them are Jews, some Muslim and others Christian. They all know each other because they belong to this small community,” he said. “They don’t care about the ethnic groups they come from. They don’t care about the conflict around them ― they just live their life.” 

The photographer hopes that, in some small way, his Photoville exhibit inspires visitors to “look beyond the pictures” and to understand that the transgender women in the series just “want to live their lives and do normal things.”

“This was an opportunity to go inside this hidden community and more importantly, to show others,” he said, adding. “I never call my job work because, for me, it is very enjoyable.”  

Balilty’s photo series is not the only exhibit with a queer focus at Photoville, which is now in its fifth year. Photographer Wayne Lawrence’s #OrlandoStrong series for National Geographic, which captured the LGBT and Latino communities in Orlando, Florida, following the June 12 shooting at the city’s Pulse nightclub, will also be featured at the festival.

Head here for more information on Photoville, which runs from Sept. 21-25.  

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Being a woman in business isn’t always easy ― just ask Gwyneth Paltrow. 

The actress and co-founder of lifestyle brand Goop recently sat down with Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner to discuss what it was like creating her own business. Unsurprisingly, Paltrow says she’s experienced a fair share of sexism.

Dunham pointed out that men are often encouraged to expand beyond their careers and create new initiatives and projects. 

“Ashton Kutcher was on ‘That ’70s Show’ and now he gets to start 57,000 restaurants and be an investor in Twitter and no one says anything,” Dunham said. “And you’re this Oscar-winning person who’s been told, ‘Who told you that you could do this?’ I wonder if you’ve experienced this sort of misogyny as an entrepreneur.”

“The ‘stay in your own lane’ vibe,” Paltrow responded.

Konner added that she and Dunham had a similar experience when they created Lenny Letter, adding that: “People say, ‘Well, how are you going to do a TV show and a movie and Lenny and …’ I just don’t think anyone’s asking J.J. Abrams that.”

Paltrow agreed, telling Konner and Dunham that as a woman in any industry it can be difficult to break out of “your lane.” And at the very least, you are likely to face some pushback when you try your hand at something new ― and succeed: 

They’re not asking Ryan Murphy that, and he has more irons in the fire than anyone. Everybody wants you in the caricature of you if you’re a woman. You’re supposed to be this and I’m supposed to be that. If you start to cast that off, it makes people very uncomfortable, especially if they’re projecting a lot onto you and they identify with you.

It’s threatening to men to have women who are capable of doing so many things and doing them well. I don’t think it’s consciously threatening and I don’t think it’s all men, but it really challenges the status quo and how people relate to us. Because I was the first one of this generation to do this kind of thing, I got a lot of shit for it. I sort of welcomed it. Now I’m like, this is why I’m on earth. This is part of my journey, and I’m here to be this person, and that’s OK.

She added that she was “genuinely surprised at the vitriol” she received after creating Goop. 

“I mean, honestly, I sent this nothing issue from my kitchen that had a recipe and two things in it, or maybe it was just a recipe,” Paltrow said. “I don’t even remember. It had nothing in it, and the New York Times wrote maybe a four-page article. It’s unbelievable. The response was totally bananas.”

Thankfully, Paltrow says she’s transitioned from fretting over bad press to simply not caring what her critics have to say. “I’m very unapologetic about it. I really believe in what I’m doing, and I really love what we’re doing, and I love the product we sell.”

Sounds like a good attitude to us. 

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We’re suckers for romantic historical fiction. From “Pearl Harbor” to “Titanic,” we can’t get enough.

Luckily, on Nov. 23, we’re about to get another one. And, like “Pearl Harbor,” it’s set during World War II, albeit in northern Africa.

The upcoming film “Allied” features Brad Pitt as an intelligence officer who encounters a French resistance fighter played by Marion Cotillard on her dangerous mission behind enemy lines in 1942.

The two eventually reunite in London and, from the trailer, their relationship takes quite a few twists and turns. Will they be able to withstand the turmoil? 

We’ll find out in November.

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In February 2015, renowned American photographer David LaChapelle quietly released a video on the internet.

In it, Ukrainian-born Sergei Polunin ― one of the most famous ballet figures in the world ― dances alone to Irish singer-songwriter Hozier’s “Take Me To Church.” The bluesy, gospel-like folk song bellows in the background as Polunin jumps to impossible heights in an empty building enveloped in morning light. Between pirouettes, he throws himself onto the floor, tearing at his arms and dragging his feet as if he’s struggling to break free of his own body. Four minutes later, the video ends with Polunin kneeling, breathing hard and staring away from the camera. 

The video, with no caption to give context to what viewers had seen (save for a note crediting LaChapelle as the director and Jade Hale-Christofi as the choreographer), has since racked up over 15 million views on YouTube and hundreds of comments on Vimeo. “This is the embodiment of perfection,” one commenter wrote. “Simply amazing and beautiful,” said another. “Thank you so much for this.”

When asked whether he was surprised by the internet’s reaction to his performance, Polunin, formerly the youngest-ever principal dancer at the Royal Ballet in London, paused. “I was, yes. I was definitely surprised,” he said during an interview with The Huffington Post at New York City’s Greenwich Hotel. “David did something really naughty though. He released the video without telling anyone. I mean, it did a great thing. But at first I was shocked.”

The “Take Me To Church” video, it turns out, was commissioned specifically for a documentary film titled “Dancer,” directed by Steven Cantor and produced by Gabrielle Tana. The film, presented by Sundance Selects, is currently showing at the IFC Center in New York.

In the documentary, the LaChapelle-directed dance is not just a viral video. It’s a heavily organized and thoughtfully choreographed swan song. Polunin, a prodigious talent known just a few years ago for his “bad boy” antics, his tattoos and drug habits, had decided to quit dancing. His “Take Me To Church” performance, shot shortly before LaChapelle leaked it, was to be Polunin’s personal goodbye to a passion he’d pursued since childhood.

In many ways, Polunin, 26, was nudged into ballet. Family and teachers recognized his superior strength and elegance at an early age, his ability to appear weightless as he throttled across stages. He joined the British Royal Ballet School at 13, supported by his mother working in Ukraine, his father working in Portugal and his grandmother working in Greece. He became a first soloist at the Royal in 2009 and a historic principal by the time he was 19. In the dance world, he was hailed as “British ballet’s biggest hope.”

Along the path to success, though, Polunin cultivated a rebellious reputation, propagated by headlines across the U.K. that anointed him ballet’s resident James Dean. When Polunin abruptly resigned from the Royal in 2012, media outlets were quick to speculate on whether his dissatisfaction with the stodginess of ballet was the cause. In interviews, Polunin eventually explained his exit, citing a more general unhappiness with life inside a major ballet company: the stress, the rigor, the lack of freedom, the low pay.

“In a way, I did feel that the artist in me was dying a little bit,” he told the BBC in 2012.

He’d also publicly struggled with depression and pain management, admitting in “Dancer” that, at the time he was performing with the Royal, he sometimes considered himself to be a prisoner of his own body. “I definitely felt that way,” he told HuffPost. “I definitely felt like I could not do anything else in this body. Body-wise, yes, you are a prisoner, because you have to just keep going. You have to exercise every day.”

Following his Royal Ballet exit, Polunin worked with the the Stanislavsky Music Theatre and the Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre in Russia, training with artistic director Igor Zelensky for nearly two years. But before long, Polunin’s feelings of discontent crept back in. He wanted to quit again, and so he recruited a friend, Hale-Christofi, to choreograph his final dance. It became the centerpiece of “Dancer.”

“I did get to the point where it was too much,” Polunin said in our interview. “You go more and more and more and you can’t stop. And I hated that. I don’t like the feeling of pain, so I tried to block it. Rather than learn how to deal with it, or how to do it naturally, I just took pills. That’s what’s scary. I didn’t think it was bad.”

Throughout the film, Polunin refers to dance as both something that he loves and something that’s brought him great anguish. He doesn’t necessarily believe that issues of depression or substance abuse constitute a broader problem in ballet. He focuses, instead, on his own path to a healthier and happier life.

“Every person is different. And there are very happy dancers,” he explained. “If you let yourself get down mood-wise ... I got used to it. I got comfortable down there. That was my comfort zone. If I was too happy, I thought, no, no, I need to bring it down. I thought that’s who I was. I’m just sad. But, then, you know ― you have to open your heart, you have to switch your mind. It’s the courage to push out of it rather than stay in and be comfortable.”

In the end, the “Take Me To Church” performance was not, in reality, Polunin’s last dance. He’s confessed that LaChapelle’s vision for what ballet could be ― something viral, set to contemporary music ― inspired him to keep dancing and think bigger.

Now, Polunin and “Dancer” producer Tana have plans to solidify a foundation, dubbed Project Polunin, which he hopes will function as a network of artist hubs as well as a mother agency for future generations of ballet dancers. The foundation, he hopes, will allow him to be more than just a principal at a ballet company, but a force for change within his industry.

“I think it would be amazing to have that kind of thing,” Polunin said. “To be able to ask a dancer the question: What do you want to do? Do you want to dance in Munich, in Russia, in America, at the Royal? Do you want to be a fashion model? Do you want to do a talk show? What’s your talent? [...] Because sometimes, the company can be too much.”

Today, Polunin is listed as a permanent guest artist at Zelensky’s company Bayerisches Staatsballet in Russia and regularly performs with Royal principal Natalia Osipova. He’s expressed an interest in acting; he is “very close to participating in one or two movies.” And he’s even appeared on “So You Think You Can Dance.”

“I think it’s important for ballet to be seen like that,” he said.

As for the future of ballet as a whole? “We need [LaChapelle] in the ballet world,” Polunin concluded. “We need something pop ― we need something that is now. And David is the best to shake things, to hype it up. For people to talk about us. I see him as a visionary for the future of ballet.”

For more information on “Dancer,” a film by Steven Cantor, head to IFC.

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Photographer Paul Mobley has met countless celebrities over the years, but says he’s never felt more awestruck than when he was shooting centenarians for his latest project.

“When I’m sitting in a room with a 115-year-old woman or a 110-year-old-man, I thought to myself, I had more tingles than when I photographed a famous rock star or actor or actress,” Mobley told The Huffington Post. 

Mobley is the co-author of an upcoming photography book, entitled “If I Live To Be 100: The Wisdom Of Centenarians,” in which he had the “honor” of meeting 75 of the oldest people across the nation.

He traveled all 50 states, meeting people between the ages of 100 and 116, to learn their secrets to longevity and their advice for a life well-lived. The result? A whopping 7,707 years of combined wisdom at his disposal.

“Every one of them gave me the best advice and it was just basic advice that we’ve all learned but maybe have forgotten about as we’ve gotten older and the world has changed,” the 50-year-old photographer said. 

“To try and live a good clean life or do a hard day’s work. Be kind to your friends and neighbors. Don’t miss the hellos. When u shake someone’s hand, look them in the eye,” he said. “Stuff that is so basic, but when you really think about it, it really is what matters.”

He noted that all centenarians had two things in common: they stayed active throughout their lives and made sure they had something to look forward to every single day ― whether it was a call from a loved one or playing pool with a friend. In addition, after researching the book, Mobley says he believes longevity is just 30 percent genetics and 70 percent how you live your life. 

“If you sit on your couch, lose contact with friends and don’t stay active, you go pretty quick,” he said.

Mobley says he’s fascinated by elders ― a tremendous untapped source of wisdom that few take the time to acknowledge.

“I think that elders, in general, are passed by,” Mobley said. “I found specifically in my travels that no one really seems to want to talk to them and listen to what they have to say... If people would take the time to listen, they’d be surprised.”

In the book, which comes out on October 11th, Mobley shares stunning photographs of the elders ― wrinkles and all ― plus their best advice. Here are some of the portraits:

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The wind was blowing at a strong, southern clip as Donald Trump took the stage under a blazing sun in the Florida city of Boca Raton on April 16, 2011.

Trump wore a pink tie with a dark suit over a white button-up as he strolled up to the podium to James Brown’s “Living in America.” The South Florida Tea Party had agreed to let Trump be the featured speaker for their event and this was the first time he had ever given a stump speech for the far-right movement.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll from earlier in April showed a hypothetical Trump candidacy beating out all other Republican candidates among Tea Party supporters, so members of the crowd speculated Trump would announce his candidacy during this speech. Among the 2,000 gathered there, a chant rose up: “Run, Donald, run.”

Trump only teased the possibility of running, but closed this Tea Party speech by claiming that if he did decide to run for president, he would rebuild the country and “the United States will be great again.” He’d never said this at a political rally before, although, in February, he’d claimed the slightly more inclusive, “Our country will be great again,” during CPAC, an annual conservative event.

Later in 2012, six days after the election when Mitt Romney lost to President Barack Obama, Trump filed to trademark the refined phrase, “Make America Great Again.”

When Trump left the stage in Boca Raton and met with his longtime aide, Roger Stone, in a black limousine, he said, “Wow! That was unbelievable,” as reported by Alex Leary of The Tampa Bay Times.

“There’s something here,” the future candidate added.

And so, the American dream came crashing down on April 16, 2011.

Meanwhile, up the eastern coast of the United States in Long Island, New York, and seemingly unrelated at the time, developers were destroying a 115-year-old mansion on the same exact day. Deemed the “Gatsby house,” local legend claimed the house on 30 Hoffstot Lane inspired Daisy Buchanan’s lavish East Egg home in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby.

The book, which is often considered the Greatest American Novel, centers around the Fitzgerald-created Jay Gatsby, a New Yorker who became rich by possibly nefarious means. At night, Gatsby often stares at a mysterious green light that emanates from Daisy’s house, always in the distance. As novelist John Green (The Fault in Our Stars) claims in a Gatsby-themed episode from his popular YouTube explainer series, also from 2011, Fitzgerald inserted the house’s green light as a symbol for “the American dream.”

Fitzgerald’s novel ends with the passage:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter ― tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther ... And one fine morning ― So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Although the “Tea Party” name has lost power since 2011, Trump learned he could tap into the far-right movement on April 16, 2011. This coincidentally corresponded with the moment one of the most famous symbols for the American Dream blinked out of existence.

A few days after the Boca Raton speech, Stone wrote on his site, The Stone Zone, that Trump was actually worried about how it would look to be promoting the Trump brand for his first big political speech to the far-right. This was a pervading criticism about Trump at time, given as a reason for why he shouldn’t actually run for office and stick to business.

“At last weekends [sic] Tea Party Tax rally in Boca Raton,” wrote Stone, “Trump asked his host if he should take off his trademark pastel tie for his speech. ‘No,’ he was told, ‘you gotta look like you look on TV.’”

Of course, using the presidential campaign for self promotion is now a staple of Trump’s identity. But it’s also a propped-up identity perpetuated to portray what he thinks other people want from him. In Boca Raton, he became Donald Jay Gatsby.

So if today, in 2016, you find yourself constantly wondering, “When did this all start?,” April 16, 2011 is a pretty good bet.

Here’s an attempt at a follow-up to the broken symbol ...

With the first 2016 Presidential Debate a week away (Sept. 26) and what would have been F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 120th birthday (Sept. 24) this upcoming weekend, it seemed like as good a time as any to try and fix what somehow became very broken half a decade ago.

I saw that Trump would be giving a speech in Florida on Sept. 19, returning him roughly to the scene of the crime. From watching various body-switching and time-traveling movies, I’ve learned that to set reality back to normal, you have to try and recreate the moment where things went awry. 

Without the means to rebuild Daisy’s mansion, I determined I’d need to find a different way to insert a green light into the New York sky. As luck would have it, I recently gained special access to an online app, Spireworks, that allows you to control the lights on the spire of the Bank of America Tower. That tower happens to be just about a mile away, or 14 streets, from Trump Tower, home to Trump’s infamous office and, of course, the taco-bowl-making Trump Grill. 

Fitzgerald based Gatsby and Buchanan’s homes in a fictionalized version of Long Island, which neighbors Manhattan. Putting a green light into the Manhattan skyline the night Trump spoke in Florida would have to be close enough. I hoped the loose symmetry could restore order to the universe.

At midnight, starting a new day, and one fine morning, I went to the roof of my Brooklyn apartment, played James Brown’s “Living in America,” stared into the distance feeling a slight breeze to the north and then found a green light was already shining like a beacon in the skyline.

It had rained more or less all day and the sky remained cloudy, but this green light still easily reached the roof of my apartment.

In yet another all-too-perfect-seeming coincidence, the Empire State Building was green, scheduled that way to honor Climate Week NYC. The green light cut through bad weather to literally symbolize the hope of a less volatile and stormy tomorrow.

I still turned the spire atop the Bank of America Tower green, but, that night, the predestined light shone much brighter than anything else around. The universe seemed to be correcting itself. 

The green light needs to last through November so the American dream doesn’t permanently die.

I do not know for sure if the American Dream was saved that night and morning. Unless Trump resigns, we’ll have to wait until November to find that out for sure.

But in the meantime, whenever you see a green light topping the Manhattan skyline, remember that, despite New York City being the birthplace to Trump, this is still a city of dreams.

Although it’s a small gesture compared to the powerful green light of the Empire State Building, I’d still love to turn the spire atop the tower near his office green as a reminder to Trump that he is a contemporary Gatsby.

Further, whenever you see a green light in the sky, remember there’s still hope that Trump will not be our next president.

The American Dream does still exist out there, but it’s most certainly not for him.

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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For Macy Gray, the Grammy Award–winning musician best known for her simple, emotive hit “I Try,” performing the song that catalyzed her fame never gets old.

“It’s a groovy song,” she told The Huffington Post in a phone interview. “I’ve had people say, ‘It was my wedding song,’ and ‘That’s the song I played for my boyfriend when I was gonna leave him.’ I think it just means different things to different people.

“When I wrote it [...] it was just my way of saying what I wanted to say. I’m surprised it lasted this long, and that people gravitated to it they way they did. I had no idea it would be so popular. Then and even now, I’m still surprised when I go to shows and everybody knows the words.”

Gray sings with measured emotion, in a style that seems at times practiced, at other points completely off-the-cuff. “My smiles are just a front. Just a front,” she croons along with the music, before interjecting, “Hey!”  

Her approach to singing blends the styles of a number of artists who inspire her; when she was young, she admired Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Nancy Wilson. But in the early days of MTV, she gravitated towards the rock hits that dominated the channel; David Lee Roth and Kurt Cobain were among her favorites.

Then and even now, I’m still surprised when I go to shows and everybody knows the words.
Macy Gray

“I kind of learned how to scream from him,” Gray said. “And then I learned a lot from rappers. Especially Biggie, because he has that rhythm. He kind of invented rhythm in the voice. From him I learned the importance of singing on a beat. You know what I mean? Instead of wailing all the time, hitting the beat.”

For all that she’s borrowed and remixed, Gray has added her own voice to the chorus of pop music, with her singing style that’s at once raspy and bubbly. The sound is a singularity, but Gray wasn’t always confident in how she came across ― both singing and speaking.

“I used to be really shy about my voice, really quiet, because it was peculiar,” Gray said. “Kids used to make fun of my voice. And I still get imitated all the time. But until I realized it was my blessing, I was super quiet. I still kind of think twice before I speak up sometimes, because I got so used to being quiet. Of course, all that changed. But I do catch myself sometimes, especially when there’s a lot of people around. I have to think before I can speak.”

Thankfully, she’s overcome her reticence. In fact, Gray’s newest album, “Stripped,” is about as impromptu as it gets; it was recorded over the course of two days in a church in Brooklyn. It’s a departure from what we know her for ― a full-on jazz album, featuring a buoyant, snappy recording of “I Try.”

“It wasn’t a lot of orchestration, it was more like, that’s cool, let’s do it,” Gray said, adding that she hopes jazz will make a comeback on Top-40 charts.

“It’s such a freestyle, do-whatever-you-want kind of thing, and I can’t imagine people wouldn’t want to incorporate that in what they do,” she said.

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The residents of Newtown, Connecticut, have spent nearly four years piecing their lives back together in the wake of America’s deadliest grade-school shooting in history. “The whole community has been victimized, but we’re not going to let the darkness overwhelm us,” one says in “Newtown,” Kim A. Snyder’s new documentary about the aftermath of the December 2012 tragedy.

The Huffington Post has the exclusive premiere of the “Newtown” trailer. Profiling parents who lost their children in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, along with a surviving teacher, an ER doctor who tended to the victims and others who paid witness to the gruesome acts, the movie rises above the media scrum to humanize the fight for proper gun control and the hardships that come with moving forward. This is a hopeful community, a community that wants to shield the world from experiencing a similar tragedy. 

“Newtown,” which opens in New York on Oct. 7 and Los Angeles on Oct. 14, has already screened at the White House and Congress. On Nov. 2, five nights before the presidential election, Fathom Events will put the film in more than 300 theaters nationwide, followed by a simulcast of a gun-violence panel hosted by CNN’s Chris Cuomo.

Watch the trailer above, and see out the movie’s poster ― another HuffPost exclusive ― below.

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“The Sixth Sense” gave us one of the greatest twist endings of all time. But, like a ghost, it has been haunting us with one major unanswered question over the years.

Well, everything’s about to change ...

Following the reveal that Bruce Willis’ character, Malcolm, has been dead the whole time (Whaaaaattt? I know, right? It’s still crazy), we’re left wondering one thing.

Did Cole know?

Cole (Haley Joel Osment) is seemingly terrified of ghosts for most of the movie. He’s got that tent with all the religious statues and freaks out every time he starts to see his breath. 

Just turn up the thermostat, dude.

Everything is different when Cole meets child psychologist Malcolm. Sure, he seems a little standoffish at first. Who wouldn’t be? The guy who blows people up in “Die Hard” wants to ask him about his feelings. Eventually, Malcolm breaks through, though, forming a bond with Cole despite the fact that he’s dead.

This is all evidence that Cole didn’t know about Malcolm. If he did, he’d probably freak out like he normally does. 

But, upon watching the movie more closely, it appears Cole could be aware that Malcolm is a ghost. The key piece of evidence comes when Cole is revealing his secret to Malcolm, the famous “I see dead people” moment.

Cole says ghosts “don’t know they’re dead” and only see “what they want to see.” 

Surely, at some point, Cole noticed the blood stain from the gunshot on Malcolm’s shirt, right? Malcolm couldn’t see it because he didn’t know he was a goner.

So what’s the answer? Now, we may finally know.

Recently, The Huffington Post sat down with producer Roger Birnbaum and actor Vincent D’Onofrio to talk about their new movie, “The Magnificent Seven.”

Birnbaum is also a producer on “The Sixth Sense,” and during the interview, we asked that big question: “Did Haley Joel Osment actually know Bruce Willis was dead the whole time?”

The answer: “No.”

Well, maybe no. Check out Birnbaum’s response here: 

The producer says “no” pretty definitively. If we left the subject there, that would’ve likely been the answer. But we didn’t leave it there.

I started losing my cool because, duh. That’s crazy.

After my reaction, Birnbaum added, “Or yes.” 

(C’mon! You’re killing me, Roger!)

Based on the response, it appears the answer is likely “no,” which is wild because the evidence had us thinking Cole did know. But Birnbaum threw in that M. Night Shyamalan-twist to mess with us. Typical.

It’s like Brad Pitt says in “Moneyball,” when you get the answer you’re looking for, hang up.

Birnbaum and D’Onofrio’s new movie, ”The Magnificent Seven,” hits theaters Friday.

Hit Backspace for a regular dose of pop culture nostalgia.

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Kyung Me was born in 1991 in a very small, very white Long Island town. Born to Korean immigrants, she felt like the only Asian in her community.

“I think, generally, the big difference between Korean culture and American culture is: In Korean families, kids aren’t coddled,” she told The Huffington Post. “Kids are not raised like, ‘You’re smart, just be yourself!’ Or, ‘You’re pretty, just be yourself!’ It can cause a lot of self-loathing.” 

A variation of this mindset is palpable in Kyung Me’s drawing series “Bad Korean,” a visual journal documenting her senior year of college in New York City from 2013 to 2014. The title, in part, references Kyung Me’s disjointed relationship to her own heritage. She describes herself as “very Americanized,” which is reflected in the purposefully clumsy, Google-translated titles of each drawing.

And yet, Kyung Me emphasized that her project was never meant to be a social commentary on Korean women, second-generation American women or anything other than her own story.

“At the time, she was me,” she explained. “I created this avatar for myself. She was kind of this dumpy friend that I wanted to cheer on. Throughout my late teens and early 20s, I felt like a sidekick in all my relationships. It was fun to have this spinoff where I was the protagonist.”

Kyung Me’s drawings, rendered in colored pencil and pastel on paper, show flattened visions of everyday life in New York ― images of being optimistic and confused and gross and lonely and lost and hungry and in love. The series, despite what the title may suggest, is meant to appeal to a far broader audience than Korean women ― anyone who’s ever felt out of place, out of whack or out of control will feel for Kyung Me’s alter ego. 

“She’s badly behaved,” the artist said. “Makes bad decisions. She had bad hair, bad relationships, bad communication. Bad everything.”

In one drawing titled “Health! Positivity! You Are Great,” Kyung Me enjoys a positively mediocre looking salad at every New Yorker’s least favorite dining establishment, Just Salad. A Sephora bag and crumpled receipt rest at her side. It’s easy to imagine this very moment of starting fresh with a healthy lunch and life-changing, overpriced moisturizer. In another, “Is the M Train Still Running,” Kyung Me stares blankly into space at a hip-looking bar, surrounded by wine glasses and presumably uninteresting banter. 

Her avatar is rendered with a hyperbolically round face, features tightly packed in the center, as if Marlene Dumas had made a comic strip. The aesthetic, the artist explained, exaggerates her insecurities tied to self-image, an insecurity she partly attributes to her Korean heritage. 

“Korean culture worships beauty,” she said. “If you are beautiful as a woman, you have more weight in society. You can do things that other people can’t. It’s incredibly debilitating. In Korean culture, the beauty standard is to have a narrow face. Mine is wide, so I accentuated it.” 

Three years after Kyung Me embarked on the “Bad Korean” series, her first foray into drawing, she is now enrolled in an MFA program at Yale. Her “Bad Korean” drawings have since been compiled into a book and are currently on view at Miller Gallery in New York. It seems safe to say that Kyung Me’s bad decisions paved the way for some very good work. 

“Bad Korean” is on view until Oct. 16 at Miller Gallery in New York.

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Netflix has released a new ad celebrating the amazing women on our TV screens (and laptops and tablets and smartphones), and it’s brilliant. 

The “She Rules” ad, which aired during the Emmys on Sunday, features some of the strongest female characters ON [amongst several] original Netflix shows. Among the featured characters are Taystee from “Orange is the New Black,” Claire Underwood from “House of Cards,” comedian Ali Wong in her comedy special “Baby Cobra,” Jessica Jones, and Nina Simone from the documentary “What Happened Miss Simone?” 

“Here’s to the women who rule our screens,” the 1-minute spot declares, “Long may we reign.”

Watch the full clip above.  

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The Self Love Club’s rules are as follows:

1. You must always show yourself respect, love, forgiveness and understanding.

2. You must show each other respect, love, forgiveness and understanding.

3. You must be kind to your body, and you must take care of your mental health.

Artist Frances Cannon wrote the rules shortly after she got a tattoo of the words “Self Love Club” earlier this year, inked by fellow artist Gemma Flack. She first came up with the phrase when she drew it as a tattoo in one of her drawings, many of which consist of naked ladies pledging oaths of body positivity.

“I decided I wanted to have it on my body, as well, and I think it was a couple of days later when I got it tattooed,” Cannon told The Huffington Post. Happy with how it turned out, she went the extra step and sent out an open invitation online to anyone interested in replicating her profession of self-care.

Cannon is an illustrator with a significant following ― she currently has nearly 68,000 followers on Instagram ― so she thought at least a few people would be interested in inking “Self Love Club” on their bodies, too. The first person to follow suit did so after about two to three weeks, she estimates.

From there, the words “Self Love Club” started appearing in her Instagram feed more and more. Today, there are dozens of images of the tattoo reposted on Cannon’s account alone, showing how vast the movement has become. For various reasons, people (mostly women) all over the world wanted to join Cannon’s self-care gang.

“I never thought it would get this huge! It’s amazing!” Cannon told HuffPost. “Everyone who has gotten the tattoo has gotten it for different reasons. Some have been, like me, commemorating their journey of self love, some have gotten it to remind them that they’re worth it, some have had a history of self-harm and got the tattoo to mark a point of change. Everyone’s story is so special.”

“I decided about two years ago to fully commit to loving and cherishing my body,” Cannon explained in a previous interview with The Huffington Post, “and body-positive artwork was an important part of the process. I’m open to making art about other topics and themes, but, for now, body positivity and feminism is what I’m passionate about and inspired by.”

The phrase “Self Love Club” partners two sentiments: self-acceptance and collective support. For a lot of men and women of the millennial generation, the term “club” specifically harkens back to safe spaces and girl- or boyhood journeys. “For me it just means a space of connection and understanding between people,” Cannon added. “Being a part of something, together.”

Cannon’s abstract “club” has not yet begun to take physical shape beyond an outpouring of images online, but she’s says she hopes to hold a meetup or dinner for Self Love Club members in the future. For those considering the tattoo today, she shared the following words:

“Do what makes you happy! Treat yourself with the love you deserve! Don’t let anyone tell you that you aren’t worth it!”

Below are some of the Self Love Club tattoos Cannon has posted:

Some women have even turned Cannon’s illustrations into “Self Love Club”-like tattoos:

For more on Frances Cannon’s Self Love Club work, check out her Instagram.

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“Little Sister” begins with a Marilyn Manson quote and Ally Sheedy smoking weed. Be still, your beating emo-teen heart.

The Huffington Post is debuting the poster for Zach Clark’s new film, which opens in New York and premieres on VOD platforms Oct. 14. A bittersweet comedy about Colleen Lunsford, a former goth girl who skips town to become a nun, “Little Sister” makes a star out of Addison Timlin (”Californication,” “That Awkward Moment”), who has a Rooney Mara-esque quality in the movie. Sheedy plays her mother, summoning Colleen home after her brother returns from the Iraq War a burn victim. Their dysfunctional North Carolina family must wade through years of resentments, forging an attempt to find harmony.

The poster is illustrated by Akiko Stehrenberger, who has designed one-sheets for “It Follows,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and “The One I Love,” among others. Set against the backdrop of the 2008 election, “Little Sister” ― as its poster shows ― encapsulates America’s conflicting ideals, some of which play out in Colleen as she revisits her childhood and configures her new life. 

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