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This Chart Reveals Which 'Hamilton' Character You Are At Work

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Have you ever wondered whether your colleagues view you as an Alexander Hamilton or an Aaron Burr at work? Great ― this “Hamilton”-themed flowchart is for you.


The chart, courtesy of Lucidchart, takes you through a series of questions about your leadership style before determining which musical character you are ― perhaps, a Marquis de Lafayette or an Angelica Schuyler ― when it comes to your work persona.


The infographic is a little harsh in its characterization of Eliza, Alexander Hamilton’s wife, who, following her husband’s death by duel, would go on to co-found and direct the first private orphanage in New York City. But it does applaud Angelica’s werk style, so let’s keep praying about that sequel, folks.


Probably the chart’s most important question: Have you ever sent a fully armed battalion to remind someone of your love? No? OK, you’re not King George.

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Who Is Banksy? We Rank the 10 Most Plausible Theories

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This article originally appeared on artnet News.



Who is Banksy? The identity of the mysterious British street artist has been a closely guarded secret ever since the snarky stencilist emerged on the scene.


Over the years several different people have attempted to “unmask” Banksy, an obsession that seems to have gripped the world. Only last week, a new sighting popped up in Australia. Theories surrounding his identity range from the plausible to the downright absurd. We enlisted curator and street art expert Carlo McCormick to rank 10 theories on Banksy’s identity based on their plausibility.


“It is a curious obsession this need for people to identify Banksy,” McCormick told artnet News in an email. “But maybe it is an expression of their need to identify with him. This pursuit is however a wild goose chase, and a red herring, strictly amateur sport,” he said. “Banksy is a real person, perhaps not nearly as interesting as his myth but certainly not a myth,” he explained.


McCormick added, “He’s probably been unmasked countless times, but like a good conspiracy theory the improbably ornate fiction is always going to be more compelling than the simple mundane truth.”



1. Paul Horner


In October 2014 an American news website claimed that a 35-year-old man named Paul Horner from Liverpool was identified as Banksy after he was tracked down by a Anti-Graffiti Task Force and arrested for vandalism, conspiracy, racketeering, and counterfeiting.


Banksy’s publicist Jo Brooks later denied that the artist had been arrested and confirmed that the source article was a hoax published by a satire website.


Related: Has Banksy Been Arrested Outside London?


McCormick’s verdict: 0 percent chance



2. Richard Pfeiffer


In March 2015 33-year-old Brooklyn artist Richard Pfeiffer was arrested for purportedly painting graffiti actually done by Banksy. Pfeiffer and his fiancé were admiring a street artwork in Manhattan’s East Village when police showed up and accused him of drawing the image.


Pfeiffer ― who was found in possession of a pen ― was able to prove that the tip didn’t match the style of the piece cops claim he drew. The charges were dropped 6 months later.


McCormick’s verdict: 0 percent chance



3. A woman


In the HBO documentary “Banksy Does New York” the Canadian media artist Chris Healey claimed that Banksy is in fact a team of seven artists led by a woman. He maintains that the leader is a blonde woman who appears in scenes depicting Banksy’s alleged studio in the documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop” (2010)The theory remains plausible only insofar that it hasn’t been disproved.


McCormick’s verdict: 0 percent chance


“No, so wrong. And it shows a shameful lack of understanding as to the nature of this artist’s vision and eccentricity to consider that it would be a team.”



4. A parking attendant at “Dismaland”


Reports in the British media claimed that Banksy was hiding in plain sight on the site of his satirical amusement park project “Dismaland” which he constructed in the resort town of Weston-Super-Mare in 2015.


Banksy fans reportedly recognized Robin Gunningham, a man touted to be the mysterious guerrilla artist from a photograph purported to be Banksy published by The Daily Mail in 2008. However it turned out that the parking attendant was in fact an employee of the local municipality.


McCormick’s verdict: 0 percent chance



5. Robin Banks


In January 2015 a British teenager claimed that a man introducing himself as Robin Banks gave him a print signed by Banksy on a train in Oxenholme, England after the young man helped the artist pick up paints that fell out of his carry-on bag.


Banksy reportedly told the boy that the picture was worth ca. £20,000 ($24,000).


McCormick’s verdict: 0 percent chance



6. Thierry Guetta, aka Mr. Brainwash


Some say that the clownish French artist who starred in Banksy’s documentary “Exit Though the Gift Shop,” is in fact one and the same as Banksy. Even though Mr Brainwash is widely derided by art experts as a pretty terrible artist.


McCormick’s verdict: 1 percent chance


“No, no, no. It goes to show how damn ignorant most fans of street art are that there could ever be any confusion made between the blundering stupidity of Mr. Braindead and the savvy radicalisms of Banksy. Simply put Thierry is a rich kid who could provide artists like Banksy [with] access to prime properties in L.A. so that some of the more daring conquests could have been given permission. I’m not an expert in these matters, but if I had to guess that’s how Thierry ended up mucking everything with his baby formula of bad art direction and mindless cut and paste juxtapositions.”



7. Robert Del Naja


Journalist Craig Williams claimed to have compelling evidence that Robert Del Naja, frontman of the electronic music band Massive Attack, is in fact also the street artist known as Banksy. Williams claimed to have identified a correlation between cities where Massive Attack performed and where murals by the artist have turned up.


Del Naja swiftly denied the reports saying that the rumors were “greatly exaggerated.”


McCormick’s verdict: 5 percent chance


“This is really funny, and I’ve been confused with mates of mine before so maybe understandable. No, it’s not true. But it’s a worthy reminder what a bunch of delinquent ecstatic transgressors Massive Attack have always been, and how it was not so long ago that such subversive voices were carried through music before migrating more fully to visual culture.”



8. Graffiti artist in Australia


YouTube user Mia S claimed she caught Banksy in the act after filming a man purported to be the elusive street artist in Melbourne, Australia. The video shows a bespectacled man in jeans, a dark jacket, hooded sweatshirt, and watch cap.


She confronts the graffiti artist in the video before he tells her to “fuck off” and flees the scene.


McCormick’s verdict: 50 percent chance





9. Man in Red Hook warehouse


Twitter blew up when photos supposedly depicting Banksy preparing his artwork “Siren of the Lambs” (2013) emerged online. The photo showed five men arranging stuffed animals in a truck outside a warehouse in Red Hook Brooklyn, leading to intense speculation that one of the men standing next to the truck, who appeared to give orders, is in fact the elusive artist.




McCormick’s verdict: 50 percent chance


“Sightings are of course very different than identifications. They may in fact be legitimate but they tell us no more than a Rorschach would; merely the amplification of desire into sight. Quite possibly they are no more reliable than the stories of UFO abductions or all the spottings of Elvis in strip malls long after he was certified dead, but just as likely to be real. I couldn’t reliably point out most of my friends or family in a police lineup so don’t ask me, but as Banksy proclaimed ‘one nation under CCTV’ and as the cameras proliferate and we gradually turn into a society of snitches, why the hell shouldn’t he be like a phantom meme in all our low budget videos?”





10. Robin Gunningham


Criminologists at London’s Queen Mary University used a technique called geographic profiling to identify the street artist as Bristol resident Robin Gunningham.


Geographic profiling is a sophisticated statistical analysis technique used in criminology to locate repeat offenders. The researchers looked for a correlation between 140 artworks in London and Bristol attributed to Banksy, and 10 commonly touted names purported to be the elusive street artist.


McCormick’s verdict: 75 percent chance


“Yes, and it is scary to think that something as creepy as geographic profiling could be put to such ends.”



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Mom Celebrates Rainbow Baby With Stunning Underwater Photo

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A powerful maternity photo is celebrating a family’s rainbow baby and highlighting the beauty of hope after loss.


In September, photographer Teresa Creech captured this gorgeous image of an expectant mother. 



For Creech, taking this photo was particularly special because she’d worked with this family once before, under less joyful circumstances. 


The Oregon photographer volunteers for Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, an organization that offers free professional remembrance portraits for families experiencing stillbirth or early infant loss. A year ago, she received a call from a nurse at a local hospital to photograph a baby, who had been “born too early” and would not survive. 


“When I arrived, the very tiny baby girl was fully dressed, in very poor condition, and being carried around on a pillow with blankets all arranged artfully around her,” Creech told The Huffington Post.


“The family had truly taken time to get to know their little one; to bond it seemed,” she recalled. “Their 6- and 8-year-olds were in the room, as well as the in-laws and cousins. It was a large group for such a tiny baby. Everyone wanted their portrait with baby. There was a lot of grief and a lot of love, as well.”


Creech said this photo session “really stuck” with her, and she thought of the family many times over the ensuing years. Recently, Creech sent the mother a Facebook message to say, “Hello,” and the two began catching up. The mother revealed that she was 30 weeks pregnant and asked if Creech would take her maternity portraits. The photographer, of course, agreed. 


On Sept. 25, Creech took the expectant mom’s maternity photos underwater, a technique she has recently been using. To celebrate the family’s rainbow baby girl, Creech and her assistant gave the mom colorful ribbons. The photographer calls the above shot “After The Storm.” 


Though the family prefers to remain anonymous, they hope the photo can bring hope to others who have experienced loss and are waiting for their own “rainbow.” Creech said that’s why she didn’t include the mother’s head in this particular shot ― so that others could envision themselves in her position of joy after pain. 


“Hopefully the person feeling this way may be able to say, ‘This woman could be me, IS me, I will get there,’” the photographer told HuffPost. “I guess I just hope to say that they too can have that rainbow after the storm.” 


She added, “I hope that people experiencing such life challenges as infertility, infant and pregnancy loss can find a bit of encouragement that there are others who have been on their journey, and they also have had the same feelings, worry, and tears, and they somehow were blessed with one more miracle.”

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Are These The 10 Most Influential Poets In History, Or Nah?

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Of all the poets in the world, which have been the most influential? That’s a deceptively enormous question, but My Poetic Side took a shot at answering it in this dizzying infographic. To arrive at this top 10, they explained, they “conducted extensive research to find out who the top poetry influencers were and studied approximately 250 poets to determine whether they were influenced by any other poets, and, if so, who.”


The list compiles some impressive linguistic craftsmen ― John Keats, William Shakespeare, Ezra Pound, John Milton and more ― but it’s impossible not to notice at a glance how limited it is: All of the 10 are white men who wrote in English within the past 500 years.


Is that an accurate reflection of the world of poetry? If we learned anything from World Poetry Day last week, it was probably that when most of us think of the art form, we think of this classic ABCB quatrain: “Roses are red / Violets are blue / Sugar is sweet / And so are you.” But the genre has so much more to offer than nursery rhymes and bawdy limericks ― it’s spanned millennia and continents, with famous practitioners ranging from Homer to Rumi to Charles Baudelaire to Emily Dickinson to Langston Hughes, not to mention canonical poems whose authors remain unknown (such as “The Epic of Gilgamesh” and “The Ballad of Mulan”).


“Influence” is a tricky question, since biases in publishing and within poetic communities would have restricted women and minorities in Western countries from being widely read until quite recently. Looking at the infographic’s influencers and influencees, women writers and writers of color appear sprinkled throughout. Yet it seems clear from the resulting graphic that most of the input writers studied were white men, writing in English, from Western countries.


Given that poetry has always been an international art form, labeling the infographic “the 10 most influential poets in history” is akin to calling Major League Baseball’s championship “The World Series” ― another reminder that our subconscious assumptions and biases can dramatically affect how we evaluate something.


Although the infographic may not definitively establish the 10 most influential poets of all time, it is packed with fascinating literary details. You may not be surprised that Emily Dickinson was influenced by Wordsworth, but what about Allen Ginsburg and Percy Bysshe Shelley? or Vladimir Nabokov and Edgar Allan Poe? It’s impossible to get inside your favorite poet’s head, but these influence webs offer a tantalizing glimpse at the inspiration that shaped their art.

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Here's Why Rappers Are So Obsessed With Grey Poupon

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Maybe you’ve noticed it, or perhaps you haven’t yet. But once you do, you’ll hear it everywhere in hip-hop: Rappers from the east coast to the west, including Big Daddy Kane, Kanye West, Jay-Z and Ghostface Killah, have all name-dropped Grey Poupon in their tracks.


Vox explored this pop culture phenomenon in the video above and with an interactive timeline highlighting lyrics that span decades. Their investigation found that the trend dates back to the 1980s, when one fancy guy first rolled up to another fancy guy and asked him, “Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?”


“From then on, Grey Poupon became the condiment of choice for rappers who wanted an easy rhyme that also illustrated the idea of status, luxury, and class,” report Vox’s Estelle Caswell and Sarah Frostenson. “From 1992 to 2016, Grey Poupon references popped up in hip-hop songs nearly every year.”


Maybe the company’s new slogan should be “Grey Poupon: Just as easy to spread across your rhymes as it is your turkey sandwich.”


Check out their extensive research in the video above. And if you’re hungry for mustard yourself now, check out the recipes below:

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How #TrumpDrSeuss Hilariously Stole Twitter

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Poetry had a big day yesterday. For a few magical hours, #TrumpDrSeuss took over Twitter ― and our hearts. Would Bob Dylan still have won the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature had we launched this hashtag game a few months earlier? The world may never know.


It all started with a simple tweet of fate:






Moments later, Twitter erupted with Whos everywhere rhyming their little faces off.


Participants really grabbed the bull by the pussy horns with this one. Here’s a look at some of our favorites:



















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Ally Sheedy’s Reaction To Her ‘Breakfast Club’ Makeover Shows How Times Have Changed

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“The Breakfast Club” made Ally Sheedy an eternal style queen. That tousled hair and dark eyeliner was a proto-form of goth fashion, which, when the movie opened in 1985, was still migrating to America from the British rock scene. Allison, the resident “basket case,” speaks to countless teenagers who feel like misfits.


Then they had to go and muck it up. John Hughes’ classic ends with preppy Claire (Molly Ringwald) giving Allison a makeover and jock Andy (Emilio Estevez) suddenly taken by her glammed-up beauty. 


During a HuffPost interview to promote her new film “Little Sister,” Sheedy, who helped to craft Allison’s look, said the makeover scene wouldn’t happen if the movie were made today. 


“They would have left her alone, and the onus would have been on him ― on Emilio’s character ― to break through and to see what was inside,” she said. “I didn’t have to change my look to get him to suddenly see it. But that’s where we were then.”


Sheedy suggested that Allison’s changes should be more of an evolution. In the clip above, watch her describe how the storyline changed from Hughes’ original script. 


“Little Sister” is now open in limited release and available on VOD platforms. Read our follow-up interview with Sheedy here.




Hit Backspace for a regular dose of pop culture nostalgia.


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Teacher Breaks Down Why Pronouncing Students' Names Correctly Matters

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Pronunciation matters, and no one should know that better than an educator. 


But Bronx-based teacher Adam Levine-Peres knows how easy it is for some teachers to fall into the habit of mispronouncing the names of their black and brown students. That’s why he made a video breaking down why name pronunciation matters. 


Levine-Peres explains in the video that there are three common problems that occur when a teacher consistently mispronounces a student’s name. It creates a distrust between pupil and instructor, when teachers stop trying to learn a name it teaches students that it’s OK to give up, and it just simply goes against common courtesy. 


“You wouldn’t like it if happened to you, so please learn to say their names properly,” he says towards the end of the video. “I guarantee you, it’ll go along way in the classroom. If you don’t know how to say their name, ask them. Ask them, again, and ask them to say it slower. Ask them to say it in their native language and then spell it out phonetically in your attendance sheet.” 


In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Levine-Peres gave another reason why he thinks a student’s name should be shown respect by class instructors: 



As an Educator that has worked in the classroom, I have witnessed the worst butchering of Latino, Muslim and African-American names.


Names hold ancestral importance for many people of color. Our “name” bring with them passion, history & stories. It is sad when I say that students are forced to adopt to an “Americanized” version of their name.



In recent years, there’s been more awareness on the effects of mispronouncing a student’s name. A 2012 study by University of California professors Rita Kohli and Daniel Solórzano delved into why name mispronunciation in K-12 classrooms can be viewed as a microaggression. And last year, a national campaign was launched by the Santa Clara County Office of Education, titled “My Name, My Identity,” which asked teachers, cities and districts to pledge to pronounce names correctly as a way to honor a student’s identity. 


Watch Levine-Peres’ video breaking down why pronouncing names properly matters in the video above. 

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Black Women Are Speaking Out To Show The World #WhatADoctorLooksLike

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Black female doctors everywhere are demanding visibility online by posting pictures with the hashtag #WhatADoctorLooksLike, which they are using to validate their existence and celebrate their work.


The tweets were in response to a Facebook post that went viral on Thursday after Tamika Cross, a black female OB-GYN in Houston, Texas, documented the discrimination she claimed she faced while on a recent Delta flight. In her post, Cross chronicled how a flight attendant questioned her medical credentials after she offered to help a man who needed medical attention on the plane. 



“She said to me, ‘Oh no sweetie, put ur hand down, we are looking for actual physicians or nurses or some type of medical personnel, we don’t have time to talk to you.’ I tried to inform her that I was a physician but I was continually cut off by condescending remarks,” Cross wrote. She went on to explain how the attendant allegedly continued to question her by asking, “What type of Doctor are you? Where do you work?”  



Cross went on to write that her offer to help was ultimately dismissed after a white male approached and said he could assist. She wrote that the attendant eventually expressed her regrets but Cross said an apology wasn’t enough. 


“This is going higher than her... whether this was race, age, gender discrimination, it’s not right. She will not get away with this,” Cross wrote. “I’m sure many of my fellow young, corporate America working women of color can all understand my frustration when I say I’m sick of being disrespected.” 


It appears Cross wasn’t alone in this sentiment, as tons of other women stood together in solidarity with the hashtag. Black female doctors started to speak out by showing the world that black girl magic runs deeps within the medical professional world. Here are some of the responses from black women who want to show everyone #WhatADoctorLooksLike

























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These Harry Potter-Themed Makeup Brushes Have Amazing Wand Handles

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For Harry Potter fans, there’s no such thing as too much HP. The thirst for more movies, more books, more anything is pretty much unquenchable. 


That’s probably why people are losing their minds over these new magic “wizard wand makeup brushes, first spotted by Allure on the MakeupAddition Reddit page. They’re the brainchild of Omaha-based triplets Missy, Mandy and Erin Maynard, who already run a fandom jewelry store called The Geeky Cauldron.



The brushes are the first product in the sisters’ newest venture, Storybook Cosmetics, and should be on sale in six weeks or less, according to the company’s instagram. A spokeswoman said Storybook will roll out its “sorting palette” eyeshadows shortly thereafter.


How much love do people have for this? Two days ago, Storybook’s Instagram boasted 10,000 “new friends.” By Friday, that number was up to 40,000. According to Erin Maynard, it was only a matter of time before the sisters, who “have been fangirls all our lives,” made a foray into cosmetics. 


“It’s in our blood,” she said. “As fans of all things sparkly, magical and mystical it was a logical next step to crossover our fandom businesses into cosmetics.”


Now, if only the brushes could put the makeup on for us, that would be really magical. Storybook is still nailing down exact pricing, and we’ll update this story as information becomes available. 







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'Why I Want To F**k Donald Trump' Reflects The Very Real Anger Surrounding This Election

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Warning: As our headline hints, this art show features strong language and very explicit imagery that might not be safe for work. 



Since the very beginning of election season, the political art scene has been alight with anger directed almost entirely at Donald Trump.


Artists have depicted the Republican presidential candidate in various states of humiliating undress ― as a nude caricature statue, as a man with a notably small penis. They’ve shown him clothed, too ― in retro homages to political art past, or in very contemporary scenarios mocking his “locker room talk.” Then there was the poop art.


Save for a pro-Trump art show condemned by the gallery originally tasked with showing it, most of the art world has aligned themselves with the left, their pens and cameras and brushes aimed squarely at the guy spewing racist, misogynist, xenophobic balderdash wherever he goes.


The latest group of artists to oppose Trump have gathered in an exhibition not so subtly titled “Why I Want To Fuck Donald Trump.” From Brian Andrew Whiteley’s “The Legacy Stone Project (The Donald Trump Tombstone)” to Rebecca Goyette’s “Ghost Bitch U.S.A.,” many of the artworks take direct aim at the Donald, no holds barred. 



The title of the exhibition is a J.G. Ballard reference. In 1968, Unicorn Bookshop published a pamphlet by Ballard titled “Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan.” The dystopian short story, later collected in The Atrocity Exhibition, is written like a parody of a scientific paper, recalling some truly disturbing (and very fictional) experiments meant to gauge the psychosexual appeal of Reagan, who was then running for the Republican presidential nomination.


“Why I Want to Fuck Donald Trump,” on view at Joshua Liner Gallery in Manhattan, is a riff on Ballard’s title, meant to draw a parallel between the sensationalism of American politics in the ‘60s and the cult of celebrity that still exists today. 


There are a few artworks dedicated to Hillary Clinton ― and one for George W. Bush, too! ― but many of the pieces on view gravitate toward Trump and his wildly offensive campaign, predicated on the idea that he and his supporters are sick and tired of politics-as-usual.



“It’s kinda not surprising why Trump and his supporters are so angry,” William Powhida writes in his piece on display, a fine example of the irreverent attitudes on display at Joshua Liner. “They’d all be a lot happier if they enjoyed sex instead of listening to puritanical hypocrites like Trump. Seriously, let’s fuck this guy.”


Check out a preview of “Why I Want to Fuck Donald Trump” here. The exhibition will run “concurrently with the 2016 presidential election,” so you still have time to catch the artworks in person before Nov. 8. Apologies for reminding you that this tortuous time in American history is still not over. 





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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These Spooky Garage Door Stickers Are What Halloween Is All About

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Halloween decorations like witches’ brooms, spiderwebs and jack-o-lanterns are great, but common. Why not be the first to stick one of these giant Halloween murals on your garage?


Style Your Garage sells giant stick-on images to give your regular, non-spooky garage a Halloween facelift. They start at about $183 in the company’s online shop


Be warned: Some of these designs may scare off trick or treaters:



Of course, you can always perform a DIY paint or craft job to get similar looks on the cheap, or 


Happy Halloween!  

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In A Time Of Demagogy, Author Sees True Humanity In Immigrants

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The opening line of Vanessa Hua’s debut collection is so bold in its address, it almost feels like a direct question from her to the reader: “Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”


The narrator lists his many accomplishments, then concludes, “I didn’t think so.” Kingsway Lee, despite his film and pop music bona fides, is a superstar only in Hong Kong, where his American upbringing and swagger effortlessly won him celebrity. Now on a return flight to his hometown, Oakland, he’s shedding all that fame as easily as he acquired it just by switching locations. It’s a tradeoff he’s willing to make, since a hacker leaked thousands of lewd photos from his cell phone. In America he’s not a beloved star, but he’s also not famous enough to be harassed by paparazzi or outraged fans.


Unfortunately, he soon learns that crossing the ocean might have stripped him of the warm glow of adulation ― “How dim, my star across the Pacific,” he muses ― but it hasn’t freed him from the negative externalities. Soon after he arrives at home, journalists show up on his parents’ doorstep and interrogate him in front of neighbors, including a former classmate to whom he felt a burgeoning attraction. “I can’t start over fresh with her,” Kingsway realizes. “It isn’t a chance I’m certain I want, or even a chance I’m certain I had, but the loss stings all the same.” It’s all the curse, none of the blessing. In this globalized world, he can’t take his celebrity with him, but his infamy will follow him everywhere.


Venturing across boundaries both tangible and imperceptible, legal and emotional, can carry tremendous weight in Deceit and Other Possibilities. Throughout Hua’s collection, written over the course of over 10 years, she tells the stories of people who have crossed borders despite all that they must leave behind in the process, or who choose to cross back despite all that they’ve gained in their new world.


In “For What They Shared,” a Chinese immigrant couple and the wife’s parents share a Big Sur campsite with a raucous group of 20-somethings, including Aileen, a Chinese-American woman joining her white boyfriend’s buddies for an expedition. Lin, the wife, knows her parents want her to return to China with her husband and start a family. She’s hoping the idyllic camping trip will persuade them that she’s right to stay in California. Aileen wants to be accepted by her boyfriend’s group, even as she’s uncomfortable with their casual privilege. On each side, a woman wavering in a liminal space ― to choose America or China, to stand with the people who share her background or the people who share her camp.


Another story, “Accepted,” might niggle at buried memory in readers’ brains: Like an actual news story from 2007, it revolves around a driven Korean-American high school student who pretends to attend Stanford as a student on campus for months, though she was actually rejected by admissions. Elaine Park, the narrator of the story, can’t bear to tell her parents that she’s been denied by the only college they’ve dreamed of and prepared her to attend. Instead, she quietly pretends that she got in, sneaks onto campus, convinces a freshman to let her crash indefinitely in a dorm room, and attends classes for which she’ll never get grades. She applies to Stanford again, convinced the first rejection was a mistake. She joins ROTC, slipping through the cracks opened up in the gap between Stanford and the military organization, which isn’t officially affiliated with the school. In Hua’s heart-wrenching, implacable story, Elaine is transformed from a news curiosity to a human teeming with painful, contradictory impulses. She’s desperate to cross over into the world of the legitimate, the accepted, but when her path is blocked, she collapses.


Hua’s strongest stories live here, in the muddled hearts of people seeking their home or their way forward ― an elderly man who has returned home to China to visit his still-more aged mother, only to find that the entire village is determined to marry one of their daughters off to the wealthy American uncle; a gay man who can’t bring himself to come out to his Chinese immigrant parents despite being in a committed relationship.


On a prose and plot level, however, the book often slips ― perhaps unsurprising from a debut short story collection written over such a long span of time. When a story rests on a narrative device or shocking conclusion, like the morally compromising denouement to the final story in the collection, “The Deal,” Hua’s pacing often feels off, providing both too many of the wrong details and too few of the necessary ones to build tension. She has a gift for opening sentences that pull the reader in, but endings are trickier ― sometimes powerful, sometimes stumbled over. “Camping had fooled her into thinking that she belonged where she did not, as if the equipment alone could guarantee happiness and safe passage,” one story concludes with an almost pedagogic tinge. The prose, sometimes clear and effortless, can also be stilted, as in this passage.


Although Deceit and Other Possibilities isn’t highly polished, it’s easy to keep reading, perhaps because many of the characters within feel so human and in need of being heard. With Hua’s debut novel forthcoming from Ballantine, readers beguiled by her depth of psychological insight will be eager to see what she can elicit from her characters in the span of a book-length narrative.  


The Bottom Line:


In an uneven short story debut, Hua draws the reader in with her power of perception.


What other reviewers think:


Booklist: “Hua’s ability to imagine the detailed lives of her disparate characters, including a sex-scandal runaway, missionary saviors, and a lock-picking immigrant, gives her stories impact, despite a few jarring endings.”


San Francisco Chronicle: “Above all, she has a deep understanding of the pressure of submerged emotions and polite, face-saving deceptions. The truth comes out, sometimes explosively, sometimes in a quiet act of courage.”


Who wrote it?


Vanessa Hua, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist, is also the author of a novel forthcoming from Ballantine. Her short stories have appeared in The Atlantic, The American Literary Review, Hopkins Review, and more. Deceit and Other Possibilities is her debut collection.


Who will read it?


Readers interested in questions of identity and belonging.


Opening lines:


“Perhaps you’ve heard of me?


“Maybe you’ve listened to a song by the Jump Boys, a group I fronted, which had three gold records that launched countless jingles for a remarkable array of consumer products. Or on television, as the host of a reality show where contestants dared to eat horse cock sandwiches and cling to helicopters zooming over a tropical bay. On billboards, hawking heavy gold watches, cask-aged cognac, or alligator leather shoes, my shirt unbuttoned to reveal six-pack abs.


“I didn’t think so.”


Notable passage:


“The rejection from Admissions was a mistake. That’s what I told myself after I clicked on the link and logged onto the portal last spring. Stanford had denied another Elaine Park, another in Irvine who’d also applied. I waited for a phone call of apology, along with an e-mail with the correct link.


“I hadn’t meant to lie, not at first, but when Jack Min donned his Stanford sweatshirt after receiving his acceptance (a senior tradition) ― I yanked my Cardinal red hoodie out of my locker. When my AP English teacher, Ms. Banks, stopped to congratulate me, I couldn’t bring myself to say, not yet.”


Deceit and Other Possibilities
by Vanessa Hua
Willow Books, $18.95
Published Sept. 30, 2016


The Bottom Line is a weekly review combining plot description and analysis with fun tidbits about the book.

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Dear Internet, It's Time To #SavePepe

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As the election draws near, with more and more women coming forward to share their stories of being sexually harassed by Donald Trump, it seems just about every self-respecting man, woman and child has jumped off the quickly self-destructing ship that is Trump’s hate-mongering campaign.


There is, however, one amphibian whose political preferences have remained ambiguous ― until now, that is. Yes, friends, we’re talking about Pepe.


After a bizarre dalliance with Trump’s most deplorable supporters, who adopted the frog as a symbol for the alt-right, the Anti-Defamation League and artist Matt Furie are fighting to bring back the Pepe they know and love. To do so, they’re urging the Light Side of the internet to band together and #SavePepe.







One of the stranger side-effects of this nightmarish election cycle has been the alt-right’s adoption of Pepe the frog, a character originally created by Furie as part of his 2005 stoner zine “Boy’s Club.”


In an earlier interview with The Huffington Post, Furie described Pepe as a slacker frog whose passions include smoking weed, eating pizza and goofing around with his bros. Due to a freakish chain of viral events, however, this once innocent frog became the mascot for a variety of racist, anti-Semitic and Trump-tastic causes. 


After images of Pepe engaging in ugly practices like policing the U.S. Mexican border and operating a gas chamber began crowding the web and frightening frog devotees everywhere, the ADL got involved, designating this debased Pepe a hate symbol. 







Furie explained that while surely Pepe had gotten into the hands of some truly bigoted internet users, there was nothing inherently hateful about the frog himself.


In my mind, frogs are one of the most peaceful creatures,” he said. “They just chill on lily pads and eat. You never really feel threatened by frogs in nature. I think that’s why they’re so popular in fairy tales. They’re just ... chill.” 


To redeem his beloved froggy from a future of all prejudice, Furie is teaming up with the ADL to return Pepe to his former glory ― or at least, his former state of drinking beers and farting on the couch without being wildly offensive. 







“Pepe was never intended to be used as a symbol of hate,” Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO, explained in a statement. “The sad frog was meant to be just that, a sad frog. We are going to work with Matt and his community of artists to reclaim Pepe so that he might be used as a force for good, or at the very least to help educate people about the dangers of prejudice and bigotry.”


To start, Furie and the ADL are encouraging all the non-racist corners of the internet to spread the hashtag #SavePepe across social media platforms, to overshadow Pepe’s more profane alter egos. 


Furie is also scheduled to speak at ADL’s inaugural “Never Is Now” Summit against anti-Semitism on November 17 in New York, where he’ll participate in a panel discussion focused on “the manifestations and consequences of online hate.” 







Just when things were looking down for our web-footed friend, we’re glad to see that the internet is using its power to redeem our bro Pepe once and for all.


Come on, internet! Let’s bring back the old Pepe, a simple frog, who never hated anyone or anything. As Furie put it: “Before he got wrapped up in politics, Pepe was an inside joke and a symbol for feeling sad or feeling good and many things in between. I understand that it’s out of my control, but in the end, Pepe is whatever you say he is, and I, the creator, say that Pepe is love.”


You heard him. The power to #SavePepe starts with you. 







Read more about Pepe’s strange internet journey here.


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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8 Iconic Photos Of Bob Dylan, Newly Anointed Nobel Laureate

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Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature earlier this week, an unusual selection that’s made him the only singer-songwriter to win the award. The Swedish Academy credited Dylan’s creation of “new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” to the surprise of literati everywhere (or, at least, on Twitter).


In honor of Dylan’s latest recognition ― he’s also won Grammys, a Golden Globe, an Oscar, a special Pulitzer, a Presidential Medal of Freedom and Kennedy Center Honors, among other awards ― here are 8 iconic photos of the newly anointed Nobel Laureate.


The photos come courtesy of Peter Fetterman Gallery in Santa Monica, Calif., described as one of the largest inventories of classic 20th-century photography. Taken by photographers Don Hunstein, Jerry Schatzberg and John Cohen, the images span the 1960s, the decade during which Dylan rose to musical prominence.








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'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' Is A Noble Misfire

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It’s hard to criticize the work of someone who pours their soul into a pioneering piece of art. When Ang Lee introduced the world premiere of “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” at the New York Film Festival on Friday evening, the veteran director was visibly nervous. “Please give this a chance,” he urged. “Have an open mind.” Lee was so earnest that I felt nervous on his behalf. This is his baby!


Forgive me, then, if I feel a mild moral dilemma in writing this review. I want so badly for Lee to succeed. He’s arguably today’s most groundbreaking filmmaker, thanks to the international acclaim of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” the nuances of “Brokeback Mountain” and the nautical visuals of “Life of Pi.” Sadly, “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” is an admirable misfire. 


No movie like “Billy Lynn” has ever been made. Stick with this technical jargon for just a minute: Most feature films are shot at 24 frames per second, but Lee made this one at a record-breaking 120. (It was a polarizing milestone in 2012 when Peter Jackson made the “Hobbit” series at 48 frames per second.) To boot, Lee shot the film in 3D and using 4K resolution. The NYFF venue installed a new RealD screen specifically for this premiere. Combined, these techniques create a hyperrealism even surpassing the weird motion-smoothing (aka “the soap-opera effect”) that is now a preset on some high-definition televisions. 



Most theaters aren’t equipped to project this technology, so much of the world will see the film in a more typical style. But I saw it with all of Lee’s bells and whistles intact, so that’s how I’ll discuss it. And here’s the thing: Its supposed heightened realness ― a super-sharpness, if you will ― actually makes the film look incredibly cheap. The visuals are jarring and distracting, like you’re seeing something at once unfinished and overdone. 


I’m not sure how many of the “Billy Lynn” flaws are the result of its mechanics and how many are the fault of the story itself. At first blush, the script feels weak and the performances stilted. Are the cameras to blame? The expository dialogue? The awkward segues between flashbacks and present-day events? I owe this movie another viewing to decide, but I’m inclined to think it’s a mixture of all these things.


Based on Ben Fountain’s celebrated 2012 novel and adapted by Jean Christophe Castelli, “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” is the story of, well, Billy Lynn’s long halftime walk. Billy is an Iraq War soldier who, in 2004, has been temporarily released for a victory tour with his seven comrades. “American heroism has a new face today,” a newscaster announces at the film’s start, describing a brutal video of Billy killing an Iraqi enemy.


Billy and the squadron are paraded around at a Thanksgiving Day football game where they are told they’ll appear alongside Destiny’s Child at the halftime show. Billy, played by capable newcomer Joe Alwyn, doesn’t realize the gravity of his PTSD ― only his left-wing sister (Kristen Stewart) does. All the while, a pushy Hollywood producer (Chris Tucker) is trying to option the fleet’s story for a movie, the guys are being feted by a greedy billionaire football manager (Steve Martin), and Billy has irrationally fallen for a flirty NFL cheerleader (Makenzie Leigh) who offers a respite from his strife. 



The movie weaves in and out of wartime flashbacks, some more effective than others. For a story so vital, it has little emotional resonance. The technology, as Lee describes it, is meant to place us inside Billy’s perspective. Sometimes it succeeds. But the action surrounding Billy is so phony and constructed that the meat of the narrative comes up hollow. Here, the camera can’t lie. When a performance is bad (and several are), it’s really bad.


To its detriment, “Billy Lynn” shies away from issuing many resounding takeaways about the horrors of war. A couple of scenes ― particularly a close-up of Billy strangling an Iraqi adversary ― do offer combat footage more harrowing than the typical rumble of Hollywood’s kinetic battle sequences, but as soon as they’re over, we return to a lifeless drip that fails to break ground as a character study. As a story, “Billy Lynn” should be more of a satire, like the novel. It’s silly for these troops to be touted as mythical heroes so that others can profit or feel warm fuzzies about our military’s sacrifices. But the script treats individual plot threads too seriously (the movie-rights bit is endless), and the visuals bury the satire. By the time we’re watching a Destiny’s Child reenactment, it seems like an all-out spoof. (Sorry, but you can’t half-ass an impersonation of Beyoncé, one of the most beloved celebrities in the world, in 2016 ― especially not while she’s singing “Soldier” alongside Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams and actual soldiers.) 


Lee’s stylings are too earnest for this material. Still, I applaud him for taking a risk ― something not enough filmmakers in today’s superhero-saturated Hollywood are willing to do. This, however, is not the future of cinema.


“Billy Lynn” is worth a watch for anyone who wants to see a daring director break new ground. We should all want to see that! But instead of a triumph, it’s a lesson learned. Movies are just fine with the pretty, manipulated gloss that we’re used to, the sheen that hides errors and enhances emotions. Without it, this one feels like a very long walk indeed. 


“Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” opens in theaters Nov. 11.

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Kate Middleton Opens Up About Code-Cracking Grandma's Work During WWII

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Kate Middleton has shared how “immensely proud” she is of her late grandmother who helped crack enemy codes during World War II. 


The Duchess of Cambridge opened up about her grandmother, Valerie Glassborow, in the foreward of a book of puzzles that’s set for release this week by the U.K.’s national intelligence and security agency, GCHQ.


Proceeds from The GCHQ Puzzle Book will go toward the Heads Together campaign, which is led by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry. It aims to raise awareness of mental health issues.






In her forward, Middleton emphasizes the “importance of mental wellbeing” while introducing the set of brainteasers that were crafted by GCHQ staff. She also elaborates on her personal connection to some of British intelligence’s top codebreakers and cryptographers through her grandmother, who worked at the famous code-breaking site of Bletchley Park.


“I have always been immensely proud of my grandmother, Valerie Glassborow, who worked at Bletchley Park during the Second World War,” the Duchess wrote. “She and her twin sister, Mary, served with thousands of other young women as part of the great Allied effort to break enemy codes. They hardly ever talked about their wartime service, but we now know just how important the men and women of Bletchley Park were, as they tackled some of the hardest problems facing the country.”


According to Vanity Fair, Glassborow went on to marry Kate’s grandfather, British military pilot Peter Middleton, in 1946. She died in 2006 at the age of 82. That was five years before Kate Middleton married Prince William.


In sharing her story, Middleton not only honors her grandmother’s legacy but stresses her hope that her grandmother’s work will continue to make a positive impact.



“William, Harry and I are very grateful that this book is supporting our Heads Together campaign. I hope it will not only amuse and challenge readers, but help to promote an open discussion of mental health problems, which can affect anyone, regardless of age or background,” she continued. “Together, we are aiming to change the national conversation around mental health from stigma and fear to openness and understanding. Those who buy this book and support the Heads Together campaign will be playing a part in helping people get the important mental health care they deserve.”


In the book’s introduction, GCHQ Director Robert Hannigan also emphasized the importance of people “who think differently.”


“For nearly one hundred years, the men and women of GCHQ, both civilian and military, have been solving problems. They have done so in pursuit of our mission to keep the United Kingdom safe,” he wrote. “GCHQ has a proud history of valuing and supporting individuals who think differently; without them we would be of little value to the country. Not all are geniuses or brilliant mathematicians or famous names, but each is valued for his or her contribution to our mission.”


The book, published by Penguin Random House, goes on sale Oct. 20.

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New Film Starring Kristen Stewart Passes The Bechdel Test With Flying Colors

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Beth Travis ― an elegantly disheveled young lawyer played by Kristen Stewart ― sits in a diner, eating a hamburger. Another much quieter woman sits across from her, looking on with a placid expression, not eating anything herself.


The scene is quotidian. It’s something most people have witnessed or partaken in themselves, sitting casually at a restaurant, eating or watching someone else eat. But its existence on film is a little unsettling, especially when it lingers on minutes longer than we expect it to. Something is ever so slightly amiss.


The scene is part of one of three vignettes that make up Kelly Reichardt’s new movie, “Certain Women.” Stewart shines as Beth, an ambitious new law school grad supplementing her income with a nighttime teaching gig four hours away from her home.



In the portion of the film devoted to her story, a ranch hand sits in on her educational law class in spite of being neither a teacher nor a lawyer herself. She wanders in and is transfixed by the teacher’s poise. After class, she suggests dinner before Beth has to head back home. The next week, the ranch hand rides a horse to the school, offering Beth a strange reprieve from her exhausting schedule. It’s a pleasant, tender moment, but the ranch hand takes the relationship a step too far by trekking to Beth’s distant home. Awkwardness ensues.


These thwarted attempts to connect recur throughout “Certain Women,” which is loosely based on Maile Meloy’s 2009 short story collection, Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It.


Reichardt, who’s known for her minimalist, women-centered films, is liberal with her interpretation of the original material. In Meloy’s story, the ranch hand wooing Stewart’s character is a man suffering from polio. By recasting the relationship as one between two women, Reichardt complicates it, making it a story about envy, power and attraction ― and the interplay between the three.



Reichardt sheds light on the polite, harmonious ways we expect women to behave, and how difficult it is for women to reconcile those expectations with positions of power and responsibility.



The film’s other sections are about a woman whose family takes a heap of locally sourced stone from an older man who’s reluctant to let go of it, and a lawyer who was not able to help her client get properly reimbursed for an on-the-job injury. They star Michelle Williams and Laura Dern, respectively.


Williams plays a woman whose desire for a new home for her family ― which she supports financially ― trumps her empathy for a kindly older man, whom she takes advantage of. In Dern’s, again, career-related loyalties complicate the way she treats others. With these narratives, Reichardt sheds light on the polite, harmonious ways we expect women to behave, and how difficult it is for women to reconcile those expectations with positions of power and responsibility.


All of which is to say: in an industry that’s still so male-dominated that statistics present what can feel like an unbridgeable gap, Reichardt is making leaps. Her films handle oft-ignored issues with subtlety, and her quiet approach to filmmaking means the stories and characters take precedence over the issues themselves.


Like her characters, Reichardt asserts her professional beliefs, sometimes at the expense of connection. Some scenes linger gratuitously, for the sake of highlighting the lovely cinematography rather than enhancing the story or the viewers’ experience. But for those unfamiliar with her work, the film is worth watching, if not only because it breezes past the expectations of the Bechdel test, a rare feat for feature-length films.


“Certain Women” is now playing in limited release. 

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TV’s Coolest Mom Talks About Her Empowering Role

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The last we heard from Jane Villanueva and company, the romantic heroine’s new (like, new new) husband Michael appeared to have been murdered. But in a show like “Jane the Virgin” that’s full of sharp turns, borrowing its template from telenovelas, it’s probable that the kindly heartthrob lives on in Season 3, which airs Oct. 17.


Jane’s mother, Xiomara “Xo” Villanueva, has a winding story arc of her own. Last season, her entanglement with Jane’s superstar father fizzled cordially after it became clear that the two fundamentally disagreed on whether or not to have more kids. Andrea Navedo, who plays the character, spoke on the phone with The Huffington Post about what to expect from Xo in the upcoming season.


She also touched on the show’s political bent, which has veered toward issues previously untouched by sitcoms, like the Bechdel Test and the personal tragedies that can accompany stricter immigration policies. Between seasons, Navedo produced and performed in a remake of a timely play, “Other People’s Money,” which features a character that she describes as “sexist, racist, misogynist, and so on. He was a Wall Street trader. Apparently Trump loved this play so much.”


Here’s hoping that Season 3 of “Jane” finds a way to smartly bring issues surrounding the upcoming election into its whirring storyline, too. Below, Navedo talks about her “empowering” role, and motherhood on- and off-screen.



Before you played Xo, you got your start acting in soap operas. How was that experience different from your role on “Jane the Virgin”?


Soap operas I liken to boot camp for TV acting. It’s very fast-paced. They expect you to get it down in, like, one or two takes. There’s a ton of dialogue. You can get your script a week in advance, but you’re still shooting the current episode. I would go to work ― I’d probably be there eight to 10 hours ― then I’d go home, eat dinner and learn my lines for the next day, go to sleep, get up the next day, and do it all over again. It was kind of grueling sometimes. I spent most of my time learning my lines.


You had to be really prepared, because they really wanted you to get it in one or two takes. You didn’t have time to do multiple takes. Sometimes, if you did a bad take, on the third or fourth time they’d just move on and they’d keep it. You’d want your stuff to be quality, so you had to check your p’s and q’s. One of the things I did learn from the veterans on “One Life to Live” was that if you didn’t like your take, you didn’t like the way it was going, in the middle of a take you could throw a curse word out, and then they definitely couldn’t use it. [Laughs]


So, I’m guessing there’s not a whole lot of that on the set of “Jane.”


That’s not an issue. We have the luxury of takes. Although there’s plenty of cursing, too. But it’s not because we’re trying to save ourselves, it’s more ― you get frustrated, or whatever.


Is there anything you learned from soap operas that you brought to the show?


Just work ethic. I wouldn’t say I learned anything about acting on soap operas. I learn more when I do a play. I produced and performed in a play in New York this summer, and I did it because it had been a few years since I had been in an acting class and I felt like I needed a reboot. 


“Jane the Virgin” is, at its heart, about the relationships between Jane, Xo and Abuela. What has it been like playing part of this all-woman family dynamic?


It’s been really empowering for me as a Latina and as a woman to be on a show that is led by a woman, who also happens to be a mother. And then to work with Gina and Yvonne, who I idolize. What they bring to the table is incredible. Whenever we have scenes together, it’s like family. Even though that’s what we’re playing, we just click. There’s a chemistry there. Those are things you can’t formulate. I learn from each of them, watching them do their thing, I learn how to be a better actress.  


And that chemistry definitely comes across on the show. How, in your opinion, is Xo different from other TV moms?


She’s not ... like me, the real mom that I am, who sets boundaries, creates rules, trying to protect them. Xo does protect Jane, but they’re more like sisters. That’s how it’s different. It’s almost like “Gilmore Girls,” which Jennie Urman was a writer on. She has brought “Gilmore Girls” up several times in our discussions of our characters.


What I love about Xo is that she really tries to be the best mom that she can ― like any mom, really ― you just have the tools that you have. But at the same time, she’s flawed, and vulnerable, and feisty. I love all those things about her.


And do you bring your own experiences as a mom into how you approach playing her?


A little bit. It’s funny because I will get tweets from fans, or I’ve even had a few fans come up to me and say to me, “I wish you were my mother.” And it’s flattering on one hand, but on the other hand it breaks my heart because I don’t have that relationship with my daughter, who’s 12. It’s a tough age. I wish I could be my daughter’s friend but I can’t. That dynamic that Xo has with Jane ... I don’t think that’s gonna happen until maybe my daughter’s in college.  


You touched on this a little already, but what’s the most fun part about playing Xo?


I also love my scenes with Rogelio [De La Vega, played by Jaime Camil] because we just have so much fun. But on the other hand, I really love those intimate, heart-to-heart scenes between me and Jane and me and Alba. And I get to sing and dance! Yesterday we filmed, for Episode 6, a dance battle between me and Rogelio.


Are there any other ― not spoilers, per se ― but tidbits you can share from the upcoming season?


They never tell us, really. Xo has an ex-lover who comes on the scene, who she was madly in love with. He really messed with [Xo] when we were dating, and apparently he had been married and I didn’t know. He comes back, and he is the actor who played the husband of Eva Longoria on “Desperate Housewives.” I met him for the first time yesterday, we spent the whole day together ― really nice guy. He fit right into our family, which most people do, because it’s just that kind of set. We love whoever comes to play with us. We had a good day yesterday. He’s the new thing that’s happening in Xo’s life.

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8 Macabre Nonfiction Books To Sink Your Teeth Into This Fall

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The only two constants in life, or so they say, are death and taxes. This old adage makes death, the final period at the end of a life’s sentence, feel more mundane than the typical scary or sorrowful feelings associated with one’s eventual passing. It will happen to every living thing, at some time or another — why not examine it, instead of running from it? 


If you’re feeling a little more goth with the calendar’s steady march toward Halloween and the chilly, darkened months of winter, perhaps these fascinating perspectives on death and dying will suit your mood more than The Life-Changing Art of Tidying Up — you can’t take a spotless house with you, after all. Add some of these insightful examinations of life’s end, and what comes after, to your reading list.



“Playing Dead,” Elizabeth Greenwood


Elizabeth Greenwood sees no end to her staggering student debt — which leads to an obsession with pseudocide, or faking one’s own death. Instead of vanishing off the map, however, she consults a bevy of experts, insurance claim investigators, and people who’ve managed to pull it off (at least, for a few years). What emerges is an odd, fascinating study of a topic few have direct experience with, and an investigation of the factors that motivate a person to disappear. 



“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” Caitlin Doughty


It’s not unusual to not want to think too much about death: It is the definition of morbid, after all. As a mortician, Caitlin Doughty is confronted with death, and all its somewhat banal realties, on a near daily basis. Her experience with bodies whose souls have since departed is a humanizing and often entertaining look at what it means to die, looking an uncomfortable topic right in the eye.  



“The American Way of Death,” Jessica Mitford


Barring anything else, pulling out this puppy on the subway is probably a good way to ensure no one bugs you. Jessica Mitford’s 1963 investigation into the U.S. funeral industry — spurred by rising costs, which are probably only more insane today — highlights the shady practices some undertakers used on grieving families, shaking them for all the money they could get. Mitford’s style is clever and straightforward, and there’s a 1996 update, if you’re really interested. But we prefer the O.G. version.



”Spook,” Mary Roach


From Gulp to Bonk, Mary Roach’s simply titled forays into different aspects of science always ensure an engaging, illuminating read. Spook is perfect for the chillier fall months, when a creak in your house could just be the heat turning on ... or a ghostly presence? In this book, Roach places her lens on the afterlife, if it exists at all. 



“Severed,” Frances Larson


This historical look at decapitation makes no bones about its dark subject matter — the subtitle to anthropologist Frances Larson’s book is “A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found.” But disembodied skulls aren’t merely gruesome; they’re a fascinating and weird part of history that Larson deftly explores. The information and stories about headhunting, grave-robbing and the real Madame Tussaud (who made death masks molded after the heads of Robespierre and Louis XVI) will prepare you before the next spooky trivia night at the bar.



”The Death Class,” Erika Hayasaki


Journalist Erika Hayasaki wanted to find out why a New Jersey college’s class called “Perspectives on Death” had a three-year waiting list. She investigates the course, taught by a nurse and professor who takes students to hospitals, cemeteries, prisons and other places where life is put into stark examination to explore the meaning of the end. This book shifts the traditional morbidity surrounding death to a discussion on what it means to live when confronted with a finite timeline.



”Body of Work,” Christine Montross


Cadavers have been used to aid medical students for centuries, with good reason. You wouldn’t want your doc to cut you open without having some first-hand knowledge about where all those squishy organs, veins, nerves, etc., are supposed to go, no? Still, the experience of working with a dead body for the first time is an unusual one. Then-first-year medical student Christine Montross was surprised at the connection and curiosity she felt toward her assigned cadaver, called Eve. What follows is an interesting meditation on the history of cadavers and the uses our bodies have long after our last breath.



”The Good Death,” Ann Neumann


What does it mean to “die well”? After her father’s death, Ann Neumann explores the current state of death in American society, experiencing hospice care and the Death with Dignity movement, among other communities united in some belief about dying throughout the country. Neumann’s journey is a cathartic look at how we experience death through a loved one.

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