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'Genderbent' Project Explores The Diverse Transgender And Gender Nonconforming Community

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A compelling new project is in the works that elevates the lives individuals whose gender identity or presentation exists outside traditional understandings of the male/female gender binary.

"Genderbent" is a production currently in the works that documents all types of gender nonconforming individuals through a series of photographs and interviews. The project comes from collaborative partners Jacob Rostovsky and Dusti Cunningham, and has already attracted big names such as Rupaul’s makeup director Mathu Anderson, Margaret Cho and Buck Angel.

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"Genderbent" is currently engaged in an indiegogo campaign in order to become fully funded. In an effort to better understand this project, The Huffington Post chatted with Rostovsky about his decision to embark on this project, what viewers can expect and his ultimate goals surrounding the body of work.

The Huffington Post: Why did you decide to embark on this project?
Jacob Rostovsky: Right now there is so much tension between the transgender community and gender nonconforming communities, as well as members of the LGB ones. We (Dusti Cunningham and Jacob Rostovsky) wanted to embark on this project to show that while our experiences may differ, we all share commonalities and should support one another regardless of the terms we use. We also noticed how much freedom there is when one is allowed to express themselves to the fullest, and how much joy comes with living true to your authentic self. We felt it was important to share this with the mainstream heteronormative societies, instead of only leaving them with images of our despair.

dusti cunningham

What are your goals with this?
As Mathu Anderson said in our Indiegogo video, we want to be able to show what is right with the gender nonconforming community, not what is wrong. Another one of our goals with this project is to showcase the beauty of those who have custom made and bent gender to make it their own. All of the proceeds that exceed the indiegogo goal from this project will go to supporting a transgender non-profit, Trans United with Family and Friends (TUFF), which gives financial assistance towards transition costs for transgender individuals. It is important that we bring awareness of the community through "Genderbent" and help make a difference as well as creating art.

What do you hope this project will help people understand about transgender and gender nonconforming people?
We want people to understand how beautiful the community is. We also want individuals to understand how connected everyone in the world is to one another through shared experiences of gender identity. This project does not solely focus on the transgender community. We include everyone from transgender individuals, to drag queens, to straight male crossdressers. The importance of genderbent is to show that there is no one way to define gender. It is not black and white. "Genderbent" is hoping to bring awareness about the issues that plague the gender nonconforming communities that are not so focused on in the media right now, such as homelessness, bashings and joblessness. However, we also want to show the triumphs and success many of us have seen through our experiences as well. It’s important to show everyone who is not familiar with the community how strong we are, and "Genderbent" will do just that.

buck angel

What can people expect from this project?
In addition to beautiful photos taken by Dusti Cunningham, "Genderbent" will also interview the participants to get a better understanding of their journeys. We want to be able to collect data and use these stories to help the advancement of the community. We already have some fantastic participants on board for this project that show the diversity the gender non conforming community, such as Mathu Anderson, Buck Angel, Alaska (Rupaul’s Drag Race), Sonique, Glamerous Monique and Ian Harvie. We hope that with this project the community can finally be brought together. But most importantly, we want to reach and educate others about the community who may not have been able to see us before.

Head here to check out the the "Genderbent" Indiegogo campaign and check out a slideshow of images from the project below.

Grown-Up Annie Returns To 'Late Night' To Talk Tony Awards... And Get An Oxycontin Refill

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In case you missed it, our favorite "Late Night With Seth Meyers" character made her second appearance on the show to talk about the Tony Awards (as well as all the guys named Tony who she'd like to sleep with).

Grown-Up Annie (Michelle Wolf) was once again in perfect hot-mess form as she explained to Meyers why she didn't expect to be allowed back in the "Late Night" studio, what her new product "Awww, Sandy" is for, and why she hates Cosette from "Les Miserables."

Watch the clip above and remember...

grown up annie stds

Heart Gallery NYC Launches 'Forever Families' Pride Exhibit In Times Square

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A new photo exhibition will launch this month to help fulfill the dreams of adoption for a group of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth and a handful of other foster children.

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Heart Gallery NYC is spearheading "Forever Families," a photo series slated to appear in Times Square from June 10-20 in conjunction with Pride Month. The photos were short by a group of celebrity photographers and feature 12 LGBT youth and 24 other foster children.

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“Our Pride exhibition plays a critical role in fostering the understanding needed by LGBTQ young adults and youth," Laurie Sherman Graff, Executive Director and Founder of Heart Gallery NYC, said in a statement. "They often face isolation during the most vulnerable time of their lives. They need loving adoptive families. We’re hoping that same-sex or heterosexual couples will step up to fulfill the children’s dream of finding “forever families.” She continues, “This exhibition is about honoring the nearly 12,000 NYC children living in foster care and the hundreds waiting and ready to be adopted. We are thankful to the Times Square Alliance and You Gotta Believe for helping to bring this exhibition to fruition and in the public eye.”

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The exhibition will run the course of ten days and will be open from 8 a.m.-8 p.m. at the Times Square Museum & Visitors Center. Head here for more information.

'People You Know' Launched By Orchard Winfield Productions

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A new online new media series is slated to hit the web and it follows the complicated and intersecting relationships of a group of characters living in New York City.

The first season of "People You Know" will involve 13 episodes and be available for streaming and for purchase in July after the series launch event. The edgy and provocative show is being released in conjunction with June as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Pride Month, and aims to truly reflect the people we all know.

“Every decision these characters make has a ripple effect. When things go wrong, they turn to the family they’ve created rather than their own blood,” co-creator Baltimore Russell said in a statement. “That is what makes this show so interesting –- while you might see one character being supportive, they might be also holding someone else back from achieving their dreams.”

Check out the trailer above. The premiere of "People You May Know" will take place at on Monday, June 23, at Industry in NYC. Head here for more information.

An 11-Year-Old Created This Gorgeous Animated Google Doodle

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The illustration on Google's homepage on Monday may look pretty whimsical, but it's spotlighting a very serious issue: clean water. Not bad for an 11-year-old from Long Island.

Audrey Zhang, a fifth-grader from Levittown, N.Y., is the winner of this year's Doodle 4 Google competition, rising to the top of some 100,000 entries on the theme of "draw one thing to make the world a better place."

Her piece, titled “Back to Mother Nature," depicts an elaborate water-cleaning machine. Zhang worked with a team of artists at Google to animate her drawing.



"To make the world a better place, I invented a transformative water purifier," Google quoted Zhang as saying. "It takes in dirty and polluted water from rivers, lakes and even oceans, then massively transforms the water into clean, safe and sanitary water. When humans and animals drink this water, they will live a healthier life."

She created a whole world around the device -- one populated by humans, a whale in a top hat and dragons.

Zhang's piece is “so lush and so rich and so full and so complete,” Google Doodle team leader Ryan Germick told the Washington Post. “Every leaf seemed to have life in it.”

Along with having her artwork featured on Google's homepage, Zhang wins a $30,000 college scholarship. In addition, her school will receive a $50,000 Google for Education technology grant, and the company is donating $20,000 in her name to a charity dedicated to bringing clean water to schools in Bangladesh.

On top of that, an anonymous donor agreed to match that last donation, making it $40,000 for the clean-water program.

On Sunday, the night before the Doodle debuted, Zhang told Newsday she was "excited" by the big win, but said she wouldn't be awake when her art first went online at midnight.

I have school tomorrow, so I can't stay up late," she told the paper.

Watch Zhang win the competition below:

Artist Grace Ciao Transforms Real Flower Petals Into Beautiful Dresses... And It's Just Wow

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This isn't your usual floral print.

Singaporean artist Grace Ciao has been wowing the Internet in recent weeks with her series of breathtaking fashion illustrations that turn flower petals into stunning dresses worthy of any runway.





“[These flower petals] help me create prints which I otherwise couldn’t have thought of,” Ciao told Buzzfeed last month of her fashion inspiration. “I think petals work really well for illustration also because their delicacy and exquisiteness mimic those of a soft fabric.”













We're speechless.

Haunting Photos Of New Orleans Homes Reveal Louisiana's Architectural Ghosts

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“The first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds," Bob Dylan wrote in the first volume of his memoir. "The cemeteries -- and they're a cold proposition, one of the best things there are here. Going by, you try to be as quiet as possible, better to let them sleep. Greek, Roman, sepulchres -- palatial mausoleums made to order, phantomesque, signs and symbols of hidden decay -- ghosts of women and men who have sinned and who've died and are now living in tombs. The past doesn't pass away so quickly here."

The great musician could just as easily be describing a different type of Louisiana tomb. One that houses the living rather than the dead, but itself becomes vulnerable to the city's beautiful and tragic decay. Because just as the sublime burial grounds keep the past lingering in the present, the remains of New Orleans' great homes preserve the architectural ghosts that make the Big Easy so mythic.

new orleans nightscapes

Photographer Frank Relle understands this more than most, evidenced by his stunning photography project, "Nightscapes." Born and bred just outside of New Orleans, Relle began capturing illuminated portraits of mansions and row houses a year and a half before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf of Mexico. His scenes of eerie, sometimes vacant and decrepit residences document the time before and after the devastating storm wreaked havoc on the Southeast.

“I walked the streets of New Orleans since I was a kid," Relle writes in his artist statement. "She talked to me on the corner and at the checkout counter. I danced with her down the middle of the street. Her food stimulated and comforted me. I got scared and left her because she lacked mountains and clear water. She lured me back with something I can’t describe. She has been my greatest teacher and my longest lasting lover. The photographs I make are evidence of our all night conversations.”

To create the mysteriously lit photos, Relle channels his inner magician, using a combination of high-pressure sodium, mercury vapor and daylight-balanced hot lights. "Lights are mounted on stands two to three stories high and are powered by marine batteries and an inverter," he explained to HuffPost. "Shooting long exposures and using these multiple lighting sources creates the distinct color combinations and a sense of stillness with moving elements." Sometimes, this takes six hours to capture and, as Relle pointed out, involves a police detail to block the street and answer nosey neighbors' questions about the alien-like settings.

Unlike the "disaster porn" made popular by the internet in recent years, Relle's images attempt to pay proper tribute to the catastrophic damage in New Orleans, painting those scenes as just a few moments in the slow erosion of Louisiana's architecture and spirit over the past century. His series does respectfully extend to the now famous lower 9th ward. "Katrina gave my photographs recognition," Relle added, "a recognition I desired but it’s always been a strange feeling juxtaposed with all the people and memories she took away."

"My goal for the project before Katrina was to tell the stories of New Orleans people through architectural subjects," Relle concludes. "My goal for the project after Katrina was to continue to tell the stories of New Orleans people through architectural subjects."

Scroll through a preview of Relle's work below and let us know your thoughts on the series in the comments.

Beautifully Bizarre Ceramic Masks Explore The Dark Side Of Agoraphobia

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Have you ever, in a moment of misery, attempted to force your face into a smile, hoping the mere physical action may have some reverse effect on your tortured inner state? These sorts of forced grins, the ones riddled with a peculiar stilted posture, these are the ones Jennie Jieun Lee is interested in.

The Korean-American artist explores the beauty of cracked smiles and melting faces in "Smile Purgatory," a ceramics exhibition that shows the darker, sloppier sides of the crafty medium. With globular masks and melting vases, Lee explores an intermediate zone between humor and pain, amateur and expert, tradition and experimentation.

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Cosmo


Lee's fractured faces mimic the cheery smirks we all don from time to time, the bleeding chaos of colors revealing a deeper and darker state. She couples the traditionally feminine, domestic ritual of ceramics with the macho, avant-garde passion of Expressionist paint. Dripping, brushing and pouring color onto her self-molded canvases, Lee forms a technique all her own. The final step to every work, introducing the product to fire, encapsulates Lee's devotion to experimentation and refusal of ownership over the works. With their emotional stories and wild execution, Lee's ceramic artworks show the power of combining an age old technique with a contemporary artist's angst.

Lee was first inspired to create the series during her time as a casting director, finding herself face-to-face with smiles stemming from nowhere. "I saw that the models were frozen in their smiles for the camera even though they were not necessarily happy," she explained in an interview with Galerie Lefebvre & Fils. "This sparked a visceral memory of years past when I was suffering from a deep depression. I would cry while looking in the mirror but then I would force myself to smile repeatedly to see if my face would move that way. This show is a ceremony to exhibit the specific ways a smile can become stretched and distorted when held beyond the initial state."

The artist's history with agoraphobia, an anxiety disorder arising from fear of spaces without an easy escape, also contributes to her practice. After spending too much time indoors, Lee would feel her face begin to contort, an experience she channels through her mask-making. "The longer I trapped myself inside my house, the more grotesque and distorted my face would become in my mind," she said. "Some of the masks are cracked to display the kaleidoscopic deformity I'd see when I looked in the mirror during that time."

"Smile Purgatory" runs from June 13 until October 11, 2014 at Galerie Lefebvre & Fils in France. See a preview of the colorful exhibition below.


Photographer Captures Strange And Surreal Pagan Rituals Still Practiced Today

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In several countries throughout Europe, winter spurs a string of Pagan rituals and carnivalesque festivities that -- since before the dawn of Christianity, in some cases -- have served as means for humans to converse with mother nature and celebrate spring's upcoming rebirth. Many of these otherworldly traditions, strange as they may seem, are still being practiced today.

During the tribal rituals, which celebrate changing seasons, rites of passage, death, fertility and other events, men don costumes and take to the streets, obscuring their appearances and morphing into an amalgamation of human and beast. In essence, civilized citizens become wild men.

In the winters of 2010 and 2011, photographer Charles Fréger journeyed through 19 countries, documenting the various male-centric rites he encountered along the way. He dubbed the enchanting series "Wilder Mann."

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Schnappviecher, Tramin, Italy, 2010-2011© Charles Fréger, Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery



"I found myself in front of something very radical, [with] no face," Fréger told Slate of his experience. "It was more of a character with a mask and a focus where the body is more important than the face itself." The ensembles, made from animal skins, local vegetation, and other materials, access a surreal realm between the self and the other, which is nearly impossible to look away from.

"It's like they are representing everything which is from outside of reality," Fréger explained to Interview.

The disguises vary from geographical location to location, depending on the country's regional traditions. In Sardinia, Italy, men dress as goats or boars while Austrians transform themselves into versions of Krampus, Santa Claus' far more evil, beastly companion. Yet looking beyond specifics, the elaborate masks universally obscure the boundaries between reality and myth, science and spirituality, civilization and wilderness. They all straddle the line between human and animal, and -- in their confetti colors, looming statures and furry textures -- attempt to form a bridge between past and present worlds.

The wild men below resemble snowmen, scarecrows, overgrown Christmas trees and horrifying cousins of "Game of Thrones" characters. As incredible as the costumes are themselves, we're even more in awe of the fact that these unearthly practices still exist among so many modern Europeans. As Gerald Creed, who studied mask traditions in Bulgaria, told National Geographic: "They all know they shouldn’t believe it." And yet, despite contemporary cynicism, there remains something about the primal magic of it all that keeps the remarkable traditions alive.

See the gorgeous beasts below and let your imagination run wild.

Photography Series Archives Famous Film Reels, Reveals A Different Image Of The Cinematic Experience

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Do you want to see "Casablanca"? If this offer is prompting visions of Humphrey Bogart and the black-and-white interior of "Rick's Café Américain," think again. We're referring to the film object itself -- the film reel -- that mysterious disc on which our culture's greatest stories are stored.

Austrian photographer Reiner Riedler explores the relationship between the cinematic object and the cinematic experience in his mesmerizing series "The Unseen Seen." Riedler photographs classic film reels from "Bambi" to "The Godfather," allowing associations between the luminous saucers and the characters dwelling inside them to mingle in the viewer's imagination.

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Casablanca


"A friend of mine, Volkmar Ernst, works in the big German movie archive, The Deutsche Kinemathek, in Berlin. I was infected by his passion for the archive, the archive as a representation of culture and historical identity," Riedler explained to The Huffington Post. "I had never touched a film reel before. I became curious and I rented a film reel from the Austrian Filmmuseum and took it to my studio. I didn't expect anything, but I already liked the idea, to tell a story by showing objects. I put the reel against the light and was surprised that strange patterns and structures became visible. I took the first pictures and was kind of shocked, because I didn't expect this at all. In this moment I knew that the project is going to work."

Riedler photographs his film reels almost as if they are scientific specimens, untouched against a white, lit background, to obtain a neutral and objective gaze. "This was essential for the whole project, because I wanted to keep the beauty of every single film reel with its special colors and patterns," he described. Eventually Riedler photographed hundreds of reels for the project, each appearing as precious as an endangered butterfly through Riedler's patient lens.

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Bambi by David Hand, 1942


"The result was striking," the artist recounted. "The whole spectrum of colors appeared. Beautiful analogies between the photographs and the movie titles happened. It was kind of magic." Look upon the reel of your favorite film and parallels do start to arise between the fictional world and the object in front of you. The unassuming objects begin to look playful, violent or romantic depending on the narratives and images we know they house.

The series also serves as a sort of portal to movie experiences past, a way to relive memories of these shared narrative experiences without actually experiencing them. Riedler recalled the moment he held "Bambi" in his hands and the flood of emotions the very object evoked. "My first movie in theaters was 'Bambi.' When I found the film reel and had it in my hands, I immediately thought about my first cinema visit. It was a Sunday morning with my parents and my sisters, somewhen in the late seventies. A beautiful memory..."

In a matter of time, Riedler's photographs will gain additional significance as the pieces of nostalgia they depict near extinction. "Analog films will disappear completely from daily usage," he predicted. "The material will become history. But films need to be kept in archives, they have to be stored and restored properly to keep them as long as possible. It's not possible to stop the process of destruction of the material itself -- it's just a matter of time."

See the strangely hypnotic film reels below and let the movie titles conjure memories and associations as they may.





"The Unseen Seen. The Discovery of the Film Reel Portrait" is on view until June 21 at Galerie Hengevoss Durkop in Hamburg.

Bobby Cannavale Live Tweeted The Tony Awards And It Ruled

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The best part of 68th annual Tony Awards was not Hugh Jackman's bouncy introduction nor Jonathan Groff's sly tribute to John Travolta's Oscar gaffe, but Bobby Cannavale. The actor, who was a nominee at the 65th annual Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Play, live-tweeted the event from the comfort of his own social media account and uncorked a string of zingers that should have him on the short list to host the 2015 Tony Awards ceremony (in our mind). Ahead, what it was like to watch Sunday night's Tonys ceremony through the Twitter feed of Bobby Cannavale. (Check out a full list of Tony Award winners here.)

He wanted shorter speeches.










He wrote what we all thought when Emmy Rossum introduced a performance from "Les Miserables" ...




... and came up with a new title for "One Day More."




He didn't believe "Aladdin" star James Monroe Iglehart was a real genie ...




... even after he won the Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical.




He wasn't impressed with the "Rocky" musical ...




... nor "A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder."




He had jokes about Sting ...




... and thoughts about the 10th anniversary "Wicked" performance.







He loved "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" ...




... but not Hugh Jackman's constant singing.




And in the end, he decided the entire show was probably not worth all that trouble?




But at least he won some fans.


Are You Romantic Or Classical?

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We are –- each one of us –- probably more one than the other. The categories explain a lot about us; how we approach nature, what makes us laugh, our attitudes to love, what our politics are… We may not be used to conceiving ourselves in these terms, but the labels Romantic and Classical usefully bring into focus some of the central themes of our personalities and help us to gain a clearer hold on the underlying structure of our enthusiasms and concerns.

What follows are a few of the central contrasting characteristics of Romantic and Classical personalities:

Continue reading here.

Weezer's Drummer Caught A Frisbee Mid-Song & Never Stopped Playing

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Weezer drummer Patrick Wilson is rollin' like a celebrity after catching a frisbee mid-song during the band's concert in Florida on Friday night. During a performance of Weezer's hit song "Beverly Hills," Wilson grabbed the flying plastic disc as it glided toward him and never stopped playing, much to the delight of fans in attendance.



Lead singer Rivers Cuomo was also impressed:


14 Blank Wall Ideas You Haven't Thought Of (PHOTOS)

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When the design dilemma is an empty wall, the design solution is usually to just paint it, add whatever framed print or canvas you have and call it a day. While this is certainly the easiest thing to do, it's not the only solution out there. From displaying a collection that's been hiding for far too long from adding a dramatic pattern that extends beyond the wall itself, it's time to think outside the one-color-fits-all paint can and take those empty canvases to an exciting new level.

For more decor ideas, visit our friends at Domino.






Have something to say? Check out HuffPost Home on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.

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Are you an architect, designer or blogger and would like to get your work seen on HuffPost Home? Reach out to us at homesubmissions@huffingtonpost.com with the subject line "Project submission." (All PR pitches sent to this address will be ignored.)

Sir Mix-A-Lot's 'Baby Got Back' Goes Classical, Turns Into A Giant Dance Party

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In the spirit of absurd (but most certainly divine) combinations of today, the Seattle Symphony -- under the direction of Gabriel Prokofiev, London-based composer, producer and DJ -- debuted its arrangements of some of Sir Mix-a-Lot's iconic tunes. Naturally, the headliner, and the only song that could turn an orchestra to an onstage dance party, was "Baby Got Back."

"What I want to do now is something you really should not do, but since tonight is orchestral movements from the hood night, I'm going to leave some of this open if a couple of ladies would like to get up on the stage," Sir Mix-a-Lot said to the crowd. "We will not bite unless you want us to."

Seizing the night, somewhere around 35 women rushed onto the stage for this once in a lifetime opportunity, following the song's pretty explicit directions as Sir Mix rapped along.

Part of the Seattle Symphony's Sonic Evolution series, dedicated to Seattle's music icons, Prokofiev wrote of his composition on his blog: "My aim with this new Sir-Mix-A-Lot inspired Orchestral work was to really get inside the musical mind of Sir Mix-A-Lot; to understand how his rhythms, textures, sounds and harmonies worked, and to create a contemporary orchestral composition that was true to the music of Sir-Mix-A-Lot."


Hugh Jackman Rapped A 'Music Man' Song With LL Cool J And T.I. At The Tonys

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Hugh Jackman is a man of many talents, and now he can had rapper to the list. While hosting the Tony Awards on Sunday night, the actor recounted a story about being in a production of "The Music Man" at a young age, and how the show's opening song, "Rock Island," was a progenitor of rap music. Then he invited LL Cool J and T.I. onstage to prove that conceit with a modernization of "Rock Island." Using a beat that Jackman said was produced by Questlove, the unlikely trio provided the Tonys with its most surprising moment. We'll just assume this was Jackman stumping for a role in NBC's live production of "The Music Man."

Israel's First 'Burning Man' Festival Set The Negev Desert Ablaze

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NEGEV DESERT, Israel (AP) — For the Bedouin Arab shepherds tending their flocks in Israel's Negev desert last week, it was almost as if aliens had landed from outer space.

Some 3,000 people set up a colorful encampment in the dusty moonscape, swinging from hoops by day and burning giant wooden sculptures by night. It was Midburn, Israel's first Burning Man festival, modeled after the popular carnival held annually in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Midburn is a mix of "midbar," Hebrew for desert, and the English word "burn."

For five days, participants — mostly Israelis — created a temporary city dedicated to creativity, communal living and what the festival calls "radical self-expression."

Some came costumed in cape or corset. Others, from babies to grandparents, went nude. Participants brought their own food and water, and shared with others. The only thing on sale was ice because of the scorching heat.

There were workshops in sculpture, drawing, and touch therapy. There was music and theater. At the "tent of heaven and hell," participants were chosen at random for one of two fates: getting massages or doing chores.

During the day, Bedouin shepherds meandered to the fence surrounding the festival to observe the spectacle. When day turned to night, a larger-than-life wooden sculpture was set on fire.

The festival took place a few miles southwest of the desert gravesite of Israel's founding father, David Ben-Gurion, who dreamed of making the Negev desert bloom — though he probably didn't envision it blossoming with hula hoops and pyrotechnics.

At the end, participants were told to remove their own trash and leave the desert without a trace.

Here is a series of images by Associated Press photographer Oded Balilty of Israel's first Burning Man festival, called Midburn.

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Follow AP photographers and photo editors on Twitter: http://apne.ws/15Oo6jo .

'They May Have Been Heroes' Photos Spotlight Fact That Homeless Vets Deserve Better

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The VA scandal has awakened the nation to the lengthy wait times that veteran patients have had to endure for healthcare. But the failings of the veteran health system aren’t the only pressing crisis former servicemen and servicewomen are currently struggling with.

On a single night in January last year, there were 57,849 homeless veterans sleeping on the streets, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. It’s a disgrace that Vietnam War veteran and photographer Jerry Tovo, 69, aims to publicize by unveiling intimate images of homeless vets he’s taken across the country.

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Tovo was drafted in 1966 and served for two years, mostly as a drill sergeant, he told The Huffington Post via email. The St. Louis native picked up photography in college, but it wasn’t until about three years ago, when he noticed vet homelessness starting to take shape in the news, but not quite in the way he thought the topic deserved, that he decided to commit himself to the cause.

"I found I really preferred shooting people who wore their lives on their faces," Tovo told HuffPost. "Every wrinkle and [pock] mark had been earned somehow. I loved how the tones seem to find a home on their skin."

Tovo hopes that through his engaging videos and photographs -- posted to his website They May Have Been Heroes -- he’ll be able to tell individual stories that will raise awareness and concern for the homeless veteran population.

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To the VA’s credit, veteran homelessness dropped 24 percent between 2010 and 2013. It’s an achievement first lady Michelle Obama pointed to on Wednesday when she welcomed some 20 mayors to the White House who are involved with the Mayors Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness, the Associated Press reported.

She reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to ending vet homelessness by 2015, and emphasized the immediate need to get every vet off of the streets.

"When a veteran comes home kissing the ground, it is unacceptable that he should ever have to sleep on it," she said, according to the AP.

pete sanchez

Tovo has committed to documenting homeless vets across the nation, and said he has pretty much covered everywhere east of the Mississippi.

The photographer’s images have been met with much fanfare. His images were exhibited in the Missouri History Museum from July 2013 through January 2014. Tovo said the exhibit had nearly 36,000 visitors.

While the White House remains optimistic that it will be able to declare vet homelessness "over" by next year, Tovo, and other advocates, aren’t convinced that the crisis will so easily be solved.

Steve Peck, president of the U.S. Veterans Initiative, told Military.com that there is still an incredible amount of challenges to overcome before vet homelessness will be put to rest.

"Just because the VA says it's over, doesn't mean it is," Peck told the website. "We're still seeing plenty of need."

As for Tovo, he remains hopeful that his images will help viewers understand these veterans’ struggles and inspire more efficient solutions.

"These people are … flesh and blood. They have heart and they have souls," Tovo said. "What they don't have is the support needed to completely root out the reasons the are homeless."

See more in the series below:



h/t The Blaze

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A Perfect Takedown Of 'She Was Asking For It'

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"Stop asking people's clothing to have sex with you, and start asking people."

That's the message behind Anna Binkovitz's slam poem, "Asking For It." Binkovitz, then a senior at Macalester College, performed the piece at the 2014 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI) in March 2014.

The powerful piece reaffirms that a woman's clothing has nothing to do with her sexual availability, and that to say someone was "asking for it" is unacceptable.

Binkovitz reasons, with a dash of comedy, that since none of us have special outfits that "ask for" salt at the dinner table or "ask for" the bus to stop, it's pretty ridiculous to claim that women wear outfits that "ask for sexual assault.

As Binkovitz puts it, "One of the chief perks of having sex with an adult is that if they want something, they can ask for it."

[h/t Upworthy]

Here Are Some Very, Very, Very Minimalist Posters Of Your Favorite Famous Films

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Don't get us wrong, we've seen many a minimalist movie poster. There's something undeniably alluring about seeing your favorite, action-packed, romance-pumped, nostalgia-inducing films stripped down to a single sleek, digestible image.

But those minimalist movie posters have nothing on these. Spanish design firm atipo created a series of 15 movie posters in honor of "Paper Gallery," a website for the graphic studio Minke. Each image uses only various colors, textures and manipulations of paper to convey the essence of an entire film.

For example, the "Dracula" poster features a single red paper with two tiny puncture holes, while "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is a sheet with a top laden with wrinkles that gradually smoothes out to perfection. The images, taking minimalism to the maximum, reveal just how iconic these films have become, and just how much can be communicated with the simplest, and cleverest, of means.

Take a look at the alternative film posters below and try your best to match each sheet of paper to its cinematic companion. Let us know how you did in the comments. For a similar challenge, may we recommend these minimalist band posters. (Though they're still not as minimalist as atipo's works.)

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