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A Whimsical 'Peter Rabbit' Wedding Shoot For The Kid In All Of Us

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There's something oh-so nostalgic and whimsical about incorporating your favorite childhood memories into your wedding day. That's why we're falling hard for this adorable wedding shoot inspired by Beatrix Potter's classic Peter Rabbit stories.

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Credit: Al Gawlik Photography/Pink Parasol Designs and Coordinating

Pink Parasol Designs and Coordinating, a wedding event company in Buda, Texas, was behind the shoot, which was inspired by a "childhood tea party with your favorite storybook characters."

"I know it's hard to believe it gets cold here in Texas, but it does," Pink Parasol designer Cari Wible told The Huffington Post. "Every year I really look forward to spring -- the vibrant colors and crisp spring air. So I envisioned myself as a little girl reading a book while it rained outside hoping for spring."

See more inspiration -- including tons gorgeous flowers and even a real bunny! -- from the shoot below:



See the full vendor list here.

H/T BuzzFeed

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Terminally Ill Woman's Dying Wish To See Rembrandt Exhibit For Last Time Is Fulfilled

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AMSTERDAM (AP) -- A Dutch charity has granted a terminally ill woman's dying wish, wheeling her into Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum on a special bed for a private viewing of an immensely popular exhibition of Rembrandt paintings.

The 78-year-old woman, who suffers from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, was among three terminally ill patients taken to the museum this week by the Ambulance Wish Foundation.

Kees Veldboer, a former ambulance driver, established the foundation in 2007 and has since helped nearly 6,000 people fulfill their dying wishes.

The terminally ill patients visited the museum after hours, avoiding the crowds who have flocked to see the blockbuster Rembrandt show.

Veldboer said Thursday the woman, whose name wasn't released, "was very happy to be able to enjoy it in peace for the last time."

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Underwear Campaign Shares Powerful #BriefMessage About Violence Against Women

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No, these women aren’t getting their panties in a bunch. They’re just getting the world to listen.

Across the globe, more than a third of women have been affected by physical or sexual violence, according to a 2013 WHO report, but those figures may be even higher considering victims’ reluctance to report such crimes.

To speak out against such widespread abuse, advocates are sharing powerful messages written on their underwear –- a campaign that launched in conjunction with Sunday’s International Women’s Day.

womens day

The performance piece is the brainchild of aleXsandro Palombo, an artist known for such subversive series as Disney princesses with disabilities and female cartoons depicted as domestic abuse victims.

Palombo put a call out asking women to express their messages against machismo and violence, using the hashtag #BriefMessage.

womens day

The campaign falls in line with this year’s theme for Women’s Day, which is focusing on a “the year of action” for gender equality, particularly in the economic realm.

While a lack of data has precluded researchers from quantifying exactly how violence translates into economic losses, experts agree that there is an undeniable connection.

Victims are saddled with medical bills, injuries that could prevent them from working and psychological issues that can affect their productivity, according to the UN.

womens day

It’s often the patriarchal systems that are to blame for subjugating women both economically and physically.

One-third of women in 33 developing countries say they can’t refuse sex with their partners, the World Bank reported. Intimate partner violence is more prevalent in impoverished households, but women with stable economic footing are better able to withstand such injustice. Property ownership, for example, helps to amplify a woman’s voice and increase her bargaining power in the household.

balls

Experts say that ending violence against women requires on-the-ground community efforts.

In her recent HuffPost blog, Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, outlined a three-pronged approach to end this epidemic.

Based on experts' reports, Clinton pushed for changing long-held social norms, promoting solutions within the private sector and engaging with the military, universities, economists and other unlikely partners to create strong allies to stand up to violence.

womens day

“In order to celebrate and scale the gains, as well as understand where and why the gaps persist, we must continue to share with one another what works and what doesn't,” Clinton wrote. “We must continue to work together and learn together so that we can create dynamic and lasting solutions to end violence against women and girls, in all its forms, both here and around the world.”

To take action on pressing health issues, check out the Global Citizen's widget below.


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'Toy Story 4' Will Not Continue Plot Of 'Toy Story 3'

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"Toy Story 4" isn't out for another two years, but we've got our first idea of what it might look like. Speaking to Disney Latino, Pixar president Jim Morris said the new sequel will not really look like a traditional sequel at all.

"The third movie was over in a beautiful way and completed a trilogy. I think this movie is not part of [that] trilogy," Morris said (translation via Google). "We are putting together a very nice story. It is not a continuation of the end of the story of 'Toy Story 3.' Temporarily it is, but it will be a love story. It will be a romantic comedy. It will not make much focus on the interaction between the characters and children. I think it will be a very good movie."

That "Toy Story 4" will have a different slant isn't a total surprise. When Pixar announced plans for the film last year, director John Lasseter -- who directed the first two "Toy Story" films -- said he was most excited about the project's new direction.

"Toy Story 3' ended Woody and Buzz's story with Andy so perfectly that for a long time, we never even talked about doing another 'Toy Story' movie," Lasseter said. "But when Andrew [Stanton], Pete [Docter], Lee [Unkrich] and I came up with this new idea, I just could not stop thinking about it. It was so exciting to me, I knew we had to make this movie -- and I wanted to direct it myself."

Lasseter also brought on Rashida Jones and Will McCormack to co-write the "Toy Story 4" script. "They have such a great sense of character and originality," Lasseter said to the Los Angeles Times. "And I wanted to get a strong female voice in the writing of this."

A representative for Pixar was not immediately available for comment. "Toy Story 4" is out on July 16, 2017.

#LeanInTogether And Getty Images Team Up To Show What Fatherhood Actually Looks Like

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Stock photos used to illustrate online articles are meant to reflect everyday life. Ironically, they rarely do. Getty Images and LeanIn.Org have a plan to change that.

With the launch of #LeanInTogether -- a campaign that encourages men to help women in the fight for gender equality -- Getty Images and LeanIn.Org have partnered to bring realistic stock photos of men to online editors, and therefore readers.

The Huffington Post spoke with Sheryl Sandberg about the impact diverse photos could have, and what she hopes the series will achieve. "You can’t be what you can’t see," she said. "So having men see active pictures of themselves and other men as fathers, as people supporting people at work -- I think it’s inspiring."

Instead of endless photos of white guys in suits -- or any other ridiculous and cliche portrayals we so often see in stock photos -- the #LeanInTogether shows a different side of fatherhood and masculinity.

"I think people want to do the right thing, they want to portray women the right way, they want to portray men the right way but we often don’t know how," Sandberg said. "Getty is saying here is a portrayal of women and men that Lean In supports and that we support. And similarly, men are saying here’s a portrayal of what I believe as a man and that this is good for men."

Here are a few of our favorite stock images from the "Lean In Together" collection:

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dads and babies


Harrison Ford Injured In Plane Crash

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A plane piloted by Harrison Ford crashed on a Los Angeles area golf course on Thursday afternoon, leaving the actor injured but "ok" according to his son. Ford's involvement in the crash on Penmar Golf Course in Venice was also confirmed by multiple news organizations.

Ford's rep did not return HuffPost Entertainment's immediate request for comment, but according to a statement obtained by KABC, his injuries are not "life threatening." "Harrison was flying a WW2 vintage plane today which had engine trouble upon take off," his publicist told KABC. "He had no other choice but to make an emergency landing, which he did safely. He was banged up and is in the hospital receiving medical care. The injuries sustained are not life threatening, and he is expected to make a full recovery."

TMZ was the first to report the news that Ford was taken to the hospital following the incident. The Los Angeles Fire Department confirmed the plane's solo occupant was transported to a local hospital. Authorities would not identify the person injured in the crash. In a media briefing, a representative for the LAFD said the patient was found in "moderate condition," "conscious," "breathing" and outside the plane when the paramedics arrived on the scene. No other people were injured.

penmar
A photo of Ford's plane, which crashed on Penmar Golf Course on Thursday

The LAFD released a statement in a series of tweets:

The single-engine aircraft suffered a medium to high impact on the grass at Penmar Golf Course. Bystanders rendered aid to the conscious and breathing approximate 70 y/o male pilot prior to firefighters arrival. Firefighters provided immediate medical aid to the patient who is now described as suffering fair to moderate injury and being treated at a local hospital.


NBC reported Ford sustained serious injuries, including cuts to his head. "There was blood all over his face," a Penmar Golf Course employee told NBC News. An unnamed family member categorized Ford as "fine."

His son Ben Ford also tweeted an update from the hospital:







In a briefing later Thursday night, an NTSB official said that the pilot had reported engine power loss, and then clipped a tree before landing on the golf course. He was trying to return to the airport when the engine failed, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said. "We believe he is going to survive at this point," the NTSB official said, still not identifying the pilot.

TMZ posted audio purported to be of Ford communicating with Santa Monica Airport air traffic control shortly after takeoff. (In the clip, the pilot reports engine failure and requests an immediate return to the airport.) Fox 11 Los Angeles obtained footage of the plane on the ground as well:




Ford, 72, has been involved in multiple plane crashes over the years, most notably in 2000 when he made a crash landing in his six-passenger plane in Nebraska. In 1999, a helicopter he was piloting crashed in Santa Clarita, California. He escaped unharmed both times.

BitchCoin: The Artist-Made Currency That Just May Change How We Invest In Art

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"I think that the way art has been working in the last century is coming to an end," Sarah Meyohas explained in a phone interview with The Huffington Post. "Duchamp was kind of the fulcrum for changing the way of artists then. And I'm not comparing myself to Duchamp, but I think artists need to consider themselves as value producers rather than painting makers. And that's where the critical discourse should lie."

Meyohas, currently an MFA candidate in photography at Yale, is also the mind behind "BitchCoin," a new cryptocurrency that allows investors to back Meyohas' current and future artworks, thereby investing in Meyohas herself as an artist. The currency project, imagined in conjunction with Brooklyn-based Where gallery, expands the ways we imagine artistic investment in a world where both artworks and means of currency are becoming ever more disembodied.

"It plays with what's material and what's immaterial. Yes, the photographs will be physical, they'll be printed. But nobody has ever seen them."

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One BitchCoin is worth $100, and it purchases 25 square inches of one of Meyohas’s prints. An entire print is worth 25 BitchCoins, or $2,500. But the currency isn't specifically tied to a single work of art. Thus, you can own portions of artworks that haven't yet been created. The BitchCoin market will fluctuate over time, according to Meyohas' artistic success.

"What the BitchCoin allows you to do is buy a work in the future at a very strict rate," Where Gallery co-director R. Lyon told the Observer. "If her work is worth $25,000 to buy a print at the open market, you’d still be able to get that print for 10 BitchCoins."

The project launched on February 15, when Where Gallery made an initial offering of 200 BitchCoins available to back Meyohas' photo "Speculation," visible below. The coins are created by a single computer inside the gallery, which Meyohas refers to as a "mine," and the not-so-action-packed process is visible online at all hours of the day. Meyohas has already sold the entirety of her initial offering to various patrons, both friends and strangers, who believe in her artistic promise.

"It is an art piece in itself and it's also the promise of another art piece," she explained.

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Speculation


Meyohas is no stranger to the world of finance. She studied business at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and worked at a hedge fund. It was the chance experience of a photography class during her sophomore year that lured Meyohas into the world of art -- that, and growing up amidst the cultural wilderness of New York City. "Before going to art school the stuff I was making didn't really have much to do with business," she said. "At least that's not what I was thinking consciously. But once I got to art school it kind of came back in full force. I just think I need to have both in my life."

Meyohas wrote her undergraduate thesis on gold, both its theoretical and economic implications, and soon became obsessed with the concept of value. "It's always negotiating something that's there in front of you with something that's immaterial, in your mind. Value is intrinsically this human thing. It's a metaphor, really."

She soon identified valuation as a crucial element of both the seemingly disparate fields of art and finance, along with representation. "In my mind, when I think about finance and art, I think of both as systems of representation. Art in a very direct way, and with finance, the stock represents the company and mortgage backed securities represents the mortgage in a certain way. The 20th century is marked by a time when the structuring of the product is where you add the value. And it's the same with art. Matisse was painting a very ugly woman but the painting was absolutely beautiful."

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The BitchCoin mine


And then bitcoin came along. Meyohas was transfixed by the system, which she described as "totally decentralized, a seemingly dematerialized system of value." She was initially intrigued by the language surrounding the currency, which incorporated words like coins and mine, both of which conjured the vocabulary of gold. "Language was being used to give this dematerialized system weight."

"One day BitchCoin just popped into my head," she said, "and I thought it was funny. Also, all of my work deals with women, and the exchange of the woman, the female body, is inherent to capitalist desire. So I thought making a currency called BitchCoin where I am creating the body of the currency would, in a circuitous way, bring that up."

And thus, a cryptocurrency was born. Those who've invested in Meyohas' work will have to watch her artistic career develop to determine if their financial venture was a savvy one. Until then, it's a process driven by speculation and intuition, much like any other financial risk. Yet the prospect of investing in an artist's future development endows the artist with a greater sense of power. As Meyohas explained to Hyperallergic: "By giving the artist an increased stake in the supply, demand, and price of the work, BitchCoin challenges the status quo. The artist as maker of meaning reclaims agency in self-evaluation."

In the future, Meyohas hopes to release more coins, either by creating an exchange or holding an auction to determine their future value. "I am seeing the world and seeing images in a new way," she said. "And that's what I'm hoping BitchCoin does. It is privileging the image, but starting from the endpoint." This endpoint is the appraisal, which, according to Meyohas' vision, could become the crux of future artistic production. "Duchamp moved the point of creation to the conception of the piece, this is the opposite. Moving it to the valuation of the piece."

Oprah Winfrey Will Not Star In 'Night, Mother On Broadway, Is Eyeing 'Happier' Plays

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Oprah Winfrey will not be making her long-awaited Broadway debut in 'Night, Mother. As previously reported, the iconic talk show host had been looking to headline a revival of the play opposite six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald, but she has decided against it.

Poet Jill Bialosky On Her Poem 'The Mothers,' Writing About Parenthood And The Intimacy Of Reading Poetry

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In Jill Bialosky's poem "The Mothers," from her new collection, The Players, the experience of the soccer mom -- or, rather, the baseball mom -- is brought into warm, lyrical focus. The mothers of "The Mothers" are a loving collective, cheering on their sons, doing the laundry and attending to other sundry tasks needed to keep their budding athletic dreams alive. The Players represents an under-appreciated but particularly relatable strain of poetry: The poetry of our daily lives. In its pages, we see our own childhoods, daily domestic experiences, and familial dramas.

We spoke with Bialosky about her poem, which appears below, as well as about the joys of poetry as an art form:

What do you think poetry offers that other mediums don’t?
Poetry offers an intimacy with the reader that is particular to the art form. When I read a poem that moves or seduces me it feels as if the speaker is whispering in my ear, or tugging at my heart. Someone once said that poetry expresses the unsayable and that has been a guiding force in my own engagement with the art. My definition of a good poem is one that allows the reader to enter into the experience of the poem and be affected by it. A student who attended a workshop I once gave asked me whether a poem should have an “a ha” moment -- that would be minimizing the impact of a poem. A poem is not an advertisement or an aphorism. A good poem should open a window into a new world where the reader can hang out on its windowsill and be struck, awed, engaged. A poem is not a closed off form. There is something waiting in a poem, and the waiting is for the reader. A reader enters the experience of a poem and brings his or her own associations inside that open room.

What led you to fall in love with poetry?
I fell in love with poetry out of necessity. I needed poems the same way in which I needed to read novels, stories, and other forms of literature to attempt to understand and engage with the human experience. Poems said things to me that I wished I could say or express, but once taken in, I felt immediately part of a community. In a crisis, a poem can make the small crucial. I’ve gone on record as saying that I fell in love with poetry when my fourth grade teacher read us a Robert Frost poem called “The Road Less Traveled.” I have memorized that poem and at times the lines come to me, when I need to make a decision or am at a crossroads. Since then, particular poems have become guideposts. When it begins to snow, I think of Wallace Stevens and his “The Snow Man” and his line that “one must have a mind of winter.” I’ve said that line so many times in my head that it has become a part of me. When I’m feeling slightly down or overlooked, I think of Emily Dickinson’s “I am Nobody,” and I begin to smile. A good poem can be as intense as a seduction.

What is the most important thing to do when reading a poem?
Relax into it and read it again and again and give up any illusion of getting it right or understanding it completely. Poems are not meant to be understood but to be engaged and seduced by. Though I am not one for memorizing poems, I can see the value in it. I like when a poem gets under the skin.

Which contemporary poets do you think people should read?
There are so many it feels like by mentioning one I may leave out another, sort of like having to choose your favorite child. Instead, as an introduction, I recommend reading a good anthology of contemporary poetry. Since I’m an editor at Norton I would be remiss not to call out the superb Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. The Norton anthologies were a mainstay in my education. I edited Eavan Boland and Mark Strand’s anthology called The Making of a Poem. It is a must have for anyone interested in the art of poetry.

Why did you write this poem?
“The Mothers” is part of a long poetic sequence called “Manhood.” The poem takes as its subject baseball. I spent many hours on baseball fields throughout the five boroughs of Manhattan as I watched my son advance from a little leaguer, to playing for a tournament team in high school to eventually getting recruited to play college baseball. One weekend I took my son to a tournament and I began to listen to the chatter on the field and all of the sudden the first poem in the sequence took hold. It’s called “Chatter,” and it is poem that simply documents the chatter on the field and I thought that the chatter formed its own musicality. Once I had that poem, others began to unfold. The baseball field can be a battlefield where mothers, fathers, sons, brothers, coaches, teammates rage their own inner battles and perform or act out their demons, joys and celebrations. So I attempted to try and capture those voices. I wanted “The Mothers” to embody the voices of the mothers sitting on the bleachers and the sense of watching their sons from a distance and in a sense also being aware of the passage of time and trying to capture elements of the dynamics between mothers and sons.

“The Mothers,” and The Players as a whole, delves deeply into gender difference. Why did this strike you as a ripe subject for poetry?
I do see the long sequence, “Manhood,” at the heart of the The Players as a poem about gender. One of the things that struck me working on this series of poems and bringing to life some of the characters, coaches, players, fathers, mothers, sons, girls, was that baseball, at least from the prism of where I stood, was fueled by intense male energy. The coaches could be brutal and competitive, and this was the language and atmosphere in which these young boys were learning to define themselves. It made me think about questions of manhood and the differences between genders and about how much of our identities are formed by the way in which we mirror those in power. I wanted the poem to cast light on some of these shadings. I think anyone who has attended a little league game will be familiar with fathers shouting at their sons from the stands, and mothers biting their nails when their sons are up at the plate. I found all of this fascinating to document through poetry.

Does writing about parenthood present any unique challenges?
Yes. As a parent I was aware of not wanting to infringe upon my son’s privacy and that is why I choose to adopt the collective voice. Though many of the poems are about motherhood and fatherhood, and boyhood, the players in the poems strive to become archetypes. Poetry is a form of myth-making and in this book I think of these poems as myths about familial attachment.

There’s a great sense of universality and communality in this poem. Why are you drawn to looking for the universal in your poetry?
As a poet I strive to achieve universality in my work. I recently was in communication with a poet whose work I admire. She reminded me that we read together many years ago at a festival and both of us were lamenting the kind of autobiographical subject matter that our poems employed -- not lamenting our poetry -- but that the "Poetry World's" attention was shifting elsewhere -- on Language Poetry and more abstract, experimental poetry. I remember feeling too, and hoping, that the pendulum would swing back again, and it has. Or perhaps now there is room for many kinds of poetry. As a poet, I’m more interested in having my poems achieve universality and clarity. I like to imagine that I’m writing other readers’ stories and experiences into my poems. One of the best compliments is to hear that a poem of mine has been tacked up on someone’s refrigerator or bulletin board.


8. The Mothers
By Jill Bialosky

We loved them.
We got up early
to toast their bagels.
Wrapped them in foil.
We filled their water bottles
and canteens. We washed
and bleached their uniforms,
the mud and dirt
and blood washed clean
of brutality. We marveled
at their bodies,
thighs thick as the trunk
of a spindle pine,
shoulders broad and able,
the way their arms filled out.
The milk they drank.
At the plate we could make out
their particular stance, though each
wore the same uniform as if they were
cadets training for war.
If by chance one looked up at us
and gave us a rise with his chin,
or lifted a hand, we beamed.
We had grown used to their grunts,
mumbles, and refusal to form a full sentence.
We made their beds and rifled through their pockets
and smelled their shirts to see if they were clean.
How else would we know them?
We tried to not ask too many questions
and not to overpraise.
Sometimes they were ashamed of us;
if we laughed too loud,
if one of us talked too long to their friend,
of our faces that had grown coarser.
Can’t you put on lipstick?
We let them roll their eyes,
curse, and grumble at us
after a game if they’d missed a play
or lost. We knew to keep quiet;
the car silent the entire ride home.
What they were to us was inexplicable.
Late at night, after they were home in their beds,
we sat by the window and wondered
when they would leave us
and who they would become
when they left the cocoon of our instruction.
What kind of girl they liked.
We sat in a group and drank our coffee
and prayed that they’d get a hit.
If they fumbled a ball or struck out
we felt sour in the pit of our stomach.
We paced. We couldn’t sit still or talk.
Throughout summer we watched
the trees behind the field grow fuller
and more vibrant and each fall
slowly lose their foliage—
it was as if we wanted to hold on
to every and each leaf.

'Check It' Documentary Examines What Is Believed To Be America's First Queer Gang

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A new documentary is taking an in-depth, no-holds-barred look at what could be America's first all queer gang.

"Check It," which is produced by RadicalMedia and actor Steve Buscemi, recalls how three bullied Washington D.C. teens began the gang (which is also called Check It) in 2005. These days, the gang has about 200 members, who earn money committing crimes like petty theft and carjacking, filmmaker Dana Flor tells Allie Conti of Vice.

"The group formed to provide members safety in numbers and let people know that if you jumped a gay kid in D.C., you'd likely get jumped back in retaliation," Conti writes. The gang also provides one another "with a sense of community in a place where being gay can get you ostracized from your family, your church, and your classmates."

The movie itself, however, is billed as "an intimate portrait of five childhood friends as they claw themselves out of gang life through an unlikely avenue–fashion."

"As vulnerable gay and transgender youth, they’ve been shot, stabbed and raped," the team writes. "Once victims, they’ve now turned the tables, beating people into comas and stabbing enemies with ice picks."

Flor, co-director Toby Oppenheimer and the rest of the "Check It" crew have launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign in an effort to raise $60,000 to release the film. At the time of this writing, over $9,500 had been raised.

Kanye & Lorde Got Photographed Together Like A Modern-Day American Gothic

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When Kanye West isn't going to dinner with Taylor Swift, he's hanging out with Lorde. The pair were photographed together on Friday in Paris, possibly reenacting their favorite Grant Wood painting.

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Lorde and West previously worked together on a remix of Lorde's "Yellow Flicker Beat" for the "Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1" soundtrack. In an interview with Billboard to promote the track and soundtrack album, Lorde called the rap star her "idol."

#TheDress Might Break The Internet Again.. For A Good Cause

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Now everyone can get behind #TeamWhiteAndGold.

Roman Originals -- the clothing line that designed a black and blue dress that caused an Internet uproar over its color -- has created a white and gold version to be auctioned off on eBay for charity.

People StyleWatch reported that proceeds from the sale will benefit Comic Relief, an anti-poverty nonprofit based in the U.K.

The dress had garnered 540 British pounds (about $810) as of Friday morning. Buyers can bid on the dress through March 15.

We’re hoping for it to raise as much as possible. It would be great if it goes into the 100,000 [British pounds] mark,” Adrian Addison, Roman Originals' head of e-commerce, told People, noting the dress will be tailored to fit whatever size the winning bidder chooses.




An image of the dress -- originally uploaded to social media by a 21-year-old singer named Caitlin McNeill -- sparked widespread debate over its color scheme, with #TeamBlueAndBlack and #TeamWhiteAndGold forming on Twitter. The difference in perception can be explained by science.

Comic Relief raises money toward poverty alleviation initiatives in the U.K. and the developing world, such as the reconstruction of rundown healthcare facilities in eastern Uganda.

To learn more about Comic Relief or to get involved, visit its website.

To take action on poverty, check out the Global Citizen's widget below.





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See The Restored 'Grey Gardens' Before Anything Else In Theaters Right Now

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We've encountered that time of the year when Oscar fare has been replaced by the tripe that floods multiplexes every February and March. If you're fortunate, your local theater might have a screening of "Birdman" you can catch, assuming you haven't already seen this year's Best Picture winner. If not, you're left with the sci-fi claptrap "Chappie," disappointing sequels ("The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" and "Hot Tub Time Machine 2"), a reminder that Will Smith isn't the movie star he once was and, of course, "Fifty Shades of Grey." If you're truly lucky, though, you live in one of the 18 cities that will screen the restored version of "Grey Gardens" over the course of the next few months. See that instead. The death of co-director Albert Maysles on Thursday night lends the movie additional relevance.

The classic documentary is a hallmark from an era without reality television, and it's even more fascinating and poignant than it was in 1976. Watching Big and Little Edie Beale, the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, traipse around the dilapidated mansion they maintain in an otherwise dashing corner of East Hampton, New York, is like seeing self-exiled recluses emerge for public grazing. That prescient approach is what makes the movie so jarring, even today. Any accusations of exploitation are softened by the intimacy that exists between the filmmakers and their high-society castaway subjects, who somehow seem to understand what they've bargained for by inviting brothers Albert and David Maysles into their home. The directing duo mostly remain silent off-camera as the Beales open up about their cloistered lifestyle with almost no prompting, as if their onetime longing for fame taught them to perform without a script.

The crisp restoration, a joint effort between the Criterion Collection and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, has more to say about contemporary culture than anything else on your nearest theater marquee right now. A modern audience unfamiliar with the "Grey Gardens" legacy -- the movie stemmed from a media frenzy that enthralled the nation, resulting in a famous 1972 New York magazine cover story -- may overlook the movie's stronghold on popular culture. But this pull-back-the-curtain portrait is as seminal as it is compelling, arguably pioneering (along with the 1973 TV series "An American Family") fly-on-the-wall documentary filmmaking and, later, reality television.

On Thursday, hours before Maysles' death, Vanity Fair published a 2001 phone call between the filmmaker and Little Edie. Occurring years after Big Edie and David Maysles died, Little Edie had long abandoned the raccoon-infested home where she lived as a sort of captive of her mother. She took up brief residence in New York City before moving to Miami Beach, Montreal, Oakland and Bal Harbour, Florida. The call, recorded a year before her death, finds Edie assessing the Bush-Gore election results and professing her love for Maysles, all in that uncanny posh cadence. For someone who displays her soul unabashedly yet remains an elusive figure in American history, the call feels just as revealing as the 94-minute film that captures her so intimately. Read the New York magazine feature, catch "Grey Gardens" in theaters (or on home video, where it was also released), then listen to the aforementioned phone call. You'll have the Beales on your brain for days.

The restored "Grey Gardens" opens March 6 in New York. It will expand to additional cities in the coming weeks.

Albert Maysles, Grey Gardens Documentarian, Dies At 88: Gothamist

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Emmy Award-winning documentarian Albert Maysles died last night at the age of 88 at his home in Manhattan. Maysles is probably best known for Grey Gardens and Gimme Shelter, both of which he worked on with his brother David, who died in 1987.

The brothers won two Emmys, but neither for the aforementioned documentaries—in the 1980s they won for Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic and in 1991 for Soldiers of Music. You may also be familiar with one of their six films on installation artist Christo (count 'em), including 2005's The Gates and Christo's Valley Curtain, which was nominated for an Oscar in 1974.

Sutton Foster On Her Carnegie Hall Solo Debut, New Series 'Younger' And Turning 40

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Kicking off what she calls a “new, reflective” life chapter, Sutton Foster will make her headlining debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall just five days shy of her 40th birthday. She hopes the near-overlap of those milestones -- one professional, the other personal -- will set the pace for the rest of 2015, which, if all goes according to plan, will be a banner year.

“I’ve been working towards doing something like this for a very long time.” the two-time Tony Award-winning singer-actress says of “One Night Only: Sutton Foster,” which hits Carnegie Hall on March 13. I’m trying not to freak out, but I think I am -- a little bit. It's an amazing opportunity.”

Foster will “honor and celebrate different eras of music” in the Carnegie Hall concert, will be conducted by Steven Reineke. Joshua Henry, who was seen opposite Foster in 2014's “Violet” on Broadway, and Megan McGinnis, a friend since she and Foster co-starred in “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and “Little Women,” will make guest appearances.

While the show will touch on her turns in celebrated musicals, “One Night Only” will also offer Foster the chance to "express herself without the confines of a character." She's performed the set in Washington D.C. and Houston, but is nonetheless enthusiastic about bringing to it New York, where the warm, brassy stylings that defined her performances in “Millie” and the 2011 Broadway revival of “Anything Goes” will no doubt be embraced once again.

Foster’s television career is about to get a pretty significant boost, too, with her new sitcom, “Younger,” slated for a TVLand debut at the end of the month. Created and produced by “Sex and the City” veteran Darren Star, “Younger” centers on Liza Miller (Foster), a 40-year-old single mom who undergoes a makeover to appear 26 in an effort to land a publishing job after her husband leaves her.

Calling “Younger” a comedy with a “sweet, witty, gooey” center, Foster finds her own experiences as a performer reflected in her character, particularly as she approaches 40. If the show is a hit, it will keep Foster in New York, where her current indulgences include Juice Generation and Levain Bakery cookies, for the foreseeable future.

“[The topic of aging] is very timely for me; I'm sort of living it,” she notes. “It's an interesting thing for it to be a part of my work as I'm struggling with it in my own life.”

Meanwhile, Foster's been in a romantic mood since tying the knot with screenwriter Ted Griffin last fall, which will no doubt be reflected in a new album she's working on with longtime musical director Michael Rafter. That collection, which Foster says is "about 80 percent complete," will feature "trunk songs" and standards from the Great American Songbook and highlight a "very stripped-down, organic, more revealing" side.

As for the future, Foster says she'd “love to continue to be challenged,” but for now, her focus is on making “One Night Only” an “elegant, sophisticated” performance her New York audience will love.

“It’s going to be a very overwhelming, exciting experience for me,” she says.

"Sutton Foster: One Night Only" plays New York's Carnegie Hall on March 13. Head here for more information.

Abandoned Homes Are Surprisingly Full Of Life (Or Remnants Of It)

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Abandoned homes are the kind of thing you typically only happen upon when your GPS leads you astray. Unless, that is, you're author Ransom Riggs, who's on a mission to find them.

As part of his sequel to Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Riggs wanted to "to find the kind of houses that were described in the pages of his [latest]book", according to the San Francisco Globe. But what he found proved to be a little less macabre.

"When he stepped into these abandoned homes, he discovered something he never expected to see," the Globe notes. "Some of these homes, empty for decades, were completely undisturbed. If not for the thick dust coating everything, it'd be as if they were still lived in."

While the homes aren't exactly livable, they are full of character. So Riggs reached out to Martino Zegwaard, who had photographed some of the homes (and some 300 others, too). "I was contacted by Ransom after he found a photograph of mine, which he said is exactly how he imagined 'Miss Peregrines Home For Peculiar Children,'" Zegwaard told HuffPost Home. From there, Zegwaard and Riggs set out on a four day road trip through Belgium and Luxembourg. Here's a look at what they discovered.



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Shakespearean Master Kenneth Branagh Picks The Bard's Most Mysterious Play

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While discussing his new film with HuffPost Live's Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani, Kenneth Branagh paused to marvel at the layered nature of Shakespeare's work. He's thrilled, he says, by the "mystery in the web of it all."

"I like the fact that it's an open question mark," he said. "The thing I find with Shakespeare is you never get to the end of it. So you answer some piece satisfactorily, you think you find the clue to the character or you found a great way to stage it on film or on stage, and then some other question opens up, which I think is what happens when you have great poetry."

Branagh also shared his pick for the most mysterious Shakespearean play and explored some of the questions it raises that scholars and dramaturges still can't completely answer centuries later.

Find out Branagh's choice in the video above, and click here to watch his full HuffPost Live conversation.

Sign up here for Live Today, HuffPost Live’s morning email that will let you know the newsmakers, celebrities and politicians joining us that day and give you the best clips from the day before!

The First Paper Photographs Were Made With Salt, And They Look Like This

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In 1839, British inventor William Henry Fox Talbot created the salt print, the earliest form of paper photography.

Talbot was a polymath, interested in, among other things, mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, philosophy and, of course, art. According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Talbot was on his honeymoon when he became disillusioned with the camera lucinda, a device that superimposed the lines of a landscape upon a sketchbook apt for tracing. Talbot was unimpressed, "for when the eye was removed from the prism -- in which all looked beautiful -- I found that the faithless pencil had only left traces on the paper melancholy to behold."

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William Fox Talbot The Great Elm at Lacock 1843-45 Photograph, salted paper print from a paper negative © Wilson Centre for Photography


"How charming it would be if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably, and remain fixed upon the paper?" Talbot proceeded to wonder. "And why should it not be possible?"

Talbot began experimenting with the idea, applying salt and silver nitrate to a sheet of fine writing paper and letting it darken in the sun. He applied a second layer of salt to prevent too much darkening. He started using plants, pressing them on sensitized paper with a sheet of glass and letting the sun do the rest. Where the plant rested, a white imprint remained.

He honed the idea, which he called the "art of photogenic drawing," over time, and eventually came up with a method that would change the course of photography forever.

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Félix Nadar Mariette Circa 1855 Photograph, salted paper print from a glass plate negative © Wilson Centre for Photography


The technique went as follows: coat paper with a silver nitrate solution and expose it to light, thus producing a faint silver image. He later realized if you apply salt to the paper first and then spread on the silver nitrate solution the resulting image is much sharper. His resulting photos, ranging in color from sepia to violet, mulberry, terracotta, silver-grey, and charcoal-black, were shadowy and soft, yet able to pick up on details that previously went overlooked -- details like the texture of a horse's fur, or the delicate silhouette of a tree.

These rare and early prints are the subject of Tate Britain's "Salt and Silver: Early Photography 1840 – 1860," the first exhibition in Britain to focus on this brief preliminary moment in photographic history. Talbot's method quickly spread from Britain around the world, not only to artists but to scientists, adventurers and entrepreneurs as well, all hungry to capture and immortalize the immediacy of the moment.

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Roger Fenton Group of Croat Chiefs 1855 Photograph, salted paper print from a glass plate negative © Wilson Centre for Photography


The images on view capture natural wonders, architectural remains, nudes, human portraits and city streets with varying degrees of sharpness and shadow. Auguste Salzmann used the early device to conjure unorthodox studies of Greek statues in his 1858 "Statuette en Calcaire," while Félix Nadar's sultry "Mariette" captures the nude subject posing atop a touchable heap of fabrics, her face hidden from view.

Once the Victorian age of modern invention commenced, the reign of the salt print quickly came to an end as the new waves of photographic innovation began rolling in. However, this brief and transient moment in photographic history continues to represent a crucial turning point, when a particular recipe of silver iodide salts resulted in a completely novel visual experience.

Photography has evolved myriad times over since Talbot's initial experiment, transforming from a creative whim to an unavoidable aspect of everyday life. However, it's fascinating to see the genres of photography that have remained relatively constant throughout the past centuries -- the landscape, the urban snapshot, the inquisitive portrait, the sensuous nude. It's a surreal experience to see the prints that started it all, notoriously fragile figments of photographic history, threatening to fade away before your very eyes.

"Salt and Silver: Early Photography 1840-1860" runs until June 7, 2015 at the Tate Britain. See a preview below.

Yup, We Can't Believe These Were Taken On An iPhone Either

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You, dear readers, are probably familiar with an iPhone. You know, that apple device sitting painfully close to you right now, that you use as a way to communicate with friends, wake up to a Marimba each morning, respond to work emails ASAP and keep your social media followers full of #FOMO.

You're probably also aware of the fact that the shiny little iPhone of yours is all you need to create a stunning, original work of art.

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A new apple campaign has yielded an online exhibition of digital photos all taken with the iPhone 6. The endeavor enlisted amateur photographers from 24 countries and 70 cities to send in their most impressive photography feats, captured with that humble pocket-size machine. The resulting images, from breathtaking nature-scapes to psychedelic optical illusions, will surely make you bow down to your mobile device. Your excuses to not express yourself on a daily basis are waning, and fast.

See the most breathtaking examples of iPhone photography below and let us know your thoughts in the comments. Images from this post originally appeared on HuffPost Germany.

12 Beautiful Quotes From Women In Art Who Aren't Afraid To Call Out Injustice

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Today is International Women's Day, a day globally dedicated to acknowledging the economic, social and political achievements of women across the world. In honor of the occasion, we're rounding up some of the best interviews we've had with women in the arts, all of whom aren't afraid to tackle the tough issues women face in their daily lives. From education to beauty, success to authenticity, popular perceptions of body hair to the epidemic of catcalling, these female artists don't veer away from injustice; instead, they face obstacles head on.

Behold, 12 beautiful quotes from women in the arts:

On the importance of education:

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" It’s not enough to have a few women’s studies courses. Why is it more important to study Paul Revere’s midnight ride than it is Susan B. Anthony’s 50-year effort to transform the face of America for women? When you’re in school, most of the events you study are about men. Men’s activities lauded and repeated over and over. What about us? What about commemorating the decades-long struggle for suffrage? Why don’t we hear those stories over and over and over again. It’s almost inconceivable for men to understand what it would be like to live without that constant valorization."

On catcalling:

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"There are always those who want to tell women that their experiences are not valid or not important whenever they speak up. For me, as a black woman, this is particularly true. Wanting the basic right of feeling comfortable and safe and not sexualized as I walk out of my house is very much worth prioritizing." -artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh (read more here)

On success in a contemporary world:

"Success is now lined up with the realm of glamour, money and accoutrement which in essence have nothing to do with an originating vision but they do have to do with establishing recognition in commercial culture. I think women artists have a chance to deflect that and break that grip apart." -performance artist Carolee Schneemann (read more here)

On finding your authentic self:

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"I came of age before women’s lib, and wanted to buck the stereotypes of a culture that branded me a pretty girl, thin enough to be a fashion model and not much more. Armed with my camera and tripod, I found a way to define myself on my own terms in the most authentic way I could." -photographer Lucy Hilmer (read more here)

On our culture's preoccupation with female body hair:

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"I entered making this work with a sense of fascination that hair is both beautiful and repulsive in our culture. The fragile influence of context is its only distinction. We see long hair on a woman as a symbol of beauty and femininity, but as soon as the hair is cut or removed the body, we think of it as unsanitary and strange. Likewise, we seem to never have enough hair in the places we want it, and too much hair in the places that we don’t want it to be!" -photographer Rebecca Drolen (read more here)

On definitions of beauty:

"The power to show real women, honest, present, complex and complete. Individuals, radiant in their own right. Not stripped of their personhood, or manipulated for a fantasy or metaphor. I like to think the power of lifting the veil from individuals helps to challenge societies darker fetishes and beliefs, perhaps shatter notions of bigotry and stereotypes... One of my greatest joys is working with women who do not usually dwell in this side of their beauty and yet in the work recognize themselves completely, as they are and magnificent." -painter Victoria Selbach (read more here)

On the realities of trans women:

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"[My] series was inspired by my love for the trans women I have met online and my sympathy with the struggles they have being seen as women and people... Trans women are everywhere, but until recently have been marginalized by the invisibility enforced by the intensification of misogynist violence toward them. It is up to cisnormative society to stop questioning their femininity, embrace their beauty, and counter the disadvantages they have just by being themselves." -artist Janet Bruesselbach (read more here)

On gun control laws:

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"My hope is that the young men in the 8th Ward and the surrounding neighborhoods are inspired to trade killing for creativity. Through the relationships they've developed they decide they can move past the paradigm of gangsters and guns. Healing in the neighborhood, by the neighborhood." -artist and curator Kirsha Kaechele (read more here)

On the radical nature of the selfie:

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"Yes, of course they have the capability of being radical or feminist. Our generation knows the image of the self better then any other generation before, because of our access to cameras, media and sharing. And also, the language of the image is no longer in the hands of specialists. We are all experts in reading images and we know how to control and manipulate the viewer through images." - artist Melanie Bonajo (read more here)

On feminism's potential for future change:

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"The Future Feminist point of view has increasingly leaned not towards striving for equal status within a male construct or a male society, but rather to invite a redesign of society based on the principles of a feminine archetype in order to create the hope of a sustainable future for us all." -The Future Feminists (read more here)

On inclusion in the art world:

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"I am aware of the fact that in the bigger scheme of things in the art and literary worlds there are still a lot of gaps as far as diversity and representation goes. That is part of my personal inspiration to make art and tell stories and have more representation for women and people of color." -comic artist Yumi Sakugawa (read more here)

On hope

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-Barbara Nessim (read more here)
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