Eric Owens And Morris Robinson Discuss The Challenges Of Being A Black Opera Singer

April 20, 2015, 8:56 am

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When King Philip II of Spain faces off against the Grand Inquisitor in Verdi's "Don Carlo" at the Academy of Music, they won't just be portraying history, they'll be making a bit of it, too. In what's believed to be a first, a major opera company has cast two African-Americans in the roles.

Bass-baritone Eric Owens as the king headlines the cast of Opera Philadelphia's new production, which runs for five performances starting Friday night, while bass Morris Robinson sings the smaller but crucial role of the Inquisitor. Their highly charged encounter, which lasts just under 10 minutes, is one of the great scenes in opera — and one of the few written for two deep male voices. Both men are in their 40s and at somewhat different stages in their careers. Owens, who grew up in Philadelphia, studied singing at Temple University and the Curtis Institute, developing a voice that allows him to excel in baritone parts as well as lower bass roles. Robinson, who grew up in Atlanta, attended The Citadel on a football scholarship (he was an all-American offensive lineman) and didn't begin studying singing until he was 30, when his deep, booming bass voice caught the attention of teachers at the New England Conservatory of Music.

Recently the two men talked with The Associated Press about their careers, working together and the challenges of being a black opera singer.

AP: How did you become interested in opera?

Owens: I've been an opera lover since I was 8 years old. Classical music just took hold of me early on, before I had any designs on singing. I was there waiting for the Saturday-afternoon radio broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera to come on.

Robinson: (Laughing.) You really ARE a nerd, aren't you? Around the same time Eric was listening to those broadcasts, my only exposure to opera was Bugs Bunny and 'Kill the Wabbit.' I spent my time trying to get all the recordings I could of The Sugarhill Gang. Classical music didn't start getting to me until high school. I realized I couldn't play in the band and be on the football team, so I quit the band and joined the chorus.

AP: How does it feel to be singing these particular roles at this point in your careers?

Owens: It feels good. I mean there's something with Verdi where things just click in to where they're supposed to be. If the technique is not just like a nuclear reactor, just going, going, going, Verdi will kick your butt real bad. You sing any one of these arias and you feel like you've done 100 sit-ups.

Robinson: You can't fake your way through it. The Grand Inquisitor covers everything that's expected of a bass to be able to sing, from a low E to a high F, it's there, and it takes a lot of sustained legato lines. Eric just gets through singing his aria and he's downtrodden and then I come in (Owens, interrupting: 'All fresh!') and I tell the king what to do. I got to use my puppet strings to control him. And when you've got a guy like this singing in front of you, you've got to reach deeper and bring something a little bit more.

AP: As far as anyone seems to know, this is the first time these roles have both been cast with black singers. Archivists at the Metropolitan Opera and Opera America said they could find no examples of it happening. Do you feel this is any kind of a milestone?

Robinson: It may very well be coincidental, but I don't think it's insignificant. I'm just finishing a 'Magic Flute' in Houston where we had a black Pamina (Nicole Heaston), a black Papageno (Michael Sumuel) and a black Sarastro (Robinson), so that was monumental. I don't know if this is the turning of the tide, but I think it speaks highly that it didn't serve as a deterrent for them to hire us.

Owens: First and foremost, I think Opera Philly hired us because the dynamic of our voices complement each other and fits these roles quite well. And us being African-American, that's just, I don't want to say collateral damage, but it's gravy.

AP: Do you see yourselves as role models for aspiring black singers?

Robinson: I think we give hope to a lot of cats who are in school studying, who look like us and pursue this career and don't see very many examples.

Owens: It was a big deal for me when I was coming up and I saw people of color. What's cool about this event is that we do spend an awful lot of time being the only black person in a room, in a company, in a town sometimes. Awhile back, during all the Trayvon Martin stuff, I was in Switzerland with the Berlin Philharmonic. I walked into the hall for the concert and it suddenly hit me, I'm the only black person in this room. And I hadn't really given it much thought over the course of 20 years. And I wondered to myself: How would a white person feel being the only white person around constantly in their careers?

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Online:


https://www.operaphila.org/

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A Masterful New Biography Of Artist Isamu Noguchi

April 20, 2015, 9:05 am

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"Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), by Hayden Herrera

Isamu Noguchi was a difficult man who made art easy to look at. In his life and work, he was riddled with contradictions. Humble and egotistical. Steadfast and temperamental. Listless and energetic. A loyal friend and faithless lover. Art historian Hayden Herrera, who has written books about Noguchi's artist friend Arshile Gorky and his romantic partner Frida Kahlo, explores his paradoxical personality in a new, meticulously researched biography, "Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi."

Above all she focuses on the lifelong tension he felt as a result of his biracial heritage. Born in the U.S. to an Irish-American mother and Japanese father, he felt at home nowhere and was an inveterate traveler and self-described world citizen.

"For one with a background like myself the question of identity is very uncertain," she quotes him as saying. "And I think it's only in art that it was ever possible for me to find any identity at all."

And that he did. Blessed — even cursed at times — with vaulting ambition, ferocious energy and an unusually fertile imagination, Noguchi was widely acclaimed as one of America's greatest sculptors when he died in 1988 at age 84.

Herrera traces his astonishingly productive career from his early days as an accomplished figurative sculptor to his formative apprenticeship with the great modernist Constantin Brancusi and then his later years as a major designer of gardens, monuments and public spaces around the globe.

Along the way she examines his enduring interest in making simple, useful and beautiful objects for everyday living, such as his elegant Akari paper lanterns and glass-topped biomorphic coffee tables. This was the artist who declared that "everything was sculpture."

Herrera had to synthesize a vast amount of material to produce this authoritative account: not only Noguchi's own lucid writing but also that of his unconventional, likable mother and his difficult, grandiose, largely absent poet father. Well-chosen excerpts of letters from and interviews with his wide circle of associates further elucidate his own thinking about art and his place in art history.

However, as the details pile up over some 500 pages, some passages drag, and that has the unfortunate effect of slowing the momentum of his thrilling rise to the pinnacle of the art world. The book could easily have been a hundred or so pages shorter and still done justice to his breathtaking talent.

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3D, Smell-O-Vision & Indoor Weather: Rating The Best & Worst Movie Theater Innovations

April 20, 2015, 9:23 am

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Summer blockbuster season is almost upon us. The months of kicking back in the full-blast air conditioning and watching digitally-created stuff blow up will begin in just a couple of weeks, and at this point, it’s an annual ritual.

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Jerry Saltz on the New Whitney Museum

April 20, 2015, 9:34 am

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I’ve spent much of my life in and in love with museums. When I was 10 years old, there was no mention of art in my home. But then my mother began driving me from the suburbs to the Art Institute of Chicago. There, she looked at art on her own for hours, leaving me to do the same. At the time, I liked being alone but hated museums. I felt they were old and dead, places where people just stood and stared. But one day, waiting, bored, brooding, I found myself absorbed by two beautifully colored adjacent old paintings. On the left, a pair of men standing outside a jail cell talk to a haloed man, inside the cell, while an incredible leopard guards nearby. After a long time, I looked at the right-hand panel, where the setting was the same but the time was different. In place of the leopard, there is a man returning a huge bloody sword to its sheath; the haloed man inside the cell stoops down, both hands on the sill to support his body, extending his neck, which has been severed, through the bars. His head is on the ground, on a platter, as blood spurts all over. I looked back and forth; left, then right. Then something gigantic hit me. These images were telling a story. The paintings were from the 15th century, just when Renaissance painters were beginning to understand perspective. And yet they were not dead, they were alive, at least when I looked at them. Two paintings from the 1450s, still working their magic on me. Amazed, I looked around the gallery and saw gates open. I thought each work was the same — a voice, yearning or in pain or proud, but speaking to me, in visual tongues, down through history. Maybe everything in this suddenly amazing building was telling a story, I thought, a story I could discern just by looking (and without going to school). I wanted to spend forever in this cacophony, this living catacomb. A few months later, my mother committed suicide. I didn’t return to a museum until I was in my 20s.

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What It's Like When Your Rapist Appears Under Facebook's 'People You May Know'

April 20, 2015, 9:49 am

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"When my rapist showed up under the 'people you may know' tab on Facebook, it felt like the closest to a crime scene I've ever been."

That's how Kevin Kantor begins his powerful slam poem, "People You May Know." In the piece, Kantor recounts his experience of coming across his rapist's Facebook profile -- learning his assailant's middle name, seeing his baby photos, and mentally reliving the assault and its aftermath.

"No one comes running for boys who cry rape," Kantor says.

Kantor hopes that his piece will lend a voice to male survivors of sexual assault, especially those who weren't believed when they spoke about being attacked. According to RAINN, 10 percent of sexual assault victims in the U.S. identify as male.

"If nothing else, I hope people realize that the systems in place that work to shame and silence male survivors of sexual violence are the same ones that work to invalidate the voices all survivors: women, trans* people, gender non-conforming folk," Kantor told The Huffington Post. "I was asked why I, as a man, didn't 'fight back,' in a society that privileges and presupposes a dominant masculine identity. I believe one of the first steps in advocating for all survivors of sexual violence and abolishing our country's pervasive rape culture is championing the cause of gender equality."

Watch Kantor perform the full poem above.

h/t Feministing

Need help? In the U.S., visit the National Sexual Assault Online Hotline operated by RAINN. For more resources, visit the National Sexual Violence Resource Center's website.

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The Haunting Story Behind One Of Gustav Klimt's Most Famous Paintings

April 20, 2015, 10:13 am

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A visitor at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art views the painting titled "Adele Bloch-Bauer I," April 4, 2006, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ric Francis)

Maria Altmann was in her '80s when she entered into a legal battle with the Austrian government in order to reclaim Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I" and other Nazi-plundered Klimt paintings.

The artwork had been stolen from her family's home after she escaped from Austria as a Jewish refugee of the Holocaust during World War II. Never certain she would even live to see a verdict, Altmann's fight wasn't about money or revenge. According to her, she simply wanted to preserve the truth of what had happened to her family.

So the history goes, the paintings in question were originally confiscated by Nazi authorities from Altmann's uncle, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, and acquired by the state of Austria following German occupation. When Altmann began her fight, in the late 1990s, the portrait of Bloch-Bauer's wife Adele had already made its way to the Galerie Belvedere in Vienna, where it was known by a colloquial moniker, "Women in Gold," to obscure the subject's Jewish heritage.

Shrouded in mystery until Altmann spoke out, the painting had come to be known as Austria's "Mona Lisa."


Maria Altmann, at her home in Los Angeles on Jan. 9, 2004, stands before a poor reproduction of famed Austrian painter Gustav Klimt's "The Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer I." (AP Photo/Nam Huh)

Altmann, then living in Los Angeles, never thought she would actually gain control of her native country's most prized artistic possession. (The Austrian government had ignored Altmann's initial pleas.) And neither did her lawyer, E. Randol Schoenberg. Altmann had chosen him to represent her because he was the grandson of her friend, Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg.

Schoenberg compared their legal efforts to a PR stunt -- victory seemed impossible, but it was sure to earn Altmann's story the attention it deserved. Really, that's all they wanted. "I told her, 'Everyone is going to know your story,'" Schoenberg told The Huffington Post. "Everyone was going to know about this picture and that was largely our motivation."

The logistics of the legal battle are rather complicated. Schoenberg remained friendly yet exasperated as he unpacked the more complex details. In short, he worked to prove that although Adele Bloch-Blauer's will had directed that her husband donate the paintings to the Belvedere upon his death, Ferdinand Bloch-Blauer had commissioned the painting (and, thus, had been its rightful owner). Furthermore, Adele died before the Klimts were stolen, and Ferdinand's will left everything to his nieces and nephews. It was up to Schoenberg to demonstrate, in part, that Adele's dying wishes were simply a request that could not have been made with knowledge of the horrors that would befall her family.

"She had no idea," Altmann told NPR's Nina Totenberg of her aunt's final wishes. "She would have never requested her husband, even in a dream, to leave these to the [Galerie Belvedere] after a number of her friends were murdered, committed suicide. I mean, it is totally incomprehensible that such a thing would have happened."

Over several years, Altmann's case went from a district court in Central California to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ultimately led to binding arbitration in Austria. It was a risky series of moves meant to push the case forward, as Schoenberg feared Altmann would die before her case was resolved.

"I went into a private room with Maria and told her they agreed to arbitration and she said, 'You're crazy!,'" he explained. "I said, 'Maria, you're 85 years old. If we really want to get this over with in your lifetime, we have to take this chance and I think we can do it."



It turned out he was right. Altmann won the case in 2006, earning back the paintings that had been lost for nearly 70 years. That year, Altmann sold Adele's portrait to Ronald Lauder, co-founder and president of the Neue Galerie in New York City, for a staggering $135 million, the highest price ever paid for a single painting at the time.

When asked why Altmann sold something she had fought so hard to win back, Schoenberg turned lawyerly. He explained that she had to share Adele's portrait with her siblings and their heirs, that none of those in line for the painting could afford to keep it in their homes, due to insurance costs. Then he added:

"The primary motivation was sort of indicating the truth of what had happened to her and telling the story," he said. "You know, no one even thought we would win."

According to Schoenberg, Altmann didn't do anything extravagant with her share of the money. She was able to afford in-home care before her death in February of 2011. He recalled that she had been excited about buying a new dishwasher.



Altmann is the subject of Simon Curtis' latest film, "Woman in Gold." After discovering her tale through a BBC documentary, the director worked carefully with what he calls a "massive story," choosing which elements of the saga to keep, while maintaining a clear representation of the facts in mind. "We had to leave a lot out," he said. "I jokingly say that my last [movie] was 'My Week with Marilyn,' this was my century with Maria."

Curtis cast Helen Mirren in the role of Maria, and the two began to study footage of Altmann. Schoenberg also worked as a consultant on the film, ensuring it remained faithful to Altmann's experiences. He was impressed with how much of the nearly century-long story Curtis was able to squeeze into the 109-minute drama. Even parts of the narrative that were exaggerated for the film -- like Maria's final goodbye with her parents -- resonated with Holocaust survivors who had similar experiences.

"Maria's dad actually died when she was in Vienna, so she didn’t have that particular farewell," Schoenberg said. "I always thought of it as manufactured and then someone came up to me and said, 'I love that scene, my mother had to do that with her parents and never saw them again.'"

Schoenberg comes from a Jewish family and his experiences with Altmann helped him connect to his ancestors and the pain they endured during the Holocaust.

"You don’t interrogate your grandparents, right?," he laughed. "But when you’re a lawyer on a legal case, you have to do that. Working on this case with Maria has opened my eyes quite a bit to what the Holocaust was really like."



One of Curtis' goals in bringing the legacy of the "Woman in Gold" to the screen was to share Schoenberg's experience with a generation of younger viewers, who understand the Holocaust as a distant past. He modeled the character of Randy (Ryan Reynolds) into a vessel for that viewing of the film.

"We wanted our Randy to be an all-American guy, living his life in California," Curtis said. "He becomes aware during the narrative of the film of his past and what his ancestors went through to get him where he is today."

So far, "Woman in Gold" seems to be having that impact. The film experienced relative success at the box office, leading to a wide release in its second weekend in theaters.

"I’d be insane if I wasn’t deeply moved and deeply heartened by the way audiences react," Curtis concluded. "They seem to connect and be emotionally engaged by it. It’s been one of the great experiences of my life hearing those reactions."

While he regrets not having the chance to meet with Altmann, Schoenberg knows she would have been pleased with "Woman in Gold." After all, the only thing she ever really wanted was to ensure that the world would know her story.

"Woman in Gold" is now out in wide release. "Gustav Klimt and Adele Bloch-Bauer: The Woman in Gold," a special exhibition, is on view at the Neue Galerie until Sept. 7, 2015.

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UW-Madison Doctoral Student Illustrates Her Thesis With A Comic

April 20, 2015, 11:47 am

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Late last spring, a doctoral student worked late into the night. As she doodled, her chemistry thesis took on a life of its own, transforming into a comic book.

Veronica Berns, 28, was working on her Ph. D. in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin -Madison. Berns said she long struggled to explain her work to her parents and friends. The self-described comic book fan said she began drafting her thesis on quasicrystals - a subset of crystals that diverge from the usual structural characteristics of crystals. Berns quickly concluded that she would be best able to describe the oddball compounds with illustrations.

"They're not very well-polished illustrations. That's on purpose," Berns said. "I wanted it to be like I'm explaining on the back of an envelope."

And on many occasions, it was on the back of an envelope or on a napkin that she doodled sketches of the chemical bonds to better show her parents what she was working on in the lab. Jody Berns, Veronica's mother, said their family has a history of doodling and has shared comics for years.

Berns surprised her family with her comic book "Atomic Size Matters" at her graduation last year. The book depicts cartoons of Berns wearing various costumes and uses humor as well as simple comparisons to describe elaborate chemistry.

"We're just really proud that she can take something so complex and put it into a fun visual explanation that everyone can enjoy," Jody Berns said.

Veronica Berns' professor Danny Fredrickson said Berns was the first of his students to construct her thesis in an artistic way. He said often it is difficult for scientists to explain what they do with proper context.

"If it's worth doing, we should be able to explain it," Fredrickson said.

And he said Berns managed to accomplish that.

Berns said he hopes other scientists will find ways to illustrate what they're doing in the lab. She now lives in Chicago and works as a chemist. Berns also writes a blog in which she uses comics to explain the work of Nobel Prize winning scientists.

Berns started a Kickstarter fundraising campaign to finance printing a small batch of the books. She said she wanted to raise $5,965 to cover the costs of professional printing. The website says she has raised more than $14,000.

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Follow Dana Ferguson on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bydanaferguson .

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This Drone Video Of Dutch Flower Fields Will Give You The Touch Of Spring You Needed

April 20, 2015, 2:02 pm

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There's nothing better than a bouquet of spring flowers... unless you live near the tulip fields in Holland.

For a month and a half ever year, millions of brightly colored blooms turn the landscape into a panorama of color. The video above, shot with a DJI Inspire 1 drone, was captured above some epic flower fields in the Netherlands. The fields shown in the video lie near Lisse, home to the world's second-largest flower garden.

The tulips, hyacinths, narcissi and daffodils are a highly trafficked tourist destination in spring months and are in bloom from the end of March until the second week of May. Road trippers can take a 25-mile drive through the countryside and see flower-sellers, public gardens and museums all along the highway, according to National Geographic.

Take a look at the stunning drone footage above, and check out other beautiful images of the flower fields below.

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January Jones On Glen Bishop's Awkward 'Mad Man' Return And Betty's Future

April 20, 2015, 2:19 pm

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Warning: This interview contains spoilers for “The Forecast,” the 10th episode of the final season of “Mad Men.”

When we sat down with January Jones on Monday to discuss the new movie "Good Kill," which premiered this weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival, she wasn't sure which "Mad Men" episode had aired the previous night. We told her it was the one with Glen Bishop's return, and Jones smiled knowingly. The strange neighbor child who once kept a lock of Betty Draper's hair in his treasure box is grown up and preparing to enlist in the military during the Vietnam War after one final visit to the woman who fired her housekeeper for letting him enter the house. Before gabbing about "Good Kill" (directed by "Gattaca" and "Lord of War" maestro Andrew Niccol), we asked about Glen's big return and what Jones thinks the future has in store for Betty and Sally.

In your eyes, what is Glen Bishop's significance in Betty's life?
Well, I think it’s changed. I just watched a clip from the first season when she comes up to him in the car outside the bank. I hadn’t seen it in forever. I think at that point he was a confidant, in a way, and just a reflection of who she was, and you saw in that relationship just how emotionally immature she was. It’s gone through many phases. There was a phase when she was jealous of Sally’s relationship with him, and now this new thing made her realize how inappropriate she was actually being, or how inappropriate the relationship was. Or she maybe is flattered.

She's still primping her hair upon seeing him.
Right. I think, selfishly, she’s never really thought about how meaningful it is. She never really thought about what it meant for him.

She says she can't take the relationship further because she's married, but would she have been more willing were she not?
No, I don’t think so. I mean, being married hasn’t really changed any of her moves.

Is it awkward to shoot those scenes, especially knowing the actor is Matt Weiner's son?
Yeah, but I’ve known him since he was little now. Some of that stuff was awkward. I felt his hesitation and awkwardness. Not in the earlier stuff, but in the new stuff, because he’s, like, a man now. He’s 18 and he gets what he’s saying. Before, I don’t even know if he did. Yeah, they were awkward, but I think they needed to be. I think that’s what made it beautiful, but I haven’t seen it to know how it actually turned out.

Do you see any of yourself in the way Sally is growing up and embracing her generation's rebelliousness?
I think Peggy and Sally very much represent a modern version of a woman, and I feel like Joan and Betty were kind of the old-fashioned versions, for the show anyway. So I see a lot more of myself in Sally than in any other character, and I think most modern women would say that. And I also see a lot of myself in Kiernan Shipka, just because I‘ve known her since she was 6. It’s a very interesting dynamic. I feel like if I had lived in the ‘60s and had been her age, I would have been more like her than anyone else. I feel like I would have asked questions, but it’s hard for me to say because I don’t know how I would have been raised then. What if I was raised like Betty, which is just to keep my opinion to myself and not have any aspirations? It’s hard to say.

Do you think Sally will bring out more open-mindedness in Betty as the '70s continue?
I think she already has. I think that Betty sees in Sally what she’s always wanted for herself. She’s raised this child, unintentionally creating this person she does admire but is probably jealous of. And Betty’s still sort of emotionally stunted, and the pride she takes in telling Don she’s going back to school is sort of sweet. I think Sally may have been a motivation for that, or else she just wanted to educate herself because she felt so trapped in the times. There was a scene last season where she feels like she’s bolstering Henry’s political career by spouting her opinion and realizes that his opinion on it had changed, and then she feels so foolish for being disrespected. I think that also might have been another catalyst.

Other than Betty, which "Mad Men" character will you miss the most?
Don. Cliché.

The final season of "Mad Men" airs Sundays at 10:00 p.m. ET on AMC.

"Good Kill" opens May 15.

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11 Images Capture The Emotional Stages Of The Mother-Daughter Relationship

April 20, 2015, 3:06 pm

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The bond between a mother and daughter changes over time, facing new challenges at every life stage. Whether your mother-daughter relationship is loving, fractured, fraught or all of the above, it's always going to be complex.

Photographer and artist Julia Fullerton-Batten tackles these relationship complexities in her 2012 photo series "Mothers And Daughters." Although Fullerton-Batten debuted the images a few years ago, the emotions they capture still resonate with any woman who has a strong relationship with her mother and/or daughter.

The series features 20 real mother and daughter pairs at multiple stages of life, with varying degrees of closeness and distance. Each photo shows a pair of women in their own environments in order to capture the true emotional bond between the two. "I realized how much the fragility and vulnerability of females is exposed fully in the mother-daughter relationship," Fullerton-Batten told The Huffington Post.

Fullerton-Batten said she gave some direction to the two women in each image, but also let the relationships of each mother and daughter inform the poses they ended up in. The final photographs expose a beautiful synthesis of Fullerton-Batten's perspective as a daughter and granddaughter, and the relationship of each pair of women.


"Third Time Around"


"Over passage of time the [mother-daughter] relationship changes significantly. The babe-in-arms is fully dependent on the mother, but at the other end of the age scale, the mother often becomes dependent on her daughter to satisfy her emotional needs," Fullerton-Batten wrote in her artist statement. "In the adult relationship the intimacy of the bond is established on the love, struggle and rivalry of a shared life-time, leading to a mature understanding and acceptance of each other. Between childhood and adulthood, the full spectrum of emotions is played out. My images try to capture all of these very different stages in this extremely special relationship."

Fullerton-Batten said the project is "both documentary and biographical," as the series also illustrates her memories of her and her two sisters' relationships with their mother, and the relationship between her mother and grandmother.

Check out 11 images from Fullerton-Batten's series below.


"The Party Is Over"



"The Divorce"



"Alabaster Doll"



"Pretty New Things"



"Intimate Moments"



"Teenage Reflection"



"Inner Tensions"



"Memories"



"Burning The Past"



"Alone Again"


Head over to Fullerton-Batten's website to see the rest of the series.

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Elevator Journey To The Top Of 1 World Trade Center Features Spectacular Time-Lapse History Of New York

April 20, 2015, 11:00 pm

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When the observatory at One World Trade Center opens next month, visitors will be treated to not just a 360-degree view of the Big Apple, but also a brisk -- and breathtaking -- elevator ride down up memory lane.

As The New York Times explains, the five elevators that service the observatory will feature an immersive time-lapse animation which "recreates the development of New York City’s skyline, from the 1500s to today." Per the Times:

From the moment the doors close until they reopen 47 seconds later on the 102nd floor, a seemingly three-dimensional time-lapse panorama will unfold on three walls of the elevator cabs, as if one were witnessing 515 years of history unfolding at the tip of Manhattan Island.

Near the end of the journey to the top of the building, visitors will even catch a startling glimpse of the original World Trade Center, before it disappears again from view.

(Experience the time-lapse for yourself in the video above.)

One World Trade Center’s observation deck will open to the public on May 29. The admission fee is $32 for adults, $30 for seniors and $26 for children.

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Housing Works Bookstore Café Shows How Indie Bookstores Can Win In The Age Of Amazon

April 21, 2015, 6:08 am

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Remember The Shop Around the Corner? The charming children’s bookstore tragically had to close its doors in 1998 after Fox Books -- a big box store with lattés, low prices and unbeatable selection -- ran it out of business.

Sure, that’s just the plot of the classic Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks vehicle "You’ve Got Mail," but it was never purely fiction. The battle between Ryan’s tiny independent bookstore and Hanks’ behemoth was being played out, with admittedly less romance, all over the country.

Barnes & Noble Booksellers and Borders offered the bulk discounts and enormous selection long-standing indies could not, and the latter began to shutter at an alarming rate. Thousands of booksellers -- nearly 40 percent, in fact -- left the independent stores’ American Booksellers Association in the late ‘90s, according to New York magazine.

A modern "You’ve Got Mail," however, might pit Fox Books as the plucky underdog against Internet sales titan Amazon. In 2011, Borders left the arena, unable to compete with Amazon’s still-lower prices and the customer’s ability to buy books without even leaving home. Barnes & Noble remains, but seems a shell of itself; it’s been closing stores and trying futilely to compete with Amazon online.

And now, The Shop Around the Corner is making a surprise comeback. Indie bookstores have been resurgent in recent years, filling the void of brick-and-mortar shopping left by closing big-box bookstores. How are these bookshops succeeding where Borders buckled?

Housing Works Bookstore Café, part of the Housing Works charity in New York City, which provides housing and other services to people living with HIV/Aids, perfectly exemplifies the answer. While walking into a generic big-box bookstore feels a lot like shopping at a slightly more expensive, slightly less convenient version of Amazon, walking into Housing Works feels worlds apart.

The shelves are lined with an idiosyncratic array of donated and used books, including a shelf of donated galley copies. The beautiful, sunny space centers on a cozy café space, the ideal place to get lost in a stack of potential purchases and a coffee for an afternoon. The staff are passionate volunteers and nonprofit employees ready to welcome you and recommend the best book for you. You can come back -- not just for readings or celebrity book signings, but for speed dating with book geeks, arty trivia, or even your wedding, if you want.

Housing Works, like so many beloved indie bookstores, offers something that Amazon can’t do better. They're turning book-shopping into an opportunity to reconnect as communities, and it turns out that's something readers still want.

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Mom's Disney Photos Prove 'The Only Disability In Life Is Having A Bad Attitude'

April 21, 2015, 7:00 am

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If this isn't Disney magic in action, what is?

Florida mom Kristina Bewley started taking her daughter Giselle to Disney World in September 2014. The 4-year-old loves all things Disney, from the princesses to Pixar characters to Wreck-It Ralph, Baymax and all the Tinkerbell movies, her mom told The Huffington Post.

Giselle, an outgoing and headstrong little girl, has Down syndrome, and she loves going to Disney World in character costumes that her mom sews. As her daughter lives it up at the theme park, mom Kristina -- a photographer who works with kids with special needs -- takes photos of Giselle in her homemade costumes and sometimes adds a few special effects in the editing process. The results are awesome.





Magic is certainly the best way to describe the effect Disney World has on Giselle. "She is non-verbal but you can see the way she lights up when we arrive," Kristina said. "She's happy just strolling, waving at everyone."

The Bewleys visit Disney World about once a month with their season passes. "Each time we go, Giselle becomes more and more confident. She speaks what little words she has more, she isn't as shy," the mom said, adding that the cast members especially help her daughter come out of her shell. "It's not just amazing photo ops for us, but watching her bloom is worth the trip."



Kristina said raising a child with special needs has taught her "to slow down and really enjoy the little things in life." While she sees people rushing around trying to get to every possible attraction at Disney World, her family no longer takes that approach. "Giselle isn't like that. She likes to stroll the park, smell the flowers, watch the ducks, ride the carousel, see the parades and meet new people."

Ultimately, the mom hopes that when people see her Disney-fied photos of Giselle, they won't fixate on her disability but will simply see "a little girl having a great time, enjoying life in one of the most innocent stages we have," she said, adding, "The only disability in life is a bad attitude."

"I don't want people to not see her Down syndrome, because it's a part of who she is. But it's not all that's there, she is so much more."

Keep scrolling and visit Kristina's Facebook page to follow Giselle's Disney adventures.



H/T BabyCenter



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Baguette Or Bagel? Espresso Or Americano? Mesmerizing Video Takes On An Age-Old City Rivalry

April 21, 2015, 7:18 am

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It's an age-old rivalry: The City of Lights or the Big Apple?

A new video created by the design studio Nord Collective serves as an animated version of Vahram Muratyan's 2012 book "Paris versus New York: A Tally of Two Cities." The group hoped to pay homage to Muratyan's work while posing some of the greatest travel mashups of all time. Baguette or bagel? Macaron or cupcake? Espresso or Americano?



The full project, animated with stunning minimalistic illustrations, compares everything from public transportation to the cities' national monuments and favored methods to imbibe.



But let's be honest: Despite some misconceptions here and there, Paris and New York are both phenomenal cities. And who says you can't love both? Marilyn certainly did.

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Boring Office GoPro Parody Makes Menial Tasks Totally Epic

April 21, 2015, 7:42 am

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Got a boring day job? Well, it turns out that's not a barrier to Internet fame.

YouTube user Braziliandanny strapped on a GoPro camera and made a short film documenting an average mundane day in the office. The video comically juxtaposes a montage of cranking out photocopies, mailing envelopes and drinking coffee with a bumping soundtrack by, appropriately enough, the band OVERWERK.

Watch the video above.

It's presented in the style of a commercial, although the creator's company doesn't appear to have been involved. But contrary to the typical action-packed GoPro montage, the film documents a solitary, menial and chock-full-of-manila-envelopes day at a boring office job.

The filmmaker explained on Reddit that he was able to shoot the film at his real estate firm's office because "a lot of people are out with clients," noting that he waited until everyone was out to shoot certain scenes. But what may have started out as a matter of necessity ended up making a subtle -- although perhaps unintentional -- point about the modern workplace.

There's an existential, absurd tone to the video, which features no dialogue and no people other than the filmmaker. While the rest of us may not necessarily walk the empty hallways of a deserted office, there's something to be said about the isolating effects of office life: The conventions we honor in order to get along with our co-workers may deny our individuality; the technology we use to accomplish our tasks can isolate us from others in the office, even as it brings us closer in the digital space.

While "Boring Office Job" might not be as exciting as an epic snowboarding montage, watching it is definitely more fun than actually sealing and stamping envelopes.

Now, get back to work.




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'Inside Amy Schumer' Will Feature A Cosby Sketch, And 7 Other Things To Know About Season 3

April 21, 2015, 7:51 am

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Amy Schumer may have declared 2015 "the year of the ass," but we think it's more accurate to call this the year of Amy Schumer. The always inappropriate writer, actress, feminist and stand-up comic makes her feature film writing debut in this summer's "Trainwreck," hosted the MTV Movie Awards with a plethora of masturbation jokes and is set to return for Season 3 of "Inside Amy Schumer" on Tuesday.

After screening the premiere of the Comedy Central series' third season at the Tribeca Film Festival on Sunday, Schumer and her "Inside" writers, producers and director spoke on a panel about the show. They spilled exciting details about what's to come this season (yup, there's a Bill Cosby sketch) and the racy spoofs that didn't make the cut, and revealed that people actually thought Schumer was a real rapper in her amazing booty parody video. Here are the 8 best highlights from the panel:

1. Get ready for a Cosby parody sketch.
Schumer came up with the idea to have a support group of "girls who wouldn’t say what happened, but they were all wearing Cosby sweaters." The "Inside" writers first began working on the sketch when the Cosby sexual assault allegations started making headlines last year. Schumer said the sketch stirred some heated debates in the writers' room: "I think we probably talked about this scene more than any other scene we’ve done."

2. A "Dirty Dancing" abortion sketch didn't make the cut.
There had been an idea for a "Dirty Dancing" spoof to appear on "Inside," but it never happened. Schumer wouldn't reveal much about it, but it was more than enough to paint a picture: "There’s like a back alley abortion in 'Dirty Dancing' you forget about. What if there was an abortion clinic that was like 'Dirty Dancing'-themed?"

3. A TMZ baby coffin sketch didn't happen either.
Another idea that never happened was a TMZ spoof that would've showed a reporter following a celebrity with a baby coffin. "Then we we're like, 'Do we want to be on set with a baby coffin? No, no one wants to see that,'" Schumer said.

4. People thought Schumer was a real rapper.
Last week, Comedy Central released Schumer's "Milk Milk Lemonade" music video featuring Amber Rose and other celebs. The parody video opens the Season 3 premiere of "Inside," but Schumer noticed that some people commenting on a music website apparently didn't know that. "It’s on this website and people never heard of me and they all think I’m a rapper. They’re like, 'This girl sucks!'" Schumer also said she had never been as embarrassed in her life as she was while filming it.


Image via Tumblr

5. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tina Fey and Patricia Arquette celebrated being "unfuckable."
In one of the best sketches from the Season 3 premiere, JLD, Fey and Arquette appeared to celebrate Louis-Dreyfus' last "fuckable" day. Writer Jessi Klein said the sketch was inspired by the idea of "actresses aging out of Hollywood."

6. An entire episode of "Inside" is a remake of "12 Angry Men."
Schumer really wanted to remake Sidney Lumet's classic film "12 Angry Men" for an episode, so she did. The entire third episode of Season 3 is a "shot-for-shot" black and white recreation of the 1957 movie featuring an array of A-listers including John Hawkes, Paul Giamatti, Jeff Goldblum, Vincent Kartheiser and Dennis Quaid. Spoofing the film's murder-trial-verdict plot, the episode has the men deciding if Schumer is good-looking enough to be on TV. Schumer, who also co-directs the episode, said she's more proud of it than anything she's done before.

7. A random old guy Schumer met on a plane is on the show.
"I got drunk on a cross-country flight with this guy," Schumer said. "He was like 89 or 90 or something." The two ended up bonding and now he's appearing on the sit-down interview segment of "Inside" with his husband.

8. Schumer thought the feminism aspect of the show was subtle.
Speaking about the first season of the "Inside," Schumer said she and Klein thought they were being "slick" about bringing a feminist tone to the show. "It still felt like something we had to sneak in," Schumer said. "We thought we were kind of tip-toeing." But then Schumer mentioned how one critic wrote that the show is "the equivalent of putting shaved carrots into brownies." But Schumer loves that, saying "I guess everyone sees what we’re doing."

"Inside Amy Schumer" returns on Tuesday at 10:30 p.m. ET on Comedy Central.

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The New 'Little Prince' Trailer Will Make You Want To Be A Kid Again

April 21, 2015, 8:55 am

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Don't grow into a boring adult, little children.

If the growing-up ship has already sailed for you, the first English language trailer for the upcoming animated version of "The Little Prince" will at least remind you to keep your childish wonder alive. Featuring the voices of Rachel McAdams and Jeff Bridges, among other notable actors like James Franco and Paul Rudd, the film will debut at the 2015 Cannes film festival.

Check out the trailer, and then retire your life plan and learn to just, like, live.

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Lesbian Couple's Side-By-Side Pregnancy Photos Are Truly Aww-Worthy

April 21, 2015, 9:31 am

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When North Carolina moms Melanie and Vanessa Iris Roy shared their side-by-side maternity photos on Instagram, they were not anticipating the viral fame that would follow.



The couple took the photos one year apart: First in January 2014 when Vanessa Iris was pregnant with their son Jax, and next in January 2015 while Melanie was carrying their daughter Ero.

Though the Roys posted the photos on Instagram two months ago, it wasn't until about two weeks back that the images started reaching viral status, after they appeared on several LGBT-focused sites -- including a Brazilian advocacy group's Facebook page, where it reached over 150,000 likes.

"It's crazy to see that people were referring to my family as an inspiration. We are still in complete shock," Melanie told The Huffington Post.

The moms hope that their side-by-side photos can serve as encouragement to other lesbian couples. Says Melanie, "Vanessa and I have always said we would both like to carry."

"The woman's body is incredible. The way it creates and grows another human being is amazing. We hope that our picture is that sign that some women may need to encourage them to carry a child."



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The Lyrid Meteor Shower Of 2015 Peaks On Earth Day. Here's How To See It

April 21, 2015, 9:41 am

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Good news, skywatchers: the annual Lyrid meteor shower peaks this week, and astronomers are predicting an awesome show.

The Lyrids, considered the first good meteor shower of the year, will peak on April 22 -- Earth Day -- and April 23. The shower could produce 10 to 20 shooting stars per hour at its peak, according to the Slooh Community Observatory.

The best viewing time for skywatchers worldwide will be between midnight and dawn (local time) on both dates. If you have to pick a single night, astronomy website EarthSky recommends looking skyward in the predawn hours of the 23rd.

"This year the moon will be a waxing crescent only 1/15th the brightness of a full moon, and it will set early, allowing excellent dark sky conditions for this shower," Slooh astronomer Bob Berman said in a written statement. "Typically, Lyrids produce a gratifying number of fireballs ... This should be an exciting experience."

No special equipment will be needed to see the meteors. Just find a spot with an unobstructed view of the sky and no glaring lights nearby.

Unable to make it outside to catch the sky show? Slooh is scheduled to live-stream the Lyrids on April 22 starting at 8 p.m. EDT -- check it out above.

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Temporary 'Trash' Artworks Put Our Oceans' Waste In Perspective

April 21, 2015, 10:56 am

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Alejandro Duran could not believe how many shoes washed up on the shores of Sian Ka'an, a nature reserve located along the east coast of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, near Tulum.

The landscape consists of jungle, wetlands and a coral reef that is home to myriad species of flora and fauna, some of which are endangered. Its shores, however, are still vulnerable to the plastic garbage that washes up from the ocean, having reached the sandy beaches from around the globe.

"When I came to the Sian Ka'an reserve in 2010, I walked along the beach and saw it was covered with waste," he said in a Vimeo video shared with The Huffington Post. "I asked myself, 'How can there be this much waste in a protected reserve?' What amazed the most was the amount of shoes and sandals. I began playing the products trying to find a way to document this and create something."

Duran and his team collected trash from 50 countries on six continents. They sorted it by color and shape to create the "Washed Up" project, a series of temporary installations meant to bring awareness to the affect waste has on the environment. In a description emailed to HuffPost, he details the purpose further:

The resulting photo series depicts a new form of colonization by consumerism, where even undeveloped land is not safe from the far-reaching impact of our disposable culture. Although inspired by the work of Andy Goldsworthy and Robert Smithson, Washed Up speaks to the environmental concerns of our time and its vast quantity of discarded materials. The alchemy of Washed Up lies not only in transforming a trashed landscape, but in the project’s potential to raise awareness and change our relationship to consumption and waste.

Because the Earth -- just like the garbage -- is not one person's responsibility. It belongs to everyone.



Check out more from Alejanro Duran here.

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