Acclaimed visual artist Takashi Murakami released his debut film, "Jellyfish Eyes," in American theaters last week.

Set in a post-Fukushima Japan, the movie features young children fighting against a a contingent of evil scientists. To do so, they use Pokémon-esque, CGI-animated F.R.I.E.N.D.s. Part imaginary companion, part technological creation, the F.R.I.E.N.D.s are more than just warriors. The titular jellyfish -- Kurage-bo -- provides much needed emotional support to the film's young protagonist, Masashi Kishimoto, who lost his father and his home in the 2011 nuclear disaster.

Political discontent seems to bubble beneath the film's sleek surface. Murakami juxtaposes the starkness of industrial laboratories and a draconian elementary school with the whimsy of sweeping golden fields and the psychedelic F.R.I.E.N.D.s.

The film's American release has prompted the usual storm of repeated media clichés that describe Murakami as the “Japanese Andy Warhol.” He gained the title after critics compared his super-flat aesthetic -- involving the the elimination of high-low divisions in post-war Japan’s cultural hierarchies -- to Warhol's own Pop Art appeal. Held in high esteem by American markets, Murakami has since colloborated with Louis Vuitton, Kanye West and Pharrell Williams, among many others. In 2008, he was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People -- the only artist featured.

But with his first feature film, Murakami has left behind the comfort of gallery and celebrity recognition. In many ways, venturing into film is a childhood dream deferred. Murakami had originally wanted to work in animation, which led him to the Tokyo University of the Arts, but once there he pursued a degree in traditional Japanese painting, eventually entering the contemporary art world.

Switching media and intended audience, as he has for the film, is a difficult choice for any acclaimed artist. New endeavors will inevitably be judged by earlier standards, no matter how far they diverge. If reviews have been harsh, it may be because they’re looking for something that "Jellyfish Eyes" does not intend to be: contemporary high art.

When I sat down to interview Murakami, the challenges of this new foray seemed to have worn him down. Though it might have been the mere pressure of days of interviews, he appeared overstretched, almost pained. He’d listen carefully to my questions, then close his eyes, adopt a slight grimace and start to speak. Like a man without sight, his hands stretched out in front of him -- expanding and contracting, working an invisible pizza dough.

From what I’ve gathered, directing an otaku movie is a bit of a childhood dream of yours, and you’ve chosen children as your subject in the movie. Was that intentional? Do you identify with the protagonist?

I did want to make a movie that has a message for children, so that’s why I made a children’s film. I also really like watching films with children as the main characters. I’m working on part two right now, and I use the same child actors. But they are now in junior high school, and I realized that I really wanted to work with child actors of ten to twelve years. That’s what I’ve actually found out by working with actors that are now fourteen or fifteen years old.

What is more appealing to working with younger children than adult actors for you?

I really like the unique way that children look at things, as if they’re not thinking enough or thinking through -- the way they can just go beyond the stories without thinking too much. I love their faces when they’re not perfectly acting. There are child actors who are amazing at acting, and then there are others who are not very great. So you have to really work with them to try to pull things out and trick them into certain things. I actually like the latter better, when you’re working with them, and you film something completely unexpected. The expression comes out that was not expected. I like the uncertainty of those actors.

Your works have historically challenged American ideas about art, but they’ve also been very well received by the high art world. But film is a very different, more populist media. Do you think it’s more or less accessible to an American audience than what you’ve done before?

I really don’t know. But in general I’m better received in America than in Japan. For example with the Vans collaboration I did recently, I was really surprised with how well received it was. So I’m very optimistically hoping that it will be well received.

Why do you think that is -- that you’re received better in America than in Japan?

What I would like to express through my art is how postwar Japan, the defeated Japan, has been morphing into something strange. It’s like painting a self-portrait. This is just my guess, but probably the Japanese audience would feel like, "Oh, we know that. We don’t need to be told by you. We know all of this, and we’re trying to create a positive image. And you’re trying to pile up all these negatives. You don’t need to do that." So maybe that’s why they don’t like me. But for Americans it’s maybe just a very interesting point of view, a different way of looking at things.

I wanted to ask about the film’s opening sequence, which is very intense and metaphysical, and the quote: “In this vast universe, we encounter one another miraculously ...” The film is both lighthearted and childish, but also very intense and profound. Is that related to your idea of the “superflat” -- of not separating the profound and the playful, or the intense and the childish?

This is a children’s film, and you pointed out something very good: that initial message right at the very beginning. When a child watches the film and that message comes up, he wouldn’t know what the hell you’re talking about. The message is really mysterious. But when he or she repeatedly watches fully the film, twice, three times -- then they would want to feel more grownup, more adult. They would try to start thinking about what the message means. The act of trying to understand what it might be saying might link with the self-awareness or the idea of the self. It’s kind of a device I put in there to work that way. So it’s a little bit different from the idea of super-flat, where I’m putting everything together in one plane.

Another thing that’s mixed up in the movie is technology and magic -- which are usually separate stories. But, for instance, the scientist’s experiments are based on “eight ancient rites.” So what’s the significance of putting magic and science together?

I think that those two elements will eventually line up and become one. For example, if you’re watching the movie "Interstellar," theoretically there have to be eleven dimensions otherwise things don’t make sense. But when you try to actually describe more than four dimensions, it’s really difficult, and it becomes more and more fantastical. On the other hand, magic has always been around in history. It hasn’t really gone away. I myself believe in things magical and feng shui. I have a feng shui master who comes and controls things, adjusts things.

When I think about people who can foresee the future or people who can sense danger and warn people -- they’re the people who can sense something that exists in higher dimensions than the fourth dimension. You call that “magic.” But without feeling that, if you’re trying to explain those higher dimensions, you call it science. I think as we go on, slowly they will come together, they will line up, and we will understand them as the same thing. But that’s not very easy to describe. Again, in "Interstellar," in that huge, large-scale movie, they were trying to explain [more than] four dimensions. As for me, I’m trying to tell that story in a children’s film, saying you can believe in this, but also you can believe in that.

I see. There’s a list attached in the press release of films that have influenced you, and I was surprised at how many are American classics: "Lord of the Rings," "Blade Runner," "Star Wars." Though you also listed directors Hayao Miyazaki and Rintaro. Do you feel that American films in particular have had a significant impact on "Jellyfish Eyes"?

My intention was to combine the essence of eighties Spielberg and Spielberg family films with Hayao Miyazaki films. I’m very deeply influenced by American films. 

How do you think that those two strands came together in "Jellyfish Eyes"?

I’m not really well versed in this, so it might be wrong. But my sense is that in Hollywood films, the scenarios are really well structured. They’re taught in schools. You have to have a beginning, middle and end.

On the other hand, with Miyazaki films, the way he makes the film is not to complete the whole script and then to make the movie based on that. But to draw each picture by picture. It takes maybe three years. From the very beginning when he draws one picture and gives it to the staff, when they start making the film, to the end, to when he draws the last image -- it will take more than two years. During that time he will be proceeding without knowing where the story is going. From the American point of view, the script seems quite disorganized and it might not feel conclusive. But as an audience, I feel that it’s very alive. It’s very entertaining. And, of course, a Miyazaki film is visually very well done.

But, in the '80s, a B-level movie, like some of the Joe Dante films, were scenario-wise and script-wise, not very conclusive, not very clean. There were a lot of loose ends. Without concluding them cleanly, the ending of the film would be kind of a mess. Of course, the approaches are completely different, but I think there’s something very similar about these two. I really like how the stories don’t close off at the end. I really love that element. I take that in as an influence from both.

Another thing that you mentioned in the director’s statement was that you’re satisfied with the movie because it made you grin. What quality in a film causes that reaction of making you grin?

There’s a scene where Ms. Koko and the jellyfish Kurage-bo are fighting in a game-like setting. When that scene was done with the CGI, when I saw it, I thought: this is it. Because I really wanted to have some of the mood from the Japanese '90s and 2000s fighting games. I wanted to incorporate that into the film and to see how that could be combined with the '80s movies that I was mentioning. And I felt when I saw that scene done in CGI, I felt -- yes, this is it.

You previously collaborated with everyone from Kanye West to Louis Vuitton, but working with a film crew must have been a very different sort of collaboration. Was it hard to merge your artistic intent with everyone else?

Whether it was Kanye West or Louis Vuitton, they understood me as an artist and they wanted to collaborate with me. So it was very easy to work with them. But when it comes to the film, I was the one who wanted to make the film. I knew nothing about it, and the people I was working with didn’t care to collaborate with me -- because of the fact that I didn’t know anything about the film. So they were very, very cool towards me. I really tried to study and learn and absorb everything I could from them, but I also had to convince them that I’m real.

They were really looking down on me the whole time, so the communication was very, very difficult. More than any project I’d done before, it was a challenge. Whether it was the shooting of the live action part, or the post-production CGI, or sound effects, or music. All the people involved would look at me and say, "What is this person talking about?" For each process, I had to start from there and had to convince them. So the whole process was very difficult.

It seems that you’re fairly critical of the Japanese government, especially its nuclear policy. How political or how critical did you want the film to be?

In part two [of the film] I’m actually structuring it so that it looks as though it’s pro-Japanese government. We see that the policy they’re trying to push forward is for something good, for the good of everyone. Then in part three it kind of flips over. But I’m not trying to criticize the government because the government is made up of each one of us. It’s more about if we live irresponsibly, if we didn’t care, this kind of thing could happen. That’s what I want to share with the children. Whether it’s a country or religion, if a group of people are trying to say, "Oh, this is for justice, this is to save everyone, this is for energy," when they have these big ideas and ideologies, that’s when big mistakes can happen. That’s the didactic part of it, and the message that, in the end, I’m trying to convey to the children.

This interview was conducted with the help of a translator. It has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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The pivotal Indian leader Chandragupta Maurya has more or less receded from human consciousness over the centuries. With him have gone other former bigwigs of B.C.E. India -- Maurya's grandson, Ashoka the Great, described by historian H.G. Wells as a lone shining star; the next empire's Queen Lokamahadevi, who broke convention by insisting a woman guard her temple, to name but two. 

But if the Montreal-based studio Humble Raja has its way, the Indian kings and queens of the past could come back to life. Designers Bhavesh and Reena Mistry hope to acquaint the modern world with ancient Indian history, with an ingenious twist on an old game-closet standard.

The studio's fictional mascot Mr. Shah is tiny, to highlight the deck's intricate detail.

On the Kickstarter page for the project, launched this week, the Mistrys outline the makings of their unusual deck of cards, kitted out with suits devoted to recreating the characters from various Indian kingdoms: 

From ancient weapons to eccentric moustaches, you can expect to find marvelous illustrated details for each court card based on actual research sourced from artifacts, sculptures and documented history.

The suits stretch from the third century B.C.E. to the late 19th century, including figures from the Maurya, Gupta, Chola and Mughal dynasties. Each includes a king, queen and future king of the era, all decorated by the facial hair and weaponry of their time. 

"Our aim is to playfully make parts of our culture accessible to everyone," Reena Mistry wrote in an email to HuffPost. 

Printed in the U.S., the deck comes with a tuck box designed to invoke the iconography of Indian royalty, with a peacock pattern in gold foil.

Ethnically Indian, the artist couple hail from England and live now in Canada. The blind spots in their education led them to consider injecting life into Indian history.

"Our British and North American upbringings taught us a lot about European history but we had limited exposure to the story of India," Mistry wrote to HuffPost. "We chose to design a deck of cards as a means to explore India’s past, since cards create a fun and easy way for others to get engaged with a new world from the past -- regardless of age, culture and education."

Amen. Or rather, namaste. 

Also on HuffPost:

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Having a hard time understanding the meaning of appropriation? Take a look at Portland-based artist Roger Peet's handy "Whiteness Goggles" series.

In the images he created for the series, the history of violence and oppression endured by people of color quite literally becomes the backdrop for the quirky styles and awesome music of white people. Take for example his biting ode to Miley Cyrus. In the image above, she twerks before a crowd of armed policemen in Ferguson, Missouri. In another, Katy Perry poses in a geisha costume in front of an exploding atomic bomb.

"All of the people shown engaging in acts of cultural appropriation ... are what you would call white," Peet explained to The Huffington Post. "Behind them, in the red, is the rest of what whiteness means: the daily violence and brutality of a world system that is bent on turning everything -- every sacred grove, every deep note, every singular moment -- into an object of value for speculators." 

However, if you're at all disturbed by the violence and suffering visualized in the background imagery, Peet provides a cheeky solution. Simply slip on a pair of his "Whiteness Goggles," the supplementary part of the project pictured below, and watch as all the nitty gritty backdrop details fade from view. What a cute kimono, Katy! 

"Discussing [cultural appropriation] opens fault lines within groups of people," Peet said, describing the inspiration for his work, "and reveals some fundamental differences in the ways different people see the world as a result of their contexts of race, class, gender and power. Appropriation is something I think about a lot, because I think it's a singular way to understand some of the more insidious and destructive ways that capitalism works."

Specifically, Peet, who himself is white, is referencing what he claims is capitalism's ability to spin lives, stories, traditions, even suffering, into profitable goods. "Capitalism invented whiteness in order to create a class of people that could parasitize the rest of the world," he continued. "A people with no connection to history, divorced from place and context, engines of pure abstraction -- which is what Capitalism is all about; the conversion of the complex, beautiful world into quantifiable units that can be speculated upon."

Before embarking on this project, Peet hung 250 flyers around Portland, asking strangers to call a number and leave a voicemail discussing their thoughts on cultural appropriation. You can listen to said voicemails here.

Peet also incorporated the perspectives of what he dubbed a "critical advisory group of indigenous artists and artists of color," including artists Sara Siestreem, Sharita Towne and Gabe Flores, who "spent much time tirelessly shooting down concepts that didn't work, and patiently explaining why many of my ideas were deeply ignorant and ineffective."

Nearly every news cycle brings a handful of egregious instances of cultural appropriation. Last week we saw Kylie Jenner sporting cornrows and MFA Boston promoting "Kimono Wednesdays." For those unaware of the ignorant and hurtful ramifications of such choices, allow teenage actress Amandla Stenberg to humbly school you.

"Appropriation occurs when a style leads to racist generalizations or stereotypes where it originated but is deemed as high-fashion, cool or funny when the privileged take it for themselves," she explained in a video released in April. 

In Peet's words: "When you put on the 'Whiteness Goggles,' the colonial, military and police violence that underpins casual cultural consumption disappears. This is what life is like under whiteness, within the dominant category that capitalism has created. We white people can just unsee the violence that is done in our name. We don't have to look. When we put on the whiteness goggles, we become heroes, and all the while so many others look at us as butchers."

"IN  // APPROPRIATE: An excavation of appropriation" is on view at Littman Gallery in Portland until July 29. The show is presented in association with artists Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos), Camas Logue (Klamath-Modoc), Sharita Towne and Gabe Flores, who are programming additional installations in the gallery. 

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Bodies are imperfect. Every combination of flesh, nerves, bones and blood has its particularities and limitations, some of which restrict the experience of its owner more severely than others.

For issues that threaten our safety and survival, technology offers a helping hand. Glasses improve vision. Crutches, wheelchairs and prosthetics help with movement. For those with abnormal heart rhythms, there are pacemakers. 

But what about the less dire limitations, for example, those that affect your aesthetic perception? How would your life be different if you couldn't see color, if the range of your vision was limited to various degrees of black and white?

Getting dressed, chopping vegetables, flipping through TV channels and magazine pages -- many banal yet stimulating sensual experiences would be drained of their vigor, swapped out for ashen simulacrums. Routine activities like obeying traffic signals and road signs would become strenuous, potentially dangerous. Colorblindness is often regarded more as a quirky personality trait than a serious affliction, though for some, the ascetic diet for the eyes saps daily life of its juice.

Facing such a condition, would you turn to technology's helping hand? Would you ever, say, consider becoming a cyborg? It sounds radical at first, although, in actuality, most of us are already micro-modifying our bodies fairly frequently, every day, from the moment we wake up. A cup of coffee, perhaps an Advil, moisturizer, makeup, vitamins, contacts -- all before leaving the house.

Could you be tempted by the opportunity to enhance your body by inextricably binding your flesh with technology? Perhaps the better question is, have you done so already?

Harder, better, faster, stronger

Oren Etzioni, Executive Director of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, defined a cyborg as "part person, part machine," in an email to The Huffington Post. 

In her feminist text "The Cyborg Manifesto," Donna Haraway takes a more theoretical approach. "A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction."

Then there's artist Neil Harbisson. He explained to The Huffington Post that, from his perspective, the term cyborg explores "how technology could be used as a sense and not as a tool." He should know. Harbisson, after having an antenna implanted into his skull, is the world's first legally-recognized cyborg.

Harbisson's body modification is a curved antenna that shoots up from the back of his head and rests dangling between his eyes like a comic book superhero equipped with insect feelers. With a sharp-edged bowl cut and a penchant for neon-colored suits, Harbisson's image lands somewhere between a 1960s boy band frontman and an alien avatar, almost but not quite blending in.

By profession he is an artist, but it's clear from a single glimpse that Harbisson is also a work of art. Not to mention, a radical scientific achievement.

"Becoming a cyborg is, in a way, modifying your body as if it was your sculpture," Harbisson said. "I believe that cyborgism is the art of creating your own senses, your own body parts, and then expressing yourself. When that happens, you become the artwork." 

So many shades of gray 

Harbisson's journey toward becoming a cyborg began, essentially, at birth. He was born colorblind; specifically, Harbisson experienced a rare form called achromatopsia, which allowed him to see the world only in shades of gray. As far as colorblindness goes, he possessed a severe and rare form, affecting one in every 33,000 people.

These days, however, Harbisson holds an even more singular condition, sonochromatopsia. The odds of experiencing it are about one in seven billion. Derived from "sono" (Latin for sound), "chromat" (Greek for color) and "opsia" (Greek for visual condition), the term, created especially for Harbisson, implies the possession of an extra sense -- the ability to hear color.

Harbisson's sonochromatopsia is distinct from synaesthesia, a neurological phenomenon in which an experience in one sensory pathway sparks an automatic and unconscious experience in a second sensory pathway. So a person with synaesthesia could, for example, see music or taste color.

While some synaesthetes can indeed hear color, Harbisson is not hearing with his ears; rather, he is experiencing color through an audible vibration transmitted via antenna to his skull. 

"I don't need to open my eyes. I can hear colors with my eyes shut," Harbisson said. "The way I hear color is not the way I hear sound. It's a different sense."

Harbisson acquired this inhuman ability thanks to what he calls an eyeborg, the coiling affixed to his skull. With the help of said eyeborg, Harbisson's brain automatically distinguishes light's hue and converts it to an audible frequency, like a music note that skips the ears and goes straight to the brain. "For me the sense of color is an independent sense, it doesn't relate to sight or to hearing."

Born in Belfast, Ireland, and raised in Catalonia, Spain, Harbisson, now 32, felt from a young age that he was different. Many a stoned college student has tripped out pondering the possibility that "my green may not be the same as your green, and neither of us would ever know it." For Harbisson, this wasn't far from the truth. "I noticed that other children in class could identify color easily and I couldn't. I knew there was an issue with color, but it wasn't until I was 11 that I realized I wasn't confusing colors, I couldn't see them at all."

How much would digesting the world in grayscale affect your daily life? It's impossible to say, just as it's impossible for a person who is colorblind to visualize a tangerine-tinted sunset. Travis Korte, a data analyst who experiences deuteranomaly colorblindess, a less intense variation that affects about six percent of the population, expressed a similar sentiment. "If I woke up one morning not colorblind, would my mind be blown? Or would I be disappointed that I wasn't missing out so much in the first place and had no idea."

He added: "It is a little bit alluring, the idea of doing some modification to know what I've been missing."

In part because of his colorblindness, Harbisson wasn't all too interested in visual arts as a kid. He did, however, play piano and eventually studied experimental music composition at Dartington College of Arts in Devon, England. It was there that Harbisson attended a lecture by cybernetics expert Adam Montandon, who introduced him to the transdisciplinary approach of exploring regulatory systems. "That's where I discovered the potentials of cybernetics," Harbisson said.

Merriam Webster defines cybernetics as "the science of communication and control theory that is concerned especially with the comparative study of automatic control systems." If the definition sounds unnecessarily cumbersome, it's because the term itself is so tricky to pin down.

At what point does your body become so inextricably linked with its technological auxiliaries that your very categorization as a human being no longer holds? "Is a person wearing Google glass a cyborg?" Etzioni added in his email. "How about an Apple Watch? How about a brain implant?"

Visions of futuristic beings donning metal helmets, sprouting cables and cords spring to mind. But then again, look around your local coffee shop and peruse its inhabitants, with ears exuding plastic-coated wires that link up skeleton and screen. Maybe our imaginary, sci-fi inflected cyborg stereotypes need a 2015 reality check. 

For Donna Haraway, cyborgs aren't only a thing of the future. "By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs."

Taste the rainbow

As a student, Harbisson ended up collaborating with Montandon on the first incarnation of the eyeborg, serving as Harbisson's final college project. At this point, the apparatus was an antenna with a webcam at the end, attached to a computer and a pair of headphones. The webcam translated each color into a sound wave that traveled to Harbisson via the headphones. He refined the operation over time, reducing the size of the computer and strapping it under his clothes.

Now, the computer has been shrunk to the size of a chip and the antenna is embedded directly into Harbisson's skull. 

It wasn't easy to find a doctor to perform the operation, the first of its kind. The doctor who eventually agreed to perform the surgery asked to remain confidential.

After months, the implanted antenna finally merged with Harbisson's occipital bone, and the mechanism was fully osseointegrated inside his skull. Suddenly, Harbisson could hear the many light frequencies of the color spectrum, including colors invisible to the eye such as infrareds and ultra violets.

"When it was implanted in my head, it became like a body part, and was much more comfortable," Harbisson said. Even so, the adjustment took time. "Hearing color was very overwhelming, because color is everywhere. I had to get used to the fact that everything I looked at had a sound."

It took approximately five weeks to acclimate to the new incessant sense and the headaches that accompanied it. At first, Harbisson consciously worked to memorize the names of the colors he was hearing, eventually matching up a different frequency with each of the 360 shades of the color wheel. After about five months, the system became a perception and the perception became a feeling. "Eventually it just became natural," he said.

And then everything was different, in a way that, for all of us except Harbisson, is difficult to imagine. A world in black-and-white buzzing with frequencies, humming an ambient portrait straight into the brain. Certain places purred at especially appealing rhythms. "It's very attractive to walk along the supermarket," Harbisson explained in his TED Talk. "It's like going to a nightclub, full of different melodies. Especially the aisle with cleaning products!"

Even when his eyes are closed, Harbisson keeps seeing colors, as the hues swirling in his imagination conjure their respective audible equivalents. "When I dream, I hear and perceive colors, but it's created by my imagination, not by software," he explained. "That's when I felt like the cybernetic device had become an extension of my senses."

Although Harbisson is the only person to currently experience sonochromatopsia, any future cyborgs would experience the exact same correlation between color and sound, which works both ways. His enhanced perception allowed Harbisson to divine unlikely connections between the two -- telephone rings are green, Mozart concertos yellow, Amy Winehouse pink. Rothko paintings produce clear notes -- reminiscent of the meditative sounds of a crystal bowl sound bath, while Leonardo Da Vinci's use of chiaroscuro yields what Harbisson likens to a horror film soundtrack.

While the rest of us color coordinate, Harbisson harmonizes.

Transformed by the power of art

On a good day, artists can tap into something vital humming ever so gently in the distance, before it becomes audible to the rest of us. The body and the self, in the past 25 years, have become handy media for the radical multidisciplinary artist, with identities now as malleable as clay -- and, artistically speaking, far less warmed-over. 

Although she does not consider herself a cyborg, French artist Orlan was the first to experiment with artistically-inclined physical surgery. For her 1990 piece "The Reincarnation of Saint-Orlan," she surgically modified her body nine times to imitate specific ideals of beauty established throughout Western history by male artists. Her goal was to acquire, for example, Mona Lisa's forehead and Venus' chin, as painted by Botticelli.

"I have been the first artist to use aesthetic surgery in another context -- not to appear younger or better according to the designated pattern," Orlan explained in an earlier interview with The Huffington Post. "I wanted to disrupt the standards of beauty."

Much of Orlan's work explores the masculine pressures that often invade feminine flesh. Yet instead of condemning such compulsions, Orlan invites them in, incorporates them into herself, thereby blurring the initial categories until they no longer hold. "I don't know who are the men and who are the women," she said. "In French I used to say 'je suis un femme et une homme.' That is to say a feminine male and a masculine female. A she man and a he woman. What I am interested in is developing a singularity, which would be my own."

Actress and Olympic athlete Aimee Mullins believes such limitless self-fashioning shouldn't be reserved for creatives alone. "I love the power of the individual to create their body and their identity in a way that makes them happy," she explained to the Huffington Post. "There is more room being made for that than ever before."

Mullins was born without fibula bones and, as a child, was told by doctors she would likely never walk. Her best shot, doctors told her, was to amputate her legs at the shins, hoping she'd learn to move via prosthetics while her peers learned to walk on their legs. She did, and quickly outpaced them all.

Wearing prosthetics, Mullins competed in the Paralympics in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, and, before retiring from track and field two years later, set world records in the 100-meter, the 200-meter and the long jump. Aside from her athletic accomplishments, Mullins also revels in the aesthetic and conceptual capabilities of her prosthetic limbs. While many collect shoes, she collects legs, with over 12 pairs to her name. Some resemble cheetah legs and translucent jellyfish tentacles, while one pair, designed by fashion icon Alexander McQueen, features wild, gnarled vines carved into elm wood. Mullins was a muse to the late McQueen, as well as to conceptual artist Matthew Barney, having appeared in his video works "Cremaster Cycle" and "River of Fundament."

Mullins isn't physically bound to her technological ancillaries, though at times she considers them a crucial part of her bodily composition. "Some prosthetics absolutely are a part of my body and I think that if you wear technology, especially in an intimate way, there is, in a way, an energy exchange between materials," she said.

Unlike Harbisson, Mullins dons and removes her body modifications each day and, as such, does not identify as a cyborg -- or a living sculpture, for that matter. "I don't consider my entire self an artwork," she said, "but there is something of it being a performance piece when I go out in optically clear legs that look like glass and are 10 pounds each. To me, it's about inviting the conversation that comes with that. Inviting people to ask me questions, challenge what they thought the space between the body and the ground should look like."

For Harbisson, the separation between body and artifice does not exist. "My life is part of my art, there is no separation," he said. "I see becoming a cyborg as an artistic statement. I see cyborgism as an art movement, the art of creating your own senses, your own body parts, and then expressing yourself. When that happens, you become the artwork."

Beyond the aesthetic experiment that is his own life, Harbisson has also generated an entirely new form of fine art, a technique he refers to as creating "sound portraits," brief moments of pure sound that capture the colorful essence of a human face, as experienced by Harbisson. The ambient chords range from harmonious to dissonant; Nicole Kidman could lull you to sleep while Prince Charles resembles an ominous Trent Reznor soundtrack.

Charles was the first subject of Harbisson's unconventional portraiture. The two met when the Prince came to Harbisson's university in 2005 and asked about the device dangling above his head. "I told him it was an antenna to hear colors," Harbisson said. "I asked him if I could listen to him, to hear the colors of his face. I wrote down the notes and that was the first sound portrait. I didn't really plan it, it just came naturally."

Soon after, Harbisson embarked on the next logical move, transposing sound into color. "When I listened to music I could paint what I heard. I started with very simple melodies and then got more complex. I start in the middle and keep adding layers of color, which are the notes of the piece, until the canvas ends." The resulting images resemble hard-edged electric tapestries, vortexes of vivid colors layered at a dizzying pace. The vertiginous images are portals into Harbisson's mind, DayGlo-colored mazes that emphasize the singularity of Harbisson's sensual experience.

As his electric lattice portraits reveal, Harbisson's mind can function as an artistic laboratory, as visual and aural input triggers the generation of novel material. And if the raw goods streaming in from Harbisson's antenna and imagination were not enough, his skull is Bluetooth-enabled allowing his mind to connect to the Internet and experience any hues out of reach.

"I can receive colors from other parts of the world," he explains. "If someone in Australia wants to send colors to my head they can use their mobile phone and they can send live images of a sunset for example, and I can perceive a sunset from wherever I am. Times like this are when I actually enjoy color the most. It's as if I have an eye somewhere else."

Harbisson's unusual encounters with color, without actually using his eyes, recall the work of artist James Turrell, who famously said light "is not the bearer of revelation -- it is the revelation."

Turrell is known for his immersive, hallucinatory installations in which light becomes not an adjective but an amorphous, all consuming noun. His buzzy "Perceptual Cell" invited one viewer at a time into an enclosed white dome to experience 12 minutes as a vessel of perception. The viewer lies down and absorbs a pulsing stream of pure light and color, revealing that color does not only exist outside of us, in space, but also inside our eyelids, clamoring against our skulls. The uncanny resemblance between Turrell and Harbisson's work hints at this notion that they both know something we don't.

Turrell's other works, large scale LED worlds that leave the viewer mystified and discombobulated, almost resemble three dimensional enactments of Harbisson's colorful translations of sound. "I become a transparent eyeball," Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his 1836 essay "Nature." Christopher Knight alludes to the quote in his review of Turrell's LACMA show. It seems, perhaps, an even better fit for Harbisson.

Science and art have the power to transform, to turn metaphor and myth into something tangible, whether via medical procedure or immersive installation. In fact, Turrell insists his Perceptual Cell yields the exact same experience for colorblind participants and non-colorblind participants.

Such confounding overlaps illuminate the close proximity of art and science, two creative fields that make the imagined real. Haraway's extended definition springs to mind: "The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality." 

Become who you are

A cyborg is a hybrid between man and machine, reality and fiction. Yet in spirit, at least according to Haraway, the cyborg is a symbol of hybridity in general, of a life beyond binaries, of eternal becoming and perpetual in-between-ness.

When discussing his surgery, Harbisson compared the stigma surrounding cybernetics to that surrounding transgender identity in the 1950s. "Doctors said that [gender confirmation] operations were not necessary, could potentially be dangerous, and they were concerned about what others would think," Harbisson said.

"Now [with cyborgs], it's the same. It's not necessary to extend our senses, it may be dangerous, and what would people think?"

Of course, it's a major professional risk to embark on a surgical procedure without precedent. "Doctors bear the incredible burden of caring for their patients, and so are appropriately conservative at times," Etzioni explained. "When cybernetic technology has proved itself -- this will change, but slowly."

In fact, it's already changing. Harbisson, along with his friend Moon Ribas, founded the Cyborg Foundation in 2010, in part to defend what he's dubbed "cyborg rights." However, as Harbisson expressed clearly, "The main right we are fighting for is the right to have surgery."

Some cyborg transitions are marked by surgery. But, at its core, becoming a cyborg is a matter of self-identification. To make a designation defined by hybridity a "yes or no" question misses the point entirely. Just as one can can identify not only as male or female, but infinite variations outside and in between, one can establish a multitude of relationships between body and its technological faculties.

Comparisons between the transgender and the cyborg communities are certainly limited, but there are some parallels; some individuals in both groups would argue they embody futurist goals of openness, hybridity, potential. They would also say they understand the body we're born with is not the body we're tethered to and that just because something is biological does not mean it is authentic.

"It is also an effort to contribute to socialist-feminist culture and theory in a postmodernist, non-naturalist mode,"Haraway explains in The Cyborg Manifesto, "and in the utopian tradition of imagining a world without gender, which is perhaps a world without genesis, but maybe also a world without end."

In other words, specifically those of Friedrich Nietzsche, both movements allow human beings to become who they are.

"We, however, want to become those we are -- human beings who are new, unique, incomparable, who give themselves laws, who create themselves." 

In an ever-evolving technological landscape, how will you construct yourself -- a nose job, a tattoo, an eyeborg? How will you enhance your body -- a workout routine, an eating habit, a prosthetic part? How do you want the world to perceive you and, more importantly, how do you want to perceive the world?

"I think it's best to use cybernetics to extend our senses and perceptions of reality," Harbisson concluded. "The more we can perceive, the better we can understand where we are and who we are. I think it's an essential part of our evolution."

An artist of the most unusual variety, Harbisson is devoted to helping mankind evolve. Classic cyborg behavior. 

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"I’ve been guinea ­pigged with literally dozens of drugs, some of which knocked me out so flat that I could barely lift a spoon," poet and singer-songwriter SHIRA told The Huffington Post.

When she finally found one that would assist in clearing the fog that clouded her mental state -- a tendency towards depression that ran in her family for generations -- "clarity ensued."

She's beyond grateful, and wanted to include the drug in a series of odes she wrote for powerful yet unseen or unnoticed objects. She laments that drugs such as lithium weren't available to her grandmother's generation, but hopes destigmatizing them today will help those who would benefit from them.

Below, she discusses her poem, "Ode to Lithium #1," which she performed live above. 

What inspired your “Ode to Lithium” series?

It began with an exercise where I instructed myself to write a love poem to an everyday object that often goes unnoticed, one that even might be difficult to love. The idea was to stand in awe of this object, to see it as if for the first time. Inevitably where there is love there is also humility and so the poem is built entirely of questions.

It’s a statement, and a worthy feat, to bless the barely lovable. But within the specific context of mental illness, there is even more nuance to this feat. Love for l​ithium?​ Grenade. Not a word you’d casually drop at a party. A serious drug. Three wild syllables. Boogeyman to a cowering public. It just so happens to be the drug that works for me.

I’ve been guinea ­pigged with literally dozens of drugs, some of which knocked me out so flat that I could barely lift a spoon or shit; some changed my vision so I saw triple; some added fifteen pounds to my small frame. When I finally found lithium (See? Doesn’t this already sound like a love story?) it was as if my head was emptied of fog and an internal gentleness/clarity ensued.

For other patients that I know, lithium was a no ­no, a terrible lover, a horror. A friend of mine joked “Oh, lithium? No, hated that. Lithium is not my boo.” She cursed it, as if it were an unmentionable ex. This is important. I’d love to hear her hate mail to lithium. Or love­gush to Zoloft. Or whatever it is that’s true for her. It’s all vital to expanding the conversation. We need more than the media’s narrow portrayal. We need the personal, specific and real.

The poem was originally titled “Pill.” A mistake. As if I could write one, definitive poem about this drug I take twice a day and therefore interact with 730 times a year! Those 730 times are each round, particular moments! Those moments are poems! Not to mention all the moments my medication comes into play in daily life that has nothing to do with swallowing it. The more we describe an experience in one fell swoop, [or] “across the board,” the more we miss its particular topography, its humanness, its flawed shine.

The mentally ill, already so underserved, misrepresented and misunderstood, cannot afford this.

After about two years of sitting with the poem as “Pill,” the series snuck up on me. It was a revelation. Now there is "Ode to Lithium #9," #27, #107, #63, and so on. The odes unfold mostly as tiny prose pieces, revealing situations in which lithium and I bond. They are grounded in my daily life, though at times turn surreal. T​here is the time lithium and I first kissed,​ and the time my dead grandmother (who also suffered from mental illness) comes to my kitchen on a Sunday to watch me take my dose.

As the odes tumbled out I caught whiff of Pablo Neruda’s influence. In his late forties Neruda committed to writing an ode a week, ending up with 225 odes in all. He sought to bless it all, the simple as well as the complex, with rigor and patience and humor. I have always respected his expansive and undiscriminatory gratitude. I feel a defiance toward my first misconception, my wrong titling. To create a series insinuates that there is no one experience, one way to love; I am a person having a day­to­day, complex, shifting, beautiful, tenuous relationship with an element that is changing my life for the better. I hope to write 730.

Why do you think taking medicine for mental health purposes is stigmatized?

So many reasons. Culturally, do we really treat the brain like an actual organ ­like the lungs or the spleen? We don’t link our "Big Kahuna Selfhood" to these organs. We think of the “self” as brain ­territory. “I” is who I think and say and act I am. This “I” is essentially fixed, not a composite of working parts. Now if those parts malfunction, and what I say, do and act like disintegrates into organized chaos, we cannot stomach the existential thorn of it (“What is the Self then? What am I?”).

We like our brothers, sisters, mothers, friends as solid and defined, not murky or mayhem or sick. To take medicine for the lungs is to acknowledge that part of us is in need of fixing; but to take medicine for the brain is to have to face the possibility that “I” am not who I thought I was. Too, the word “mental” precursing “illness” can often trip people up and create stigma, insinuating that the illness is not physical.

What, in your opinion, is the biggest problem with this stigmatization?

Stigma creates a climate of silence, shame, and death. When I say death I mean death.

People suffer alone, until they can’t bear it, and then they break. Stigma perpetuates a cycle of private struggle and risk. When I look out into the cultural landscape and the only time I see the mentally ill represented is when people are in distress, I can’t possibly see a reflection that gives me hope. To not see examples of mentally ill people thriving is essentially to always feel death on the horizon. I know I’ve felt this way.

I’m just lucky to have made it this far, that to dream of a future actually feels luxurious. There are times I question being so open about having bipolar disorder, but then I remember what’s at stake. I don’t consider my own mental health just m​ine.​ My health and joy and struggle is interconnected with the greater community. My recovery belongs to everyone I love.

Your characterization of lithium is mostly positive, but you also compare the drug to a “wet cat.” Why the juxtaposition?

I love the idea of my medicine as someone beloved and small. An animal the house of my body domesticates, but also can’t. Someone precious, whose instincts are foreign to me. A friend who doesn’t speak, but truly knows me. Who will always return to me after the storm. Ragged, a sweetheart, and a little wild.

Your reading of the poem is steady, even, without much dramatic effect. Is there a reason for this choice?

Some reverence is ecstatic. This reverence is steady. It’s not puppy love. This is the praise that comes from getting to know someone over seven years. Regarding drama, it’s not the fevered gratitude of having just been rescued from drowning. It’s the private joy of re­entering the water years later, feeling the cool tide against your shins, the sun’s touch, the call of gulls overhead. It’s beyond the drama. No ambulance sirens or hospital walls. It’s the aftermath ­ when the cameras often disappear. This is the reverence of the exhale. The safety to pose questions, to wonder, to be.

What mood do you hope your poem will evoke?

Wonder. I once asked a psychiatrist “Why does lithium work?” and she straight up smiled, shrugged and said “We don’t know.” Not really. Not exactly. But it works. Isn’t that s​omething?​ Mystery. Some research has shown that naturally occurring lithium in drinking water has been associated with lower rates of suicide. As far back as the second century physicians recommended soaking in these natural waters as a treatment for mania. My heart backflips at this. Like, what? What does it say that we still don't know how or why. My body feels like a grateful little yes in a universe of questions.

Awe. I want my listener to feel a sense of awe that this ancient element can restore me, can keep me here on earth. The listener and I cannot be comrades in experience, but we can be comrades in awe. That is the beautiful thing about poetry.

Are there other poets who grapple with these themes who you admire?

Jeanann Verlee. Rachel McKibbens. Andrea Gibson. Tara Hardy. Lucille Clifton. Morgan Parker. Non­poetry related, my friend Peggy Gillespie was a part of putting together an incredible collection of portraits and interviews called “​Nothing to Hide: Mental Illness in the Family.”

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LA-based fitness photographer Michael Stokes is putting a different spin on how wounded veterans are depicted. He's raising money on Kickstarter for a book called "Always Loyal" that features stunning photos of 14 U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps veterans of the Iraq War, Gulf War, and War in Afghanistan. 

Stokes told The Huffington Post that an interaction about two years ago with a veteran wounded in Afghanistan inspired the idea for his new book.

"I met this veteran, Alex Minsky, and talked to him about different approaches to a portrait session," said Stokes. "I had already studied as many amputee photos that I could find. I noticed that most of them emphasized the lost limb, and that the mood was often sorrowful. That was not the vibe I was getting from him, so I decided to simply photograph him as if he were not an amputee, photograph him exactly the same way I would any of my fitness models." 

The result? Minsky found fame as a model, and a new passion was born for Stokes. The photographer has so far raised more than $260,000 on Kickstarter for his two books, well above the goal of $48,250. One, called "Exhibition," features fitness models as well as veterans, while "Always Loyal" -- titled after the English translation of the Marine Corps motto "Semper Fidelis" -- features 14 vets. 

 "Some people will say to me ’Oh, this is really helpful to [the veterans'] self-esteem,’ or, ’You’re making them feel like men again,'” Stokes told MTV. “...The response I have to that is that these guys have come to me very healed and ready to take the world on. I’m not giving them back their confidence. They already have it."

Scroll through more of Stokes' photos below and check out his Kickstarter and Facebook pages. 

 

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"These black girls need to watch out, 'cause white girls is winning." 

Thus begins the viscerally honest poem, 'To Be Black and Woman and Alive," performed at the  2015 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational finals in April.

College students Crystal Valentine and Aaliyah Jihad teamed up to recite the poem, and Button Poetry posted a video of their performance to Youtube on Sunday, July 19.

"Puerto Rican, Italian, Bajan, Thai -- I know they want me to be everything I'm not," the poets powerfully recite together at one point during the performance explaining the misogyny, colorism, and constant pressure to be more "exotic" looking that black women face. 

The poem perfectly encapsulates the reality of being a black woman, highlighting how ironic it is that while black men make black women feel undesirable, black women are also on the front lines of civil rights issues that affect black men -- and rarely getting any credit for it. 

One of the last, powerful lines in the poem: "I grew up learning how to protect men who hate me...learned how to be the revolution spit-shining their spines." 

Jihad and Valentine (who also performed the profound poem "Black Privilege" at the event), were part of a six-person team of poets representing New York University who eventually went on to win the competition.  

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Citing sprawl development and a need for more Mexican-American elected officials, "Breaking Bad" actor Steven Michael Quezada said he is jumping in a heated race for county commissioner in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Quezada, who played DEA agent Steven Gomez in the hit AMC-TV series, told The Associated Press on Monday that he will make a formal announcement on Tuesday that he's seeking the Bernalillo County Commission seat.

The 52-year-old actor and comedian said he's joining in the race because he feels someone like him can make a difference in the district which includes the historic Hispanic South Valley and an area in Albuquerque's Westside where developers are seeking to build new homes.

"I think I bring a new face to the Democratic Party," said Quezada, a Democrat who is a member of the Albuquerque school board. "We need to reach out to our young people — the young Chicanos, the young Latinos — and get them involved in this process and let them know this is important."

At least three others are running for the open seat in 2016.

The Bernalillo County Commission recently voted to approve a planned community despite activists' fears the development would take water away from nearby communities. Concern of the development brought protests from South Valley farmers at commissioners' meetings.

The master plan for a nearly 22-square-mile development known as Santolina would rival some of the state's largest cities once completed in 50 years, and it comes during a period of heightened concerns over water following years of severe drought.

Quezada, who voted against the plan as a member of the Albuquerque Public Schools, said the plan lacked the needed schools at a time when the area is seeing school overcrowding.

Quezada is getting active in New Mexico Democratic Party politics just as the party is licking its wounds from a historic defeat in 2014 with the re-election of Republican Gov. Susana Martinez and the GOP takeover of the New Mexico House. Other Democrats have sought Quezada's support and he has lent his voice for commercials.

But Quezada said the state party needed to go more to reach out to Latino voters, especially since New Mexico has the highest percentage of Hispanic residents in the county.

Javier Benavidez, executive director of the SouthWest Organizing Project, a group that opposed Santolina, said he was happy that Quezada and others were jumping in the commissioners' race.

"We are seeing the consequences of irresponsible development," Benavidez said. "We need leaders who are going to commit to responsible growth and not just recruit new Wal-Marts and chain restaurants."

"Breaking Bad" follows former high school teacher Walter White, played by Bryan Cranston, producing methamphetamine with a former student, Jesse Pinkman, played by Aaron Paul.

___

Follow Russell Contreras at http://twitter.com/russcontreras.

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Spoiler alert for "True Detective" Season 2, Episode 5, "Other Lives."

Flash forward 66 days after the "Vinci massacre," and our gang of true detectives has been forced to reboot their lives. Ray is working for Frank and still battling for custody of his son, Paul is investigating insurance fraud and contending with a vindictive mother who stole his $20,000, Ani was transferred to the sheriff's office and must attend sexual-harassment workshops, and Frank wants to weasel his way back into the Catalyst land deal by recovering the hard drive stolen from Caspare's apartment. But don't worry: They'll work on the case on confidential terms. Meanwhile, Ray pulverizes Dr. Pitlor in order to confirm that Vera, the missing girl from the season premiere, attended Caspare and Chessani's orgies. Finally, Ray learns that Frank lied about the identity of his wife's rapist, leading to a knock on the door that even the increasingly corrupt Frank wasn't anticipating.

Did this dismal season of "True Detective" manage to refresh itself along with these characters' predicaments? We're still over here discussing the show, if anyone cares. 

Erin: So, Matt, Sunday’s episode took a page out of last season’s book. Like the fifth episode of Season 1, “Other Lives” time-hopped, but forward instead of backward. After last week’s shootout-turned-staring-contest, “True Detective” jumped into the near future with the detectives living, well, other lives. Seeing Ray, Ani and Paul relocated to demoted positions, both within their careers and their personal battles, humanized the characters for the first time to me. The first four episodes felt like a string of detectives ambivalently investigating a murder that the season forced audience interest in. Even though Vinci closed the Caspare case, the three detectives got more done in Sunday’s episode than in the previous four. Ray put his anger management to use on Dr. Pitlor’s perfect face to get answers, Ani broke out the detective’s magnifying glass and circled back to that missing girl -- who was largely forgotten after the first episode -- and Paul wasn’t too impressive this week, but at least he’s discovering Det. Dixon was up to no good. Finally, five episodes in, this case is becoming interesting, but it might be too late. I’m not sure I care anymore. Are you back on board or still losing interest?

Matt: Hey, Erin. Happy "True Detective" Monday, aka my least favorite life. I'm probably more interested in the backstory of the maudlin lounge singer than I am any actual characters in the show. I suppose last night's was the best episode yet, if only because most of it actually seemed to make sense. Here's the thing: There's a fascinating plot buried in this show about a corrupt city government that records sadistic orgies for blackmail fodder among top-level officials. But having never actually met Caspare, knowing only cartoonish things about Dr. Pitlor and treating the mostly absent Tony Chessani like a "Scarface" wannabe means the whole ordeal has barely registered -- until now, when, like you said, it's a day too late. The puzzle pieces fit together, but I don't feel like jigsawing it anymore. The jig is up, if you will, mostly because it never began. Chessani's Lodge has so much potential, but in the context of an eight-episode story, we still barely know what it is. 

But okay, I'll bite, because this season clearly wants to revolve around these characters' lost souls, and last night did more to channel how those troubles relate to the Scooby Gang's need for the Mystery Machine. (Frank excepted, that is. Nothing about Frank is interesting. Sorry, Frank.) You have to feel bad for Ray at this point, knowing that Frank set him up and he's been falsely indebted to him for years. That's a weird reaction to have, since there is little to convince us that Ray is a worthy father. But he and Ani are both symbolic of anger directed toward a larger system of corruption that probably did them in as gravely as they did themselves in years earlier. Paul, on the other hand, is the most transparent of them all, which has sometimes made his story the most approachable. But his boozy cliché of a mother, and watching him down his soda while silently panicking about forming a heterosexual family, rendered him flat in "Other Lives." Everyone else talks in phony circles about how they feel, whereas Paul spells it out like an aircraft delivering a message in the sky: Everyone can read it, but then it disappears and doesn't really matter at all.

Erin: That's the perfect way to summarize Paul's scenes this week, which were some of the worst of the episode, besides Frank saying, "Fuck that gangster shit." I get that Nic Pizzolatto is trying to break the mobster stereotype with Frank's sensitive, abused-as-a-boy edge -- he literally cried after his anti-gangster, anti-adoption speech -- but he remains a soggy mess of what could be a smart character. Frank isn't hard enough on the outside to actually fear him, his moments of violence emerging suddenly and cliched, and is so soft internally that any sense of a real character crumbles to pieces. But let's not waste any more time on him.

I did, however, enjoy Ani this week. Her sarcastic "I love big dicks" proclamation at group therapy was the best laugh of the episode (and maybe the only genuine laughing-with as opposed to laughing-at of this season). So far, she's the only one really attempting to solve this case, and is clearly the brains of the operation while Ray is the muscle and Paul is the ... handsome face? I suspect that Ani's demons will get the best of her, though, as investigating "Eyes Wide Shut"-esque sex parties may put her in a compromising situation, with what we know of her proclivities for kinky sex. Or maybe that knowledge will get her closer to the truth of whatever the hell is going on, as next week's episode preview seems to hint. This season, as you said, Matt, is all about lost souls, and so far it looks like the answers will only become clear as each detective faces their ugly pasts. Sadly, that's excrutiatingly obvious and overdone. I'm just banking on a good twist, and that Ray will eventually grow his mustache back.

Matt: "Fuck that gangster shit" is what I said to Frank right around, oh, Episode 2. Looks like he heard me -- too bad The Pizzster didn't. Likewise, Ani listed plotlines and repeated the words "nobody cares," and that, too, seemed like something I'd said during Episode 2. My, how some things never change. The problem with the supposed lost souls is that the show cherry-picks when they're relevant. Ani's father and sister intersect with the Caspare murder, but the former was absent this week after dropping the Chessani's Lodge bombshell and the latter is still trying to make her CalArts admission happen. When two people may have a direct hand in inching detectives toward solving a mystery, they need to be actual characters. Or at least interesting -- something other than Troubled Sister and Eccentric Father. It's why Ani's inevitable self-redemption arc -- and all of the characters' self-redemption arcs, really -- won't pay off. 

The show doesn't even justify the detectives' relationships. Ray actually seemed to mean it when he told Ani at the bar that it was "good seeing you," and why? Because they bloodbath they caused a couple of months earlier united them? No one on this show has relationships, and that is still so frustrating. I want to see a Frank/Ray showdown, sure. Let's go. But why is it about a conflict that predates the show? In fact, every conflict seems to predate the show, and not in a layered, in-media-res way. It makes the show feel confusing even when it isn't. But of course Frank and Ray are going to sit across a table and glare at each other next week. What else would they do? Frank has blue balls in his heart. Ugh.

Erin: That's one of the core problems of this season. We're playing catch-up with the off-screen action, about which the characters themselves are generally ambivalent. While the unknown and unseen are the focal point of any good mystery, "True Detective" continues to play the I-know-something-you-don't-know game a little too strongly. I think most viewers are ready to throw up their hands and give up at this point. The breadcrumbs to this case -- which, by the way, became irrelevant after 15 minutes of Sunday's episode, when Frank casually asked Ray if he thinks "the Mexicans" killed Caspere, right before we're informed that the Caspere hunt is indeed back on -- are so lightly sprinkled that I'm far too hungry for good television to keep going.

In addition to the weak dialogue and hackneyed character tropes, this season is also entirely gimmick-free -- no innovative camera tricks, limited action sequences, no literary references to gnaw on. I'd usually love that, but still being bored to tears this far in, I've found myself desparately trying to make this season more entertaining. Each week I read through the "True Detective" subreddit in hopes of piecing together clues, as I did last week with a (slight) Yellow King connection. Too bad the fans are more interesting than Ray, Ani and Paul. Maybe Season 3 should be about solving a murder on Reddit threads. 

Matt: That's just it. We keep trying to pick up the breadcrumbs, but the trail isn't there. I have a proposal. Forgive me now, "True Detective" devotees, but I think we should hit the pause button on these reviews until the finale. I realized while writing this that it's hard not to talk in circles about the show, and I think the urge to review it weekly is a holdover from Season 1 fandom instead of a worthwhile editorial endeavor. How much congested dialogue can a person mock every seven days?

What do you think, Erin? Should we table our "True Detective" talks? I've always thought disappointing art is better ignored anyway. There is good stuff on TV. Like "UnREAL." Or "Humans." Or "Masters of Sex." Or "Mr. Robot." We should be gabbing about those instead.

Erin: I couldn't agree with that plan more. We're beginning to seem more repetitive than those aerial freeway shots. I'd much rather stare at you from across a table than continue to desconstruct the same disappointments each week, and no one wants to keep reading that. If something mind-blowing or remotely worthy of a new discussion happens before the finale, we'll reconvene. If not, we'll see y'all again in three weeks!



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Pauline Kael was the type of film critic whose love of cinema seeped onto the page. Equally one of the most influential and most controversial critics of her time, Kael was the writer who broke away from overtly academic criticism to offer her unrestrained impression of a film.

During her time as a New Yorker film critic from 1968 to 1991, Kael was famously hated by some of the biggest directors in the industry. But you didn't read Kael to agree with her, as few always did; you read Kael to experience a film through her attentive eyes, to grasp the nuances you didn't catch while watching it. "This is a woman who missed nothing," filmmaker Rob Garver told The Huffington Post over email. "Through the force of her personality, she challenged you to look at movies closer, and focus." 

Garver, who read Kael in his youth, wrote, directed and produced a new documentary about the iconic critic, "What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael." The film, which is currently on Kickstarter to earn funding for completion, tells Kael's story and features interviews with David O. Russell, Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Schrader, Robert Towne, Molly Haskell, Alec Baldwin and others reflecting on the film critic's influence.

In an exclusive clip from the doc, Tarantino looks back on a conversation he had with Terry Gilliam about Kael. "Most directors, especially of the older generation, didn't really care that much for critics," the filmmaker says. But Tarantino and those of his generation, including Wes Anderson and David O. Russell, were the ones who were immersed in her writings. "We grew up with her as our kind of film Kerouac, if you will," he said.

Check out the clip and head to Kickstarter to help the documentary reach its goal.

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A big-screen adaptation of  Matt Stone and Trey Parker's riotous Broadway hit "The Book of Mormon" has been rumored for several years, and while there's nothing new to report on whether it'll actually happen, Josh Gad would be totally down to take part.

Gad, who originated the role of Elder Cunningham in the play in 2011, dropped by HuffPost Live on Monday with director Chris Columbus to discuss their film "Pixels," which opens July 24. During the conversation, a fan asked Gad whether he would reprise his part if a film happened, and the actor said he may have aged out of the character.

"Does this look like the face of an 18-year-old, sweetie?" Gad joked.

Answering the question more seriously, the actor said he would "jump at the opportunity" if Stone and Parker wanted him.

"I would actually love to," he said. "I would read the phone book if Trey and Matt asked me to on film."

Watch Gad discuss the possibility of a "Book of Mormon'" adaptation in the video above, and click here to watch the full HuffPost Live conversation with Gad and Chris Columbus.

Sign up here for Live Today, HuffPost Live's new 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!

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The casual store-window browser could be forgiven for thinking the book jackets below conceal entirely different texts.

One, festooned in eerily luminous roses and a striking, clean title font, projects both femininity and literary aspirations. The other zooms in on a stock photo-esque shot of a woman’s breasts, the top button of her white shirt straining to hold her voluptuousness in check. Fifty Shades of Grey is name-dropped at the very top.

This cover says erotic novel, bodice-ripper, something churned out hastily for women to read half-hidden under their sheets, breath quickening. 

But, of course, they are the same book. On the left, the hardcover, published in March of this year; on the right, the paperback, which will hit bookstores August 4. 

In 2013, author Maureen Johnson tweeted about her frustration with how often men emailed her requesting that her book covers be less girly. (Sure, men should also become comfortable reading books coded as feminine, but let’s stick to the issue at hand for now.) Johnson followed up by launching a challenge: She asked her followers to “take a well-known book, then to imagine the author of that book was of the opposite gender, or was genderqueer, and imagine what that cover might look like.”

The hysterical designs that resulted -- imagine a soft-focus fantasy version of Game of Thrones by Georgette Martin -- weren’t proof that any individual case showed gender bias, but demonstrated how comfortable readers are with seeing books by women disproportionately covered in hearts, curlicues and wedding gowns while books by men feature edgy conceptual designs.

Actually seeing this trend turned on its head made it undeniable that such biases in book design exist.

We shouldn’t judge books by their covers, but we do -- and publishers know it. That’s why the big literary fiction releases each year are bound in hardcover, with eye-catching, meticulously designed art commissioned from skilled professionals. They want us to know they believe in that book, that there’s quality inside reflected by the quality outside. That’s also why erotica and romance novels are bound in paperback, with heaving bosoms or pastel-hued high heels slapped on the cover. The publisher wants us to know, when we’re looking for a salacious thrill or a beach read as effortlessly sweet as cotton candy, that we’ve found what we’re looking for.

So what is the publisher -- Penguin Random House, for the record -- trying to tell us about Hausfrau? The hardcover tried to tell us that it was a virtuosic book, a meaningful book, one that should be read carefully and considered for literary prizes. The paperback tries to tell us that it’s a cheap thrill, something to consume with a few glasses of cab sav while your husband is at his cousin’s bachelor party.

 Now, there’s nothing wrong with the latter. Nothing! It’s not easy to write a good romance novel or erotic thriller, and it’s definitely fun to read one. The question is context. If I’ve purchased a sexy romance novel to enjoy with the aforementioned glasses of cab sav, I’d prefer not to find myself mired in a thoughtful drama that spends more time playing with the ambiguities of language than with the graphic allure of infidelity. If I’ve passed over a brilliant novel about a woman’s inner life because of the less-than-subtle cover, on the other hand, I’ve missed out.

When Hausfrau first came out this spring, I didn’t miss out -- I reviewed it, positively. “Hausfrau boasts taut pacing and melodrama, but also a fully realized heroine as love-hateable as Emma Bovary and a poet’s fascination with language,” I wrote at the time.

Despite the literary-keyed cover, this book, by a woman, about a woman’s erotic life, was already drawing less-than-fair comparisons to Fifty Shades of Grey. But, I argued, “Essbaum’s debut has more in common with its classic predecessors than anything by E.L. James.” Classic predecessors like Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert -- the sort of male-penned novel about a woman’s psychosexual drama that would never be slapped with a first paperback edition as cheap-looking as a self-published hot-for-teacher erotic fantasy.

There’s nothing wrong with writing erotic fantasy or fun fluff, but there is something wrong with treating even the most serious, artistic women’s work, about the painful psychology of a woman’s tormented existence, as one step away from porn. Maybe the lurid cover will sell a few more copies, at the sole cost of cheapening the literary labor and artistic material inside. But it’s still not worth it.

H/T Book Riot

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A vulture looms over a wisp of a child, curled up and limp. It’s a striking image, taken during a Sudanese famine in the '90s; so striking that the photographer, Kevin Carter, won the Pulitzer Prize for taking it. Not long after, he committed suicide. Some say the horrors he witnessed abroad were responsible for the tragedy.

Before his death, Carter was criticized for opting to frame a photo rather than assist its starving subject. Questions were raised about the ethics of war reporting, not least among them: does raising awareness actually contribute to a solution?

In her new novel, The Small Backs of Children, Lidia Yuknavitch creates a similar character, a photographer who by chance snaps a perfectly emotive image of a girl in Eastern Europe, where there’s violence without war, persistent but unacknowledged elsewhere.

The novel begins the moment after the shutter clicks, and follows the child subject as she races into the woods, away from an explosion that’s killed her mother, father and brother. The girl has morbid run-ins with soldiers and eventually happens upon an older woman, widowed as a result of their country’s unstable state. The girl is nurtured back to physical and mental health; she begins painting; she learns English.

But the rest of the world associates her with a different image: flying forward from the power of the bomb, her face frozen in horror, her body arrested midair. By delving into the messy depths and possible outcomes of her life after the half-second shot is frozen in time, published, disseminated and awarded the highest prizes, Yuknavitch is rebelling against the clean, swift straightforwardness of plot, and the monolithic representation of truth presented by a work of art.

This mode of storytelling is unsurprising coming from Yuknavitch, whose memoir The Chronology of Water infuses seemingly concrete experiences -- competitive swimming, sexual awakenings -- with fluid language that undulates between themes. In an interview with The Rumpus, the author makes her views clear: “the membrane between fiction and nonfiction is thin as infant’s skin.”

The Small Backs of Children doesn’t move ahead like most narratives. Instead, its events are related by a cast of characters, whose connected lives form a helluva family tree: the young subject of the above mentioned photograph; the photographer, an aging bisexual woman grappling with the stark truths presented in her chosen craft; the writer, who falls ill while penning a novel about the girl from the photo, leaving the storytelling up to her peers; the filmmaker and writer's husband; the artist, her spurious, cadlike ex-husband; the playwright, her brother, who fled their abusive upbringing; the performance artist, a pixielike girl with a broken heart; and the poet, a jet-setting dominatrix. Each narrator tells his or her portion of the story using language fitting for their respective vocations -- the filmmaker, for example, is sentimental and focused on the appearance of things.

Together, the cast decides to travel to Eastern Europe to rescue the girl from the now-renowned photo. Unaware that the girl has created a pleasant life for herself, they believe they are saving her, that they're championing altruism over art. 

Yuknavitch isn't entirely critical of their self-righteousness, or of their subtle cultural appropriation. She concludes her story with the girl meditating on the same ideas artists have pondered for centuries, aiding trauma with a swishing brush.“Where do we come from?" she wonders. "Is it a country? A mother? Or is it perhaps an image, a song ... ?” 

The bottom line:

The Small Backs of Children beautifully examines the fractures of loss and the myriad ways we can recover from it. 

Who wrote it?

Lidia Yuknavitch teaches writing in Portland, Oregon. She's the author of Dora: A Headcase and The Chronology of Water, a memoir. 

Who will read it?

Those interested in cerebral narrators, philosophical stories and the impact war has on a country's citizens. 

Opening lines:

"You must picture your image of Eastern Europe. In your mind's eye. Whatever that image is. However it came to you. Winter. That white ...

One winter night when she is no longer a child, the girl walks outside, her shoes against show, her arms cradling a self, her back to a house not her own but some other."

Notable passage:

"It began with insomnia. When I lived in Ocean Beach. Remember O.B.? I was sleeping on the floor of some musician's apartment. Pitch-black, lingering smell of pot, and all the things I thought would slow down and get better if I stepped out of my photojournalist life and into this ... beautiful fantasy of a man's life. Jesus. Look at him. He sleeps the sleep of the dead. Or of a clueless child."

The Small Backs of Children

by Lidia Yuknavitch

HarperCollins, $24.99

Published July 7, 2015

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

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Due to the (mostly eyebrow-fueled) hype surrounding the upcoming release of “Paper Towns,” I decided to read the YA book the movie is based on. Ruth Graham’s essay on Young Adult literature had me prepared for schmaltz -- she called The Fault in Our Stars and its ilk “fundamentally uncritical.” She went on, “it’s not simply that YA readers are asked to immerse themselves in a character’s emotional life -- that’s the trick of so much great fiction -- but that they are asked to abandon the mature insights into that perspective that they (supposedly) have acquired as adults.”

Ouch.

At the time her essay was published, I didn’t exactly refute it -- no guns were a blazin'. I’ll read just about anything, but most of the books I pick up fall into a Venn diagram: there are books that make my mind whirr endlessly, sparking meditation on late nights for long hours on something that exists outside of its plot (recently, The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch); books that sweep me up in their pleasurable wish-fulfillment (recently, Grey by E.L. James); and books that accomplish both of those things (recently, Find Me by Laura van den Berg). Where a book falls in this diagram isn’t strictly genre-dependent, nor is the age of a story’s narrator a factor, but the distinction exists in my mind nevertheless.

In my experiences reading YA books as an adult, they’ve fulfilled wishes, allowing me to pleasurably re-embody an idealistic yet naive mindset. Though I saw their value as educational tools and emotional road maps for kids, I didn’t believe they offered nuanced views of the world fit for grown-ups. Teen-centric stories didn’t live in the center of my reader’s venn diagram. But reading Paper Towns forced me to reconsider that.

*** 

Young Adult literature’s lack of mature insight, according to Graham, is rooted in a supposed aversion to messy, unresolved stories. To explain this, she points to the narrator of The Fault in Our Stars, a 17-year-old with terminal cancer who’s obsessed with uncovering the ending to a novel by a revered writer, who notoriously left the story hanging mid-sentence, providing no catharsis for readers.

But The Fault in Our Stars is more self-aware than its protagonist is when we meet her. The novel is about her coming to grips with life’s messiness and opting for hope in the face of random despair.

Paper Towns has a similar message. What begins as a neat adventure, wherein a lovesick narrator travels cross-country in search of a wild, super-fun “cool girl,” unfolds into a deep meditation on hope, expectation and the ways we can and can’t connect with each other. 

Its central characters are Quentin “Q” Jacobsen and the beautiful, spontaneous object of his desire, Margo Roth Spiegelman. Their names alone are twee enough to turn off readers who yearn for stories packed with the travails of Real Life, but stay with me. They were friends as kids, united by a traumatizing event that Q’s parents handle gracefully, but Margo’s parents fail to address adequately. That’s where their paths diverge -- Q becomes a well-adjusted, reserved, college-bound quiet kid; Margo a living legend, always rumored to be cooking up wild pranks and adventures on her quest for meaning. Q remarks that she’s awesome “in the literal sense,” but they’re mostly estranged -- until she shows up in his bedroom window asking to borrow his car. 

A night of prank-pulling and general subversiveness (they break into SeaWorld! They break into other buildings!) sets off a Sal Paradise-esque emotional awakening in once-vanilla Q, and the two prattle off Pinterest-worthy quotes about the meaning of life that are a little cringe-inducing to non-teens, but no less so than Sal’s desire to “burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles.”

But, unlike On the Road (which, it’s worth noting, I adored in high school but can’t reread today because its inspired, myopic anthem no longer resonates), Paper Towns doesn’t conclude with the power of burn, burning. When the enchanting Margo disappears the day after their whirlwind evening, an enamored Q tries to find her with a string of clues she left behind and on the way learns that his conception of her was narrow, self-centered and childish. Her wild ways, he comes to learn, don’t pour from a magical well inside of her. Instead, she feels empty -- as so many teens without an adopted ideology must -- and is hodge-podging a personality as best she can.

Q learns about Margo’s inner life -- a manic pixie dream girl she is not, if such a thing even exists -- through the notes she’s left behind, in books and elsewhere. Highlighted passages from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass tip him off to an abandoned building where she spent nights alone, planning her disappearance. Of all of Whitman’s words, she selects these as her mantra:

“You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,

But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,

And filter and fibre your blood”

 
Puzzled, Q turns to his English teacher for advice, and their exchange could serve as the novel’s thesis, as well as a defense of the value of teen books in general. She asks whether Q’s looked at the wider world of the novel, whether he’s read the whole thing for context. He confesses:

“Mostly I just read the parts she highlighted. I’m reading it to understand Margo, not to understand Whitman.”

[...]

“I think that’s precisely what Whitman would’ve wanted. For you to see Song of Myself not just as a poem but as a way into understanding another.”

 
Whitman’s quest to embody the grass; Q’s quest to embody Margo, and by doing so discover where she’s hiding; the reader’s quest to embody them both; they’re all a practice in empathy, which is what literature is all about. John Green is acutely aware of this, and so crafts a book about teens as adult-worthy as any other. He takes the stereotypes our stories of youth are rife with, cracks them open, and reassembles them into something fractured but true.

***

Paper Towns is a more self-aware novel than On the Road and other such youthful musings. Which isn’t to say one book is better than the other. What On the Road lacks in apparent critical distance it more than makes up for in its immediacy, its beautiful lyricism, its words rich with texture. What Paper Towns lacks in steadily poetic language it makes up for in a cerebral nerdiness. It constantly comments on itself and its plot; it knowingly and cheekily busts tropes. 

What separates the two, I believe, is that one is hopeful, the other cynical. And that maybe is an accurate dichotomy to apply to all realistic novels. While adult literature confronts life’s messiness by throwing up its hands, YA books tend to offer bravery as a solution. In general, this approach to life could be called naivety. But Green’s characters know what they’re up against -- they just opt for optimism anyway. As Q concludes, “maybe we can imagine these futures by making them real, and maybe not, but either way we must imagine them.”

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"Kim, your cloak is so cute. Where'd you get it?"

Kim: side-eye.

"After careful consideration, I think Dan smells fine."

Sole dissenter: side-eye.

"Trying out this new blue robe because I hate looking like we shop in the same linen closet."

Everybody else: side-eye.

"Imma let you finish but ..."

Man on the left: side-eye.

"I already told Heather she could borrow my dress halo, but you guys could rock-paper-scissors."

Double side-eye.

"The dove has definitely pooped."

Dove: side-eye.

"But Tiffany and Brett's mom lets them play with dead birds."

Virgin mother: side-eye.

"Short straw goes and gets the bagels. That was the deal."

Un. Repentant. Side-eye.

"The invitation said gifts optional."

Spot the side-eye.

"Leslie, I know you're the one who burnt my favorite pair of rainbow wings. Look me in the side-eye when you lie to me."

"Your hat looks so much like a moldy bread basket it's not even funny."

"Oh my God, thank you. Your hair is so oily it's like you just jumped out of the pool."

"Stop. Thank you."

Side-eye.

"Mmm, yes, this is the best Snuggie I've ever worn." 

Snuggie man: side-eye.

Pfffffttttttttttttttttt.

Sniff sniff.

Guilty as thine side-eye.

 "Jordan, my reptilian tail won't hurt you. I promise."

"Girl, I can't even with this mermaid business."

Side-eye.

"Ethan, you're going the wrong way. Ethan, you're clearly facing the opposite direction as everyone else. Ethan, I swear to God, Ethan." 

Horses: side-eye.

It's piffero day in music class and Bobby Blueshirt can. not. even. Side-eye.

"Honey, you're a skeleton. I have no time for your skeleton shenanigans. Read my side-eye and sit your skeleton self down."

"Unicorn, you're so tiny. I don't believe you."

Side-eye.

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 "Follow your heart." "Trust your gut." "Find your voice." "Stay true to your vision."

It's not that there isn't merit to these oft-touted nuggets of wisdom for aspiring artists, it's just that, sometimes, following your heart won't help you pay rent on time. 

If you're looking for the kind of advice that, while it may not look as great on an inspirational postcard, will help you actually sustain yourself as a working artist, we highly suggest Alix Sloan's Launching Your Art Career: A Practical Guide for Artists.

Sloan, a curator and consultant, enlists the help of 40 artists and dealers to compile a bullshit-free guide to making art, making connections, making sales and making money. We've compiled some of our favorite parts below, to give you a taste. 

Behold, 12 pieces of actually practical advice for a struggling, emerging or really any sort of artist.

1. Take the job. "Don't be one of those cliché art school kids who considers himself above the idea of art as commodity. Take the commercial work. Take the design work. Do the band's poster for $20 and a six-pack. Do whatever it takes to be able to call yourself a working artist. It's a noble title, regardless of the particulars." -Noah Antieau, art dealer

2. Make nice! "Your best connections are your peers. Stay in contact with them. Be curious. Visit other artist's studios and add like-minded people to your mailing list." -Cara Enteles, artist

3. Do you. "Aim to have people recognize your work in a crowded room ... to know immediately that it's undeniably yours." -Lori Field, artist 

 4. Get some perspective. "Gaining perspective by observing your practice amongst a field of others, and the culture and time in which it is done, is a career goal that follows a wide arc ... It is not the sole responsibility of your art dealer, for example, to place your work in cultural context, nor should you allow this without your input." -Martin Kruck, artist 

5. It's just another job. "When I'm talking with younger artists I stress that making, exhibiting and selling art in a commercial gallery is just like any other job one hopes to be successful at. It means working hard, honoring deadlines and trusting your co-workers to do their jobs well too." -William Baczek, art dealer

6. Don't go crazy with the zeros. "Don't raise your prices too fast because once they are up, you should not lower them." -Jayme McLellan, art dealer 

7. More, more, more! "Feed your output with as much input (books, lectures, films, leisure, rest) as you can handle, and in some cases, more than you can manage." -Didier William, artist 

8. Keep your friends close and your inspiration closer. "Now there are endless images at your fingertips, but you need to find the ones that awaken your creativity and keep them near to you. Sometimes it can be something blurry and vague ... I have this one little scrap of paper with a very low-res image of a kitten's face on it, and something about it makes me come back to it again and again, trying to capture something elusive about it. When you find an image like that, hold onto it like it was gold." -Marion Peck, artist 

9. Get that domain name stat. "You don't need business cards. You do need a website." -Zach Feuer, art dealer

10. Don't get comfortable. "You may have to work at a real job while you are making this happen. DO NOT get a creative job. Get a job you won't get comfortable in. Save all your creative juices for your own art practice!" -Martha Rich, artist  

11. Embrace the tribe. "It's good to remember (not when you are making new work as it might be better to forget) that there are armies of manically mono-focused people (I almost said monsters) out there who want something close to what you want. They are your tribe, not your enemy." -David Humphrey, artist 

12. Go outside. "Stay deeply connected to what's going on in your own art world. Under no circumstances isolate yourself in the studio with a solitary practice, thinking you're some kind of lone wolf or Van Gogh." -Mark Wolfe, art dealer

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Wende Harston has a reason to sing.

Though the Denver jazz artist recently fell on hard times and lost her home, she's found some comfort performing at a local animal rescue shelter, KUSA reported. Hartson had to send her pet parrot, Samula, to live at the shelter several months ago, because there wasn't enough space in the immobile RV where she's been staying.

“Things just got bad quicker than I anticipated,” Harston told the news outlet.

However, she kept her spirits up with weekly visits to Samula, and a guitar and a song.

Harston is a longtime member of the Colorado arts scene -- a dancer, actress and the lead vocalist for Denver’s Queen City Jazz band, who's been compared to legends like Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith, the group writes on its website. 

When she found herself unable to provide for her pet, Harston gave Samula to the Gabriel Foundation -- a parrot welfare organization that currently houses nearly 1,000 birds. Harston began coming weekly to sing to Samula, and the other birds responded well to the special concerts, too.

“They LOVE her!” the foundation wrote on a GoFundMe campaign they started for Harston. “Her music, her quiet and kind manner, and her positive energy bring joy to our birds and organization every time she visits.”

The group started the GoFundMe campaign shortly after Harston found a more stable home earlier this month, wanting to repay her for the joy she’s brought the foundation and all the creatures that call it home. 

“We personally had a chance to see the effect she had on our birds during a recent visit,” the group wrote on the campaign’s page. “We know that it will still be a struggle for her as she continues to get back on her feet and we would love to find a way to help [her and Samula] stay together.” 

On Sunday, the Gabriel Foundation wrote on Facebook that Harston and her beloved pet parrot will be moving to their new home as a pair. 

 It looks like the next journey for this woman and her feathered friend is going to be a smooth flight.

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"Character Traits" is the summer exhibition of your wildest, wettest dreams. If, that is, you prefer adorably deformed critters to the formal aspects of picture-making; fart jokes to the histories of aesthetic order and structures; boobies to experiments in monochrome.

Which, let us be clear, we absolutely, most definitely do. 

The exhibition, featuring work from artists including Raina Hamner, Nel Aerts, Brian Scott Campbell and Austin English, feels like someone cracked a "Looney Tunes" episode open and spilled its insides into a frying pan, boiling and scrambling them beyond recognition. The artists on view weave together the influence of sources you wouldn't find on the white walls of MoMA -- sources like outsider art, undercover zines, comic books and thrift store kitsch.  

"I was looking for artists that weren't generally represented in New York," artist Matthew Craven, who curated the show, explained to The Huffington Post. "Artists who have more of an interest in cartooning, zines, the stuff I grew up making -- the stuff that influenced me that maybe isn't considered high art by a lot of people. Influences can come from anywhere. Me, personally, I never took an art class until I was 22. I grew up drawing comic books."

Take Dawn Frasch's "Pussy Phanatic," an overflowing cesspool of visual information. In it, a naked lady, vagina spread open, spews pinkish innards from her genitals, coming to life like it was the pornographic sequel to "Flubber." The ejection eventually forms its own muppet-like character, who appears dressed up for a baseball game as he vomits blood. It's all the bad parts of an orgy combined with the even worse parts of an all-you-can-eat buffet.

It's part of an appealing narrative -- plucking the weirdos and perverts from the fringes of the hoity-toity art world and gathering them together for one raucous visual display. Except, the story doesn't quite hold up. The grotesque, excessive aesthetic of "Character Traits" isn't an anomaly. In fact, it's a trend.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Critics dismissed it as a rough draft for "To Kill a Mockingbird" and readers despaired over an aging, racist Atticus Finch.

But Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman" is still a million seller.

HarperCollins announced Monday that "Go Set a Watchman" in its combined print, electronic and audio formats has sold 1.1 million copies in the U.S. and Canada, a figure which includes first-week sales and months of pre-orders. The publisher stunned the world in February when it revealed that a second novel was coming from Lee, who had long insisted that "To Kill a Mockingbird" would be her only book.

HarperCollins, where authors have included Michael Crichton and Veronica Roth, is calling "Watchman" its fastest seller in history. Other books have sold much faster: "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," published in the U.S. by Scholastic in 2007, sold 8.3 million copies in its first 24 hours.

"Watchman" was released July 14 and as of early Monday remains at No. 1 on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, with "Mockingbird" also in the top 10. HarperCollins has increased an initial print run of 2 million copies for "Watchman" to 3.3 million.

"Watchman" was completed before Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Mockingbird," but is set in the same Alabama community 20 years later. Critics and readers were startled to find the heroic Atticus of "Mockingbird" disparaging blacks and condemning the Supreme Court's decision to outlaw segregation in public schools.

Questions about the book arose almost immediately after HarperCollins announced it, with Lee scholars noting that "Watchman" was the work of a young and inexperienced author and friends and admirers of the 89-year-old author worrying that the book had been approved without her participation. State officials in Lee's native Alabama, where she resides in an assisted living facility, met with her and concluded she was alert and able to make decisions about "Watchman," which Lee attorney Tonja Carter has said she discovered last year.

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