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Chvrches Prepares To Disprove The Sophomore Slump With 'Every Open Eye'

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It’s been a divine couple of years for Chvrches.


The Scottish synth-pop outfit -- featuring vocalist Lauren Mayberry, synth-master Martin Doherty and guitarist Iain Cook -- burst onto the scene internationally with dark-yet-danceable tracks like “Lies,” “The Mother We Share” and “Recover” in late 2012. By 2013, the trio was among the top five on BBC’s Sound of 2013 ranking and playing on all the major late-night talk shows before hitting the road for a non-stop itinerary of shows all around the world in support of their critically-admired debut album, “The Bones of What You Believe.”


Chvrches’ most recent leg of shows wrapped last November in South Korea and the band proceeded to spend a month and a half with their families before going at it again, returning to the studio to record the followup, “Every Open Eye,” which is due for a Sept. 25 release amid another long run of festival appearances and preceding a just-announced string of North American tour dates.


After eight months largely out of the public eye, one had to wonder if the band could carry forward the momentum propelling their seemingly unstoppable rise to indie-pop stardom and avoid the second-album slump to which so many previous acts have fallen victim.


But the release of “Leave a Trace,” Chvrches’ new single off the upcoming album, last week should silence any doubts. The song was met with almost immediate and universal praise for the song’s in-your-face R&B-tinged, earworm-worthy textures both online and from audiences at a trio of back-to-back festival appearances.




So what’s in the secret sauce for the tight-knit trio? As Mayberry explained backstage at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago’s Union Park, the band made it a point to attempt to replicate the vacuum-like atmosphere in which they created the first album -- their own space in a small basement studio in Glasgow -- and ignore the temptation to bring in outside producers by continuing the do-it-yourself approach that made “Bones” a success.


“Whether we like it or not, the second album does have preconceived ideas around it,” Mayberry told The Huffington Post, “so it made the most sense for us to try and eliminate as many outside influences as possible and just make it be the three of us so that whatever we come up with, whether it goes well or doesn’t go well, is definitely us. We’re very lucky to be able to do that.”


The new songs also have a palpable sense of aggression and a Cookie Lyon-esque, I'm-getting-what’s-mine vibe lying just beneath the surface, as evidenced by the lyrics on “Leave a Trace” — “I have somehow got away with everything / Anything you ever did was strictly by design but you got it wrong / And I’ll go anywhere but there,” for example.


Mayberry says that was no coincidence, even if it wasn’t the particular aim the band had going into the album. The album, she agrees, comes from a much more “assertive” position. She views “Leave a Trace” as something of a “fight song.”



“When I look back at the first record, the songs I wrote about relationships on there were a bit more ‘playing the victim’ kind of. I think there was a time and a place for that because that was what I was feeling at the time,” Mayberry said, “but I guess now I feel a lot more positive about my personal life and I think it’s nice for me to be able to write about that as well as my bad experiences in a more assertive way." 


That assertiveness has also stretched beyond the songs themselves, as Mayberry has received media attention for calling out rape threats and misogynistic comments that have been directed at her through male commenters on the Internet. She also helps run a Glasgow-based feminist collective called TYCI, which operates a website, zine, radio show, podcast and live event series “promoting all things femme.” 


It’s the same confidence Mayberry says she’s had to channel during previous interviews with journalists who ask sexist questions like, “What’s it like to be a girl in a band?,” “What are your tips for festival fashion?” or “How do you stay so slim on tour, do you have any special diets?” Actually, she noted, Cook is the only band member on any sort of diet, “but they don’t ask him that question.”


Mayberry, a former journalist, says she can sense when a line of questioning from a writer is heading that direction and feels like a cat preparing to pounce into battle -- tail up, ears back -- when she anticipates it. It doesn’t happen as often as it used to, though.


There’s one particular word, too, she’s grown frustrated with reading attached to her name. 


“I guess if I read one more thing that says, ‘She’s so adorable,’ I’ll probably puke,” Mayberry said. “It’s this nice idea but you don’t know me, we’ve never met and I don’t know how many people I have to punch in the crotch before they stop saying I’m ‘cute and adorable.’ There are worse things that could be said about you so it’s not too bad, but sometimes I’m like why are you saying that just because I’m a small woman?”


Still, Mayberry does accept a certain vulnerability in herself, something from which she derives great strength, a strength definitely felt on a track like “Leave a Trace” as well as 2013’s “Gun.” It is a juxtaposition that helps drive her and something she admires in authors like Anne Carson and Angela Carter, as well as riot-grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna.


“I read something [Hanna] said once where she was talking about the combination of vulnerability and strength,” Mayberry said. “Some days you feel like the weakest person in the world and some days you feel like you can absolutely conquer everything.  I like the idea that even when you personally don’t feel that strong you can write something that feels stronger, a ‘learn to be it’ sort of thing. If you write what you feel, you’re more in control even when you’re falling apart.”




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23 Black Stars Who Shined On Broadway Through The Years

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This post is part of a weekly series celebrating #ThrowbackThursday with reflections of our favorite childhood memories, past pop culture moments and more!


Taye Diggs made his debut on Broadway Wednesday when he hit the stage as Hedwig in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch." Meanwhile, Brandy -- another of one our favorites -- will soon end her run as Roxie in"Chicago" on August 2. These talented performers are just two among a long list of countless stars who have graced Broadway stages over the years.


From legends like Debbie Allen to younger performers like Keke Palmer, here are 23 black stars that have lit up the "Great White Way" over the years: 



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Mom's Side-By-Side Dog And Toddler Photos Are Pure, Adorable Fun

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Mom and photographer Jesse Holland has spent the past year working on a creative project that stars her toddler daughter and their pet dog.


Titled "Handfuls Of Trouble," the project is a photo series of side-by-side pictures of 2-year-old Ella and 5-year-old French Bulldog/Boston terrier mix Charlie. In each pair of photos, the toddler and dog pose with the same props and against the same backdrops, allowing for a hilarious comparison. 



Holland told The Huffington Post that she was inspired to create this project after she received an owl hat from her parents as a present for Ella last year. "It was cute on her, and I thought I would see what our dog, Charlie, looked like with it on," she said, adding. "He was NOT impressed with it, but I was on the floor laughing at his sad reaction, so I took a couple photos on my iPhone of each of them." 


The next day, the mom found an old pair of glasses and again photographed both her daughter and dog wearing them. "At the time, the dog and the kid were almost the same size, so it seemed like a natural fit to keep comparing them," she said. 


From there, the project snowballed. Holland consistently posts new side-by-side photos on a dedicated Tumblr, as well as her own personal Instagram, where she recently finished participating in Elle Luna's #The100DayProject (adding her own hashtag, #100DaysOfTrouble)



Taking each photo doesn't require more than a few minutes of shooting and occasionally some of additional time for preparation, Holland said. While Charlie is usually cooperative, toddler Ella sometimes "has her own agenda" about what she wants to be doing during picture-taking time -- "which is fair enough," the mom said.


 "I will keep up the project as long as they are relatively the same size, or when I run out of ideas," she added. All in all, Holland hopes that other people will be entertained by the photos, but the target audience is herself and her relatives. "Mostly I have done these for my own amusement and to keep my family -- who all live in another country from me -- updated with photos of my kid."


Keep scrolling and visit Holland's Instagram, Tumblr and Facebook page to look at "Handfuls Of Trouble" and decide "who wore it best."

 


H/T BoredPanda


 


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Meet Cyborg, The Badass Black Superhero You Should Know

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Cyborg, the techno-powered teenage superhero, is rising to the ranks of peers like Superman and Batman by headlining his own comic book series. But what makes him different from other mainstream superheroes? For starters, he's black. 


A freak accident turns Victor Stone into the half-human, half-robot hybrid hero with Herculean strength and mechanical telepathy. In spite of his of abilities, Cyborg has a complex life dealing with the challenges of being different both as a black male and as a superhero.


David F. Walker, the award-winning journalist and author who penned the series of black private-eye and vigilante Shaft, is the writer bringing Cyborg's story to life. We caught up with Walker to get the scoop on the cultural impact of the prolific comic book publisher DC Comics and spearheading a leading storyline for one of the greatest black superheroes ever to exist.



The Huffington Post: Who is Cyborg, and how did he gain his powers? 


David F. Walker: Cyborg is Victor Stone, who first appeared in the pages of a series called The New Teen Titans, back in 1980. Vic is a young African American man who was nearly killed in a laboratory explosion, only to have his life saved, and his body restored through the use of advanced cybernetics. Vic is somewhat unique, in that he doesn’t have an alter-ego, and Cyborg isn’t so much of persona as it merely is his state of being -- the result of this devastating accident that almost took his life. The technology that is used to keep him alive makes him look more like a robot, gives him incredible strength, and allows him total access to the Internet by way of the computer implanted in his brain.


What sort of significance do you think it means for Cyborg, a black superhero, to officially have his own series?


There simply aren’t that many black superheroes with their own series, which leaves a rather large cross section of the comic-reading audience under-represented. I go to conventions, and I see incredible numbers of women and people of color in attendance -- in some case making up the majority of convention attendees -- and yet that is not reflected in the mainstream comics on the shelves. Cyborg having his own series is a step in the direction of greater representation, which is significant for quite a few reasons. Perhaps the most significant reason is that it helps to activate the dreams of young black people. Lack of representation becomes a form of oppression, sending a message that there is no place for black people or women or the LGBT community in these fantasy worlds that serve as a metaphor for the lives we live, and an escape for the horrors of everyday life. 


What traits make Cyborg an interesting hero?


I could say that it is the fact that he is more machine than man -- that he can fly, and possesses superhuman strength, and that his brain has the most advanced computer in existence plugged right into it -- but that’s not what makes him interesting. What makes him interesting -- what makes all heroes interesting -- are the flaws and weaknesses that remind us of their humanity. 



 What things can we look forward to in the Cyborg solo series?


Obviously, there will be action. This is, after all, a comic book, and action drives a large part of the American superhero comic genre. So, we will see Vic facing various threats, from cybernetic-aliens looking to hijack his tech, to super villains we love to hate. But the thing that I think many people are looking for, and that I hope to deliver, is the development of Vic Stone as a character. Cyborg has been around for 35 years, and we’ve seen bits and pieces of his life, but he has always been a co-star in team books like Teen Titans or Justice League, which means there is only so much of his story that can be told.


What elements do you think make for a great superhero comic?


I may get in trouble for saying this, but superheroes are the modern equivalent to the gods of ancient mythology. These are power fantasies and morality tales that are meant to help us better understand the way we live our lives, and give us an escape from both the mundane and horrific that we face on a daily basis. A great superhero comic is brimming with the same things we deal with, only exaggerated to the most wild of extremes. 


Do you feel that the audience for superhero comics has changed over time? Are there more black readers now than there were in the past?


In terms of black readers, other people of color, and women, those numbers are growing at a rate that blows my mind, and makes me happy. There are a lot of people that don’t want to admit this, but the fan base for superheroes -- in comics and other mediums -- has changed drastically, and women and people of color are now the majority. You’ll hear some people deny it, but those people are wrong. And this is why it is so important for there to be more than just the straight, white male heroes.



Do you think reader expectations have changed over time -- is there more of an interest in more diverse superheroes?


There are some comic readers, and they tend to be very vocal, who are averse to change. For them, comics are a sacred place, the heroes are their gods, and a bit too much of their self-worth is invested in these make-believe worlds. I believe these readers are an unfortunately loud minority that fear change, even though change is inevitable. And in the world of comics, diversity means change, because the default setting is white, straight males. It is what all of us know, and have come to expect. We think of superheroes, and we think of Superman.


To bring diversity to that accepted reality, we must be willing to change, and again, some people fear change. At the same time, I know for a fact that there are other readers, who not only want diversity -- and therefore change -- they need it. I’m one of those people. Many of the people that crave to see diversity are either fairly new to comics, or have been intimidated by those who scream in favor of the status quo. We can’t be bullied by the people who want things to stay the same, simply because it brings them great comfort -- especially not when their comfort is paid for by our oppression and exclusion.


Do you think it’s important for people of color to see reflections of themselves among superheroes?


Do you know what it was like to see "Superman" the movie in 1978, when I was 10, and the only black person in the entire movie was a pimp? It was humiliating, and soul-crushing, and it showed me that in the world of Superman, the only place for someone like me was as a pimp. In comics, it wasn’t much better. But it is getting better, and this is why people of color need to see reflections of themselves across the pop culture landscape -- because no kid should grow up to think there is no place for them.


If Cyborg could solve any real-life issues facing the black community today, what would it be?


This is a difficult question, in part because the black community faces a myriad of complex issues, none of which can be solved by a single individual. Even if Superman were black, he couldn’t fix everything the community faces. And as much as I love comic books and superheroes, I think it is dangerous to have them tackle complex problems and then solve these issues, when in real life that simply doesn’t happen. Cyborg can take on an army extraterrestrials and save the day -- as a writer, I can make that work.  But can he tackle police brutality and actually fix the problem, which itself is linked to other problems? If there is one issue that we can have Cyborg grapple with -- one that I believe is very important to the black community -- it would have to be self-esteem.


This is not to say that Cyborg can fix all the contributing factors that lead to so many young people of color suffering from low self-esteem, but by merely having him present—by having him being front and center, dealing with his own issues of self-worth and belonging—maybe he can help others with their struggles.     


 


If you're interested in checking out Cyborg in his eponymous title series, CYBORG, the the first issue is now available on bookshelves and digital outlets.


This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity and length.


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An Art Museum In Los Angeles Is Killing The Snapchat Game

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Once upon a time, Snapchat was the app of choice for nudie shots and music festivals. No longer! 


Thanks to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's social media guru Lucy Redoglia, the sexting app du jour is having a renaissance, with the help of some Renaissance art! (I promise, her jokes are better than mine.) 



If art history-inspired memes get your blood pumping, we highly recommend adding LACMA on Snapchat, like, right now. There are few better ways to celebrate your favorite artists Auguste Rodin and Simon Vouet than by imagining them jamming to Beyonce or quoting "Mean Girls." 


"We have a couple goals for our social media here," Redoglia told Refinery29. "Obviously, bringing people in the door is one, but it's also about spreading awareness of the museum and its collection to people who might not be able to attend -- to get people interested in our history."


Get all the artsy laughs by adding lacma_museum on Snapchat ASAP. Take a look at some of their greatest hits below. 



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Magical App Will Turn Ad-Filled Subway Stations Into Pop-Up Art Galleries

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Few things are more aggressively unpleasant in the early morning than walking into a subway station emblazoned with advertisements broadcasting the latest Adam Sandler comedy, summer diet pill or sexually suggestive Seamless ad. 


Thanks to an app called No Ad, you can now swap out said brain-numbing endorsements with stimulating artworks. Goodbye sexist imagery and bad puns, hello contemporary art! 


The art-savvy (and free) app recognizes patterns on subway ads and compares it to a database of all circulating subway ads at the time. Just by pointing your phone at the image you wish to eradicate, the app will replace it with a work of art. Voila, a mobile, pop-up gallery at your fingertips. 


No Ad is curated by a revolving crop of artists and institutions, changing approximately every month. Thus the concept of a fluidly updating art gallery is transposed from white-walled cubes above ground to the concrete jungle below.



"There's something really nice about this, a kind of gallery space sitting in your pocket," Jordan Seiler, one of the founding partners of No Ad, explained to Atlas Obscura. "It's kind of like walking into a physical gallery, and not knowing what the artist is showing. The serendipity of discovery is important."


"Jordan represents the anti-advertising aspect of the app," Jowy Romano, the other founding partner, explained to The New York Times. "I’m more concerned with the bringing-the-art-into-the-subway aspect." Romano, a street art buff, also keeps a blog tracing subway art throughout the city.


The app illuminates an early glimpse at a virtually augmented future, one in which each individual's experienced reality can be self-determined, or even curated. "In a large part, it’s an art project," Seiler noted. "We’d eventually like the city to embrace it as a tool for commuters and tourists to experience the vibrant culture of the city that’s above ground, while they are traveling underground."


Goodbye, posters for the sequels to blockbuster movies we never wanted to see in the first place. Farewell, online degree program testimonials. Adieu, McDonald's bulletins and J.Crew placards and spooky Blue Man Group plugs. We won't miss you!


As of now, No Ad works only on the two-panel ads on New York's subway platforms. However, in the near future the app hopes to expand to ads inside of trains, as well as those throughout Berlin. And then, THE WORLD! 



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The Bottom Line: 'Imperium: A Fiction Of The South Seas' By Christian Kracht

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A book that comes emblazoned with so many glowing comparisons to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is necessarily suspect to many modern readers. A literary masterpiece, Heart of Darkness has also been convincingly argued, by no less than Chinua Achebe, to be a colonialist, ultimately racist piece of writing about Africa and indigenous peoples who are little understood by the author.



Indeed, Christian Kracht’s novel, Imperium, drew both favorable parallels to Conrad and accusatory ones when it debuted in Germany in 2012. One critic, Georg Diez, argued that Kracht’s narrative was essentially right-wing and bigoted; other critics vehemently disagreed. 


The basic outlines of this book invite these musings. Based on the life of August Engelhardt, a turn-of-the-century German nudist and sun-worshiper, Imperium colors well outside the lines of Engelhardt’s life in crafting a lively, tongue-in-cheek South Seas horror tale. In Kracht’s novel, the idealistic young Engelhardt journeys alone to German New Guinea to become a cocovore, convinced as he is that the coconut is the only pure and godly fruit. As the years pass, and his health mysteriously dwindles, the increasingly skeletal Engelhardt becomes paranoid, driving away potential disciples and the Melanesian islanders who’ve generously allowed him to invade their island and even aided him in his coconut operations.


The seeming equation of tropical climes with savagery is magnified by Kracht’s choice to eschew dialogue in favor of pervasive free indirect discourse. Nearly every sentence either describes a character’s words or vocalizes his sentiments, without clearly demarcating this with quotes -- the casually racist and anti-semitic sentiments of many characters included. 





A discourse on why eating a coconut is equivalent to eating the head of God is more comical than stirring.


Sometimes, however, it’s more effective to let people hang themselves with their own rope. Pompous yet silly, verbose yet logically unsound, the musings of Engelhardt and his occasional followers and adversaries invite criticism, and even mockery. A discourse on why eating a coconut is equivalent to eating the head of God is more comical than stirring; it’s hard to take these characters seriously as a threat to democratic society.


Of course, Kracht reminds us to do so, with something less than subtlety, by occasionally pointing out the similarities between Engelhardt and another vegetarian idealist who failed in an artistic career. (Yes, that would be Hitler.) Engelhardt’s sadder, more isolated trajectory allows us to mock his ridiculous theories of purity while retaining a small morsel of sympathy for his agonizing decline.


The title of Kracht’s novel, Imperium, broadly conveys the power of the state over the individual, or the power vested by the state in an individual. This sounds ominous, but the juxtaposition of the extreme isolationist Engelhardt with the extreme fascist Hitler actually cautions against extreme reactions for or against authority. By abandoning society and renouncing capitalism and government, Engelhardt appears less dangerous but no less misguided than his ideological counterpart, the dictator. His work is self-destructive, and ultimately self-devouring; it’s solipsistic to the point of total absurdity.


Kracht, via a wry and engaging translation by Daniel Bowles, has contrived a screed against extremism that is as funny as it is foreboding.


The Bottom Line:


Creepy, unsettling and morbidly funny, Imperium takes the unlikely subjects of South Seas adventure and coconut eating to weave a satirical spin on ideological extremism.


What other reviewers think:


Flavorwire: "A strange, Mephistophelian novel, Kracht’s book is also, by several units of some arcane nautical measurement, one of the slyest and most original works of the last several years."


Publishers Weekly: "Alternately languid and feverish, the narrative is as nutty as Engelhardt's prized foodstuff."


Who wrote it?


Swiss writer Christian Kracht has written four novels, in addition to a career as a journalist and nonfiction writer. His latest novel, Imperium, was published in Germany in 2012 and won the prestigious Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize.


Who will read it?


Lovers of historical adventure and dark satire.


Opening lines:


“Beneath the long white clouds, beneath the resplendent sun, beneath the pale firmament could be heard, first, a prolonged tooting; then the ship’s bell emphatically sounded the midday hour, and a Malaysian boy strode, gentle-footed and quiet, the length of the upper deck so as to wake with a circumspect squeeze of the shoulder those passengers who had drifted off to sleep again just after their lavish breakfast.”


Notable passage:


“After having adjudged all other foodstuffs unclean by process of elimination, Engelhardt had abruptly stumbled upon the fruit of the coconut palm. No other possibility existed; Cocos nucifera was, as Engelhardt had realized on his own, the proverbial crown of creation; it was the fruit of Yggdrasil, world-tree. It grew at the highest point of the palm, facing the sun and our luminous lord God; it gave us water, milk, coconut oil, and nutritious pulp; unique in nature, it provided humankind with the element selenium; from its fibers one wove mats, roofs, and ropes; from its trunk one built furniture and entire houses; from its pit one produced oil to drive away the darkness and to anoint the skin; even the hollowed-out, empty shell made an excellent vessel from which one could manufacture bowls, spoons, tankards, indeed even buttons; burning the empty shell, finally, was not only far superior to burning traditional firewood, but was also an excellent means of keeping away mosquitoes and flies with its smoke; in short, the coconut was perfect. Whosoever subsisted solely on it would become godly, would become immortal. August Engelhardt’s most fervent wish, his destiny in fact, was to establish a colony of cocovores.”


 


Imperium


by Christian Kracht, translated from the German by Daniel Bowles


Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $26.00


Published July 14, 2015


 


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


 


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20 Years Later, Considering The Legacy Of 'Jock Jams,' The 'Red Bull Of Music'

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Get ready for this: "Jock Jams," that high-energy, testosterone-fueled, bro-friendly series of sports-themed music compilations, turns 20 on Saturday. 


On July 25, 1995, the first "Jock Jams" album -- trumpeting a promise of “the hottest crowd-pumping grooves of all time” on its cheerleader-centric cover -- was released and was an almost immediate hit. The record, which combined R&B and dance hits with arena-friendly anthems, went on to go platinum, an extraordinary feat for a music compilation even in the music industry’s healthier days.


The songs on “Jock Jams” were popular in professional sports arenas with good reason. Anthems like the Village People’s “YMCA” and Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll Part 2” engaged with fans and pulled them out of their seats, making them feel intrinsically connected to their team’s fate. These were the songs that soundtracked the communal joy that comes from being surrounded by your friends and fellow fans, cheering on your team as they (hopefully) kick ass on their way to a win.




But how the “Jock Jams” songs really embedded themselves into our collective brainwaves was the way in which they were used far away from the Michael Jordans and the Sammy Sosas of the time. For those who grew up in the ‘90s, the compilations were the soundtrack to tense dodgeball showdowns during grade-school gym classes, or to that first middle-school dance, or to that first time being introduced as part of the starting lineup of their high school’s basketball team. It’s the same reason why newlyweds might select 2 Unlimited’s “Get Ready For This” as the entrance song for their wedding reception or a club DJ today might throw a sample from Snap!’s “The Power” in the middle of a killer set. The songs instantly transport listeners to simpler, jubilant times -- and who wouldn’t want to go there?


With two decades now behind the birth of “Jock Jams,” it’s time to take a trip back to our halcyon days and learn how those triumphant CDs came to be.


 


The Origin Story:
A 'Very Simple, Very Obvious' Idea


 


The idea for "Jock Jams" -- and its older siblings, three volumes of "Jock Rock" -- initially came to Monica Lynch, then-president at Tommy Boy Records, a New York record label known for working with artists including De La Soul, Coolio, Afrika Bambaataa, Queen Latifah and RuPaul, when she was regularly taking in Knicks games at a mid-court box suite the label shared with an investment company at Madison Square Garden in the early 90s. It was an exciting time for the Knicks, with coach Pat Riley and center Patrick Ewing at the helm, and the team made it to the NBA Finals in 1994.


Lynch wondered if that excitement could translate to a compilation album in the vein of its successful "Party to Go" series with MTV.


“To tell you the truth it was just like one of those very simple, very obvious ideas,” Lynch told The Huffington Post. “I would hear the same music being played at the games, all these classic rock and R&B tracks with these organ bits in between, so I thought this stuff would probably be pretty easy to license."



Lynch, who is still working in music today, producing the soundtrack for HBO’s “Bessie” and working on the staff of New York radio station WFMU,  then approached Ray Castoldi, Madison Square Garden’s resident music director since 1989, to ask if he’d be interested in contributing classic organ bits to the CD. Castoldi immediately jumped onboard.


“It’s an idea that had been going around in my head,” Castoldi told HuffPost. “We have all these songs we play at the games from a wide variety of genres but they all seem to work together in the context of making people crazy at sporting events. Why don’t we put them all in one place?”


 


But Was America Ready To Rumble?


 


The key to the series’ success was Tommy Boy Records striking up a partnership with ESPN to help brand and promote the albums via television ads much like MTV had with the label’s "Party to Go" series. This was new ground for both parties -- ESPN had not been in the music business before and the label had never specifically targeted sports fans -- but ESPN was also interested, if not 100 percent confident it’d be a hit.


According to Sharyn Taymor, then-director of enterprises at ESPN, the cable channel was just beginning to branch out into new categories, considering a magazine, Internet presence, video games and radio, among other ideas. But all of those avenues felt more natural than a music compilation series.


“It sounded like a cool idea but we were a little skeptical,” Taymor said. Taymor wasn’t the only one with doubts.


“I thought it was the worst idea,” Steve Knutson, then-director of sales at Tommy Boy, told HuffPost. “I thought it was really stupid. Why would anyone do this, especially a hip-hop label?” 


But the team moved forward, releasing its first "Jock Rock" album in 1994, and selling 500,000 copies, followed by a sequel in 1995. Concurrently, the team was selecting and mixing tracks for the first volume of "Jock Jams" that ranged from stadium classics like “Rock and Roll Part 2” to newer songs that were hits by sound if not by name, like 2 Unlimited’s “Twilight Zone” or Technotronic’s “Pump Up the Jam.” Without Shazam, Spotify or YouTube around at the time, it was much harder to find such tracks.




 


The Anatomy Of A 'Jock Jam'


 


Many of the songs were already hits -- some more than others -- but shared some key qualities qualifying them as a “jock jam." Castoldi helped the Tommy Boy team choose songs that audiences at the Garden for Knicks or Rangers NHL games were responding to.


“It’s got to have a really clear, engaging beat and a certain tempo range that will be a sweet spot -- not too fast, not too slow,” Castoldi said. “These songs are being played back in a big reverb chamber, a sports arena with crowd noise and sound echoing around, so the song can’t be too busy or have too many components because it has to engage the fans. If the song has a part to chant along to or do certain dance moves to, it’s going to have an extra edge.”


Other contributors to the music that landed on "Jock Jams" were surprised to learn their work was being presented in that context. 


“I’d never thought that those songs would be played in sporting events or things like that,” Martha Wash, the Grammy-nominated vocalist of Weather Girls and Sylvester fame who sang on two tracks, Black Box’s “Strike It Up” and C+C Music Factory’s “Gonna Make You Sweat," featured on volume one, told HuffPost. “When I heard it the first time I said, ‘What? Really? Wow, OK.’ That never, ever crossed my mind.”




There was some pushback from ESPN over content that could be deemed as offensive to the network’s audience, Taymor admitted. Today Taymor works as a consultant in cancer survivorship.


Some tracks Tommy Boy pushed for inclusion on "Jock Jams" albums didn’t make the final cut and some songs required tweaks to get ESPN’s approval.


“I was pretty paranoid about it because ESPN was sort of a clean network and the music business wasn’t always like that,” Taymor said. “We had to do a little bit of editing and would always be looking over what they were doing, making sure the final edits were exactly what we agreed upon. But at the end of the day, we’d figure it out and compromise.”


 


Let's Talk About Those Covers


 


When it came to packaging the CD, close attention was paid to a cover design that would be eye-catching, but still family-friendly. They landed on a logo using a font recalling the chenille lettering of a varsity jacket and a bright color palate that was heavy on orange and red.


Their inspiration for the cheerleading squads featured prominently on both the CD jacket and television spot came from a somewhat unusual place: Both Lynch and Knutson of Tommy Boy were big fans of Roxy Music, a British glam rock band known for provocative album covers that typically featured scantily-clad women.


“I always kind of look at us as the TV version of the Roxy Music girls covers, for middle America,” Knutson, who went on to found Audika Records, the Portland, Oregon-based label that’s home to the estate of the late composer and musician Arthur Russell, said. “I think we were not far from that idea.”



 


How Successful Were Those CDs Anyway?
It's Unbelievable


 


According to Tom Silverman, founder and CEO of Tommy Boy, the "Jock Jams" albums were -- at their peak -- providing about 30 percent of the label’s income. Since compilations avoid many of the costs of signing, developing, recording and launching a new artist’s release, a larger chunk of that income was profits.


“It was great, we were selling records to jocks, sports enthusiasts who no one had really targeted before,” Silverman told The Huffington Post. “Kids would buy these things and play them before their own games as psych-up records. It was a different way to use music and people hadn’t thought about music like that. The concept was that this would get you going. It was the Red Bull of music.”


Lynch of Tommy Boy said, they were picking up sales not just from traditional “jocks,” though. The CDs appealed to women who wanted something to listen to on a Discman while working out and provided a tailormade soundtrack for an exercise class.


Once the first volume of "Jock Jams" had sold 100,000 copies, work on the second volume, released in 1996, began. That CD went on to be an even bigger success than the debut, cracking the top 10 of the Billboard chart for the series’ first and only time, thanks in no small part of the inclusion of the year’s best-selling single, “Macarena."


The second volume introduced cheerleader chants between the songs -- like “action, boys, action!” -- and matched the design of the inaugural edition, creating a visual consistency that was carried through all the volumes, reinforcing the brand.


The next volumes that followed between the years 1997 and 1999 did not match the second volume’s numbers, but were still deemed a success by the label. A "Jock Jams" "megamix" mashing up some of the series’ most recognizable hits also climbed the charts. All told, the series sold more than 4 million copies.




 


So, What Happened?


 


But by the time an “all-star” "Jock Jams" was released in 2001, the industry was in tumult. Napster had arrived, popularizing file-sharing in a way that allowed music fans to easily create their own mix CDs — for free. In addition, according to Silverman, who remains at Tommy Boy and also founded the annual New Music Seminar in New York, said the major labels associated with the "Now That’s What I Call Music!" franchise agreed to only license their music to "Now" compilations, which made the licensing for new "Jock Jams" albums next to impossible. 


“It really pissed me off,” Silverman told HuffPost. “To me, it felt like an anti-trust thing. How can four labels make a decision to do that?” 


The canon of sports anthems was slow to adopt new entries, which also made it more challenging to fill the later "Jock Jams" albums with recognizable songs, Silverman added.


Still, many of the songs from the compilations are nearly as popular today as they were 20 years ago, being played not only at sports events, but also turning up at wedding receptions, bar mitzvahs and school dances.



 


Hip Hop Hooray: The Legacy Lives On


 


Castoldi points to recent chart-toppers from the likes of Fall Out Boy, LMFAO and Avicii today as borrowing heavily from the potent micro-genre he helped define.


That the series is still have an influence today is a testament, Castoldi believes, to the songs capturing the spirit of a unique time in music, sports and entertainment history. Castoldi continues to serve as Madison Square Garden’s music director today, and has also directed music for Winter Olympic hockey games and a number of Pro Bowls and NHL All-Star Games.


“It felt like we were doing a New York thing at the beginning. Things were really exciting right here, so let’s document the musical choices we were making,” Castoldi said. “Then to find out that it was a hit all across the country, it was a very special time.”


Silverman agreed. “'Jock Jams' was more than a compilation," Silverman said. "It was trying to capture a state of mind and it did that successfully. The essence of the spirit of baseball that happens between the home runs and strikeouts. It’s a very powerful thing when used the right way.” 


Still, we had to wonder, with all things ‘90s becoming new again, could a "Jock Jams" reboot be in the works? It’s doubtful.


“'Jock Jams' occupied a certain magical moment in music history and I wouldn’t want to besmirch its golden, or platinum, reputation by trying to reboot it,” Lynch said. “We had a really good run. So there’s no anger for me. It’s just not a Jock Jams emotion to have.”


We asked the people behind "Jock Jams" to name their favorite tracks on the compilations, these were many of their picks:



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Cats Are Taking Over Art Museums, Leaving No Feline-Obsessed Prisoners Behind

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If you are a human being with access to the Internet, you've seen a cat video.* The early lolcats, the veteran Lil Bub, the more recent two-legged "bunny cat." Cats have, in the words of one very feline-fascinated museum, taken over our online world.


That museum is the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City. Located in Queens, the institution devoted to film, television and digital art is taking a critical look at phenomena like Caturday, Grumpy Cat and Hamilton the Hispter Cat. 


Titled "How Cats Took Over The Internet," the show will feature cat videos, GIFs and images that reflect our culture's need to constantly anthropomorphize the more stoic species of domesticated animals. In particular, the museum will ponder the popularity of user-generated content. You know, the home video of your kitten Steve attempting to attach a ceiling fan. The one you uploaded to Facebook and later found on Buzzfeed. 



“The Internet’s collective obsession with cats offers a window into the way we understand ourselves," associate curator of digital media Jason Eppink explained in a press statement. "This exhibition examines the many reasons for this deceptively frivolous phenomenon and highlights the new ways we’re creating, consuming, and sharing culture.”



In contrast to the grainy cell phone videos that, let's admit, we watch religiously throughout our nine-to-five existence, there will be several screenings in MOMI's amphitheater, organized by Internet Cat Video Festival curator Will Braden. Part of this will include a Cat-vant Garde Film Show devoted to how cats inspired experimental works (Stan Brakhage's "Nightcats," Kurt Vonnegut's Cat’s Cradle, Carolee Schneemann's "Kitsch’s Last Meal," Joyce Weiland's "Catfood," Pola Chapelle's "How to Draw a Cat").


The higher-brow portion of the show is an homage to the very first avant-garde cat film festival in 1969. It was called "Intercat" and it predated the web. 




The exhibition will also provide a timeline of the meteoric rise of online cat mania, doing what museums do best -- providing a historic representation of this very specific fandom, along with a world map of international animal memes created by The Civic Beat, a collective of researchers and writers focused on civic technology.


"How Cats Took Over The Internet" opens on August 7 and will run until January 31, 2016. If past cat-themed art exhibitions are any indication -- "Life of Cats: Selections from the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Collection," or the art of CatCon -- expect crowds. 


*If you're neither human nor do you have access to the Internet, let me be the first to welcome you to planet Earth, future captors. Let our cat videos serve as peace offerings.


Images courtesy of the Infinite Cat Project.


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Capturing A Lost Generation In Nothing But Their Bathing Suits

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South African photographer Carla Liesching (born in 1985) recently decided to shoot dozens of her peers, in countries and cultures from all over the world, dressed in nothing but their bathing suits. Only the backgrounds are neither beaches, nor oceans, nor breath-taking panoramas.


Instead, Liesching sets her subjects against abandoned factories, motionless waters, fields of grain and rough urban landscapes. Her 30-year-olds stare into the camera lens, their eyes lost and empty. Between those colourful bathing suits and the cold backgrounds, the viewer can perceive a state somewhere between dream and reality, between hope and the present.


“Maybe they’re swimmers because the world is an ocean, or maybe because they don’t have a home, and they’re fish out of water. In either case, they are solitary characters who are exploring unknown territory. They’re vagabonds on a voyage that reaches beyond the sea,” explains Liesching when describing the 25 young men and women she chose for her project, titled “The Swimmers.”


Working with these “models,” Liesching portrays the generation of the 21st century: a generation born tired, disillusioned, deprived of stability. This not due to any fault of their own, but because they’ve grown up in a world that has changed too quickly and is losing all of its points of reference along the way.


“Our era is sick with disillusionment. It’s an illness that affects everything, even our power structures. Our sense of instability is increased by the fractures dividing contemporary families, the individual members of which are often split up across different continents,” explains the South African photographer. Before initiating this series, Liesching spent a great deal of time observing the sea surrounding her native city, Cape Town. For her, the sea was the best possible way to represent arrivals and departures, unions and separations; a splendid imaginary line that divides people from one another. “If the ocean is both a barrier and a method of passage, then swimmers are those who remain caught in that limbo, the borders of which are continuously being erased and redrawn,” says Liesching.


This is the reason why these young people are portrayed both at sea and in cities, in front of their homes, often holding objects they are particularly fond of in their hands. It’s a way of underlining their desire to belong, their need for identity, while they live -- naked -- before the whole world.


This article originally appeared on HuffPost Italy and has been translated from Italian. 


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What's It Like To Come Out On Reality TV?

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Faith didn't expect to come out on a dating competition, or maybe even at all.


Her eyes swell up with fear when "Everlasting" producer Rachel asks if she has feelings for her best friend Amy during her home date in Mississippi. Faith sees the statement as something far more potent than the reality TV admission Rachel hopes will make a juicy scene in the show's next episode. For Faith, even thinking about being gay is a confession to God himself.


"I love Amy," she finally says, a grin spreading across her face. She's overwhelmed with relief, momentarily removed from the possible impact of coming out again that night for the cameras.


It's a poignant moment in "Truth," Episode 5 of the premiere season of "UnREAL" -- a powerful reminder that, even as marriage equality is approved by the Supreme Court, and general acceptance skyrockets beyond bigotry's grasp, coming out can still be a daunting experience. The Huffington Post spoke to actor Breeda Wool about playing the character of Faith, her powerful scene in "Truth" and the importance of LGBT narratives on TV.



How did you get the part of Faith? What was the audition process like?


My audition scene was the scene in the pilot where the Shia says, "Okay, we want you to talk about being a virgin." So, the scene was that moment where I realized that I was going to have to admit I was a virgin on camera. [I realized] that everyone -- my family, my grandmother, my community -- would see this moment where I'm exposing my sexual past. 


I really identified with the role. The idea of having secrets and not being about to control your exposure was exciting. I knew there would be a lot I'd get to play with. 


What did you know about the character going in? Did you know Faith was gay? 


I had a lot of suspicions. I talked to [co-creator] Sarah Gertrude Shapiro after the audition. The character was originally quite masculine. That masculinity was transformed into a sort of awkwardness, but originally, I was in a male world, more comfortable with a masculine presence, than, you know, wearing heels and a sweeping gown. 


What was your experience of navigating Faith's coming out in "Truth"? How did you think about that scene in terms of its impact on audiences of "UnREAL"?


Well, I knew that my arc was something that a lot of people go through. So, I had a mission to identify with and express it as truthfully as I could. I knew that if I made myself into a caricature or played with any personal judgement of any kind that I would be doing a disservice to people all around the country. I felt from the start that I needed to tell that story poignantly and honestly. 



Reality TV can be exploitative and "UnREAL" has been quite condemning of that, but for Faith, at least on a personal level, it seems the experience has been largely positive.


Yeah, I'm the one character that really gets a lot out of being on the show. Well, so far! We have to watch some more episodes. But I have this wonderful opportunity where I get to be exposed freely and it opens up this whole new door. I mean, in the story God can see my thoughts. I've lived an entire life where even my thoughts of love toward Amy are unholy. So, just an admittance and acceptance that God could still love me is a massive theological revelation. 


There's a cynical undercurrent to the question of her publicly coming out, though. We experience Faith's relief, but it's still unclear if she will ever be able to tell her community.


There is really a question of whether I will go back to my community. You know, will they accept me? Can I teach about acceptance and understanding? There's so much in the Bible that you could choose to follow dogmatically. The issue of homosexuality is actually chosen by Faith's community. It's not actually decided by the Bible; it's an interpretation of the Bible. There's so much other stuff that communities choose to neglect or leave out while highlighting what's best. When I was shooting it felt like the hopes and dreams of her future versus the reality of the situation coming to a crossroads. It was really tragic. 



Now that the episode has aired, what kind of reactions have you been getting? 


I've been getting a lot of really positive feedback! I think as an actor, the best you can do is get people to believe. The best feedback you can get is that people relate to the story that you made. I worked really hard and I feel like people identify with Faith's story, whether they have that particular personal experience in their life or not.


An even greater goal for me is to have people be able to identify with that story when it's not their story at all. You know, it's important for people who might have opinions about [being gay] or parameters about love just watching somebody coming from a place where they came come out, where their culture won't accept them. To have people identify with that from all walks of life is something that I was going for. As an actor, it's a great accomplishment. 


It's important to have nuanced gay characters on TV. How do you think Faith's fits into the rise of LGBT representation?


I completely agree. I feel like the biggest story is somebody making decisions in their life, deciding what is best for them and what is truthful to them as opposed to what their parents or their church or their culture is telling them they should do. I think that's a universal story. What Faith feels she should do is not necessarily authentic, true and real to who she is as person. She learns to accept that and that's a story I really wanted to help tell.


This interview has been edited and condensed.


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Envy All Of The Birds With This Stunning Series Of Aerial Photos

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"Once you have tasted flight," Leonardo da Vinci once said, "you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."


Leo uttered these poignant words long before the rise of photography, but we feel like the uncanny experience of seeing the world from a bird's-eye view qualifies as tasting. 



Today, we're ogling the many photographers out there who expand our perspectives through their soaring vantage points. Whether peering across an expansive desert, a checkerboard of urban rooftops or a convoluted knot of freeways, there's something both empowering and humbling about seeing the world from up above. 


Photographers from around the world submitted their best aerial shots through our Eyeem Challenge. See some of our favorites below, and soar through the clouds without even leaving your laptop. 




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Perfume Genius Embraces His Fears To Find A Bigger Sound

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It’s been almost a year since Seattle-based singer-songwriter Mike Hadreas, who performs under the stage name Perfume Genius, took perhaps the biggest risk of his career to date.


Following two critically-acclaimed albums of down-tempo, piano-centric confessional indie pop -- 2010’s “Learning” and 2012’s “Put Your Back N 2 It” -- Hadreas took a different approach with his latest release, “Too Bright.”


While the songs on “Too Bright” still explore deeply personal themes that often relate back to Hadreas’ gay identity, the production has been turned up several notches. With high-profile collaborators like Adrian Utley (Portishead) and John Parish (PJ Harvey) on board, elements like Suicide-esque synths and Goblin-flavored percussion entered the equation, all topped off with a heavy dose of Freddie Mercury flourish.


The end result is thrilling, particularly when presented in a live context. Hadreas played Chicago’s Pitchfork Music Festival last weekend was no exception. 


Hadreas took the stage and shared that someone had told him to remove his lipstick during his walk to the stage, to which he responded, "No, I could have told him 'no' forever." Then, he launched into the raw, bruising “My Body.” The song sees the singer channelling Harvey at her grittiest, delivering blunt declarations like “I wear my body like a rotted peach / You can have it if you handle the stink,” while strutting across the stage in a style that screams "deal with it.” 


While all that might come as a surprise to fans more familiar with Perfume Genius’ quieter, stripped-down songs from his early work, the progression feels natural to Hadreas, who wrote the newer songs with the intention of pushing him beyond what may have felt more comfortable.


It wasn’t immediately easy to translate the new songs onto the stage, Hadreas admitted in an interview backstage.


“I tried to sing notes I’m scared to try to reach and I tried to ‘act as if’ a little bit,” Hadreas told The Huffington Post. “The first couple shows were a little shaky as far as not knowing how to move or if sound was going to come out when I screamed, but now I feel like a lot of those things are second nature to me. But I’m not, like, the super 100-percent confident front man. I phase in and out of bravado.”


The more aggressive approach is also reflected in the videos released for “Too Bright” singles “Queen” and “Grid,” both of which present stirring and disturbing interpretations of the songs’ content. In “Grid,” Hadreas is surrounded by faceless, pulsating bodies wearing silver bodysuits while he admires himself in a hand mirror and opens his legs wide to the pulsating beat. It’s a video so strange Kate Bush would be proud.


He plans to aim higher with more visual projects in the future. 




“I love the videos I’ve made but it’d be nice to up it a little more and do something longer-form,” Hadreas explained. “One of my favorite movies of the last five or 10 years is called ‘Dogtooth’ by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos. If I made a movie I would want it to be something like that. Everything’s in there, really disturbing moments, really laugh-out-loud moments and there’s touching moments. I like things that have everything all at once.”


It is perhaps that feeling-all-the-feelings, work-in-progress vibe that makes Hadreas’ music both so unusual and so appealing, particularly to those who relate to feeling like an outsider.


Though Hadreas freely admits he doesn’t have it all figured out yet, he’s happy to be taking his fans along for the journey. 


“I keep making the music I do because I feel very purposeful about making things that would be helpful or quell some loneliness in people,” Hadreas said. “I really needed that when I listened to music growing up and even now so I don’t mind that sense of duty.”


Hadreas’ own journey began in the suburbs of Seattle, where he first came out as gay to himself around the age of 12, and to family and friends after that. One singer in particular played a big role as he came to terms with his sexual identity.


“Liz Phair I think was the first music I listened to that really hit that specific note,” Hadreas said. “I heard her music and she unashamedly singing about blow jobs and sexuality, things I hadn’t even had the confidence to Google yet. … I had never heard that word sung or said let alone by a woman and singing it such a powerful, strong way. That was the closest thing I had to hearing my kind of ‘shame’ being told shamelessly.”


He was the only out gay person in his high school and, sick of being tormented, ended up dropping out during his senior year. He eventually wound up in New York City, where he began drinking in excess and doing “a Chinese buffet” of drugs. It wasn’t until after he returned back home to the Seattle area and checked himself into rehab that he wrote his first song, “Learning.”




He posted that song and the others that followed to a Myspace page beginning in 2008 and eventually caught the eye of Matador Records, his musical home ever since. 


Though the life of a musician touring the world is not the most conducive to sobriety -- and the majority of  artists who end up in rehab do so after their big break, not before -- Hadreas says he “wouldn’t have it any other way.” 


“I’m glad I did it backwards because I wouldn’t have made it to my shows or made the second album I think if I was still drinking and doing drugs," he said. "Not everyone is like that, but, for me, personally, nothing came from me -- no music, no going to work on time -- out of doing that.”


Hadreas presses on with his music and, after a marathon of concerts and festival appearances, he’s ready to head home to get back to writing new music, spending time with his mom and his dog and -- one would hope -- maintaining his always-entertaining social media presence, including Twitter commentary on marriage equality, Internet trolls and pop culture.


In addition to having what he calls a Ben Affleck “obsession,” he’s also, it turns out, something of a dedicated Netflix reviewer:


“There was one time I flagged every ‘Brokeback Mountain’ review on Netflix that was negative, I was like ‘not helpful’ and I spent like an hour doing it and I wrote a really serious review about it,” Hadreas said. “It's hard for me not to get really sensitive. I don’t brush things off like that very easily. I think my music kind of gives that [defensiveness] a direction and a point to it, not just directionless anger at something.”

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'It Takes Us' Photo Project Shows Survivors Of Gun Violence

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As the nation reels from yet another high-profile gun violence tragedy -- this time in a movie theater in Louisiana -- photographer Joe Quint was, sadly, not surprised. 

 

"We’ve come to accept [gun violence] as tragic and awful and a part of life, but no one expects to be sitting in a movie theater and watching a comedy and someone stands up and starts shooting," Quint told The Huffington Post Friday. "That’s not normal."

 

Despite the abnormality of the experience, Americans "haven’t had the collective shift in consciousness yet to rise up with a unified voice and say ‘enough'," Quint said.

 


Akeal Christopher, 14, was shot and killed on his way home from a party in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. His mother Natasha is pictured hugging her other son. Bars, stores and bodegas were open at the time of the shooting but no one has stepped forward to identify the shooter.


 

Quint reached his breaking point about a year and a half ago, after the Isla Vista shooting near the University of California-Santa Barbara that left seven people, including the gunman, dead. Compelled to act, Quint started photographing gun violence survivors -- the people left behind by fatal shootings of loved ones -- for his ongoing project, "It Takes Us." 

 

Its purpose is twofold: Help viewers personally connect to the stories of gun violence and ensure they don't forget and become complacent with the issue. He hopes the result will spur people to take action, and one day render his project might unneeded.

 

"I want people to see their story and the story of their family in the other [victims] so they get inspired to get off the sidelines and take action,” Quint said. “This isn’t photography for photography’s sake."

 

His timing couldn't be more apt. Less than 24 hours before the exhibition made its New York City debut in June, nine people were shot to death in a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina.

 

Quint said gun violence is commonly invoked as a problem for urban areas -- think Baltimore, Detroit or Chicago. But other, arguably more pervasive, instances of gun violence are everywhere. Instead of city shootings, they take the form of domestic violence, suicide or children having accidents with guns in the home.  


Myzinae and Whitney still regularly visit the corner where Akeal, Myzinae's boyfriend, was killed more than two years ago.


 

“It’s such a diverse story and it really cuts across all facets of society,” Quint said. “We can’t simply say ‘oh, that happens to those people in those neighborhoods. It happens in churches, it happens in neighborhoods, in movie theaters, in parks. It’s an epidemic."

 


The long-term impact on gun violence survivors is profound. For some, the Fourth of July is an especially difficult day, with fireworks prompting flashbacks of gunfire. One woman Quint photographed told him certain smells take her back to her post-shooting surgery. 

 

"Aside from whatever medical issues that they carry with them for the rest of their life, there’s a trauma that’s associated with it every time there’s another shooting, like last night,” Quint said. 

 

See more photos from "It Takes Us" below.


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Bill Cosby Lawyer Made Bizarre Comparison To D.C. Police Conduct Case

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WASHINGTON -- To help combat a damaging deposition in which he admitted that he gave Quaaludes to younger women before having sex with them, Bill Cosby has added Washington lawyer Monique Pressley to his defense team. In recent days, Pressley has done damage control for the comedian, spinning the revelations from the deposition as mere cherry-picking and inaccurate.


Pressley has also suggested that the mere fact that dozens of women have come forward with rape allegations is not proof of her client's guilt. But this past December, during a panel discussion on the rape allegations, the attorney's belief in Cosby's innocence wasn't so absolute.


"You'll have some people who will come forward and join the bandwagon," she said in a discussion on NewsOne. "If you know the police department messed up in a certain park on a certain day, you'll have 30 people who'll come forward to cash in who weren't even there, who were at lunch across the street, who were looking from the window."


Pressley appeared to be referencing her tenure in the District of Columbia's Office of the Attorney General, during which she unsuccessfully defended the city against a class-action lawsuit stemming from the 2002 mass arrest of individuals in Pershing Park near the White House.


In her admission that the "police department messed up," she seemed to be suggesting that there was similarly a basis for a claim against Cosby. In other words, Pressley was suggesting that not all of his accusers were liars. It was just that some of them might be lying or climbing aboard "the bandwagon" of actual victims.


The Pershing Park case was clear-cut. The arrests by D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, with an assist from the U.S. Park Police, took place on the first day of anti-globalization demonstrations. The police rounded up nearly everyone in the park without warning or probable cause. Roughly 400 were arrested, including people who had just wandered over to the area. All the charges against those arrested were ultimately dropped. 




The incident sparked lawsuits and police reforms. The class-action case eventually settled for $8.25 million and the city agreeing to meaningful policy changes.


Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, an attorney and co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, who represented the plaintiffs in that case, sees Pressley's quote comparing the Cosby case to the Pershing Park case as a concession.


“It’s a telling admission of the validity of the underlying claim of illegal conduct by Cosby," she said. “It’s an admission of the legitimacy of the claim.”


Pressley, who did not return multiple requests for comment, only recently began making media appearances as a spokeswoman for Cosby. The panel discussion appears to have taken place before she was hired.


"My primary focus is to try to ensure that the reporting by the media is paying attention to the facts" in Cosby's latest legal filings, Pressley told USA Today this week. "I am the highlighter, pointing to these facts: There has been no charge of criminal conduct, no conviction and no admission of criminal conduct by Mr Cosby."

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This Dragon Is Carved Out Of A Watermelon, And It's INTENSE

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Well, this certainly puts your vodka-soaked watermelon trick to shame.


Valeriano Fatica, whose Facebook bio describes him as a painter, sculptor, performer and carver of fruits and vegetables, carves a slew of different faces and objects into the likes of watermelons and pumpkins. 


For his most recent project, Fatica replicated the head of a dragon into a long watermelon, complete with intricate scales and precisely detailed eyes.


Carving a ferocious animal into a beloved summer fruit is cool enough on its own, but the badass music in this video doesn't hurt, either. 


Head to Fatica's YouTube page to see more of his stunning artwork in action. 


Also on HuffPost Taste:


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Guy Gets Train To Sing Along To 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow'

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Somewhere, over the rainbow, commuters aren't sandwiched on a train.


But on a dreary morning in Perth, Australia, earlier this week, they were quietly standing shoulder-to-shoulder, undoubtedly going to great lengths to avoid awkward eye contact. That's when kindhearted prankster Peter Sharp piped up from the front of the car:


“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," he opened. "I’d like to contribute to this train ride by saying thank you. Thank you for waking up so early on this cold, wintry morning. Thank you for deciding to come out of your warm, cozy homes to make your way to work. Thank you for working to provide for your families, for your friends, for your futures."


Video of the incident shows nervous riders glancing around, perhaps wondering what they'll be asked to purchase as a captive audience. Instead, Sharp begins handing out lyrics to "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and invites fellow commuters to join him in singing, "because it's not what we have, it's what we enjoy that brings happiness."


As a hidden ukulele player starts strumming the chords, Sharp starts singing. Commuters awkwardly join in, muttering the lyrics politely, albeit with quiet hesitation.


Fast forward three minutes and the whole car is singing loudly and smiling as both the song and the train reach their natural stopping points.


In a blog accompanying the video, Sharp acknowledged that he and his group, The Liberators, planted a few folks in the car to help get the ball rolling, but not many.


"More than 60 percent of the passengers who sung along were complete strangers," said Michelle, one of the "Liberators." "We sung the entire song, progressively gaining confidence and participants as we went. When we finished an uproar of positive emotion, claps, cheers and smiles came streaming from the people."


The Perth singalong is one of the group's more successful stunts so far, Sharp told the Sydney Morning Herald. They hope to orchestrate similar "spontaneous acts of joy" in five other cities in Europe, he said.


"It created this electricity in the air and when we got off the train there were just smiles beaming from all of the people on the train," Sharp told the paper. "We had one of our mates stay on the train a few extra stops to see the impact after we left. People wished each other a nice day after we had gone which was great."


How's that for a rainbow connection?



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Read The Poem Bringing Happiness To People Across The World

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This uplifting poem is opening hearts all over the world, from the Hasidic Jewish community of New York to the streets of London. Its cross-cultural message? That we can choose happiness each and every day by adjusting our point of view. 


And its journey from a high school girl's pen to viral fame by way of a London bar and a downbeat Facebook status is pretty cool too. 


A snapshot of the poem went viral on TwitterReddit and Imgur, where it was viewed 1.3 million times. Check it out below. 





 


It's awesome because it quite literally shows how changing your perspective can change your feelings. Research suggests that external events don't control our happiness so much as our attitude, meaning we can actively cultivate joy and fulfillment.


ABC6 reports that the poem is the work of Chanie Gorkin, an 11th-grade girl from Crown Heights' Hasidic Jewish community. She posted the poem on Poetry Nation, and her mother shared it on Facebook


Next, the poem cheered up Zachery Stephenson, an events promoter at London music venue Nambucca. He posted what he calls a "disappointed FB status," and a Facebook friend shared the poem in response. 


"I thought it was profoundly uplifting," he told The Huffington Post. He deleted his negative post, printed out the poem and stuck it on Nambucca's wall. That's where Ronnie Joice took the photo he tweeted. 


So what does Chanie think about her poem's popularity? Her father told us that she's working as a summer camp counselor out of state, and communication has been spotty. 


"It seems to me that she is very gratified to have helped make so many people's day a little better," he said. 

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Mysterious Twitter Account Revealing A First Look At 'Spider-Man' Appears To Be Fake

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Our Spidey senses aren't tingling anymore.


Marvel fans everywhere were collectively freaking out over a mysterious Twitter account that appeared to be run by "Captain America: Civil War" directors, the Russo brothers, and is sending out cryptic tweets, including what appears to be a first look at the new Spider-Man suit. Unfortunately, that may not be the case:





Another tease appeared to make a reference to Spider-Man's high school, Midtown High, aka Public School 108:





And there are other mysterious images as well:





Though the account is unverified, its high-profile followers seemed to confirm its legitimacy. Reportedly, these included Jason Stamey, who has worked in casting on the Marvel movies, and Ryan Stankevich, vice president of global publicity for Disney.


Despite all that, according to "Guardians of the Galaxy" director James Gunn, it appears it may just be a big ruse:





Then, just to make sure there was no confusion, he tweeted out basically the same thing again, clarifying why he's the one denying the account:





Reps for the Russo brothers said they're filming and unavailable for comment, and the Twitter account doesn't seem to be replying to anyone who has questions.


But if it's not the Russo bros, who's behind all these mysterious tweets? It's pretty obvious, isn't it?


It's Loki! The God of Lies!




Ha! Nice one, Loki! You were obviously mad you got cut from "Avengers: Age of Ultron" and devised this diabolical plan to waste our time like director Joss Whedon wasted yours. Well played, sir. Well played.


Or, you know, it could totally be someone else. The mystery continues ...


H/T BMD


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Brides' Maui Elopement And Underwater Shoot Are What Dreams Are Made Of

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Australian couple Amanda Joy and Kara Voznaks eloped on the beach in Maui in July in a beautifully simple barefoot ceremony.

 


Credit: Love and Water Photography 



Credit: Love and Water Photography 


Same-sex marriage still isn't legal in Australia, so the couple decided to say their "I dos" during their Hawaii trip instead. They didn't tell any friends or family about their wedding plans until the day before the nuptials. 


Credit: Love and Water Photography 


"It was just simpler and more relaxed that way!"Amanda told The Huffington Post. "It was time just for the two of us." 


 


Credit: Love and Water Photography 



Credit: Love and Water Photography 


The day after the wedding, the newlyweds and their photographer Adam Ravazzano of Love and Water Photography took a boat out to the Molokini Crater for a stunning underwater trash-the-dress shoot. 

 


Credit: Love and Water Photography 



Credit: Love and Water Photography 

"The boat dropped anchor and we literally jumped off the side into the ocean!" Amanda said. "It appears quite deep but was actually only just a couple of meters below the surface." 

 


Credit: Love and Water Photography 



Credit: Love and Water Photography 


Both brides are certified divers, but going under without oxygen tanks was a challenge.

 


Credit: Love and Water Photography 

"I think we must have dove under about 20 times in 20 minutes," Amanda told HuffPost. "But it was worth every second when we saw the outcome!"

 


Credit: Love and Water Photography 


Check out some more gorgeous photos from the couple's big day below:





 

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