"Star Wars" fans found themselves in nerf-herder heaven during Sunday's American Music Awards. A new teaser debuted, the movie's first clip premiered and Harrison Ford introduced a Pentatonix tribute to John Williams' famous score.

The clip, an extension of a scene featured in the "Force Awakens" trailers, shows Finn (John Boyega) and Rey (Daisy Ridley) running alongside BB-8 toward an explosion.

The new trailer comprises mostly footage seen in previous promos, but pay attention for a few new shots, including a character that, as Entertainment Weekly points out, looks a lot like Lando Calrissian’s Battle of Endor co-pilot, Nien Nunb. 

Pentatonix, dressed in garb reminiscent of characters like PrincessGeneral Leia and Finn, sang the "Star Wars" title music before a full-scale orchestra joined for a medley of Williams' score. The AMAs convinced Ford to introduce the performance, but there's no word on how quickly his car pulled up to the arena to whisk him home right after. 

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A bunch of your favorite actors are about to annihilate the banks whose fraudulent practices led to the late-2000s financial crisis. You always knew Brad Pitt was a plainclothes superhero, right? Imagine what he can do with Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Christian Bale all working to kick these banks in the teeth. 

They star in "The Big Short," based on Michael Lewis' 2010 book of the same name. The Huffington Post has an exclusive new trailer for the film, in which we meet the hedge-fund managers and analysts who predicted the collapse. Presented as a sharp-tongued comedy directed by frequent Will Ferrell collaborator Adam McKay, "The Big Short" co-stars Melissa Leo, Hamish Linklater, Finn Wittrock, John Magaro and Marisa Tomei. It opens in limited release on Dec. 11 and wide release on Dec. 23. 

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When artist Joe Coleman lost his mother, he honored her legacy with what he referred to in an interview as a "pretty intense funeral ritual." 

The performance, inspired by sideshow tradition, took place at an art theater, the Boston Film and Video Arts Foundation. Audience members stared at a paper screen plastered with projections of old 1950s pornographic films and images. "Projected on that screen were porno images of the sexual act -- the act that created me," Coleman explained. "So it was sort of like the big bang, theory of creation."

Even bigger of a bang occurred moments later, when Coleman burst through the screen, hanging upside down on a harness, and then exploded himself in mid-air above the audience. "The harness is like the umbilical cord. My wife at the time cut the harness, which is what the wife does, with the connection to the mother."

To conclude the ritual, there were rats. "I bit the heads off these two mice that were named mommy and daddy. Mommy's head I swallowed because I wanted to incorporate her, because of my problems with my father I spat his head out."

Pretty intense, indeed. 

Though he's made quite the impression in performance, Joe Coleman is primarily a painter, whose work goes heavy on the pain. The artist is known for his meticulously rendered portraits of outlaws, criminals and goddesses, ranging from bombshell Jayne Mansfield to serial killer Ed Gein. The works have been praised by notable individuals including mega-dealer Larry Gagosian and sinister cult leader Charles Manson, who said of Coleman's work: "His art is something else. Praise! Praise! He’s a caveman in a spaceship!"

Coleman's portraits, never sketched or planned out in advanced, are teeming with detail like an infestation, combining images, text and three-dimensional relics to yield dynamic biographies of his subjects. He works approximately eight hours to fill a square inch of canvas, using a two-hair brush and a jeweler's magnifying lens to perfectly plot every microscopic brushstroke. His most recent piece, a life-size portrait of his wife Whitney, took four years to create. 

Coleman was brought up in an Irish Catholic household in Norwalk, Connecticut. His father was a veteran and "somewhat of an artist," according to Coleman. "He did these paintings of lighthouses and ocean scenes that he would often use to pay his bar tab. My mother pretty much supported the family since he had a hard time holding down a job." She worked as a secretary.

Coleman's first art-related memory occurred at St. Mary's Church, where the Coleman family would go for Sunday mass. One day, Coleman's mother passed him a pad, pencil and box of crayons to occupy the time. That was when he noticed the stations of the Cross represented in relief all around him, leading up to the altar. Coleman realized the entire congregation was worshipping a violent depiction of Jesus being brutally tortured. And he was moved. "There was something holy about the violence that we -- or at least I -- was experiencing there," Coleman said in an interview with Susanne Pfeffer. Coleman copied the image. The only color he needed from the crayon box was red.

"There was something about the pain and the suffering and the violence that somehow drew me to it," Coleman told The Huffington Post in a phone interview. "There was a lot of pain at home and maybe it was a representation of that, but in a way that was removed from the actual source, so it could be some kind of symbolically expressed version of personal suffering."

Not long after, his mother gifted him a book on the work of Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. Coleman's work clearly draws from Bosch's fastidious attention to detail, and taste for all things nightmarish and bizarre. Which is to say, it was a very good gift. 

In youth, Coleman was also fascinated by P.T. Barnum, whose Barnum Festival was located just next door to Coleman in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Coleman recalls the mummies and "deformed babies" that occupied the Barnum tents and museums. Coney Island, wax museums and sideshow culture also made their mark, much of which is evidenced by the funeral rite mentioned above. 

And speaking of funerals, Coleman also had a brief stint conducting autopsies in Budapest, Hungary. You can see related footage in the '90s documentary "Rest in Pieces" chronicling Coleman's work. "The dissection was about learning the anatomy, but doing the autopsies was, for me, an attempt to find a trace of the soul in the body."

When asked about what exactly he was looking for in those autopsies, Coleman responded: "As I talk to you I'm looking at my own hand. I can see the flesh and I can see the blood vessels and some of the protrusions of the bones. It moves at my will, but when does that stop? What makes this meat ... what gives it life? That's something I've always been fascinated by. What is this amazing thing that is life?"

Whatever he was looking for, he didn't find it. 

Unrelated to his quest for the soul, Coleman isn't religious anymore. His mother was excommunicated from the church after getting a divorce, and Coleman soon became disillusioned with the contradictions he found embedded in Christian rhetoric. These days he doesn't believe in a capital "G" God. He believes in gods. 

"I was brought up, like much of America, with this idea of one all good God," Coleman said. "But in previous cultures there were many different gods that would encompass the many different aspects of humanity, gods of rage, jealousy, war." Coleman describes his subjects as modern incarnates of gods and goddesses, whether figures of violence like notorious child killer Mary Bell, or figures of sexualized celebrity, like Anna Nicole Smith.

"There is something about Jane Mansfield and Anna Nicole Smith that embodied this goddess figure," said Coleman. "They are worshipped as goddesses by the culture. People collect artifacts about them; they're celebrated in a way that the Greek gods were. You're not allowed to formally worship them in a church, but society needs these gods. So they're nevertheless made into these deities which are necessary in our collective subconscious. Whether we're allowed to or not, we will make them."

Coleman's theory may provide solace to those who feel inexplicably compelled to follow the Kult of Kardashian. They too, in Coleman's eyes, are goddesses of our time. "To me they are not as fascinating as either Jane or Anna Nicole. But nevertheless, by the fact that they are worshipped makes them worthy. Why is that? What is our need and what does that say about us? It hasn't inspired me to paint them yet but I don't know what the future will hold. I might." 

If Coleman ever did decide to paint the Kardashian ladies, they'd be far from the most reviled subjects in his portfolio. From Manson to Bell to Albert Fish, Coleman's subjects are often the most unsavory kinds of legends, those whose names are whispered rather than said, names immortalized thanks to gruesome acts of violence. He calls these subjects the "losers of society." 

"I'm not trying to free anyone or lessen the atrocity," Coleman clarifies. "What I'm trying to do is exorcise the pain and the horror and the suffering. Going back to my Catholicism, I was brought up with this idea about the holiness of suffering. The great saints of Catholicism suffered these great atrocities -- their eyes gauged out, their breasts cut off, Christ himself being nailed to a cross. There is horrible suffering there but there is something being left out of that story and that is the shadow self. What about that Roman soldier who nailed Christ to the cross? That's a story of great pain too. That needs to be exorcised."

It's risky business to provide a platform of immortal visibility for history's most notorious monsters. "Then again..." says the girl who's mid-way through KCRW's "Charles Manson's Hollywood" podcast. Maybe there is something within us that's inexplicably pulled to the darkness of these clearly tortured individuals, something interested in how they chose to confront the cruelty of the world we all inhabit.

"I try to go into it without making any kind of judgment at all," Coleman reiterated. "I try to identify with the subjects, it's a little bit akin to method acting. I take aspects of myself that connect with the subject, try to put myself in their place and try not to make any judgment at all. I try to let them speak through me. I am just a vessel."

An obedient vessel he is. Gazing upon one of Coleman's jam-packed paintings feels, in a way, like looking at a slab of meat and slowly realizing it's swarming with ants. The longer you stare, the more minuscule marks and specifics come to the surface. Some details are so small they can't be processed by the human eye. 

Over the years he's spent painting, Coleman has grown more precise in his movements, adept in his ability to draft a painted world as detailed as the one we live in. "My fingers move in tinier brushstrokes and I'm looking for more and more information on the surface. While the works are getting bigger and bigger, the brushstrokes are getting tinier and tinier. My fingers used to move an inch and now they move like one twelfth of an inch."

Coleman views each work, in a sense, as an unorthodox biography. While a book progresses page by page, or a film scene by scene, Coleman's visual compendiums come at you all at once, adhering to whatever logic or chronology the viewer employs. "It's up to you to journey in whatever direction you feel," he says, "and everyone will experience the painting differently. The more you look into it the more it reveals itself to you."

His favorite subject of late is his wife of fifteen years, Whitney, a blonde knockout whose become both his partner and muse. His life-size portrait of her will be on view during Art Basel Miami Beach next month, but his earlier works include "Love Song," an ode to their blossoming courtship. Not surprisingly, Coleman's love song is far from the sentimental Hallmark romance you'd expect from most heart-eyed lovers. For starters, there are cameos by king of sideshow Ward Hall, "bearded lady" Percilla Bejano, a sadistic dentist and a snapshot of Joe conducting an autopsy. Along with personal images and text recounting Joe and Whitney's budding relationship, the piece is adorned with absurdist personal objects like Whitney's blood and an old cyst Joe had removed. On the back of the painting, a piece of fabric is draped around the painting's backside -- it's a sheet they once had sex on.

Encountering the painting feels like uncovering a banal yet loaded relic in your back pocket, and encouraging the memories that, once galvanized, gush out. "There are both these fetish objects and the actual painting narrative, the magic elements with the narrative elements," Coleman explains. 

Coleman is the kind of bona fide artist a kid would dream up, though perhaps in a nightmare, from his curly-cue mustache and propensity for black clothing to his relentless obsession with capturing the world's visible and invisible elements in increasingly exact detail. He's an outsider fiercely devoted to his fellow outsiders, though equally intrigued by the universal elements of suffering and fantasy that shape us all. He's both artist and artwork, ringleader and freak. "I live my art," Coleman says. "Every moment of my life is part of my art. All of it. I can't separate. Life is theater, for me."

See Coleman's work at Deitch and Gagosian's upcoming exhibition "Unrealism," in the Moore Building in the Miami Design Districtduring the week of Art Basel Miami Beach, December 3 to December 6. 

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It's like the tale of a superhero: By day, Gonzalo García Calvo is a musician in Madrid, but by night, he's an amateur origami artisan. 

You might be familiar with the art of origami from reading Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes in elementary school, or from folding our own clumsy frogs and cranes and flowers as kids. But the vast array of objects and creatures that can be summoned from one piece of origami paper is truly unfathomable to the non-expert.

There's no design too complicated and out-there for Calvo to attempt; he says it takes around "three hours for a complex model, and maybe more for the most detailed ones." At this point, he's been practicing his folds for four years.

Calvo told The Huffington Post via email, "I find it fascinating that by changing the steps in the folding process you end up with a totally different model, so in essence, a square of paper has inside of it all the possibilities to be anything you can imagine."

As demanded by the rules of the art form, only folding of the paper is allowed to achieve the stunning transformations, making the results all the more remarkable. "You can fold almost anything with a single square of paper without gluing or cutting it," he said.

While Calvo conjures tiny violins, flowers and skulls from paper squares, the vast majority of his pieces are animals. "I love animals, and sometimes I see how they act or move, and then I feel the need to represent that in some way," he explained. "I want to capture a feeling."

Check out more of his folded creations below, and on his Flickr.

HT This Is Colossal

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Photographer Ceridwen Hughes hopes her latest project will enhance the lives of children with rare conditions and disabilities.

Hughes' 8-year-old son Isaac has Moebius syndrome, a neurological condition that causes facial paralysis and affects between 1 in 50,000 and 1 in 500,000 newborns. As a result, she told The Huffington Post, his face "looks a bit different."

Isaac wasn't diagnosed with Moebius syndrome until he was 8 months old. "We could put a name to it, but that was all, as we were given no information and had no support," Hughes recalled. "It was very isolating."

Though her family has since learned more about Isaac's condition and found support organizations, the U.K.-based photographer is often frustrated by the way others treat her son. 

"People often make judgments based on what they expect him to be able to do and sometimes they do not take the time to get to know the real child," she said. "Isaac is funny, determined, bright and really caring. Those who do not see beyond his condition are poorer for it."

 Hughes' frustration led her to create Same But Different, a community organization aimed at raising awareness and counteracting prejudice when it comes to people with disabilities. One of her biggest initiatives in the organization is a photo series called "The Rare Project."

The series features photos of kids with rare disabilities and conditions, along with text about their personalities, interests and backgrounds. 

"I want to try to break down some of the barriers that exist for those with disabilities and rare diseases in particular," she said. "I want to use the arts to give people the opportunity to see the person behind the condition. Each picture is accompanied by their story so you can learn more about the person and their condition."

Hughes met many of the series' subjects through support organizations like Genetic Alliance U.K. Other families have reached out to her directly to take part in the ongoing project. 

During each shoot, the photographer works hard to create an enjoyable experience and capture "the real person." 

"It does not matter what condition each child has, they are ultimately still people with their own likes and dislikes and they deserve to have a voice," she told The Huffington Post. "Often the person taking part in the project has never had a portrait taken before because they may be nervous or have challenging behavior."

When it comes to the finished product, "I hope that it allows people to see more than just a rare condition or disability," Hughes said. " If someone takes the time to look at the images, read the story and if it just makes people stop and think, then I am happy."

Keep scrolling and visit the Rare Project online for a look at Hughes' beautiful portraits. 

H/T BoredPanda

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With leading presidential candidates floating the idea of a database to track Muslims, media moguls lobbying to bar people of certain religions from entering the country, and college students nationwide reporting their classmates hurling racial slurs at them, an old Superman poster serves as an important reminder of what it means to be an American.

The poster reads: "...And remember, boys and girls, your school -- like our country -- is made up of Americans of many different races, religions and national origins. So … if YOU hear anybody talk against a schoolmate or anyone else because of his religion, race or national origin -- don’t wait: tell him THAT KIND OF TALK IS UN-AMERICAN." 

It's not clear where this photo of the poster originated, though a post on Reddit and Imgur referenced it about a year ago. It also received a bump in April from the Twitter account History In Pictures. 

The fine print on the poster says it's from 1956, but a 2008 auction listing for anon-color version on the Hake's Americana & Collectibles website puts the copyright date at 1949. With a copyright for National Comics, the poster clearly predates the 1970s, when the company rebranded as DC Comics.

The Institute For American Democracy, an offshoot of the Anti-Defamation League, distributed the non-color image, according to the Hake's auction listing. Along with other organizations like the Council Against Intolerance, the group circulated posters in the mid-20th century promoting harmony between Catholics, Protestants and Jews and highlighting the fact that Americans come from many different nations. One subway ad from this era targeted baseball fans, reminding them their favorite players were of different races and religions.

There was clearly much more work to do in the 1950s to address racial and religious discrimination -- but more than 60 years later, you'd think Superman's Cold War-era message would be common sense by now.

But given the recent political discourse in this country, it turns out the poster is as pertinent and timely as ever. 

______

Tyler Kingkade is an editor and reporter based in New York. You can contact him at tyler.kingkade@huffingtonpost.com, or follow him on Twitter: @tylerkingkade.

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"Art is not meant to change the world," anonymous French street artist JR explained to CNN. "But when you see people interacting, when you see an impact on their lives, then I guess in a smaller way, this is changing the world."

Shortly after the terrorist attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, individuals across social media began sharing images and quotes expressing peace and solidarity. Jean Jullien's drawing of the Eiffel Tower engulfed in a peace sign spread throughout Facebook and Instagram, while hashtags like #PrayForParis dominated Twitter. 

In a clever play on words, street artists and their fans around the globe have opted to showcase signs of support too, operating under the hashtag #SprayForParis. While the artists are creating new works in and around Paris, adorning their red, blue and white designs with the words "Spray for Paris," fans of the art are sharing the images across Instagram in particular, including shots of murals in Brazil, Australia and the United States. 

See a roundup of the artwork below:

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Morbid fans of the Hundred-Acre Wood rejoice: The skull of the bear that inspired A.A. Milne’s classic "Winnie the Pooh" stories is now on public display at the Royal College of Surgeon’s Hunterian Museum in London -- and it holds clues to how the bear suffered tooth decay.

The skull belongs to Winnipeg, “Winnie” for short, a female black bear who lived at the London Zoo. Lieutenant Harry Colebourn of the Royal Canadian Army Veterinary Corps purchased Winnie when she was a cub from a hunter in Canada prior to World War I. He then brought the cub overseas with him to England, where she became the unofficial mascot of his regiment. When Colebourn’s regiment had to travel to France in 1914, he left Winnie in the care of the London Zoo.

The zoo is where a little boy named Christopher Robin, author A.A. Milne’s son, met Winnie and became enamored with the silly old bear. He named his toy bear after Winnie, and the rest is history.

Winnie died of old age in 1934. Her skull has been in the possession of the museum ever since, but this is the first time it will be on public display, according to The New York Times. 

The skull’s not just a nostalgic relic for Pooh enthusiasts. Dental surgeon Sir James Frank Colyer, who was the first researcher to write about dental diseases in bears, analyzed Winnie’s skull as part of his research. He found that Winnie had lost most of her teeth, which he attributed to both her old age and her less-than-ideal diet. 

"People would come to the zoo specifically to meet Winnie, to watch her playing, to have photographs taken with her, feed her honey," Abigail Woods, professor in the history of human and animal health at King’s College London, told the BBC.

Colyer included his findings on Winnie's teeth in his 1936 work, Variations and Diseases of the Teeth of Animals, which became a valued guide for veterinary, zoology and dentistry students.

Museum staff saw the skull “with fresh eyes” when they recently reviewed some of the items in their collection, Hunterian director Sam Alberti told The New York Times. The skull’s unveiling also comes shortly after the publication of Finding Winnie, a children’s book about the true story behind Winnie the Pooh. The author, Lindsay Mattock, is Colebourn’s great-granddaughter.

Even so, museum officials were cautious about how they marketed the attraction. “We did think carefully about this because we didn’t want the message to be, ‘Come to the Hunterian Museum and see Winnie-the-Pooh.’" Alberti said. “No. It’s a skull.”

Contact the author at Hilary.Hanson@huffingtonpost.com

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Does a swarm of selfies being taken next to the "Mona Lisa" make you want to reenact Edvard Munch’s “The Scream?”

If so, you’re not alone. In fact, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has come up with a masterpiece of a campaign called #Startdrawing that encourages guests to sketch rather than snap pictures of its works of art.

The Rijksmuseum hasn’t outright banned the use of cameras or mobile phones on its premises, but it has strongly discouraged it by displaying an image of a crossed-out camera right above its main entrance.

Rijksmuseum believes that media has devolved a visit to a museum into “a passive and superficial experience,” according to its website. “Visitors are easily distracted and do not truly experience beauty, magic and wonder. This is why the Rijksmuseum wants to help visitors discover and appreciate the beauty of art and history through drawing, so #startdrawing!”

The campaign was launched on Oct. 24 in conjunction with The Big Draw festival, in which the museum handed out sketchbooks and pencils to visitors. It has used social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram to further its reach, but its aim is to get guests to unplug in order to fully connect to art.

 The best part? One doesn’t need the painting chops of Vincent van Gogh to partake in #Startdrawing.

 "You don’t even have to be able to draw because this is not about the final result but rather about looking at what you want to draw," the museum said on their YouTube channel. "When you do this, you begin to see things you never noticed before. You see proportions, details, lines … you get closer to the artist’s secret.”

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Thanksgiving is a time for kids to share what they're grateful for -- from their families to their pets to their favorite toys. But for children who have spent a significant time in the hospital this year, the traditional thankful list can encompass so much more. 

Children's Healthcare Of Atlanta (CHOA) asked a group of young patients and parents to write down what they were thankful for this year, and their answers really put a lot into perspective. While the kids were grateful for family, friends and pets, they also gave thanks for things like nurses, a heart transplant and "not dying."

A representative for CHOA told The Huffington Post, "Together, these brave kids and their families show us that if you can count ‘good health’ among the things you’re grateful for this year, the rest of your worries are really just the small stuff."

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On Oct. 29, a group of roughly 100 rich and powerful people gathered at the upscale restaurant Tao in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan to discuss global domination.

The closed-door, members-only meeting was attended by pop culture celebrities and company presidents, CEOs and CMOs. Questlove, David Blaine, Steve Aoki and Janelle Monáe were all present, as were Levi's president James Curleigh and Vice Media's president Andrew Creighton. Senior representatives of Red Bull, Spotify, GoPro, Citibank, American Express, Hershey and Tinder were just a few major brands there.

An ambitious man named Roman Tsunder had gathered the formidable group, who together represented an organization that counts influential figures including the Dalai Lama and Tony Hawk among its members. The point of this meeting was partially to please, yes, but also to figure out how to take on the world, as underlined by the organization's name "PTTOW!," or "Plan to Take On the World!" (Exclamation theirs.)

Tsunder is the the CEO and co-founder -- along with "Viva La Bam" executive producer and "Jackass" consultant Terry Hardy -- of PTTOW!, an organization that attempts to convince artists and powerful companies to work as a team to reach goals that vary in detail but are united in their appetite.

"If you're going to ask me what PTTOW! looks like 10 years from now, I would tell you that we're [going to be] responsible [for] and help our members create the top 10 most important cultural moments in the world," Tsunder told me before the meeting. 

"You only live once, right?" he added. 

Especially after you learn a bit more about PTTOW!, it's understandable if you doubt whether it can actually become the master of next decade's cultural universe. The vast majority of people involved in the organization are corporate suits, and the PTTOW! brand mixes questionable action sports style with Burning Man festival sensibilities. (PTTOW! is even currently seeking a "Manager of WOW" with a "strong background" in "experiential installations" like Burning Man.)

But remember the collections of people the organization has assembled. A seemingly limitless number of corporate powers, including Nike, GM, Lacoste, Paramount, MasterCard, Viacom, Starbucks and just about every other dominant company you can think of have been involved with PTTOW! at one point in the six years since the organization's conception. So have celebrities including will.i.am and Quincy Jones. 

The influence represented by the little-known group of around 250 highly powerful people who make up the organization's total membership is almost too much to believe. But the group is adamant that its influence is on view throughout the pop culture. Just a few months ago, the group was partly behind the Dalai Lama's 80th birthday celebration in Los Angeles, the first of its kind in the United States. (The Dalai Lama has been a member since 2012.) Even more recently, PTTOW! had a role in the 2015 Global Citizens Festival in New York, an event aimed at ending extreme poverty by 2030 that attracted tens of thousands of attendees. Now, Tsunder and crew are gearing up to take on the 2016 Rio Olympics. 

The specifics of what role PTTOW! plays in any of these deals is unclear -- the partnerships are formed in highly private sessions -- and that shadowy influence has earned the organization an air of mystery leading to suspicious publications filling in the gaps. Fast Company referred to the PTTOW! as the "illuminati IRL." Forbes compared the organization to the "Bohemian Grove," a legendary meeting place for the rich and powerful first started in the 19th century. But Tsunder argues that even the Bohemian Grove, a community that included many American presidents, has nothing on this new conclave.

"I would ask what projects have come out of the Bohemian community," Tsunder told me. By comparison, he said, "We want to spend [our] time doing the grandest things. Whether it's figuring out what's happening on Mars, or whether it's figuring out commercial space flight, or whether it's figuring out how to help people's lives."

I was invited to attend the Oct. 29 opening ceremonies of the 2015 "PTTOW! Sessions" at Tao, an annual meeting meant to expedite business partnerships between the members. Upon first entering the "PTTOW! Sessions," it was clear that the organization had a Burning Man-meets-Davos sensibility and a predisposition toward New Age-influenced camaraderie-building.

An event staffer standing in an entrance hallway instructed me to grab a branch-like wooden pencil and write an ambition or fear on a small slip of paper. Halloween was later in the week, so I wrote down "Ghosts" and placed the paper in a glass bowl with the others.

A model covered in full body paint wearing scarce pieces of wrapped cloth pulled back a curtain of hanging beads to allow me to pass into the next hallway room, where a young woman dressed as an enchantress performed a ritual using some sort of incense on me. She claimed all of this would free up my body to allow whatever I wrote on the slip of paper into my life. "Uh oh," I thought. "Probably shouldn't have written 'ghosts.'"

Around another corner, the main waiting area featured a long table of food, along with even more models covered in body paint. I took a plate and broke bread amongst the PTTOW! members. Men and women communed together in the tailored crowd, but kept it professionally casual. "I didn't bring any business cards to this," one man said. "We go to Coachella every year," said another.

Soon, another person covered in body paint was playing a drum and yelling out from the bottom of the flight of stairs. A black drape dropped behind him, revealing a massive room filled with towers of paper boxes featuring brand names, like Babel-esque symbols to the values of partnership. Just beyond these pillars of partnership was a stage where six more drummers beat wildly.

When the members of PTTOW! had all taken their seats, a slam poet and hype man named In-Q took the center stage and then yelled, "If you feel alive, say, 'Yeah!'" He had us stand up, dangle our arms and bump into each other, then had members form rows of massage lines. After we had all massaged the people to our right and left, we sat back down. In-Q recited a poem with lines such as, "Value is a funny thing" and "Avocado toast," the latter of which he said three times in a row. Near the end, In-Q said, "The most important things in life are ... " to which the highly influential and wealthy crowd replied, "Free." 

After a brief video introduction with multiple action sports montages, an African proverb and laser sounds, Tsunder took the stage.

Before PTTOW! ever existed, Tsunder was the founder of Access 360 Media, a digital advertising network that he started in 2003. Now in his early 40s, Tsunder is well-versed in the cadence and delivery techniques of corporate social responsibility. Tsunder spoke during his opening remarks of an upcoming project called "Worldz," which he claimed "will become the most important cultural event in the world." "You have the privilege to create what the world will look like tomorrow," Tsunder told the audience at another point. Later, he instructed us to reach under our seats to find small black pouches filled with "energy seeds."

Tsunder seems sincere when he claims that the end-goal of his organization is not just about making money, that the hope to dominate the culture of the next decade is about something more "grand." But PTTOW! still seems to be figuring out how to express this in results. At one point during our interview, Tsunder asked me to Google "Robbie Maddison, motocross surfing" to find an example of an ideal PTTOW! collaboration. 

"He's literally on a motorcycle surfing a wave; it'll blow your mind," Tsunder said. The video was uploaded by American footwear company DC Shoes, a PTTOW! member. 

Multiple times throughout the year, PTTOW! hosts member events in hopes of getting its powerful cast of representatives to bond more closely and solidify concrete projects. Just earlier this year, members were invited to partake in Navy Seal training together in Southern California, an occasion that has become somewhat of a tradition. The organization's CMO, John Kirkpatrick, who first started as a PTTOW! member while holding senior positions at Hot Topic and Hard Rock International, told me that the training made him feel as if he were "brethren" with the other members. 

Kirkpatrick spearheaded these October PTTOW! Sessions, which he said were organized to form a sort of "supergroup" for business. Throughout the sessions, the assembled members would meet to discuss pre-planned potentials for business collaboration. One of the planned meetings put a financial company, augmented reality company and beverage company in the same room to facilitate a potential collaboration on David Blaine's upcoming magic tour. 

This is what PTTOW! really does, it seems. Rather than influence the future of culture, it facilitates conversations between groups that wouldn't naturally all come together in one place, allowing companies and cultural titans to develop ideas they wouldn't, and couldn't, develop by themselves. "We have one of the only places in the world where it's safe to have Coke, Pepsi and Red Bull in the same room," Tsunder joked.

The secretive, breakout meetings would happen later in the day behind closed doors in the adjacent Dream Hotel, but not before the culturally famous members were able to speak. On stage, Tsunder told those gathered not to waste the triumph that "everyone [was] in this United Nations-type setting."

And so, Questlove took the stage.

The Roots drummer and "Tonight Show" performer seemed unprepared when he spoke, as if the PTTOW! Sessions were somehow not the most important meeting in or for the world. At times, the things he said even seemed to accidentally mock the stated goals of meeting. "Everyone has a grandiose idea," Questlove lamented.

Questlove's talk jumped around quite a bit. He talked of an A-list friend of his who was working on his fifth album. Said A-lister had revealed that he wants to create a fake artist name to make an album he actually cares about, rather than what the brands he's signed contracts with wanted. Yet he made sure it was clear that he understood the importance of brands. "If it weren't for products, we'd all be naked," Questlove joked at one point. But his central point was that he hopes the representatives of the brands in the room actually listen to the ideas of the artists they become partners with. That they truly became partners with the artists, rather than seeing them as faces for endorsements and nothing more. 

Occasionally while on stage, Questlove, joined by Aoki, realized they were inadvertently criticizing specific businesses represented by the people in front of them, but that was difficult to avoid in a room filled with so many corporate representatives. Aoki made a dig at One Direction, only to quickly pull back, as he realized someone in the audience was associated with the act. "Is that your artist?" he asked with a nervous chuckle.

At one point, Tsunder told me that companies and artists should "think of culture like water," a substance that cannot truly be understood from afar. "You can't feel water by looking at it, you have to jump into it to feel it," Tsunder said. But sitting amongst the members of PTTOW!, you get the feeling that that this water has to somehow be turned into wine, bottled, then sold.

After Questlove, Stephanie Ruhle, a managing editor and anchor for Bloomberg, took the stage to lead a "Town Hall Discussion" on the nature of value. Microphones started circling through the audience. Things were said such as, "Fuck your ROI,” as a Red Bull representative declared, a characteristic attempt to bluntly prove he and others in attendance were about more than money. Someone suggested bringing celebrities and athletes to corporate meetings in order to impress bosses.

Questlove was sitting to the side of the stage now. But he grabbed a mic and asked a question: Why do companies continue to throw so much money at trying to create important cultural moments?

A representative from JP Morgan took the mic to respond to Questlove's concern. She simply said, "On behalf of banks, we sponsor some bam-ass shit." 

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You brought your significant other to your family's Thanksgiving dinner. You've put up with the table conversation, the family photos, the football game you pretend to care about, Dad jokes, UNCLE jokes, and a dozen other boring/traumatic holiday traditions. You and your special someone have earned some much needed adult time.

The only problem is you ate way too much and the last thing you want to do is be seen naked by another human being.

This music video written by Paul Gale and John Trowbridge tells the story of two people who've become too full to f**k.

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A photographer's beautiful tribute to her grandparents serves as a reminder to value our grandparents before they are gone. Amy Luna, a New Mexico-based photographer, published a series of photos she took of her grandparents, to help remember and cherish them long after they're no longer around. 

"My grandparents are probably two of the most important people in my life," Luna told The Huffington Post. "I wanted to document basically everything that is prominent in my mind when I think of my grandparents, just to have in my heart forever." 

The photos capture a day in the life of grandma Carol and grandpa Gene in their Colorado home. Carol, 81, does embroidery, practices photography and puts out the laundry. Grandpa, 83, drinks coffee while he does the daily crossword puzzle. They both read to -- and cuddle with -- their grandkids -- as well as with each other. They've been married for over 60 years and Luna says their love and devotion has served as a powerful lesson for her. "Everyday is not sunshine and rainbows, but they have shown me what it is to truly love through it all," she writes. 

Her relationship with her grandparents is a particularly close one. Her grandfather, or "pops," as she calls him, was "the only father figure" in her life. "He walked me down the aisle with my mother and gave me away to my husband. He is a very special man," Luna writes. Her grandmother is her best friend. "The impact this woman has had on my life is beyond measure, and I will hold her in my heart forever and ever," she adds.

She hoped that people will learn to value their elders from seeing her works. "I want to show them to really cherish moments, to cherish family members and time that you have with family members," Luna says. 

Scroll through some of the photos below and see the complete series here. 

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You’ll never look at the back of your cab driver’s head the same away again.

A group of New York City cab drivers put the brakes on their standard routes to strut their stuff for a pinup charity calendar. Some of the proceeds from the project will benefit University Settlement, a group that supports immigrant families and individuals.

It’s an appropriate cause considering the number of immigrants who are involved in the industry. According to the Taxi & Limousine Commission, just 5.9 percent of yellow cab drivers were born in the U.S.

Launched nearly 130 years ago, University Settlement provides quality education, housing, access to open space for exercise and health, and other basic services to immigrants and low-income families. 

The calendars sell for $14.99 and since establishing the project, Shannon and Phil Kirkman have raised nearly $50,000 for University Settlement, they told The Huffington Post.

While the calendar’s mission focuses on immigrant issues, the images demonstrate that people from a range of backgrounds are drawn to the profession.

Though 98.9 percent of drivers are male, women have been behind the wheel of New York City cabs since the 1940s, and the calendar also gave a nod to those females who remain a driving force. 

The project hopes to raise funds for an important cause and to show New Yorkers a side of their cabbies they rarely get to see. 

“There are many stereotypes against cabbies," Phil Kirkman told the New York Post, "and I hope these show people that cabbies are no different from you and I." 

Learn more about the calendars and how you can purchase one here. 

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In Ecuador, roughly one in six women have experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence. To put it another way, 3 million Ecuadorians have counted themselves a victim of gender-based violence in their lifetime. According to the same Pan American Health Organization research, 38 percent of women in Ecuador have been physically abused, 26 percent sexually abused, and 17 percent have been victims of patrimonial violence. These statistics, however bleak, are still merely numbers. Numbers that look eerily similar to statistics across the globe.

In 2011, a campaign by UN Women attempted to transform black-and-white stats like the ones above into robust, personal stories by calling for women to submit real testimonies about their experience with violence. In just three months, the project, dubbed Cartas de Mujeres, collected a total of more than 10,000 letters from women across the country. Nearly half of those letters detailed instances of family and domestic violence. In response, the city of Quito decided to criminalize the sexual harassment of women in public places.

The Cartas de Mujeres project continues to receive letters from women in Ecuador and beyond, and one very socially engaged artist is taking notice. In honor of International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Los Angeles-based Suzanne Lacy is gathering 1,000 men in a bullfighting ring in Quinto to read these letters addressing injustice in their country. Together, they hope to point out the need for continued action and legislation to help combat violence.

"This is the time to engage men more significantly in conversations on intimate partner and sexual violence," Lacy explained in a statement to The Huffington Post. "Is it a global epidemic, or are we only now beginning to notice what years of activism [have] been trying to tell us?"

The reality of gendered violence in Ecuador is no better or worse than it is in other countries, Lacy reiterates, but she attests that each nation has their own story. In preparation for her performance, which will take place on Nov. 25 in Quito's Plaza Belmonte (the only ring currently used for bullfighting in the city), she hosted a workshop meant to teach participants about the nuances of violence and encourage them to explore their own preconceived notions of masculinity. "During these workshops, each participant will 'adopt' a letter from an unknown woman," the project description reads, "and through this letter interrogate his own understandings of family violence."

Above all, the men were encouraged to discuss possible solutions to gendered violence. 

"The global movement of immigrants, war and poverty only makes women and children more vulnerable, the stories of personal violence seemingly hidden in larger social forces," Lacy said. "But it is there, all the same, and it is time that both men and women urged dramatic steps to restore the fundamental right of safety for women."

"Lacy's project is making an invisible problem visible," Deborah Fisher, Executive Director of A Blade of Grass, one of the organizations helping to make Lacy's performance happen, explained to HuffPost. "[It's] creating an opportunity to empathize with an issue that is so vast that it's easy to become numb to it; and, most importantly, it's demonstrating that a shift in accountability is possible. It's a great work of art because it is transformative."

Lacy has a history of confronting dire social issues through performance art. In "Three Weeks in May," she visualized the frequency of rape in LA; in "The Oakland Projects," she worked with California youth to discuss police brutality and education. For Lacy, and Fisher, art is the perfect platform through which to discuss social justice, as it can be used to both increase visibility of an issue and elicit empathy.

"We think Lacy's project is an excellent example of our stake in socially engaged art for a few reasons. She's not depending on an art context -- she's finding meaning in the world with other people," Fisher added. "She's choosing not to make an art object that represents violence against women; instead, she's using representation as a tactic to enact change -- to reduce actual violence against women. She's collaborating with a number of stakeholders to reflect a multiplicity of views instead of working alone in a studio to create a work of singular artistic genius. And instead of making an art object, she's generating an experience that depends on other people."

Lacy's performance, titled "De tu puño y letra: Diálogos en el ruedo" and staged with the help of Fundación Museos de la Ciudad and Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, will ultimately consist of a 60-minute participatory performance including music, readings, personal testimonials and choreography, involving artists and activists from Ecuador, Mexico and the United States. 

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According to novelist Adam Johnson’s visions of the near future, we’ll soon spend most of our time socializing with robots that are fed dialogue and mannerisms meant to match the people we admire: Kurt Cobain, the president of the United States, lost loved ones.

It’s a plausible enough scenario, a technological remedy for loneliness. But just because Johnson recently won a big literary prize for his visions of the future, doesn’t mean his predictions are more likely to come true that anyone else’s. As a novelist, coming up with accurate scenarios for how our tech developments -- AI-focused and otherwise -- will play out isn’t Johnson’s job. His job is to use fictional scenarios, rooted in real life or thriving on airy imaginative scenes, to describe human nature, and hopefully entertain us along the way.

Still, we seem to rank the quality of a dystopian writer based on his knack for accuracy. How many of Asimov’s insights into potential advancements came true? More than that lousy Ursula K. Le Guin’s! (It bears mentioning that probably the winningest dystopian writer, by these standards, would be Edward Bellamy, who predicted credit cards in his unbearably boring and practically plotless Looking Backward, published in 1888.)

Perhaps it’s time we alleviate fiction writers of the duty of accurate future prediction, so they can focus instead on compelling stories that use the future to highlight contemporary problems and their solutions. One useful tool that could bear the burden: a bot developed for Vice’s Terraform project, meant to cull through Twitter to find foresight both wise and amusing.

Brian Merchant, senior editor at Motherboard and co-creator of @TheseFutures, said the aim of the bot is to crowd source speculations, uncovering insights that are shared repeatedly, as well as those that are more personal and quixotic.

“Professional futurists are often well-paid for consulting and writing gigs, on the premise that they're best acquainted with the future,” Merchant told The Huffington Post. “I wonder if a crowd-sourced approach will do just as well (or better!) at sketching out a picture of what tomorrow will look and feel like.”

The professional futurists Merchant refers to aren’t all sci-fi writers à la Johnson and George Orwell, although many are. As we featured in a spotlight on so-called “techno optimists,” there’s a growing bevy of writers who supply their world-building tools to corporations such as Microsoft or Intel, unearthing potential research areas based on what the future looks like according to their own imaginations. If that sounds bunk to you, well, that’s what projects like @TheseFutures aim to rectify.

Here’s how it works: The bot, designed by Twitter project veteran Ranjit Bhatnagar, combs through Twitter statuses containing certain phrases, like “in the future,” and retweets them. It also plucks predictions from a database filled with quotes from David Byrne, Mary Shelley, Orwell and other notable speculators. After running the bot for a few months, Bhatnagar, Merchant and his colleague Claire Evans will take an unscientific look at which predictions are most likely to recur.

In the meantime, following the bot produces a delightful blend of genuine observations, snarky comments and personal longings.

“Personal hopes and musings are the basis for most of our best predictions, period,” Merchant said. “It's human to speculate, it's a coping mechanism and a navigational tool [...] I've already seen plenty of weird, funny, and touching speculations, as well as a few very sad and personal predictions. A surprising number have been very clever and on-target, while many others are dashed-off idle thoughts.”

More than anything, the team hopes the bot will highlight not just potential outcomes for the future, but the myriad ways we think about the future now, and what that reveals about the present.

“While I am really interested to see what the hive mind nails about the future,” Merchant said, “this is mostly about creating a fluid snapshot of our aspirations, guesses, projections and wild ideas right now.”

For more on dystopias:

The End of the End of the World

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Instagram and iPhones weren't around when this man wanted to snap a selfie in 1935, but he made it happen with just a film camera and some string.

Redditor John_Jard posted online Tuesday this fascinating picture, which his grandfather self-took some 80 years ago in Ontario, Canada.

He said his grandpa took the shot by connecting a piece of string to the camera's shutter release and then pulled on the twine to activate it.

John_Jard asked in the image post whether his relative's snap, which also features a dog, could indeed be the "original selfie." 

While his grandfather's creativity is to be applauded, the accolade of selfie pioneer currently goes to Robert Cornelius.

The selfie he took in his family's Philadelphia lamp store's yard in 1839 is widely believed to be the world's first.

Russian princess Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova is believed to have taken the first mirror selfie in 1914, while Australian general Thomas Baker is also regarded as a pioneer of the trend.

The actual term "selfie" -- short for self-portrait -- is much more recent. It can be traced back to 2002 and was named Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2013.

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You know those tunes you've heard a million times -- in movies, on TV, in the hotel lobby or just in your general surroundings wherever you go -- for which you cannot, for the life of you, name the artist?

You might try to Shazam but it's often too noisy, or too late, which only adds to the mystery.

Luckily for you, we've rounded up 43 such tunes to bring you that elusive Eureka! moment.

You can thank us later.

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From a distance, the drawing above may look like a fairly normal pen-and-ink drawing. Look closer, and things shift; every detail of the larger drawing contains another, smaller illustration.

"The idea of drawing in small details came to me a long time ago," the artist, Davit Yukhanyan, told The Huffington Post in an email. "As a child I was sure that we and our whole planet are only small details of a huge image, but we also consist in ourselves these small details."

An architect by trade, Yukhanyan actually began working on these artworks as he was beginning his architectural training in 2006. "I started to do sketches on various themes, a lot of sketches," he remembered. In 2012, he finally composed his first full piece, "And When You Lose Control." A lushly rendered ibex, with an octopus clinging to its back, stands against a pale, distant line of mountains; up close, smirking large-beaked birds, curled-up infants, and human-headed cows sprout from the lines of shading.

His second completed work, "Isolated Winner," places the uncanny center stage: A pudgy male figure, with the head and claw of a lobster, relaxes on a block.  

The spatial awareness necessary for his architectural work informs these nested drawings, Yukhanyan said. "My architectural experience helps me to quickly orient and to draw exactly what is needed in the smallest paper sector to make the drawing entire," he wrote. "The architect must know how to place a building in the specific space in a manner that it'll get merged with other buildings."

He's currently at work on a third piece, which he described as "a spatial composition." He doesn't expect it to be ready until next year, but his Instagram shows tantalizing glimpses of the work in progress. "At first I'm doing some sketches which I publish on my Instagram page, later on I use them in my 'entire character,'" he explained. 

See some more details below. For more from Yukhanyan, check out his Behance, his Etsy, or his Instagram.

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Visiting two places at once is always a thrill... especially when those two places are outer space and one of the most breathtaking chapels in the world:

King's College Chapel, pictured above, is praised as a premier example of late Gothic architecture. As part of The University of Cambridge, it boasts the planet's largest fan vault and a history that dates back to Henry VI.

The cathedral turned even MORE stunning last month, when artist Miguel Chevalier transformed it with a dazzling light display during a fundraiser for the university. Former professor Stephen Hawking spoke about outer space as the legendary cathedral became an undulating galaxy above:

On an everyday tour of the chapel, you'll see stained-glass windows galore. But at the special event, chapel walls morphed into forests, coats of arms and a big, blazing sunscape.

We have to say, it's beyond breathtaking.

You can visit King's College Chapel year-round as part of your stay in Cambridge, U.K. The historic university town is a relatively short train ride from London, making for an excellent day trip from The Big Smoke. 

Cheerio!

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