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Standing Up To Sexual Harassment And Assault In L.A.’s Comedy Scene

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One night last fall in Los Angeles, two rising comedians met each other for drinks. The situation could’ve been awkward, since Courtney Pauroso, a sketch comic at the Groundlings theater, and Beth Stelling, a stand-up comedian who has performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live and Conan, didn’t actually know each other. But Pauroso had reached out to Stelling after she heard they had both dated another comedian on the scene. Their ex had been emotionally abusive and had even raped her, Pauroso said. Had he hurt Stelling as well? Yes, Stelling told her. He had.


The two women spent the next month trying to figure out what to do next. They didn’t want to press charges -- police are notorious for failing to take rape and domestic violence seriously -- but considered reporting him to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, where he performed, although Pauroso wasn’t a regular there.

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Alan Cumming Bares All For His 'Sappy Songs' Album Cover

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Alan Cumming reveals the genesis behind the steamy cover of his forthcoming album, "Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs: Live at the Café Carlyle," in this exclusive, behind-the-scenes video for The Huffington Post. 


In the clip, Cumming explains that it was photographer Jordan Matter who came up with the concept for the cover, which features the star of "The Good Wife" and Broadway's "Cabaret" posing nude amidst two sinewy dancers on New York's Madison Avenue, with just a bottle of champagne covering his privates.


Check out the album cover below, then scroll down to keep reading. 



When the time came for Cumming to select the cover of his new album, Matter's racy photo immediately came to mind.  


Due out Feb. 5 on Yellow Sound Label, "Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs" captures the Tony-winning star's acclaimed 2015 run at Manhattan's Café Carlyle for posterity. Fans can expect to hear Cumming's take on songs by Billy Joel, Rufus Wainwright and Miley Cyrus, as well as a selection of Broadway show tunes and world music.  


Cumming will celebrate the release of the album with a Feb. 8 performance at New York's Carnegie Hall, with special guests Kristin Chenoweth, Darren Criss and Ricki Lake. 


Also on HuffPost: 


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How The Art Community Is Helping A Nonprofit Bring Homemade Food To Those In Need

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In 1985, hospice volunteer Ganga Stone delivered a hot meal via bicycle to a man named Richard who was living with HIV/AIDS. Not long after, along with friend Jane Best, Stone founded God's Love We Deliver. The organization delivered meals, often on bike, to Manhattan-based individuals diagnosed with terminal HIV/AIDS. They delivered around 50 meals per week. 


Thirty years later, GLWD delivers around 1.5 million meals a year, thanks to 90 staff employees and about 8,000 volunteers. They now provide for anyone with a life altering illness of any kind, catering to 6,200 clients with over 200 distinct diagnoses. This year, they are the official charity partner of the Outsider Art Fair.


"The people who founded this organization just wanted to do something," chief development officer David Ludwigson explained to The Huffington Post. "It was a time of tremendous fear and stigma. People were dying of AIDS and they were alone. For the first year or two, there were meals, but there was also apartment cleaning, pet sitting, giving someone a massage or just sitting with them and having a cup of coffee. We eventually started to focus solely on the food."


"Our tagline used to be 'food for the body and soul,'" added manager of communications Emmett Findley. "It’s a very personal act to have someone cook you a meal and bring it to you. It brings relief and dignity. Today the language we’re using around our work is 'food is medicine and food is love.'"



When describing GLWD, Ludwigson uses the term "nutrition nonprofit" -- not food, not hunger, he specifies. Everything in GLWD's kitchen is made from scratch in their SoHo kitchen, with no preservatives. When a new client is taken on, their first order of business is meeting with a registered dietician to do intake, establishing a meal plan that adapts to his or her medical regimen, ability to ingest, and personal preferences. Some meals are served minced or pureed. "We want to make a sick person better, or at least experience the best quality of life that they can," Ludwigson said. 


For this year's Outsider Art Fair, 15 art galleries have donated works for a silent auction, with all proceeds benefitting GLWD. Artists and the arts community, Ludwigson explained, have long been major supporters of GLWD's mission. Not to mention that art has wiggled its way into the GLWD formula. 


For example, every holiday season clients receive their meals in a white bag decorated by a New York City student, whether a four-year-old or a high schooler. And then there's the food itself. "Art shows up in the food we deliver," Findley said. "An artist we deliver to said, 'Tell your volunteers these are works of art.' We want to make food that is beautiful."


Ludwigson offered up another connection between the mission of GLWD and that of outsider art. "When you think of the people who started GLWD, I don’t think it’s that different than being an outsider artist. They weren’t trained in providing food service. It was something they were passionate about and wanted, needed to do."


Both Ludwigson and Findley look forward to meeting potential new volunteers and donors at the Outsider Art Fair. But just as much, they hope to spread knowledge of their organization to those who need it most.


"There’s not a waiting list," Findley said. "There never has been, never will be. That message is just as important."


Learn more about God's Love We Deliver at the Outsider Art Fair, from Jan. 21-24, 2016, at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City.




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Guitar Center Tells Employees To Sign Arbitration Agreements Or Lose Their Jobs

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Employees of the music equipment retailer Guitar Center have been told they must sign mandatory arbitration agreements or they will lose their jobs.


The agreement, a copy of which was obtained by The Huffington Post, forces employees to relinquish their rights to sue the company in class action lawsuits over wage violations, workplace discrimination and unjust firings, among other disputes.


Sean Lynch, a sales employee at the company's Las Vegas store, said he and his colleagues were told they must sign the agreement by end of day Friday or they forfeit their jobs.


"It was imposed on us and we have absolutely no choice," Lynch told HuffPost.


Arbitration agreements have become highly controversial for the way they hamstring employees and weaken their legal power. By sending disputes to an arbitrator, they force workers to pursue their claims individually and outside of court, preempting any collective action. And even though they're supposed to be neutral third parties, arbitrators are often cozy with the companies that workers are squaring off with, as The New York Times detailed in a recent series.


A Guitar Center spokeswoman said the company declined to comment.


Corporations are increasingly demanding that employees and consumers agree to mandatory arbitration, whether signatories realize it or not. Nowadays, the clauses are often tucked into welcome packets as boilerplate for new hires to sign. But in the case of Guitar Center, it appears the new policy is being imposed suddenly on longtime employees like Lynch, who says he's worked for the company for seven years.


The Las Vegas resident said he and his co-workers learned about the agreements in December when they signed in to do routine computer training. The PowerPoint-style sessions are usually devoted to matters like music equipment or workplace safety, he said. But in this case, the session was all about arbitration, and why it was good for the company and the worker.


In a question-and-answer sheet on the new policy, Guitar Center says that going to an arbitrator is "less costly, less formal, friendlier and faster" than going through the courts. The document assures a "fair and impartial process," and notes that Guitar Center will pick up the tab for the arbitration (though not for the employee's lawyer, if he or she chooses one). The company is clear that the agreement is mandatory:



As a condition of new or continued employment, all new and current associates are required to electronically acknowledge and agree to be bound by the Arbitration Program and related agreement.



Lynch said he has been circulating a petition in his store that he intends to submit to management on Friday. He plans to sign the arbitration agreement, but not without protest. He said he can't afford to lose his job.


"My main concern with it is that it's 'do it or else,'" Lynch said.


Guitar Center has been wrapped up in a nasty labor dispute with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which provided the arbitration documents to HuffPost. In 2013, RWDSU won elections at three Guitar Center stores, including Las Vegas, but the union is still without a contract at any of them. The general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board accused the company of refusing to bargain in good faith, leading to a recent two-week trial. A decision hasn't yet been issued.


Liz Vladeck, a lawyer with Cary Kane LLP who represents the union, said she questions the legality of Guitar Center requiring its employees to sign such a document. Although federal courts have ruled different ways on the issue, the NLRB has declared that such mandatory agreements illegally infringe on a worker's right to "protected concerted activity" with colleagues.


While Guitar Center's agreement says workers can still pursue certain claims, such as unemployment insurance or workers' compensation, the language rules out a strikingly broad array of situations -- including "any other violation of federal, state or local law."


"We're analyzing the agreement in light of the labor board's recent cases. We're considering filing a new charge and pursuing a new round of action," Vladeck said. "What's great is a lot of workers have been individually protesting. They're organizing themselves."

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The Unforgettable Role Jeff Bridges Almost Passed Up

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For a movie about a country music singer, "Crazy Heart" initially lacked an element that would seem vital to its success, according to its star, Jeff Bridges: actual music.


Considering his lifelong devotion to music, it might seem like Bridges would have been sold on the role from the start. But, as the actor tells "Oprah's Master Class," it was precisely his passion for music that actually made him believe that "Crazy Heart" wouldn't be the right film for him to take on in its original form.


"I originally turned it down," he says. "There was no music! The script was OK, but there was no music involved. And I thought, 'Well, if you add crummy music to this thing, it's not going to be any good.'"


Soon after deciding he should pass on the film, Bridges ran into his good friend and musician/producer, T Bone Burnett. T Bone had also heard about the script for "Crazy Heart," and the two began talking about the project.


"I said... 'Are you interested?' He says, 'Yeah, well, I'll do it if you'll do it," Bridges recalls. "I said, 'You're kidding me... Well, now this is going to be even tougher to turn down.'"



Bridges knew T Bone had the talent necessary to take the story to the next level, but the actor still wondered if he could also rise to the occasion.


"I kept getting that image of the wide receiver going out for that long ball and just praying that you're going to be able to catch this wonderful pass that's right into your hands," he says. "[It was] a great opportunity."


Bridges accepted the role, and he performed it so well that he earned widespread praise from industry critics, not to mention several acting awards, from his first Oscar to his first Golden Globe.



"I had a great time doing that movie," Bridges says. "So much music involved."


His own pursuit of music had taken a back seat to acting over the years, but doing "Crazy Heart" seemed to reinvigorate Bridges' commitment to that craft.


"I figured, well, we're kind of on this music thing. I called up T Bone and said, 'Hey, you want to kind of parlay that deal and just keep going? I've got some tunes I'd love to realize with you,'" Bridges says.


T Bone agreed, and thanks to that collaboration, Bridges released a self-titled album in 2011.



Bridges' musical efforts didn't stop there. He currently performs with his band, called The Abiders, a reference to one of Bridges' most famous lines in "The Big Lebowski." They released a live album in 2014, and continue to tour across the U.S. and Canada to date.


"It's so odd to be living your teenage dream," Bridges, 66, admits. "But, what the hell, you know? You're never too old to dream, man."


Also on HuffPost: So that's why Jeff Bridges always seems so relaxed and happy


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Why We Grieve The Loss Of Cultural Icons

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The world lost two of its greatest performers this week: legendary rock star David Bowie and British actor Alan Rickman.


Bowie and Rickman both succumbed to cancer at the age of 69, leaving behind a world in mourning for the loss of two brilliant and beloved creative minds. 


The outpouring of grief, while fresh in its emotional intensity, after the death of a celebrity follows a familiar pattern. After the 2014 deaths of beloved actors Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman, the public also displayed shock, grief and a deep sense of loss. 


Why do we grieve so much over artists -- over people we've never even met before? One viral tweet pretty much summed it up:






Although we don't know these iconic performers and view them from a distance, many of us feel a deep sense of connection to them nonetheless.


As the tweet suggests, great creative minds dig into their own souls to bring a bit of their inner selves to the outer world. As we glimpse a piece of their true selves, we are able to see parts of ourselves reflected back. 


In the many remembrances of Bowie, a common theme is how people felt that he gave them permission to be themselves, to be outsiders, as he often expressed individuality in his work. In Rickman, so many people found a lovable villain in his portrayals of the deep complexity of the human condition, such as in his fictional Harry Potter character, Professor Snape. 


The sense of loss, for some, can run very deep. 


"A hole has been ripped in the universe and we are lost, and we will be for a good while yet," journalist Suzanne Moore wrote in a tribute to Bowie published in the Guardian. "This grief is serious and rational," she added.


These feelings are rational, because we develop such strong bonds with public figures like Bowie and Rickman. 


"We're affected differently by different people in our lives dying," Dr. Mary Frances O'Connor, a psychologist and grief specialist at the University of Arizona, told The Huffington Post. "When someone dies, we often lose a tiny piece of our own identity. It's your own identity that's shifted as well as losing the person themselves."


This applies to cultural icons, too. "People feel like they lost the piece of their identify that David Bowie represented," O'Connor said. 


For some people, there can also be a sense of losing a period of their lives that the artist represented -- nights spent in a college dorm room listening to "Space Oddity," or childhood memories of watching the "Harry Potter" films, according to O'Connor. 


Jonathan Franzen shed light on the strength and intensity of this connection in a 2011 New Yorker essay about his friend and beloved literary genius David Foster Wallace after the novelist killed himself. Franzen wrote: 



The curious thing about David’s fiction ... is how recognized and comforted, how loved, his most devoted readers feel when reading it. To the extent that each of us is stranded on his or her own existential island -- and I think it’s approximately correct to say that his most susceptible readers are ones familiar with the socially and spiritually isolating effects of addiction or compulsion or depression -- we gratefully seized on each new dispatch from that farthest-away island which was David ... he gave us the worst of himself ... however, this very cataloguing of despair about his own authentic goodness is received by the reader as a gift of authentic goodness: we feel the love in the fact of his art, and we love him for it."



Those of us who seized on "dispatches" from Bowie and Rickman -- from empowering anthems like "Heroes" and "Rebel, Rebel" to loveable villains like Professor Snape and Hans Gruber -- learned a little more about who we are.


While we grieve them, we'll mourn for the little piece of ourselves that's been lost, too.  

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You Wouldn't Know It From The Oscars, But Women Directed Films Last Year Too

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In the Oscars' 88-year history, only four women have been nominated for Best Director, and this year's ballot prompts another damning Hollywood statistic: Of all the non-documentary narratives up for an Academy Award, only one -- Deniz Gamze Ergüven's "Mustang" -- was directed by a woman.


What gives? Well, a lot of things: As of 2012, the Oscar voting pool was 77 percent male. And in 2013 and 2014, women made a mere 1.9 percent of the 100 highest-grossing movies. In other words, it's a vicious cycle for female auteurs. But it's not one that's impossible to remedy. Almost half of the movies nominated for the Oscars' two screenplay prizes (adapted and original) were written or co-written by women, which is fantastic. And ladies did direct movies in 2015, no matter what awards season might imply. We have a list of 11 that are worth a watch, and here's to hoping the 2017 Oscars will be a far more hospitable place for people of all genders, races and sexualities.


"The Diary of a Teenage Girl"
Written and directed by Marielle Heller


One of the most inventive movies from 2015 was this coming-of-age dramedy about a 15-year-old aspiring cartoonist's sexual awakening. Marielle Heller poured refreshing energy into her adaptation of Phoebe Gloeckner's 2002 graphic novel of the same name, incorporating spontaneous illustrations throughout the film. The results -- which feature bravura performances from Bel Powley,  Kristen Wiig and Alexander Skarsgård -- are charming, open-minded and invigorating. - Matthew Jacobs





"Sleeping with Other People"
Written and directed by Leslye Headland


It's difficult, at this juncture of the rom-com, to make the genre feel fresh again. However, Leslye Headland's film, starring Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis, manages to do it. Brie and Sudeikis' characters tackle the age-old question of whether men and women can be platonic friends, but don't get tripped up in cliché. Headland also wrote and directed 2011's quietly brilliant "Bachelorette," a subversive take on female friendships and bridal parties. - Jillian Capewell


"Infinitely Polar Bear"
Written and directed by Maya Forbes


Mark Ruffalo's turn as a father with manic depression (also known as bipolar disorder) earned the actor a Golden Globes nomination for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy. His character, Cam, takes on the duties of chief caretaker for his two daughters when his wife (Zoe Saldana) is accepted to Columbia University. Forbes, who had written for "The Larry Sanders Show" and "Monsters vs. Aliens," culled from her own experience growing up with a father who had bipolar disorder while creating this film, her first as director. - JC


"Miss You Already"
Directed by Catherine Hardwicke


How "Miss You Already" was so dismissed by the moviegoing public is beyond us. It's essentially a "Beaches" update featuring the divine pairing of Toni Collette and Drew Barrymore. Sure, it's weepy -- that's what's great about it! Catherine Hardwicke ("Thirteen," "Twilight") pours a lot of passion into the movie, and Collette and Barrymore are aces as longtime best friends contending with one's cancer diagnosis. It couldn't even accrue $2 million at the box office. What is wrong with you people? - MJ


"Girlhood"

Written and directed by Céline Sciamma


Oscar voters were never going to pay attention to this French drama, which premiered at festivals in 2014 and opened in limited release last January. But you should: "Girlhood" is a gripping, honest portrait of an underprivileged 16-year-old who joins a gang but realizes it won't provide the sense of belonging she seeks. As directed by Céline Sciamma, this exploration of race, gender and class sizzles. - MJ





"Welcome to Me"
Directed by Shira Piven


This film started off Kristen Wiig's year of indie films (her other two being "Diary of a Teenage Girl" and "Nasty Baby"). Here, we follow a strangely exacting lottery winner who insists on using her winnings to create an "Oprah"-style talk show. As Piven told HuffPost's Matthew Jacobs in May 2015, Wiig's thus-far goofy comedy career wasn't a deterrent to signing her on."We batted around a lot of lists of actresses, but in my mind she was really the one," she said. "I love those performances from comic actors who are asked to do something really heartbreaking." - JC


"Suffragette"
Directed by Sarah Gavron


What already seems like many moons ago, "Suffragette" was expected to factor into the Oscar race. And even though it's a touch too sluggish to be one of 2015's best, the movie boasts sweeping production design and a commendable lead performance from Carey Mulligan. Whatever the reason, "Suffragette" didn't find much of an audience anywhere: It topped out at a feeble $4.7 million domestically. Still, it's an important testimony of how far women's rights have come. - MJ


"Fifty Shades of Grey"
Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson


OK, so it's not a total surprise this film racked up more Razzie nominations than Oscar nods (although its original song, "Earned It," by The Weeknd, nabbed one), but Sam Taylor-Johnson managed to turn questionable literature into digestible fare, as far as steamy romances go. Consider this: the film, for better or worse, cleaned up at the box office. "Fifty Shades" set records for the highest-grossing Presidents Day opening weekend, with a current worldwide gross of $570.4 million. Those are good numbers to keep in mind when someone says women-led projects aren't profitable. - JC







"The Intern"
Written and directed by Nancy Meyers


A year without Nancy Meyers' enviable interiors and idealistic romances isn't a year at all. And she doubled down on both in "The Intern," even if the central romance was really a companionship between a headstrong e-commerce CEO (Anne Hathaway) and her 70-year-old intern (Robert De Niro). The movie is a charming friendship ode that spans genders and generations. Watch it with your mom. Or your significant other. Or your best bud. Or yourself. It's a film for everyone! - MJ


"Mustang"
Co-written and directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven


Turkish-born Ergüven describes meeting "Mustang" co-writer Alice Winocour (director of 2012's "Augustine") as such: "It was as if we were coming out of the same spaceship." This interstellar collaboration led to France's submission for the Oscars' Best Foreign Language Film category -- the only movie directed by a woman to receive any recognition from the Academy this year. The film centers around five teenage sisters in a Turkish beach town whose family, finding the girls immoral, keeps them locked up and cut off from society until they are ready to be paired off in loveless matches. - JC


"The Wolfpack"
Directed by Crystal Moselle


This documentary is proof that truth can be stranger -- and more fascinating and endearing -- than fiction. After running into a group of kids on the Lower East Side dressed like "Reservoir Dogs" characters, director Crystal Moselle began to talk with them and learn their story: six brothers kept in near total isolation in a New York City apartment by their religious father. To cope, they turned to their extensive movie collection, going as far to write out scripts from their favorites and reenact them over and over again. What emerges is a uniquely celebratory examination of perseverance. - JC 


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An Ancient Philosopher's Brilliant Theory Explains Everything Bad You've Ever Done

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What do you think of when you hear the word "sin?" 


Some immediately think of immoral acts, like adultery. For others, the mind may go to illegal activities. And some may even conjure up images of indulgences, as in enjoying a "sinful" dessert. In short, there could be countless interpretations of the word, but as New York Times columnist David Brooks says, there's one concept of sin that explains what it is in beautiful simplicity.


"That's a concept from this great theologian, Augustine, and he said, 'What is sin?'" Brooks says. "In traditional morality, it's the sense that we have something broken."


What's broken, he continues, is something inside of us -- and not necessarily something dark or depraved. Rather, in Augustine's viewpoint, what's broken actually relates to our loves.


"He had a beautiful formulation," Brooks continues. "He said we sin when we have our loves out of order."


Think about that for a moment. We sin when our loves are out of order.


"We all love a lot of things. We love family, we love money, we love a little affection, status, truth," Brooks says. "And we all know that some loves are higher. We know that our love of family is higher than our love of money."


However, when those ranks begin to shift, that's when sin comes in. "Our love of truth should be higher than our love of money. [But] if we're lying to get money, we're putting our loves out of order," Brooks explains.



In traditional morality, [sin is] the sense that we have something broken.



Under this definition, sinning doesn't have to be a life-altering event or a long-developed scheme, Brooks adds. Sin can occur even in the most relatable, everyday settings.


"For example, if a friend tells you a secret and you blab it at a dinner party, you're putting your love of popularity above your love of friendship," he says. "And we know that's wrong. That's the wrong order."


That's why Brooks suggests people take the time to examine their loves and literally rank them in highs and lows. This helps you remain conscious of your ordered loves and, in theory, can help prevent their disorder and subsequent sin.


"It's useful to sit down and just say, 'What do I love? What are the things I really love? And in what order do I love them? Am I spending time so I'm spending time on my highest love? Or am I spending time on a lower love?'" Brooks says. "[Time], or your attention or your energy -- all that stuff."



Also on HuffPost: Here's how you can tell if someone really has character



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Moms Speak Out About Postpartum Depression In Honest Photo Project

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Photographer Natalie McCain has found purpose in capturing raw images that highlight real moms' stories, as they bare their bodies and souls.


In the latest photo series of her ongoing Honest Body Project, McCain photographs and interviews women who have struggled with mental illness, particularly postpartum depression. She aims to give voice to moms who suffer in silence, feeling alone.


"Society puts so much pressure on mothers to be perfect," McCain told The Huffington Post. "When a woman has a child and starts struggling with postpartum depression, she often keeps this to herself because of the stigma surrounding mental illness. It is so much more common than most women realize and if we were to speak about it more mothers wouldn't need to struggle alone."



The series features eight mothers who suffered from postpartum depression, as well as one child-free woman who experienced PTSD after an experience with sexual assault. Some of the moms McCain photographed and interviewed also dealt with depression earlier in their lives, though others faced it for the first time after becoming parents. 


The photographer drew inspiration from her own experiences with postpartum anxiety after giving birth to her second child. "It took me months to realize what was going on because I had never even heard of postpartum anxiety," she said. "It is actually a common thing to go through and more people need to speak about it openly. Nobody should suffer alone."


McCain wants people who see her photo series to realize that depression doesn't always "look" sad. Many mothers feel pressure to put on a "fake smile" and pretend their lives are picture-perfect, especially on social media, she said -- noting this phenomenon deepens the silence surrounding the topic.  



"I hope that this series will help women who are struggling silently reach out for help," the photographer told HuffPost, adding, "Whether you open up to your best friend, your family, or your doctor, just speak up. It is so important to be honest and get help. I hope that new mothers struggling with postpartum depression will read these women's stories are realize that they aren't alone and that it can get better."


As for those who haven't struggled with mental illness, McCain believes her series can help foster greater a understanding and desire to help.


"If your friend just had a baby, even if she says she is okay, if you think she may be struggling then reach out to her and be there for her," she said. "Go help clean her house. Hold her baby while she naps. Be present and proactive. Postpartum depression is a serious problem and just having a friend who is supportive can help so much."


Keep scrolling for a sample of McCain's photos and interviews with moms who suffered from postpartum depression.



 


Also on HuffPost:


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Watch Out Authors, F**king Adorable Cats Are Taking Over Bookstore Shelves

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Walk into your local bookstore and it will likely take you 2.5 seconds to find Walter Chandoha's candy-colored tome pleasantly displayed in a "what's new" shelf of must-reads. You won't be able to miss it -- on the cover, a tiny white kitten stares at potential readers, situated atop a tower of pillows like the Internet king he probably is.


"Walter Chandoha," it reads, "The Cat Photographer."


"Um, that's adorable," a passerby mused at the Brooklyn bookstore I stumbled into. Um, she was right. The lonely white cover kitty is only the tip of the feline iceberg that is Chandoha's book. Flip through the pages inside and you'll be bombarded by perfectly groomed balls of fur languishing before the camera. If you like neon backdrops and photos of cats who characteristically DGAF, Chandoha's book is for you.



Chandoha's tribute to cats is hardly the only example of commercial animal photography becoming a trend in bookstores. The Dogist, aka Elias Weiss Friedman, recently published an analog version of his highly trafficked Instagram account, populated by stylized photos of canines on the street. Photographer Sophie Gamand's collection of carefully posed wet dog portraits also went the way of print.


Chandoha, though, has been working in the cat worship business for a while. Born in 1920 in New Jersey, he's been a freelancer behind the camera for over 40 years. According to his website, he has over 200,000 stock images of animals and gardens in his archives, and he considers his pictures of cats and dogs as "the strongest segment" of his animal forays.




Chandoha's cat obsession, in particular, began after the New York-based artist -- then a student -- found an abandoned gray kitten in Queens. He did what any well-meaning human sans allergies would do: he took it home and named it Loco. Living with Loco, "Walter Chandoha the Photographer" quickly became "Walter Chandoha the Cat Photographer." The widespread recognition rolled in when he opted to submit a portrait of his new pet to a weekly photo contest, and Loco's mug took home the prize.


"The Internet is awash with cat pictures, and Chandoha’s cat pictures might be seen as the forefather of them all." So declared, Aperture, the book's publisher, online. Outlets like The New York Times and Wired have agreed, calling him the "godfather of cat photography."


"They bear examination not only for their singular charm," Aperture continued, "but also for having established a vocabulary of the animal studio portrait with Chandoha's signature look: clean, brightly colored backdrops and high-key 'glamour' backlighting of his tiny, fuzzy subjects."



Chandoha has a signature look, that's for sure. His images are sharp and bright; color floods his candid shots of cats pawing, purring and napping, as cats are wont to do. The small pets often look like curious stuffed animals, frozen in the most aesthetically pleasing positions. And perhaps other photographers like Larry Johnson and Jamie Campbell -- who happen to have taken photos of cats -- have taken up his mantle. Perhaps he is the forefather of the Internet's favorite pastime. 


Either way, Chandoha's collection of cat photos has managed to acquire prime real estate in the bookshelves of New York's Brooklyn neighborhoods, and I venture to guess elsewhere too. His pastel masterpiece is just another example of our ever-growing interest in the world of commercial animal photography, a realm often sidelined by the harder, more serious fine art photographers, but wholly embraced by the digital world of Twitter handles and Instagram accounts.


Readers love the Dogist and the Purrrtraitist, and we probably shouldn't be surprised.


Walter Chandoha: The Cat Photographer is available through Aperture, and includes interviews with Chandoha by David La Spina and Brittany Hudak, involving photography tips and diagrams of Chandoha’s studio set-up.









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So, What Will Win Best Picture?

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The Oscar nominations are in, which means there's no time to waste in predicting who will take home little gold men at next month's awards. Per the Academy's regulations, campaigning is a far quieter endeavor once the ballot has been announced. That's not to say things can't shift dramatically between now and Feb. 28, but it does mean we have a semi-clear window into what might bulldoze the Best Picture race. Let's take a look at each of the eight nominees, presented in alphabetical order. (P.S. Fear not, “Carol,” we’re still mourning your egregious snub.)



 
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9 Painfully Cute Photos Of A Toddler And Dog Wearing Matching Outfits

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Eric and Sandi Swiridoff's dog, Reagan, is very much a part of their family. The Australian Labradoodle has a special bond with the Oregon couple, as well as their adult children. But one family member in particular holds a very special place in his canine heart.


Since the day they met, Reagan and the Swiridoffs' foster grandson have been like two peas in a pod. "Reagan gets SO excited when his little buddy comes over," Sandi told The Huffington Post. "They follow each other around, steal each other’s toys, and just like to be together. At meal time, Reagan stays close by the high chair, knowing that his little buddy is sure to sneak him a bite or two. At nap time, Reagan waits patiently just outside the door."



A photo posted by Mr. Reagan (@reagandoodle) on




Sandi often shares photos of the dog and toddler together on her Instagram account for "Mr. Reagan." In the pictures, the dynamic duo wear matching outfits -- from holiday pajamas to summer swim trunks. "I wanted to capture and portray a little glimpse of their special relationship, and the matching clothes helped me do just that," Sandi said.


The Swiridoffs hope their dog-themed Instagram account can bring joy and laughter to people's everyday lives. Sandi added that she hopes Reagn's bond with her daughter's foster son aid a cause that's important to their family.


"My dream for Reagan is that he will make a difference in this world by bringing awareness to foster care, and helping foster children any way he can."


Keep scrolling for some love-filled photos of the toddler and dog friends. 



A photo posted by Mr. Reagan (@reagandoodle) on





A photo posted by Mr. Reagan (@reagandoodle) on





A photo posted by Mr. Reagan (@reagandoodle) on





A photo posted by Mr. Reagan (@reagandoodle) on





A photo posted by Mr. Reagan (@reagandoodle) on





A photo posted by Mr. Reagan (@reagandoodle) on





A photo posted by Mr. Reagan (@reagandoodle) on





A photo posted by Mr. Reagan (@reagandoodle) on




H/T BuzzFeed


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Quick-Witted Girl's Take On Punishment Is Exactly What Her Mom Asked For

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This girl really took her punishment to heart. 


Victoria Collier's 6-year-old daughter, Isabella, was in a bit of a pickle last week after getting in trouble in school. As a penalty, Collier had her daughter write "I will make better choices" on a sheet of paper. Turns out, a few lines down, the 6-year-old really did make make a better choice. 




Crafty, eh?


Collier's friend, Noe Arellano, shared the priceless punishment on Reddit where the social media users were impressed with the 6-year-old's ingenuity. 


Collier told The Huffington Post that Isabella had landed in hot water at school before, and she was hoping to teach her a lesson. When she saw what Isabella had written, though, she was far from angry. She actually praised the girl for, as she says, doing exactly what she asked. 


"Efficiency is a value I admire and this was truly her way of getting it done," Collier recalled of her daughter's actions. 


The 6-year-old, Collier told HuffPost, has a free spirit and often has silly responses, comments and questions. Isabella's fun personality definitely keeps things interesting, Collier said. 


"Our home is never boring and I am a lucky mom," she said.


H/T Mashable 


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Can Reality Be Spoiled?

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Last Monday, the 20th season of "The Bachelor" premiered on ABC, and I'm looking forward to live-tweeting every moment, as I have during past seasons.


This season documents boyish Ben Higgins’ quest for a suitably sweet young thing to make his Denver bride. He’s already found -- or failed to find -- said sweet young thing, and if he succeeded, he already proposed to her. Taping wrapped up weeks ago, before the show even started airing. And somewhere out there are plenty of people who could tell me who won Ben’s hand, in addition to a gem-studded Neil Lane monstrosity presumably designed to strengthen her left ring finger muscles.





I know that. I know that specifically I could check the blog of Reality Steve, a long-time spoiler specialist who has a pretty good track record at publishing the endings of "Bachelor" franchise shows well in advance. Reality Steve, whose real name is Steve Carbone, fills a vital niche for the industry, though ABC doesn't care for him. People who have information about who's won know exactly where to send it, and people who want information about who's won know exactly where to find it. 


Perhaps more importantly, we know exactly what sites to avoid if we don't want it. I'm a media professional, and I can't exactly avoid every entertainment blog out there during each "Bachelor" season, especially as that would be roughly all of the time. (It feels like those shows never stop.) And reporters and bloggers know full well that most readers either a) care approximately zero percent about who won "The Bachelor, or b) do not want to find out because they enjoy watching the show in suspense.


Reality Steve funnels all of those spoiler-y urges into one convenient place, allowing other media outlets to punt on publishing spoilers and readers to make the choice whether they see the results early or not. It's a public service, really. No one feels that way more than Carbone himself, as became clear from the three major interviews with him that dropped last week, to coincide with the show's season premiere. 


"I feel sort of an obligation that this is what I need to do because nobody out there on the Internet is doing it," he told Jezebel's Kate Dries. "I don’t have any competition out there for spoilers because the major entertainment sites ... they’re all in bed with ABC. So the second they start spoiling as a headline ... they’ll be cut off from everything."


Carbone went on to explain that he realizes not everyone reads "Bachelor" spoilers -- because we don't know about them. "I understand ... there are still way more people out there that don’t know of me and of spoilers than do in terms of the viewing audience of the show," he conceded. 





Dries noted in the interview that she does read spoilers to inform her writing on the show -- but oddly, Jezebel is not in the habit of publishing them. The Gawker Media sites, of which Jezebel is one, are known for being scrappy, uncourteous toward the powerful, not into playing nice for access, and, in fact, ABC doesn't exactly bring exclusives about "The Bachelor" stars to the women's blog.


So why isn't Jezebel, and other such independent entertainment sites, publishing spoilers? I'd venture to guess that it's because their readers don't want to know them, even if they could. I asked one "Bachelor" fan named Ainsley Burton whether she worries about members of her two "Bachelor" fantasy leagues cheating with spoilers, and she barely gave it a thought -- fans, she pointed out, joined the leagues for the same reason they didn't check spoilers: to enjoy the show more. 


Carbone's conception of "The Bachelor" -- which he says he wouldn't even watch were it not his job -- seems to be that it's basically a vast conspiracy perpetuated by ABC on an audience who doesn't even realize we could find out ahead of time who won. All those viewers choosing to enjoy the competition to the fullest, are dupes, not active consumers. Meanwhile, the rest of the media, held hostage by the network's threats, can only dream of publishing spoilers in his carefree way.


This might be the only context in which spoilers are so valorized.


In fact, increasingly we live in a spoiler-phobic world. Spoiler alerts litter our conversation, our Twitter feeds, our reviews and news articles. We can spoil movies that came out 10 years ago, or TV episodes that aired last week. With the rise of DVRs and streaming services, as Buzzfeed’s Ariane Lange argued last year, it's never been easier for people to simply watch shows and movies on their own schedule. The day after the "Breaking Bad" finale airs isn't a safe time to publicly announce what happened anymore. 


Perhaps we're even overdoing it. While certain art forms -- competition, mystery, suspense -- thrive on the audience's lack of knowledge, many don't require it. There was a time when few stories contained surprises, when retellings of familiar stories were enjoyed for their narrative magic, artistic expression, and psychological complexity. Most of Shakespeare's plays weren't new to his fans; he pulled his stories from history, folklore, and preexisting tales.


Now, we spring to hiss, "Shhh, spoilers!!", even when an episode of "Empire" would still be inherently gripping without a suspense element. We expect every story to surprise us.



When the hit docuseries "Making a Murderer" dropped on Netflix last month, some critics urged people to experience its immersive pull and tense pacing "without spoilers," for the full effect. The "spoilers," of course, would be news articles about the all-too-real, all-too-horrifying case at the heart of the documentary. The case isn't a mystery or a competition; it's a real situation profoundly affecting the lives of two traumatized families, the Halbachs and the Averys.


Avoiding knowledge of the actual events in order to wholly enjoy watching a documentary about them -- there's no more solipsistic way to consume a work of true crime, an art form that many have worried is inherently ethically troubling. When it comes to real life, spoilers don't apply. To fixate on our desire for the stimulation of suspense and shock in such a case only commodifies a painful tragedy, as well as the broader questions about the justice system raised by Steven Avery's trial. Watching "Making a Murderer" informed might actually make for a more thoughtful and engaged viewing experience, rather than the kind of emotional, semi-informed experience that led fans to circulate petitions asking President Obama to pardon Avery (which is simply impossible). 


Still, when it comes to fluffy competitions and suspenseful fictions, it's hard to see the valor in ruining the enjoyment for the audience. Sure, you might say "The Bachelor" is real life ... but is it? Like, really? No one knows it's not real life better than those of us who watch it like a soap opera, well aware that these adult people chose to make their love life temporarily part of a competitive drama to entertain the masses. Spoilers? Why ruin my fun, for no other reason than to learn some information that is irrelevant outside the show, and which I'll learn anyway in just a month or two? If my "Bachelor" live-tweeting buddies have taught me anything, it's that you can be aware and critical of how problematic and staged the show is -- while still allowing yourself the pleasurable tension of some speculation. 


Hear more about "The Bachelor" in this week's episode of HuffPost's podcast "Here to Make Friends," including a visit from Jezebel's Kate Dries, below!





You can be highbrow. You can be lowbrow. But can you ever just be brow? Welcome to Middlebrow, a weekly examination of pop culture. Sign up to receive it in your inbox weekly.


Follow Claire Fallon on Twitter: @ClaireEFallon


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This Is The Most NSFW Coloring Book We've Ever Seen.. And It's Brilliant

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(Note: The images below are sexually graphic and may not be appropriate for work or other sensitive environments.)

A powerful, compelling and very NSFW coloring book is providing queer men with the opportunity to consider and question their own personal relationship with heartbreak and casual sex.


The queer coloring book, called LAST NIGHT I DREAMT THAT SOMEBODY LOVED ME, comes from Texas-based artist and illustrator Nathan Rapport. His idea for the book stemmed from going through a tumultuous breakup and the ways in which art as therapy allowed him to question his relationship with casual sex during these tougher emotional times.


Much of the impact of LAST NIGHT I DREAMT THAT SOMEBODY LOVED ME comes from its playful yet poignant juxtaposition of male-bodied individuals engaging in group sex with the lyrics from classic and beautiful heartbreak songs by singer-songwriters like Tori Amos, Annie Lennox and Prince.

"I knew the concept was very universal, and not specific to queer people, though I was presenting my own personal, very queer experience and perspective," Rapport told The Huffington Post. "This was always much more than simply a dirty coloring book with a bunch of naked guys. The imagery is very graphic, yes, but I felt it needed to be, as the lyrical imagery is so potent with raw emotion and they needed to balance and compliment each other in a way that made sense." 



Check out the interview with Rapport below, as well as some images from the book.



The Huffington Post: What is your overarching concept and intention for LAST NIGHT I DREAMT THAT SOMEBODY LOVED ME?


Nathan Rapport: To be totally honest, my initial intention for this book was simply to get some thoughts on paper, help myself get over a tough breakup, and maybe create something finished as a result. I was working my way through a really rough patch in my life and the summer was a very dark time. A good friend and I were both going through similar experiences, and we decided it would be healthy for us to meet up at night and make art together. And so we each began our own projects while sharing a space and listening to records.  We were given a vendor table at Stargayzer Festival the following month, so we had a deadline, some good ideas and some heartbreak. 


My idea for a book began to take shape relatively quickly, and I knew that I was responding positively to the imagery and felt like I was making some thoughtful choices. As the book took shape, and I made changes here and there, I felt I had something I was very proud of and that actually helped me take a look at some of my own stuff.



Now the book is out and is growing legs, and I couldn't be happier. Certain underlying themes in the book have become much more apparent as this process has unfolded. Intimacy being a major one. Intimacy is obviously a huge theme throughout the book; the lyrics for the most part are even pulled from an era where music itself was much more intimate. We bought records and physical music -- it was tactile and physical. Intimacy has become important to me in the actual process of getting books out there. I have found that I enjoy personally hand-writing "thank you" notes and stuffing envelopes myself. I'm enjoying the personal and tactile connection it creates with each person who buys or supports this book.


So what began as a simple, single drawing in my sketchbook has become a project that gives people an opportunity to have fun while responding in a very genuine way to some not so surprisingly universal and honest concepts. It gives me an opportunity to interact in a personal way with folks who respond to the book, meet people face to face [on the tour] along the way and reconnect with old family in a whole new way. I'm really excited for how people are responding to the coloring book, and I can't wait to see what the coming months will bring.



Do you think casual sex is crucial to the healing process for queer people going through break-ups?


I don't know if I believe it is crucial, or specific to queer people. I know I've done it. And I know a lot of us have done it. I knew at the time I was doing it, and I guess I've reached an age or just a phase in my life where I felt a desire to look at it honestly and ask, "why?" I am in no way demonizing it with any of this imagery, as heavy as a few of them may be. I was simply asking myself some questions.


I'm sure there are some people out there who have never had a post-break up wild streak, but based on my own experience, friendships and response across the board to this book so far, I know we have all been there, and I'm sure most of us have at some point asked ourselves a few questions.  



Why do you think art therapy is an effective and worthwhile practice for queer people?


I think everyone heals differently, and I think certain therapies are more effective for some than others. I know that when I hear a song or see an image that I can relate to a very specific struggle or pain I am dealing with, I don't feel so alone in that struggle. So to present this concept, and to look at heartbreak in a very honest yet playful and lighthearted way feels really healthy, and like something that might make a lot of people think and smile. As a visual artist I can't say enough for the therapeutic benefits of getting lost in a drawing or painting. So I love that in addition to presenting the concept with the book, the book itself becomes interactive, and we allow ourselves to have fun coloring in pictures and getting lost in making something while we process.



Head here to get your own copy of LAST NIGHT I DREAMT THAT SOMEBODY LOVED ME.

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These Playful Pictures Of Toy Figures Pose Serious Questions

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An artist from Sweden is going small to look at the bigger global picture.


Camilla Hällgren places playful-looking miniature toy figures next to everyday items to create powerful photographs that throw the spotlight on pressing social issues.


Inequality, power, immigration, democracy, gender and gun violence all come under the university researcher's gaze in her "Little Sweden Art" project.


"Who are we in this big world? What does it mean to be human?" she says are the underlying questions that rule her work. "What does it mean to become a man or a woman?"




Hällgren uploads her macro-style images with a brief caption to Facebook and Instagram. It's then up to the viewer to decipher their further specific meanings, she writes on her website.


Her newest photograph (above) was posted three weeks ago and is an apparent commentary on the ongoing European migrant crisis. It depicts wooden hands cradling a boat called "Hope" which is packed full of miniature figures.


Another image, with the description "Protecting the innocent," critiques gun violence with the figures painting a firearm with nail polish. A third photograph ponders over the destruction of the Earth as the toys sew up a squishy globe with the caption, "The kids won't notice."




Hällgren, who works for the mid-northern Umeå University, calls her creative technique "Art Blended Research."




"It draws on the insight of that there is more to see than meets the eye," she writes. "The strength of this approach, however, does not lie in the ability to explain what is. Instead, the strength of Art Blended Research is found in possible explorations and inspirations of what might be."




Hällgren, who's worked on the ongoing project for more than three years, told Mashable she's now learning to better trust her images and the messages they convey.




"I have learned that art can be a powerful way to go if you are looking for emotional dimensions, vicarious experiences, experiential knowledge, or ... expressing alternative world views and disrupting stereotypes," she said.






The Huffington Post reached out to Hällgren for comment.






 


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The Bottom Line: 'The Past' By Tessa Hadley

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As do most novels, Tessa Hadley’s latest, The Past, has to do with (yes) the past, yet the title feels like a misnomer.


For the Crane family -- four adult siblings, along with their various children, almost-children, and romantic baggage -- the past is exactly what they’ve come to reckon with, and break from, at the outset of the novel. From their mother’s parents, they inherited a ramshackle home in the English countryside, which they’ve retreated to for family holidays over the years. But upkeep is expensive, the roof is leaking, and they’ve come together for one last three-week visit before deciding whether to put the house up for sale.


Alice, the dreamy, dramatic second-youngest, arrives with the son of her recent ex-boyfriend in tow. Kasim is a moody 20-year-old student, and not entirely sure why he accepted her offer to join another family’s vacation. Harriet, the taciturn and reclusive eldest, viscerally dreads the hours of socializing, retreating on long nature walks to escape. Fran, the sensible youngest, couldn’t convince her carefree musician husband to join, and comes alone with her two under-10 children, fabulist Ivy and romantically long-haired Arthur. Roland, the only brother and a successful public intellectual, brings his brand-new third wife, the elegant Argentinian Pilar, and his winsome 16-year-old daughter, Molly.


As the siblings fall into their old patterns of camaraderie interspersed with needling and side-taking, Kasim and Molly rapidly become infatuated with each other, with Ivy and Arthur the wide-eyed witnesses to, and often the convenient excuses for, the couple’s innocent trysts. Harriet finds herself drawn to the blunt, aristocratic Pilar, who begins to confide in her husband’s sister about her family problems. With Fran keeping the entire household running, Ivy and Arthur often roam the woods with Kasim, and sometimes Molly, but Kasim’s distracted oversight isn’t enough to prevent them from venturing into an abandoned old cottage, where moldering piles of nudie mags and still-worse revelations confront the two young children.


Hadley jumps back, halfway through the novel, to the Crane siblings’ childhoods, when their beloved mother Jill temporarily brought them to this same house to see her parents. Jill died of cancer when the children weren’t yet fully grown, and their father suffered a collapse and moved to France after her passing. The four children helped raise each other, and their sibling conflicts only seem more ingrained by this shared wound.


Still, The Past never really seems to be about the past. Perhaps it’s because most of the novel is determinedly set in those three contemporary weeks when the Cranes are on holiday. Or perhaps it’s because Hadley treats human existence the way a nature writer might treat a forest path: She’s deeply aware of the past and of the future, but she’s so powerfully fixated on the present moment, its details both painful and ecstatic, that all the rest seems like only an echo.


In fact, Hadley also lingers over the natural surroundings of the family’s country house, painting the wildflowers, weather patterns and clouds of insects in luxuriant detail. The bucolic setting allows her to flex her talent for evocative word pictures, woven from the sort of artfully ambling prose that seems to say, “Slow down, enjoy this sentence.” Her rich visual style carries her between the flora and fauna and homo sapiens; Roland “reminded Alice, with his brown eyes, of a speckled thrush; you could see the current of awareness moving in his face like a current in water.” Harriet’s hair is “a stiff crest”; Kasim’s “thick as a pelt.”


The Cranes and company are specimens, examined in warmly neutral granularity. Hadley never seems to take sides, or feel compelled to tie stories up in a bow, or even show characters growing into newer, better versions of themselves over time. Like the wildness that surrounds them in the countryside, they’re simply creatures living through cycles of life in their own delicate ecosystem, repeating the same roles their parents did, and reenacting the same characteristic mistakes they have in the past.


Two years ago, I reviewed Hadley’s Clever Girl for HuffPost, and found this detachedly observant quality frustrating. There’s no shape to the life of the titular clever girl, no purpose to keep reading. But in the interplay of the Crane family and their loved ones, the too-familiar dynamics playing and replaying eternally, the ruptures and the olive branches, a form arises from the hands-off acuity of the author’s narrative style: not an arc, perhaps, but a cycle. Hadley won’t give us the traditional satisfaction of tying up all the plot’s dangling threads at the end, but she's left us with the comfortable reassurance that life is made up of a never-ending skein of dangling plot threads.


The Bottom Line:


A lushly written novel about four siblings revisiting their family’s country home, The Past reads like the lovechild of a nature essay and domestic drama, with all the joys of both.


What other reviewers think:


The Guardian:In passage after passage Hadley’s writing, following Updike’s precept, “gives the mundane its beautiful due”. She is especially good on sounds, such as the “wooden clatter” of a pigeon’s wing-beats, or of a stream “conversing urgently with itself”.”


The Washington Post: “So what exactly generates the magnetism of this extraordinary novel? For one thing, Hadley carves her sentences from some rare earth element that’s both dense and buoyant."


Who wrote it?


Tessa Hadley is a critically acclaimed British novelist, whose previous five novels include Clever Girl and Accidents in the Home. She has also published two short story collections.


Who will read it?


Fans of nature writing, subdued domestic dramas, and ambiguous plot resolution.


Opening lines:


“Alice was the first to arrive, but she discovered as she stood at the front door that she had forgotten her key. The noise of their taxi receding, like an insect burrowing between the hills, was the only sound at first in the still afternoon, until their ears got used to other sounds; the jostling of water in the stream that ran at the bottom of the garden, a tickle of tiny movements in the hedgerows and grasses.”


Notable passage:


“He’s never persuaded me. I suppose there’s another woman? Of course there’s another woman. I can’t believe he’s got away with it for so long. He stinks of women.


“Sophy knew he used these violent words to shock her -- and actually to jolt himself, because he was upset. He couldn’t bear anything to hurt Jill. And she was shocked, though she hoped he didn’t noticed it; then she wondered about this idea that women -- a certain kind of woman -- left their scent on men, so that other men could smell it. All kinds of shame seemed to be wrapped up in it: the shame of leaving your civet trace, or the shame of odorlessness, not leaving one.”


The Past
by Tessa Hadley
Harper, $26.99
Published January 5, 2016


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



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#NRAFairyTales Is Perfect Reply To NRA's Gun-Toting Red Riding Hood

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The NRA has suggested that putting guns into the hands of children is a good idea by publishing “Little Red Riding Hood (Has a Gun)” -- a modified fairytale that depicts an armed Red and her armed grandmother successfully defending themselves against the Big Bad Wolf.


The NRA Family site notes that the story, published last week, is just the first in a series of reimagined fairytales by author Amelia Hamilton, and promises that there are more revamped, gun-heavy classics to come.


Curiously, the Big Bad Wolf himself -- who is obviously a career criminal, if you’re to believe fairytale canon -- is not armed in this version of the tale. In the new version, Granny has plenty of time to slowly back up and grab her shotgun, but the NRA doesn’t explore what would happen if the Big Bad Wolf showed up at the door wielding a firearm himself. (And before you say wolves can’t shoot or obtain guns, this is a wolf who can speak perfect English and semi-convincingly impersonate a human, so in this fantasy NRA world there’s no reason to believe he wouldn’t be able to get his paws on a firearm.)


Many were quick to point out that Little Red Riding Hood is far from the only fairytale that could have ended WILDLY differently if more guns had been involved. Using the hashtag #NRAFairyTales, people explored the many possibilities on Twitter.


















We won’t hold our breath for the NRA Family website to run those versions. 


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Buck Angel, 'The Man With A Vagina,' On The Role Sex Plays In Living Authentically

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This is the fourth feature in a series that aims to elevate some of the transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals who have played a significant role in the ongoing fight for trans and queer liberation. Head here to read the first feature with CeCe McDonald, here for the second with Kate Bornstein or here for the most recent with Laura Jane Grace.


Buck Angel is an adult film producer, activist and trans man whose work as an educator fights to sexualize the trans body and break down stigma surrounding the spectrum of trans male identity. He initially made a name for himself in the world of adult entertainment, pushing the industry to rethink their relationship with transgender actors and create visibility for trans and gender non-conforming men.


Over the last several years, Angel has turned his focus towards educating the public about human sexuality by touring America as a speaker and sitting down with male-identified trans and gender non-conforming people in his ongoing project "Sexing the Transman." The documentary porn series provides a platform for trans and gender non-conforming men to have a candid discussion about the role sex and sexuality plays, or has played, in their ongoing transition.


In this interview with The Huffington Post, Buck Angel reflects on his journey as a adult film performer and educator throughout his own personal transition, the many shades and hues of the trans community, and the role that, in his eyes, visibility, sex and sexuality plays in trans and gender non-conforming people coming to live as their authentic selves.

The Huffington Post: Can you pinpoint the beginning of your career? What were some of the first defining moments for you as a trans adult star, activist and educator?


Buck Angel: I sure can. It is something that I will never forget because I still cannot believe that by having this idea I am now in this place in my life where I have a powerful voice -- and that is all because I had this vision.


I was working in the adult entertainment field, but behind the camera and building websites. I was working with a very popular trans woman actor and the field of trans woman porn is big. It was at this moment I said to myself, “Wow I cannot believe there are no transsexual men in porn" -- when I say that, I always have this vision of a lightbulb on the top of my head and inside it says: “the man with a pussy." That vision is so powerful for me because I was scared of it at first and then I realized I was on to something when I told my friend and they said, "Dude that is a brilliant idea. You are going to change the world." Of course, that was not my intention or my desire at the time. It was just to make a place for someone like me in the adult world -- to create a genre or a niche. So I remember laughing at my friend and saying, "I don’t care about that. I just want to make hot porn."





After that it was an uphill battle to get any kind of love or recognition from both the adult industry, as well as my community of trans men. The industry was freaked out because they had no idea where to put me or even market me. Many of the guys who worked with trans women called me a freak. Many of the companies would not touch me. It was hard. I felt really ostracized. But then the gay men started to come towards my work.


Many were very secret about it and made to feel ashamed by other gay men. I really made this sort of divide sexually within the gay men's community. But they were really the ones who lifted me up, made me feel like what I was producing was hot and very much needed. My work spoke not only to sex but sexuality and how it is so diverse. This was when I started to realize that, yes, my friend was right. I do have the opportunity to change the world. I guess that is how I started to become an activist and an educator. But with that also came hate from the trans community. They were very mean and awful -- speaking to me as if my work in adult film was going to make everyone think all trans men have a pussy or that all trans men are like me. That I was fetishizing trans men. During that time I was very frustrated with community and the hate. Now, I realize 13 years later that they were just acting out of fear. I did not understand that back then. The best part about this story is that now there is a very big community of men with pussies/vaginas. 


One of the great things about growing older as an activist and educator is learning and growing as a person. I cringe at some of the things I did early on. But now I know better and really make an effort to help change the world through my sex and body positivity work.



One of the great things about growing older as an activist and educator is learning and growing as a person.



Can you talk about your experiences working with trans and gender non-conforming people in the adult film industry: Why has this industry been so crucial to the survival and lives of many trans people? What do you say to those who claim the adult entertainment industry enforces negative stereotypes about trans people and is damaging to the community? 


One of the most amazing things for me and the progression of my work is my ongoing project "Sexing the Transman." I came to idea because of the community telling me that my films were not a representation of the community and I realized that I had the opportunity to open that up and give a voice to many trans and GNC people through my films. The idea of creating a docu-porn series where I could now step back and let others talk about transition and how this plays a big part in their sexuality and body positivity, was so awesome for me. The way these people just opened up for me and were so happy to discuss and show the world how important sex is for them during the transition -- how it helped them get in touch with a body that they always hated. So, really, my experience within a certain part of the community now has been nothing but positive because I have given them that voice to them. I get so many emails from people thanking me for this series because it helps to validate that it is ok to love yourself and your body the way you see it -- not the way others want you too.  





The adult industry seems to be the one place that many trans people go to when seeking work. That is because we do not discriminate and its a place that anyone can get work. That said, I do not always think that people go into it with the idea that it is a positive thing for them; they are only doing it to survive and not necessarily because they want to. But some in my community will argue that this entertainment field only creates negative stereotypes of trans people -- that it fetishizes and creates negativity. I disagree. There are many who love expressing their sexuality this way and think of it as I do: a way to make positive body images that create positive change.


I would say that there is still some weird feelings about the transgender community and the adult industry, meaning that I think they still look at us more like outsiders and not necessarily a part of the adult industry. But I do not see that as a big problem because you can do and create whatever you like now. You do not need the industry to "make it” anymore. We can now just do it. I am proof of that!


You are viewed by some as a controversial figure in the trans community. What are your thoughts about "the trans community," especially as it's seen by the mainstream?


You bet I am! It’s all because I talk about sex and my body -- because I dared to talk about my genitals in a way that no one in the community had before. So why does that make me controversial? I find it interesting how the community wants the world to be accepting of them yet they do not even accept their own diversity. The thing about the trans community is that it is growing so fast and with that growth comes lots of opinions and the one's who are the loudest seem to win. It makes me sad that some have so much anger and hate towards me and others who are trying to make change the way we know how. The lies and the hate that people have posted about me just shows how they have no desire to create change. I realize that there is so much fear, depression and self-hate it makes some in the community react with just that -- hate. I myself have said things in my career that are not ok, but I have since made amends and created a dialogue to clear this up. But some just do not see the value in moving on and have it out for me. That is just part of being a public figure. You can not please everyone. My feelings do not get hurt by these people because I know they are just hurt and have not had the opportunity to heal themselves. They must understand that there is no right or wrong way to be a transsexual/transgender person. The word policing is causing so much damage. The whole point of changing is to be yourself -- to be unique. Language is ever-evolving. These people who police us are just doing the same thing that we are running from and trying to change.



So that said, I believe that there really is not a “community”at this time. When I think of community I think of peace and love, I think of people who come to it as individuals and create a space for us all to have different thoughts and ways of doing things, and then we come together on our common ground of being trans. But that doesn’t mean we all have to be exactly the same or speak the exact same “trans language." This is what is breaking the community down. This idea that we are all the same. That is not true and why much of the time I do not feel a part of this community. For me my community is humanity. 


I'd like to talk about visibility and the lack of visibility trans men seem to have in the mainstream -- both in general but also compared to the visibility that trans women have historically received. Why do you think this is? How do we combat this?


Visibility creates change! This is my new favorite thing to say. So, yes, there is more trans women visibility and I think that is because, historically, the women have been out longer and so their visibility started way before us. The other thing is -- in my experience -- trans men tend to transition and just want to be seen as men and not necessarily be out as trans. But with this bigger movement of GNC people and such I think we will start to see more visibility in the coming years. "Sexing The Transman" has created a place of visibility for trans male sexuality that never existed before so I hope that we can continue to discuss this in the more mainstream arena. 


What does the future hold for Buck Angel? What do you want your legacy to be?


You know, when I started my work I just wanted to create a space in the adult world that wasn’t there. I did that. Then came my activist work and that really made me feel so happy and powerful because I really started to see the change that my sexuality work was creating and I thought how lucky I am to be able to travel the world to create change. [The fact] that people write me these amazing e-mails and say so many wonderful things to me -- sometimes I cry because I just cannot believe I lived to see this happen to me. So now I realize how powerful my voice and presence are that my goal is to help others have a powerful voice. To help others see how important visibility is to the creation of change. I would want my legacy to be that I made loving your body possible -- even though it was not what society told you it had to be. Anything is possible.


Check Huffington Post Gay Voices regularly for further conversations with other significant and historic trans and gender-nonconforming figures. Missed the first three interviews in this series? Check out the conversations with CeCe McDonaldKate Bornstein and Laura Jane Grace.


-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

The Outsider Art Journal That Believes Everyone Is An Artist

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"I’ve always been interested in strange art," John Maizels, now editor of Raw Vision, explained to The Huffington Post. "I traveled and collected things. I didn’t really know there was a name to it until I discovered Jean Dubuffet." 


The story sounds vaguely familiar. For the month of January, leading up to the Outsider Art Fair, I've been listening to the stories of some of the burgeoning field's most influential players. Given the fact that "Outsider Art" was not a widely used term until 1972, in the time before, there was nothing connecting an assemblage sculpture made in rural Alabama with a meticulous drawing created in a Swiss mental hospital. Except a certain magnetic pull.


"Nobody knew about it, it was almost a secret art form," Maizels added.


 



In the 1940s, artist and theorist Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in reference to work made by so-called primitive artists -- mainly children and people suffering from mental illness -- whose work was untainted by culture. Dubuffet's definition was far from perfect, idealizing a naivety that often doesn't exist. But the language began to illuminate a value in art that wasn't hung on museum walls, but rather scribbled on a napkin, tucked in the attic. Meanwhile, in the mainstream art world of the '80s, there was what Maizels called "a deadly scene." 


"It was dominated totally by conceptualism," he said. "You could walk into a gallery in those days and there would be framed texts on the wall -- not even pictures. People were just thinking of clever ideas and having other people execute them." 


This stream of cold cleverness stood in stark contrast to the vibrant, personal, pulsing works being produced on the outside. "Suddenly, outside of the art world was the art. These were people who actually got their hands dirty, with paint. This rarely happened anymore!"


Maizels, enthralled with the works emerging from the margins without training or context, decided to create a publication to organize the many disparate parts of outsider art. Since most outsider artists work only for themselves, rarely with aims of exhibiting or selling their work, much of their work remained unseen, unstudied and unsold. In 1989, Maizels launched the first edition of Raw Vision, a publication devoted to the art of the outside. Their first issue, he recalled, consisted of only 1,000 copies.


"It was quite evangelical," he said. "We were trying to spread the word in a big way."



A crucial aspect of Maizels' vision for the journal was accessibility. Just as mainstream art institutions had the tendency to come off as unwelcoming and elitist, so did the magazines that circulated around them. "In those days I could buy an art magazine and -- first of all there aren’t any pictures in it -- and you can hardly read any of it. We wanted to be just the opposite. Lots of images and text that you can actually read."


When Dubuffet coined Art Brut, he defined it as work "produced by persons unscathed by artistic culture, where mimicry plays little or no part (contrary to the activities of intellectuals). These artists derive everything ... from their own depths, and not from the conventions of classical or fashionable art." In 1972, Roger Cardinal described an outsider artist as one "possessed of an expressive impulse" who "then externalize[s] that impulse in an unmonitored way which defies conventional art-historical contextualization." The definition had loosened up a bit since Dubuffet's day, realizing artists did not have to experience mental illness in order to feel an inescapable compulsion to create. 


"Over the years it’s become broader and broader," Maizels said. "Now it means anything a bit unusual. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but anything a little outside the mainstream can be outsider art." Personally, Maizels isn't overly concerned with the terminology designating who is outside, who is inside. "Every single human being is an artist at some point," he concluded.



What does concern Maizels regarding the future outsider art is the possibility of outsider artists, often vulnerable individuals who steer clear of the art market and its rudimentary mechanics, will be taken advantage of by the mainstream players. In Maizels' words: "The big danger is that outsider art could be consumed by contemporary art."


Already, outsider art is gaining value in the marketplace, making its way into museums and inspiring the work of trained artists. "Artists can’t help but be influenced by it," Maizels said. "I just hope they actually acknowledge the influence."


As outsider art inches closer and closer into the mainstream, Maizels hopes to provide a handy roadmap. He's bringing his Outsider Art Sourcebook to the Outsider Art Fair this week, featuring a timeline of the quickly evolving field. Along with the book, Maizels is presenting the work of outsider miniaturists, namely Pradeep Kumar and Ben Wilson. 



 


Kumar, whose day job is working as a clerk at the Punjab National Bank in India, sculpts vibrant characters onto toothpicks, reminiscent of Guatemalan worry dolls. In an earlier interview with HuffPost Kumar explained: "Being deaf and partially mute, I always sat in the last row of the class and could not make out what the teacher taught. So just to while away my time in the class, I started making this art."


Wilson, on the other hand, adorns wads of gum on the street with Keith Haring-esque colorful abstractions. "He used to go around London and paint flowers on billboards," Maizels explained, "and he kept on getting arrested for painting on people’s property. So he started painting on the gum on the sidewalk. Then when he's arrested he explains he's not actually destroying the property, it’s just old gum. So there are areas in London where you look at the sidewalk and it’s covered with little pictures on gum."


It's projects like these, wildly imaginative, impassioned, inexpensive, readily available to both artist and viewer, that embody the spirit of outsider art. Despite its current status on the fringes of the art world, outsider art is in a sense the most mainstream art genre of all. It requires no prior knowledge of art theory, art history, or anything else. 


In Maizels' words, everyone is an artist at some point or another. The ability to hold on to that impulse, however, is scarce, like gold dust. At the core of outsider art, this tension between the universal and the spectacular continues to build, grumbling and humming all the way. "All children are artists. It’s something so important and natural for everyone to do. Some people they don’t outgrow it like most of us do."



Purchase a copy of The Outsider Art Source Book at the Raw Vision booth at the Outsider Art Fair, from Jan. 21-24, 2016, at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City. See a preview below. 



-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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