We already know that avocados make for a great a breakfast toast topper and an excellent guacamole feast. 

But THIS takes their magic to a whole new level, with recipes we never dreamed would be so simple. Behold, the creations of food artist Colette Dike, whose blog Food Deco provides all the avocado recipe inspiration we need: 

Egg and Avocado Sandwich

Hummus-Stuffed Avocado "Egg"

Oven Roasted Sweet Potato with Whipped Feta and Shaved Avocado

Shaved Avocado Toast with Tahini

Yellow Curry Guacamole

Avocado "Truffle" with Almonds, Pistachios and Goat Cheese

Polenta Pizza with Shaved Avocado

Crispy Avocado Fries

A standard vegetable peeler is Dike's secret to those beautifully shaved avocado curls, she told HuffPost. She chooses avocados that are ripe but not too soft and shaves them into ribbons that adorn toasts, pizzas and more.

It's a nutrient-packed snack, with a mouth-watering bonus.

"Avocado is very photogenic," Dike said. "The ‘meat’ has a substance to make all kinds of cool stuff: roses, ribbons, spaghetti and dots ... The possibilities are endless!"

So whether you shave or smash, enjoy taking your avocado to the next delicious level. 

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Sometimes, you don't really play video games to have fun.

This won't be news to anyone accustomed to the most grueling titles -- "Bloodborne," "Ikaruga" or, stretching back, "Contra" and "Mega Man," to name a few -- but it's true. Certain video games are there to destroy you and build you back up again. The experience is mentally grueling, maybe even edifying, but you couldn't call it "fun" in the way that driving a car really fast in "Grand Theft Auto" or shooting aliens in "Halo" is. It's kind of like finishing a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle in fast motion.

While some have written about the cognitive benefits of action video games, my anecdotal view is pretty simple: Overcoming challenges in these super-hard games brings about a sense of focus, accomplishment and clearheadedness that you might call "zen." That's why I'm trying to conquer "Super Hexagon," a rip-your-hair-out game available on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS.

Here's how the $2.99 game works. You steer a little triangle left and right to avoid barriers speeding toward the middle of the screen in the form of geometric shapes. It's simple, but the experience is intense: Not only does the game move fast, but thumping music and vivid graphics help overwhelm the senses.

When you first try the game, there are three difficulty modes. If you can last for 60 seconds in each one, you'll unlock three even harder settings.

The Huffington Post has featured articles before about navigating the sometimes mysterious ways technology impacts our lives. In January, I spent a week without phone notifications to see if it calmed my life down. Now we'll see what happens when I put my mind toward clearing the six maniacally difficult levels in "Super Hexagon."

You can watch a 14-minute session, with commentary, in the video above. If you'd just like to see what it looks like to finally clear "Hexagoner," the second out of three initial difficulty settings in the game, click here to skip ahead to that part in the video. Note that the music -- while great! -- isn't to everyone's taste, so set your volume accordingly before going in.

Fourteen minutes might seem like a long time to sit there and watch someone play a video game. But if you were being generous, you might consider this a neat way to witness someone develop a skill in real time and hit a new landmark.

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Amandla Stenberg stays slaying. 

The 17-year-old actress has landed a lead role in an upcoming film titled "The Hate You Give," according to The Hollywood Reporter. The movie, which is inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, is based on a young adult novel written by Angela Thomas. 

Stenberg is set to play Starr, a 16-year-old girl who grew up in poverty and now attends a suburban prep school. The character witnesses a police officer shoot her unarmed best friend and must share her testimony in court, which comes with serious challenges and consequences. 

Stenberg shared the exciting news on Instagram Wednesday:

"The Hate You Give" is an adaptation of Thomas' debut novel of the same title, which is based on the late rapper Tupac Shakur's iconic T.H.U.G. [Life] tattoo. Thomas was inspired to write the book following the police killing of 22-year-old Oscar Grant in Oakland, California in 2009. After the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum, she began working on it as a senior at Belhaven University.

The movie adaptation was sold to film studio Fox 2000 and it will be directed by George Tillman Jr., who also directed "Notorious" and "Barbershop." The screenplay will be written by Audrey Wells. 

Stenberg, who played Rue in "The Hunger Games," has been an ardent and vocal activist who has spoken out about issues of race and sexism. She consistently exemplifies the best of Black Girl Magic and it looks like that isn't changing anytime soon. 

We're looking forward to watching!  

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Some of Broadway's greatest stars sang, strutted and even swapped genders this week for a fantastic cause. 

Tony winners Len Cariou and Chita Rivera were among those who took the stage March 21 at Manhattan's Al Hirschfeld Theatre for "Broadway Backwards," which saw male singers performing songs traditionally sung by women, and vice versa (see highlights in the video above). 

They were joined by the likes of Jay Armstrong Johnson, Laura Michelle Kelly and Tony Yazbeck, all of whom offered cheeky takes on Broadway showstoppers before a sold-out audience.  

The annual show, which aims to depict LGBT stories "told through the great songs of musical theater," set a fundraising record of $480,287. Proceeds from the event will go to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA) and The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York. 

Check out some amazing photos from the show below. 

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Steve Grand has attempted to backpedal after making a series of remarks that many perceived as an overt expression of white male privilege in an interview. 

In a chat with PrideSource this week, the openly gay singer-songwriter, 26, attempted to be self-deprecating, offering candid thoughts on his viral fame, his music and even his manhood.

Defending his decision to show off his chiseled body in music videos and on Instagram, he said, "I just know people have really, really low expectations of me and that’s what the Internet does." Calling himself "an easy person to target," Grand continued, "Young, good-looking, white, gay men -- we love to hate those people."

Oy.

Needless to say, the Internet backlash to Grand's remarks was swift, with many arguing that the singer could learn a thing or two, particularly about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people of color, before choosing to speak out on identity politics.

"NEW RULE FOR GAY COMMUNITY: If you're white, pretty, & dumb, avoid giving your unsolicited opinion on race & gender," one person tweeted. Added another, "Steve Grand is the Ann Coulter of gay media."

Similarly, the think pieces came fast and furious, too. 

"Last I checked, being young, good-looking and white was sort of like winning the lottery of life — especially if you’re vying for a career in Hollywood," Graham Gremore wrote for The Bilerico Report on LGBTQ Nation. "I think it’s safe to say that Steve Grand, put simply, is not a socially marginalized individual. In fact, he’s just the opposite."

Les Fabian Brathwaite went a step further, arguing that Grand needed to "step outside of his own entitlement” before opening his mouth, for Out magazine.  

"His privilege isn't perceived, it's very real," Brathwaite wrote. "Which is why young, good-looking, white, gay men are kinda the worst —no T, no shade."

Indeed, in lamenting the scrutiny he endured as a gay white man, Grand casually overlooked some harrowing statistics. Compared to their white counterparts, LGBT people of color are at a much greater risk of lifelong poverty, according to a 2015 report cited by The Advocate. 

That lack of resources, also, is likely to have greater implications for gay men of color in particular. For example, a 2016 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that half of all black men who have sex with men will become HIV positive during their lifetime, Poz reports. If current rates persist, a quarter of all Latino men who have sex with men will also become HIV positive. 

For his part, Grand offered a shaky, if sincere, clarification of his remarks on Twitter. 

A day later, he added a more pointed apology for the remarks. 

Of course, the Internet furor makes it easy to forget that Grand has always embraced the LGBT community in his music, and that for many gay men, the struggle is still very real. 

None of that means, of course, that we should let Grand off the hook entirely. But here's to hoping he considers the power of his words next time around. 

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While movies like "500 Days Of Summer" and "You've Got Mail" might be the perfect companions to a Friday night at home, they (unfortunately) don't include the most progressive feminist plot lines. 

There are definitely rom-coms that turn stereotypes on their heads, but many actually perpetuate sexist character tropes. Fan favorites like "She's All That" and "Jerry Maguire" center around a woman completely changing her life for a man, while "500 Days of Summer" and "Garden State" idealize the manic pixie dream girl -- a woman who exists exclusively to further the personal growth of a man. 

Check out HuffPost's round-up of a few not-so-feminist romantic comedies (some of which, we admittedly still love) in the video above. 

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This grandma's rhythm is gonna get you -- and not just because she happens to be the mother of the legendary Conga queen of the very same name, Gloria Estefan. 

Gloria Fajardo, 87, became an Instagram sensation after Estefan's daughter Emily, who just last year released her own original music, began posting videos of herself beatboxing as her grandmother raps. The grandma's skills caught several news outlet's attention this week, and fans of Fajardo can find several videos of her doing her thing under the #Rapuela hashtag -- which is a Spanish-language portmanteau for "rap grandma." 

In most of her videos, Rapuela wears slick aviator shades like these: 

While she usually raps in Spanish, there's no doubt her spirit and energy needs no translation. Like when she rapped about being sad her granddaughter had to go back to college.

Or when Rapuela was in the hospital but felt better and thanked everyone for their prayers.

Or when she recently warned everyone not to drink too much on St. Patrick's day because they might get dehydrated. 

Even Emilio Estefan himself gets a kick out of Rapuela's rapping skills, often making cameos in her videos.  

And her granddaughter, Emily, helped ring in Rapuela's 87th birthday on Tuesday with this supercut of bloopers from her greatest clips. 

Rapuela in the house! #Word   

H/T Latina

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Hindus around the world united this week to bid a blissful farewell to winter as they celebrated Holi -- the Hindu festival of colors.

During the festival, which was celebrated on March 23 and 24 this year, people sang, lit blazing bonfires, danced and splashed one another with colored powder and liquid.

Each year, Holi is a remarkable opportunity for photographers in cities around the world to capture photos that truly highlight the vibrance of spring and the new life it brings. 

Check out some of our favorite images of revelers gleefully dousing each other in color from head to toe during this year's festivities.

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One series has dominated a secondhand bookstore’s inventory.

Goldstone Books, an online charity bookstore in Wales, has received so many copies of E.L James's Fifty Shades of Grey that the staff came up with a whip-smart way to utilize them.

They built a book fort.

“I would say we've been getting around 20 to 30 copies per day since the book came out!” Ashley Stamford-Plows, the managing director of the store, told The Huffington Post. “No single other title can compete with the sheer numbers of Fifty Shades that are out there.”

Though the store has an abundance of books, the series is still a top seller. But in 2015, in preparation for the "Fifty Shades of Grey" movie, the bookstore decided to stockpile their copies, knowing demand would shoot back up when the film was released. The woman who was responsible for collecting and storing the incoming copies was on vacation, so the books began to pile up on her desk.

“We thought it would be funny to block her desk in before she came back by building the fort around it, leaving a small hole at the bottom for her to crawl through,” Stamford-Plows said.

Thankfully, the woman didn’t find it a pain -- she was tickled.

The store posted the pictures on its Facebook page, and they're just now staring to get some friction online.

As for what the store plans to build with the next surplus they’ll have when the sequel to the first movie, “Fifty Shades Darker,” comes out in 2017, Stamford-Plows hasn’t ironed out all the kinks yet.

“I suppose you could create all sorts of sculptures out of them,” she said.

May we suggest a giant teacup? You can call it “Fifty Shades Of Earl Grey.”

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What did you think of the first season of Netflix’s “Love”? You know, the Judd Apatow-produced romantic dramedy featuring Gillian Jacobs and Paul Rust? It dropped on Netflix slightly over a month ago, so for all intents and purposes, it’s in the rearview mirror. You should be ready with all your opinions now!

And hey, remember “Orange Is the New Black”? With no new episodes since June, or until … well, June. It’s hard to recall its existence sometimes, then June circles around and everyone races to watch every episode before spoilers permeate every media space known to civilization.

In between these frantic, orgiastic weekends in bed with our laptops and a perpetual “Next episode playing in…” countdown clock, we don’t stop binging. “Seinfeld”: Now on Hulu! “Gilmore Girls”: Now on Netflix! “Felicity”: Now on Hulu! “Friends”: Now on Netflix! “Arrested Development,” “West Wing,” “Friday Night Lights,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Dexter,” “Supernatural,” “How to Get Away With Murder” -- entire seasons of shows long-departed fill the Netflix rolls and tempt us to watch, or rewatch, just one episode, then two, then every single season.

In her sharp review of “Love,” Slate’s Willa Paskin pointed out that binge-watching has a positive ring that it hasn’t quite earned: “The idea that binging is something one does when a show is good, and not just something one does when a show is good enough, is the foundation upon which Netflix has built its heady reputation. But most binge-watchers know from experience that the available is as easy to devour as the excellent.”

Paskin’s point, ultimately, is that plowing through a show can cover up its flaws, drawing you in more by the sheer inexorability of “Next episode playing in…” than by the interest generated by its quality. “Love,” for example, she nails as being under-edited -- episodes range from under 30 minutes to over 40, and many scenes feel gratuitous or, at the very least, way too long -- under-motivated, and no more than OK as a show. But while Paskin argues that binge-watching doesn’t discriminate between the good and the bad, I’d argue that it does: it just privileges the bad.

“We consume fresh bread and stale chips, good wine and flat soda, great television and time-passing junk,” she writes. “But the analogy between television and comestibles breaks down the more we imbibe: the more middling television one guzzles, the better it tastes, not worse.”

Interesting, but let’s really break this down: Personally, I subsist largely on mac ‘n’ cheese and frozen pizza, which I’m capable of eating in enormous quantities if allowed. I hear caviar and foie gras aren’t typically served in vats, but in daintier portions that promise just the right amount of satisfaction. People tend to eat larger amounts of junk food because it’s designed to entice us but not satisfy us; it’s salty and fatty, but lacking in the nutrients we need, and in the distinct flavors that tell us we've had enough. It’s the really good food, with quality ingredients, nutrient-dense choices, and gourmet preparation, that demands only a few bites. (That, or Michelin-starred chefs are making really elaborate excuses for those teeny tiny servings.)

TV, it turns out, follows a similar curve. There’s a reason why a "Hoarders" marathon appeals far more than one new episode, but the opposite holds true for "Mad Men." One episode of such a content-free show, like one potato chip, melts away like a salty nothing; you need a whole bag to feel satiated. One episode of a show rich with enigmatic characters, thought-provoking dialogue, subtle symbolism or even sly humor -- that’s like letting a handmade chocolate truffle melt on your tongue. You could have another, but you don’t need it.

When it comes to the shows we binge, Netflix has, as Paskin notes, given itself a leg up by prodding us to consume shows all at once, then, once we've watched enough to enjoy at least some of it, decide how to judge it. A bad pilot, a bad first few episodes, needn't cripple a show if viewers simply drowse through them. And they're giving us a lot to assess: Netflix’s originals are in full swing this spring. “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” will be back in April, joined by Ashton Kutcher vehicle “The Ranch.”  The new “House of Cards” kicked off this month, and Will Arnett’s new dark, drifting comedy “Flaked” arrived on March 11, a healthy 10 episodes of aimless viewing.

So, is “House of Cards” a great show, a show that would be particularly notable if it aired weekly? What about “Love,” or “Flaked”? Not likely. Good shows that drop all at once, like “Master of None,” almost seem shortchanged by how quickly they vanish from cultural chatter. There’s no “Did you see this week’s episode?” -- at best, it’s “Remember that episode when?” a mere month or two after the show's premiere. In the new era of watercooler chat, nothing and everything is timely and relevant.

Meanwhile, nearly every TV show that’s ever existed is available to dedicated streamers now, and yet we’re ending up with revivals of “Gilmore Girls” and “Full House.” No doubt plenty of TV buffs spend hours sprawled out on the couch with “The Sopranos,” “Fargo,” "Girls" and “Mad Men,” but is prestige television really what we associate with binge-watching? We’d wait eagerly all week for a new episode, but do we yearn to veg out in front of Walter White slowly compromising every aspect of himself until he’s become a meth-making monster?

Mea culpa, but I just breezed through "Felicity," then "Ally McBeal" (I know, I know), and now am proceeding at a steady clip through "Gilmore Girls," even though nearly every aspect of the show irritates me profoundly. If I stumble across a marathon of any version of “Say Yes to the Dress,” I’ll leave it on for hours. Binging doesn’t just equalize the best and the middling, it elevates the mediocre above the great. Great makes you work. Great makes you feel. It’s tiring, and can be uncomfortable.

I haven’t watched an episode of “Peep Show,” a wonderful, dark, unsettling British sitcom, since I overdosed on it during a binge session several years ago and found myself overcome with a sort of emotional nausea. The world of the show was too easy to fall into, and too provocative, with its cynical humor, for me to expose myself to it for so many hours. Just looking at it on Hulu makes my stomach turn now. A similar thing happened with “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” Now, with favorites like "You're the Worst" and "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," I ration myself. Lesson learned.

This problem will never arise with “The Great British Bake-Off,” “Gilmore Girls,” “Friends,” or even “Love,” though it has a thread of the same emotional gross-out humor as “Peep Show” at its heart. They’re calculatedly bland, one-note, all within a comfortable mental range and emotional register that allows us to drift through them without being unduly shocked, jolted, wounded, provoked, or even inspired to think. Audiences needn’t question what the hell is really going on, what characters’ true motivations are, or how someone could laugh at such a grotesque joke. They’re just basic, predictable stories, unspooling with just enough dull urgency to prevent us from clicking “Back to Browse” before the next episode starts.

A really, really good show, of course, might compel binging. When you first discover “Arrested Development,” or “Peep Show,” or “Breaking Bad,” the compulsion surely will arise. But there’s something else, too. When you’ve got something that good, you might not want to blow it all at once. You might want to pause after an episode or two and let what you’ve seen percolate through you a bit. You might want to pleasantly anticipate getting to watch more later. And you might start to feel like it’s all a bit too much to take in all at once.

As of now, the rising binge-watching addiction of the public is being sustained by the flood of old TV shows appearing on streaming services, but that is a finite well. Can Netflix, Hulu, and the networks ramp up their production of potato-chip TV to a high enough level to keep pace with our enormous appetite for constant, low-level stimulation? And what would that mean for the apparent surge of prestige television? Though many have been treating prestige TV and binge-watching as synergistic, they may well turn out to be fundamentally opposed. Aziz Ansari, whose Netflix series “Master of None” came out last November, has said that he’s not in a hurry to produce the second season because he wants it to measure up to the first. (The series was picked up for a second season, set for 2017.)

Making really great TV can’t be rushed the way consuming TV can, but we sure can churn out a whole lot of aimless, boring crap in the meantime.

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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In a print created by artist Edith Chávez, a girl stands in a floral dress, surrounded by petals and feathers. At first glance, the image is a dainty portrait of girlhood, rendered in warm pink and soft grey. But, the girl’s expression is mournful. And, on closer look, you notice the cause for her concern: she’s holding a plate of severed chicken heads.

It’s a jarring realization that throws the pains of domestic duties into relief. Womanhood and the traditional tasks attached to it aren’t all rosy, Chávez says through her work. They can also be gritty, and anxiety-making.

Chávez is one artist highlighted in an exhibit of women printmakers from Mexico on display at the Highpoint Center for Printmaking, titled "Sus Voces" and curated by Maria Cristina Tavera. Like the others in the collection, she focuses directly on themes of femininity in her work, and currently lives or works in Mexico. 

Although they explore different realms -- politics, domesticity, identity, race and gender -- the women are all united by their medium. They each use lithography or primary relief to make their etched-like, earthy-looking prints.

Contrasting Chávez’s work are the prints of Daniela Ramirez whose themes are more fantastical than gritty. A human with a winged creature for a head depicts a convergence of the man-made world and the natural world. Adding another aesthetic altogether to the collection, Diana Morales Galicia’s abstract, chaotic prints generate a feeling of unease.

See Chávez’s geometric prints, along with other works by women from Mexico:

Also on HuffPost:

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The billionaire author of a successful adolescent book series shared on Twitter early Friday a reminder that she, too, faced rejection from publishers like so many before her.

But J.K. Rowling wasn't only turned down in the early days of her writing career. Because she submitted another manuscript -- for her Cormoran Strike series -- under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, she had the pleasure of receiving rejection letters from publishers even after rising to stratospheric fame.

"I wasn't going to give up until every single publisher turned me down, but I often feared that would happen," Rowling remembered. Later, she added, "I had nothing to lose, and sometimes that makes you brave enough to try."

As needed proof, the author tweeted a photo of two rejection letters, with the names of their signatories tactfully concealed. 

Other authors chimed in with their tales of rejection.

"I got so many rejections for Chocolat that I made a sculpture" of a phoenix, author Joanne Harris said, also claiming to have also set the paper bird on fire.

Rowling noted that some of the letters for Galbraith came from the same publishers who turned down her beloved fantasy series, which later sparked a film franchise and Florida theme park. The "rudest" one, she wrote, was sent from the first publisher to turn her down years ago.

They say if you turn your ear toward the British Isles, you can still hear cries from the publishers who rejected Joanne Kathleen Rowling.

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The obvious excitement of a new "Star Wars" DVD means you can watch BB-8 roll around ad nauseam, because the movie's $2 billion worldwide box-office intake means we as a collective society have not watched "The Force Awakens" nearly enough. But the real juice, as any faithful "Star Wars" fan knows, comes in the special features. Especially this time, when George Lucas isn't around to tamper with the film itself, as he was wont to do throughout the franchise's history. 

We've already told you about one highlight: an hourlong documentary that details the making of "The Force Awakens." And on Thursday, Disney released a teaser previewing the movie's deleted scenes, including footage of Kylo Ren standing in the cockpit of (spoiler alert) his father Han Solo's illustrious Millennium Falcon, before abruptly turning around. What's caught the wicked dictator's attention? We'll find out when the DVD/Blu-ray arrives early next month. It includes seven deleted scenes in total. For now, watch the teaser:

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In the age of memes being shared over and over again (or arguably plagiarized), Official Sean Penn sparkles with originality.

The notorious Instagram account also literally sparkles, saturated in a Lisa Frank color palette, adorned with dolphins, hearts and rainbows. But don’t be fooled into thinking this is just cutesy fluff. If you scroll through the feed, you’ll get a pretty accurate sense of who’s behind it.

“This specific point of view is purely me -- a horned up millennial with a penchant for celebrity news, the world of the Internet and weed,” said Caroline Goldfarb, the woman who is Official Sean Penn, in an interview with The Huffington Post.

Why "Official Sean Penn"? She'd tried out different celeb names (e.g. Official Björk), but Goldfarb says Penn just stuck -- it worked the best because he’s so humorless, she said. Goldfarb, in contrast, is an energetic and hilarious font of obscure celebrity knowledge.

Meeting her in person, I believe Goldfarb when she says she doesn’t look at Fuck Jerry, The Fat Jew or similarly popular Instagram accounts. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have help in creating her feed, which features everything from Martha Stewart on a hover board to a baby turtle eating a strawberry. She relies on what she calls her “gay cabinet of checks and balances,” a group text thread with some of her friends where she’ll test out ideas for her Instagram posts. 

“They’re my most honest, funniest, wittiest and harshest friends,” said Goldfarb. “The don’t hesitate to say, ‘Girl, that’s not funny.’”

With a six-figure following on Instagram, the vetting process is working, as is her distinctive way of explaining the world. As a Los Angeles native, her pop culture radar was finely tuned at an early age. From Rihanna to Oprah to Tila Tequila, you’ll see a range of celebrities featured on Official Sean Penn. Even though, the pop culture figures might seem to have little in common, Goldfarb’s perspective ties them all together.

“I remember being in preschool and being aware of these weird counterculture figures, like Pauly Shore and Chyna,” said Goldfarb. “That obsession probably starts with me growing up in LA and walking around and seeing minor D-list celebs and the whole cult of it.”

“The myth of celebrity really appeals to me," she said. "There’s something really appealing about the sad side of being a famous person and the bad things that come with that."

While there’s definitely a sense of making fun of celebrities, Official Sean Penn rarely comes off as mean. The downsides of celebrity and being seen in the public eye are filtered through the lens of Goldfarb’s humor, which basks in our shared flaws, weaknesses and vulnerability as humans, famous or not. “No one wants at look at stuff that makes them feel bad or icky. A positive space is better all around,” she said.

Goldfarb's role models have built personality-based empires. “Media personalities like Wendy Williams and Howard Stern, who make it their business to talk about the world of celebrity from an outside perspective -- that kind of art has always really spoken to me,” she explained.

It’s also not surprising that she admires the work of Andy Warhol, whose art she describes as “taking things in our society that seem superficial and packaging it back to us in an interesting way,” similar to what she’s doing herself.

The next step for the self-described “multi-hyphenate entrepreneuse” is a new podcast called “This Week Had Me Like,” where Goldfarb invites another celebrity expert and a plebe (i.e., someone who can’t name all of Kourtney Kardashian’s children) to a roundtable discussion of the week’s most bizarre moments in pop culture. On a show all about bizarre pop culture, the plebe’s role is to keep the conversation relatable and grounded. But mostly, Goldfarb said she invites friends with “an appreciation for spilling the tea.”

Last week, Goldfarb hosted her first live podcast taping at a bar in West Hollywood, establishing herself as someone that’s not only funny on the Internet, but hilarious IRL, too. Complete with celebrity trivia (“Which of these celebs has not killed someone?”), musings on “elusive chanteuse” Rita Wilson’s country album release,  and an investigation into a troubling theory behind why Richard Simmons hasn’t been seen in public in two years.

“Is it a leg injury or is he being held hostage by his housekeepers?” asked Goldfarb. “This is the kind of conspiracy I want to uncover -- I want to do ‘Spotlight’ for really dumb stuff.” Another of Goldfarb’s goals is to encourage at least two celeb beefs a month, and she’s off to a great start.

“In the first three episodes of the podcast, I’ve started a beef and squashed it with a celebrity child,” said Goldfarb, referring to calling out Sarah Jessica Parker’s 12-year-old son for cyberbullying her by leaving comments on her Instagram. (“You’re not funny anymore,” wrote the preteen.)

But lo and behold, James Wilkie Broderick gave her a written apology as well as an audio apology, which she played during the taping. “The way that he’s handled himself is more mature than literally any guy I have ever dated,” Goldfarb replied.

Beyond the duties of Instagram influencer, podcast host and standup comedian, Goldfarb also is a one-woman business, selling her dazzling Photoshop creations, which includes sticker sheets of North West’s best outfits, a tote with her heralded “Be a slut  do whatever you want” motto, and a custom Beyonce collage cake. Being a merchandising entrepreneur has its own challenges, especially with her demographic. “I get a lot of customer service issues -- most people who buy my merch are stoner girls who’ll give the wrong address or ordered the wrong thing,”  said Goldfarb. “That’s when I truly see my audience.”

With her ability to capture and propagate an infectious pop culture sensibility, it's easy to see how she turned her Stoner Instagram feed into a career. Embrace the realm of Official Sean Penn, where vaping Leo DiCaprio, pole dancing pugs and phallic latte art coexist. It's not going anywhere anytime soon.

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Poet Clint Smith III takes a critical look at the Founding Fathers' role in oppressing black people in his latest poem entitled "History Reconsidered."

His piece served as a letter to five of the United States presidents who owned slaves, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and Andrew Jackson.  

"When you wrote to Congress that black people should count as three-fifths of a person, how long did you have to look at your slaves to figure out the math?" Smith poses to Madison. "Was it easy to chop them up? Did you think they'd be happy being more than just half human?"

Smith's words in the video above pierce through this nation's tainted history that still plagues black Americans today. He reminds his audience that these presidents' accomplishments are always revered without mention of the slaves their victories were built upon.

He perfectly drives his point home toward the end of the poem: 

"When you sing that this country was founded on freedom, don't forget the duet of shackles dragging against the ground my entire life. I had been taught how perfect this country was, but no one ever told me about the pages torn out of my textbooks. How black and brown bodies have been bludgeoned for three centuries and find no place in the curriculum. Oppression doesn't disappear just because you decided not to teach us that chapter."

Let Smith's words serve as a reminder to everyone that America's story is incomplete without all sides present.

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What if fans were able to decide the direction of the next "Harry Potter" installment? 

That's exactly what happened when Broad Strokes Productions used the Facebook account Harry Potter Untold Tales to do some crowdsourcing and find what people who love the magical series hoped to see next. 

“I did a poll on our Facebook page with a few story options, and it was almost unanimous that the fans wanted a story about the Marauders," director Justin Zagri told BuzzFeed. "So, I read the books again, did some research, and came up with a story that I feel had something to say, while making sure we got to know both Snape and the Marauders when they were transitioning into adults, and how events of their past helped shape their future.”

Thus was born "Severus Snape and the Marauders," a 25-minute short film released March 1 that takes place in 1978, right after James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew -- the four Gryffindors otherwise known as the Marauders -- Severus Snape and Lily Evans graduate from Hogwarts. What unfolds focuses on James and his rival Snape. 

"The response has been really passionate, but for the past 24 hours it has exploded and we're all kind of overwhelmed by it," Zagri told The Huffington Post in an email Friday. "The idea behind this was I wanted to tell a story that showed teenagers [who] were maturing into adults that culminated in a single moment that really changed these characters. For better or worse." 

Zagri was also behind the 2013 "Harry Potter"-inspired short film "The Greater Good."

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In February of 2011, Luis Pons became ill. He says his illness led him into a depression that lasted close to a year and that when it subsided, the depression and anxiety became like an endless loop, each one feeding the other. 

"I literally forgot what it felt like to be happy," he said over email to The Huffington Post. "I couldn't even recall the last time I laughed. I felt very disconnected from the flow of the city. It's like I was looking at everyone in the buses and subways of NYC from outside of time. This really strange sense of observing life from this isolated and cold place."  

During this time, a friend suggested that Pons take up photography as a chance to get outside and focus on something other than his health. In the beginning, he says, he took photos of people on the streets, "really sober shots or shots that reflected my sense of disconnection." But, as he improved in both skill level and mental well-being, he found himself wanting to take photos of people looking dynamic and alive.

"In a sense, it was the need to capture people at their zenith of expression, an apex of emotion," Pons said. He finally found that zenith in dance, photographing dynamic and lively men and women stretching their limbs in unfathomable directions. And instead of clamoring back indoors, he brought the ballerinas to him, shooting fairy-tale-like images of the dancers pirouetting and grande jeté-ing on streets, bridges, beach fronts and rooftops. 

"I strive to capture the beauty of dance outdoors and also say something deeply about myself," he said. "If I can capture all three of those mysteries in one photo, it's been a magical day indeed."

Today, Pons says he shoots from a foundation of feeling. "A pose for the sake of posing is contrived and devoid of meaning," he explained. In his photographs, he "wrestles with the artist and the environment (which I have no control over) and together through reflection and action, we get the shot."

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Sound defines a city, whether it's the din of New York City traffic or calls to prayer issuing from Istanbul's mosques.

Now, you can see what cities sound like with Chatty Maps, a new set of online maps from research group Good City Life.

The site currently features maps of Boston, New York, Barcelona, Madrid and London. Users can click on streets in each city to see what kinds of sounds dominate in that area. 

Using what researchers call an "urban sound dictionary," the maps trawl geo-located Flickr photos for tags associated with particular noises. Those sound-related tags are broken into five categories -- transport, nature, human, music and mechanical -- and create visual sound profiles. The maps also link those sounds to particular emotions, giving users a sense of what it might feel like to walk down a particular street. 

Though users can only see complete sound profiles for specific streets, the color-coded maps (red for traffic sounds, green for nature, orange for music, blue for people, gray for mechanical) helps give a general idea of what you might hear if you were to walk from street to street in a particular neighborhood. 

For instance, New York's Upper West Side, a wealthy residential area near Central Park, appears to be full of nature sounds: (Click here to play with interactive versions of the maps.)

Researchers also used geo-located photo tags to attach sounds to specific emotions. They found, for instance, that streets defined by musical sounds were linked to feelings of joy or sadness, whereas traffic sounds were tied to fear and anger. 

The latter isn't surprising. Research on urban sound has found that noise pollution is correlated with everything from sleep impairment to cardiovascular disease.

This section of New York's Park Avenue, a busy thoroughfare, is dominated by transport sounds associated with surprise, sadness and fear:

But other urban sounds, from church bells to street vendors, can also calm, exhilarate or inspire.

The sounds of St. Mark's Place, a street near The Huffington Post's New York City offices, come mostly from humans. The street also contains music, nature and transport sounds, giving it a joyful feel, according to Chatty Maps.

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Learn more about Osborne Macharia's work here. 

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Over the past century, photographs have been used as evidence of acts of violence or crime.

An exhibition, dubbed "At the Crime Scene: Image Testing from the Shroud of Turin to War Drones," currently on view at the Italian Center for Photography in Torino, Italy, is exploring the role recorded images have played in documenting misdeeds and catastrophe. The show presents case studies spanning everything from 19th-century crime scene photographs to a 21st-century digital reconstruction a drone attack in Pakistan.

In between, there are images from the beginning of the 1900s, developed in the laboratory of Alphonse Bertillon, a French criminologist. Bertillon is credited with advancing scientific techniques to standardize criminal photography. Close-up shots of crime scenes taken by German criminologist Rodolphe Archibald Reiss follow from Bertillon's work. 

Another series on display traces the history of the Shroud of Turin -- a piece of cloth that carries the image of a crucified man, and stands as one of Christianity's most polarizing relics -- while other objects explore the impact of large-scale conflict, like the photographs taken in identical locations before and after World War I, documenting the effects of bombings. Even more contemporary conflict photographs capture the buildings destroyed in Gaza by the 2009 Israeli attacks. 

"This exhibition explores both the power and the limits of photography in the search for truth," the organizers write in a curatorial statement. "The power is the power of imagery, more impactful and convincing than words or numbers or statistics can ever be. The limit is that of technique, which often contradicts the concept that the photographer's lens is an infallible eye, one that captures everything and records everything, capable of freezing a given moment in time."

“At The Crime Scene: The Construction of Visual Evidence” will be on view at The Italian Center for Photography until May 1, 2016.

This post first appeared on HuffPost Italy. It has been translated into English and edited for clarity.

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