If the Season 6 trailer for "Game of Thrones" didn’t get you pumped up enough, maybe this will.
This mariachi band uses trumpets and violins to create a haunting rendition of the show’s theme song in a video produced by We are mitú.
Now we’re just waiting for their version of "The Rains of Castamere."
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When it comes to weddings, you can have your cake and eat it too.
Below, we've rounded up 21 exquisite wedding confections that look and taste like a slice of heaven.
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A few simple brush strokes is all it took to transform vile anti-Muslim graffiti that appeared in Ireland following the terrorist attacks in Belgium.
The message "All Muslims Are Scum" was daubed on a wall near Croke Park sports stadium in Dublin after at least 31 people died in Brussels Airport and on a train in the Belgian capital on Tuesday. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Someone spotted the sickening graffiti and quickly amended it to read "All Muslims Are Sound." "Sound" is a colloquial expression used in Ireland to describe someone who is genuine and good.
Irish journalist Brian Whelan, who is the deputy digital editor for Channel 4 News, posted before and after images (above) of the graffiti to Twitter on Friday, which are going viral.
Fazel Ryklief, from the Islamic Foundation of Ireland, told the Irish Independent "maybe that is the way to treat things."
"Instead of getting angry and annoyed, just change it. Putting it aside is perhaps better than making a big deal of these things," he said. "It brings a little smile to know that someone has a sense of humor."
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HAVANA (Reuters) - The Rolling Stones rocked a massive crowd at a free, outdoor concert in Havana on Friday, capping a week of engagement with the West for the Communist-led country that once censored the veteran British band's music.
The Stones started their first-ever show in Cuba with "Jumpin' Jack Flash," a song recorded in 1968, when Cuban rock fans were secretly sharing pirated vinyl records and risked being sent to rural work brigades to cure "ideological deviation."
"We know that years back it was hard to hear our music in Cuba, but here we are playing. I also think the times are changing," lead singer Mick Jagger said in Spanish to a roar from the crowd.
The singer spoke in Spanish throughout of the 18-song show of hits that lasted more than two hours. The band played "Sympathy for the Devil" as a yellow moon rose through clouds, and they finished a two-song encore with "Satisfaction."
Fans started gathering 18 hours ahead of time at Havana's Sports City football and baseball fields, including Cubans who traveled from across the Caribbean's largest island and foreigners who flew in for the occasion.
While no official estimate was immediately available for the crowd size, Cuban state media estimated half a million people could fit in the venue, which was nearly full.
The audience ranged from teenagers to pensioners and reserved some of the biggest cheers for Jagger's snakey dance moves.
"I love Mick Jagger so much. I've always dreamed about this. I couldn't sleep knowing he would be here," said Angela Menendez, who cleans floors in a hospital.
Security was low key and there was a noticeable absence of would-be entrepreneurs selling T-shirts or memorabilia. People were dressed in all manner of jeans, T-shirts and boots with the Stones' tongue and lips logo.
Cubans have taken to coloring the tongue with the stars and stripes of the U.S. flag, whether in the mistaken belief that the British rock stars were American or in the spirit of this week's historic visit by U.S. President Barack Obama.
The Stones formed in London in 1962, three years after Fidel Castro's bearded rebels toppled a pro-American government.
Castro's revolutionary government came to see counterculture bands like the Stones and the Beatles as dangerously subversive and prohibited their music on TV and radio.
Half a century later, both the Rolling Stones and Cuba's leadership share a longevity, performing well beyond what most people would consider retirement age. The band's advancing years did not stop the youngsters in the audience enjoying the show, however.
"Don't let anybody tell you different, this is the best concert in the history of Cuba," said Cristian, 18, a reggaeton fan who this month saw electronic music act Major Lazer in another free gig. For Juan Carlos Leon, 57, the event was more than special. "To me, this is a consecration," Leon said. "I've waited my whole life for this. The Stones are the greatest."
(Additional reporting by Nelson Acosta; Editing by W Simon, Peter Cooney, Robert Birsel)
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Google Street View’s trove of data and visuals has been used to collect images of streets that made history, of colorful glitches and surreal scenes of oblivious bystanders. For Alex Alsup, it’s a tool to track Detroit’s rapid and continuing devastation following the financial crisis.
Alsup has spent thousands of hours exploring the city virtually. A selection of the images of foreclosed homes he's captured through Google and Bing's mapping services is currently on view at Prizer Gallery in Austin, Texas, and closes Saturday.
The chief product officer at Detroit-based property data company Loveland Technologies is quick to clarify that he’s not an artist. He instead described his show, “A Hurricane Without Water,” as archaeological, documenting the impact of foreclosure on properties over time.
Alsup uses Google's Time Machine feature to look back several years, and returns to properties he saved in past years to compile records of properties year after year, mostly between 2009 and 2014. He started the ongoing project three years ago and publishes it on his blog, Goobing Detroit.
In the worst cases, you can see vacancy spreading through entire blocks in just a few years, blight taking over empty homes, and foliage growing over the blight.
Before he moved to Detroit five years ago, Alsup assumed the city had been in a steady downward decline since the 1960s and that the worst of the damage had been done.
“It was really surprising and striking to see how much destruction there had been since the financial crisis and to try and unpack what was going on there to cause it,” he said. “The financial crisis has been far more destructive than, I think, any other moment outside of the fire of 1805."
More than a third of the city’s properties -- about 140,000 -- were foreclosed on between 2005 and 2014, according to a Detroit News analysis. Most of those belonged to families who were forced to leave their homes, and possibly the city, while many of their former houses sit empty. Overall, Detroit’s population has declined 28 percent since 2010.
The city is currently receiving federal funds to demolish blighted buildings at a rate of several thousand year.
Alsup and Loveland are most interested in foreclosure due to unpaid property taxes, a problem of unique magnitude in Detroit. Last year, 25,000 houses and lots went through tax foreclosure, including 8,000 occupied homes. Tens of thousands more are at risk this year in a system that housing advocates say is dysfunctional at best, and at worst is systematically driving out poor black homeowners.
Alsup described tax foreclosures as the engine driving the abandonment and destruction shown in his images -- sped up further by arsonists and metal thieves who strip lucrative copper from empty houses, leaving them uninhabitable soon after the former owners are forced to leave.
He believes the series exposes a “very bad policy” when it comes to foreclosures.
“It just seems so capricious and wrong, and it runs counter to everything that everybody wants to see happen” in Detroit, Alsup said. “And yet it continues to happen. And that to me is bewildering and very frustrating.”
Of course, many more of Detroit's homes are well-kept and occupied; Mother Nature is not taking over the city.
“A Hurricane Without Water" includes historical context and data so Austin gallery attendees can come away with a deeper understanding than they'd get solely from the startling visuals. Without the background information, the extremes Alsup highlights could seem like he's showcasing decay for decay's sake. When Goobing Detroit first drew attention in 2013, it went viral, stripped of most of the context. The images on their own were presented as representative of the entire city and proof of “post-apocalyptic” conditions in Detroit.
But Alsup thinks the images' shock value could serve as the jolt needed to change the systems that produce vacancy and decay.
“I think there is a level where there’s value in that gut reaction to it,” he said. “Don’t be comfortable with it, don’t let it be normal. You should be shocked by it. We have collective ownership in this, it’s the idea of the whole country. It’s not someone else’s problem. It’s our problem.”
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Have you ever noticed how exceedingly rare it is for a witch, these days, to cook and eat a couple of small children she’s kidnapped? Or for a wolf to devour a little girl and her grandmother without even chewing?
If you’re wondering why these misadventures, so common in centuries past as evidenced by fairy tales like "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Hansel and Gretel,"
seem to have been largely eliminated, the answer is clear: The wide availability of modern firearms, and the solid Second Amendment rights that ensure every American can carry a high-powered weapon in order to protect him- or herself from whatsoever threat might present itself at home, at work, at the library, at school, at the public park, at the local Chili’s, near the gingerbread cottage in the woods, and so on.
The NRA, outlets including NPR and The Washington Post pointed out this week, has published two updated versions of popular fairy tales on their website: “Little Red Riding Hood (Has a Gun)” and “Hansel and Gretel (Have Guns).” According to The Washington Post, author Amelia Hamilton called her rewrites “much kinder” than the originals. In both stories, you’ll doubtless be unsurprised to hear, the young heroes’ access to, and experience with, guns allow them to escape not only death, but hunger, imprisonment, proximity to bubbling cauldrons, and other temporary discomforts.
Actually, if we’re being sticklers, it only allows them to escape the latter things, as neither Red Riding Hood and her granny, nor Hansel and Gretel, wind up deceased in the original, grim fairy tales. But apparently the guns do save their jaunts through the woods from turning into anything more than slightly eventful hunting excursions.
Hamilton has been fairly blithe since her stories hit the Internet, insisting that the tales don't promote gun ownership, but gun safety:
On the other hand....
Hamilton's pro-gun fantasia seems slightly off-kilter, however. What could it be, what could it... oh, right: None of the bad guys have guns. In the original fairy tales, the villains threaten with all the firepower the era had to offer, whether it was a wolf's teeth and claws or a "witch" with the cunning to capture two kids and a stove to roast them in. The fairy tales heroes' are locked in unpredictable, frightening struggles, but that's because they have to fight fire with fire. The wolf ends up chopped open with a sharp blade by a gallant huntsman, or woodcutter, depending on the version -- in some versions, the women also take harsh revenge on the wolf. Gretel saves herself and her brother by tricking the witch into crawling into the stove and then slamming the door shut, matching the cruel crone wit for wit.
If everyone in the NRA versions had guns, the fairy tales might be more straightforward, but there probably wouldn't be much less bloodshed. A shootout between the good guys and the bad guys just doesn't sound as reassuring as old Granny scaring off the unarmed Big Bad Wolf with her gleaming shotgun. In the NRA tales, somehow, the wolf still has only his teeth and the witch still has only a stove, but only the good guys have guns.
Critics of the harder-edged fairy tales hopped on an #NRAfairytales hashtag to sardonically take the gun-heavy rewrites to their logical extreme, NPR noted.
Hamilton, the NRA, and their supporters laugh at the idea that such cleaned-up, low-violence fairy tales, in which Red Riding Hood and Gretel stave off captivity and death through the mere flashing of a gun at their cowed enemies, could be harmful pro-gun propaganda for children. Hamilton, who also writes a series of (ahem) children's books called "Growing Patriots," has insisted the stories are for adults, and the NRA claims they’re just for fun.
Of course, it’s easy to claim that an advertisement is for adults even when the form and content (say, fairy tales) seem to be geared toward winning over a coveted youth demographic -- just ask Joe Camel. And let's be clear: the stories might be fun to the NRA, but they are propaganda. The NRA fairy tales have a message, and the message appears to be that young people carrying guns with them, provided they're experienced handlers, will be safe and pretty badass to boot.
In the NRA’s fairy tales, we see that the only reason children were ever hungry or neglected was simple: Guns hadn’t been invented yet, or perhaps a cruel government restricted their ownership. Otherwise, kids just out of diapers could sally out into the woods and save their family from winter starvation by simply bringing down “a magnificent 10-point buck” during a day of casual hunting:
Fortunately, they had been taught how safely to use a gun and had been hunting with their parents most of their lives. They knew that, deep in the forest, there were areas that had never been hunted where they may be able to hunt for food. They knew how to keep themselves safe should they find themselves in trouble. The next morning, before dawn, they left a note for their parents, and gathered their hunting gear. They headed into the forest, grateful that they had the skills to help their family, and were old enough to go out on their own.
[...] [T]hey heard a rustling in the leaves, and slowly turned to see a magnificent 10-point buck drinking from a stream. Gretel readied her rifle and fired.
Her training had paid off, for she was able to bring the buck down instantly with a single shot. She and Hansel quickly field-dressed the deer and packed up to head back home, hardly believing their luck.
And murders? Those need never happen in a day and age when American children have access to advanced firearms, regular sessions at the shooting range, and the almighty protection of the Second Amendment.
The wolf leaned in, jaws open wide, then stopped suddenly. Those big ears heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun’s safety being clicked off. Those big eyes looked down and saw that grandma had a scattergun aimed right at him. He realized that Grandmother hadn’t been backing away from him; she had been moving towards her shotgun to protect herself and her home.
“I don't think I’ll be eaten today,” said Grandma, “and you won't be eating anyone again.” Grandma kept her gun trained on the wolf, who was too scared to move. Before long, he heard a familiar voice call “Grandmother, I’m here!” Red peeked her head in the door. The wolf couldn’t believe his luck—he had come across two capable ladies in the same day, and they were related! Oh, how he hated when families learned how to protect themselves.
If only every child had a gun on their person at all times, then more real-life stories might end like “Little Red Riding Hood (Has a Gun)." Or, of course, they might end like this, or this, or this. In December, The Washington Post tallied that at least 265 people were accidentally shot by children in 2015. So far, in 2016, the Post reports that 52 children have shot themselves or someone else by accident. Safety training isn't a silver bullet, either; the presence of guns can reportedly lead to higher rates of intentional violence. Studies have suggested having guns in the home significantly increases the likelihood that someone living there will die from suicide or murder.
Hamilton has hinted that she’s working on a gun-filled update of “Three Little Piggies” next. We’re guessing she won’t be working the greatly increased likelihood one of the little piggies would have died from gun violence had they kept a weapon in the house into her NRA-themed tale. Letting those grim statistics in might blow that whole house of straw down.
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Ismael Saidi has spent the past year taking a darkly comic play about three young Muslim misfits who turn to terrorism to schools and theaters around Belgium.
The events described in his play, Djihad, which is French for jihad, came crashing into real life on Tuesday.
That morning, the 39-year-old playwright and actor saw the news of a bombing at Brussels’ Maelbeek subway station and panicked. Saidi repeatedly tried to call his son, who was commuting to school. He finally picked up 20 minutes later. His son said he got off the train one stop before Maelbeek.
Twenty people were killed at the subway station that morning, and 11 others lost their lives in two suicide bombings at Brussels airport, the worst terrorist attacks in Belgian history. The Islamic State militant group has claimed responsibility for the bombings.
Saidi was still on edge three days after the attacks, as the full horror of Tuesday’s events unfolded. One of his friends has already been confirmed dead in the metro bombing. “It’s awful -- every day we are given a new name,” Saidi told The WorldPost on Friday. “You are just waiting: Do I know someone else?”
At night, Saidi goes to the Place de la Bourse, a central Brussels square where people have gathered since the attacks to hold vigils and leave messages and flowers in tribute to the victims. Somehow, it feels safer watching people come together in the square than sitting at home and watching the news, Saidi said.
“I found all of Brussels in the square, of all origins, of all colors,” he told The WorldPost. “If we are able to be together, then the terrorists have failed.”
This is the very same point that Saidi has made for months, through his play about a group of young Belgian Muslims who decide to join Islamist militants in Syria. Inspired by the 2010 British movie Four Lions, about British suicide bombers, he uses black comedy to humanize extremists and make a serious point about alienation and radicalization.
Comedy is a powerful weapon against extremism, in the connections it makes and the taboos it breaks Saidi said. “We can laugh about anything, however dark the subject, as long as we respect each other,” he told The WorldPost in an earlier interview this month. “And when we can laugh together, you can win the war against darkness.”
The play is an effort to understand why Belgian youth are heading to the battlefields of Syria and Iraq in such high numbers -- Belgium has the highest proportion of foreign fighters in Europe.
The problem is especially close to home for Saidi. He grew up in a Moroccan immigrant family in Brussels’ Schaerbeek neighborhood, the home of at least one of Tuesday’s suicide bombers, and where authorities believe the attackers cooked the explosives for the attacks.
Schaerbeek is not at all the terror hotspot described in the media, Saidi said. Some of the neighborhood is impoverished and has high crime rates; other parts are fairly wealthy. It is home to a large North African immigrant population, which could help fugitive terror suspects better to meld in with the community, experts say.
Yet Saidi knows well the challenges of growing up Belgian, Muslim and as the son of immigrant parents.
He and his friends struggled to reconcile the conservative form of Islam that some in the community espoused, and their love of music, art or girls. All these experiences became ingredients for the theater production, in which Saidi and two of his friends play and share the names of the principal characters, intentionally blurring the line between fact and fiction.
Saidi also directly experienced the lure of Islamist militants. Militant recruiters sending young Muslims to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan approached Saidi when he was a teenager in the 1990s. They used the same tactics as the Islamic State recruiters today, Saidi said, and it worked on some of his friends, who went to Afghanistan and never came back.
“As a kid growing up, you are lost. And as the son of an immigrant, you are lost twice,” he told The WorldPost. “When someone who is a grown up and knows the Quran approaches you, and says that you’re wasting your time here, and that you can become a hero over there -- it seems like it will give a goal to your life, or at least your death.”
Saidi credits his high school with opening his mind to different ideas. “Education is the solution to everything, including radicalization,” he said.
Djihad debuted in December 2014, but Saidi initially faced some challenges getting theaters to show the play or get advertising on the metro, because people were nervous about its name.
Saidi refused to change the name, saying his whole point is that no group has monopoly over words or ideas, including jihad. The practicing Muslim notes that "jihad" in Arabic means struggle, and its first meaning in Islamic tradition is a personal battle against evil within yourself.
“That is what we are doing on stage -- trying to tell a story without hiding anything,” Saidi said. “So this is our jihad, too.”
But the play spread by word of mouth, and with some support from Belgian authorities. Weeks after Djihad opened, French brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi gunned down 12 people at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. The Belgian education ministry picked up on Saidi’s play, and helped the team stage it for school children in Belgium. The cast has now performed more than 130 shows to over 46,000 people -- around half of them students. The play has been translated into Dutch, and also performed in Holland and France.
The day before Tuesday's attacks, Saidi performed the play in Namur, a city about 30 miles south of Brussels. As usual, the cast and invited experts answered the audience’s myriad questions after the show.
“They are afraid, and they are trying to find answers to their fears,” he said of Monday’s post-show debate. “The Muslims are afraid that people don’t like them, while the non-Muslims ask: ‘Why are you so violent?’”
Saidi said these debates are exactly the kind of frank conversations that need to take place all over Europe right now, getting all people’s fears and misconceptions out into the open. The play will continue tours in Belgium and France in a few weeks.
In the aftermath of the attacks, Saidi again turned his pen on such misconceptions. While he grieved for his friend and his city, Saidi faced hostile comments on social media, questioning why Belgian Muslims weren’t out on the streets condemning the attacks. His powerful response was shared thousands of times on Facebook and reprinted in a Belgian newspaper.
“They don’t see Muslims, because we are just like everyone else,” he said. “I wrote this to say: I am like you. Today, I am crying, so leave me alone. Let’s mourn together, and then come back to me in a week and we’ll talk.”
Saidi’s Facebook post, translated into English:
Why aren’t Muslims taking to the streets en masse to condemn the attacks?
Because we’re driving the taxis that have been taking people home for free since yesterday...
Because we’re caring for the wounded in hospitals…
Because we’re driving the ambulances that are racing through the streets like shooting stars to try to save what life remains in us…
Because we’re at the reception desks of the hotels that have been welcoming onlookers for free since yesterday…
Because we’re driving the buses, the trams, and the subway cars so that life can continue, albeit broken…
Because we’re still looking for criminals in our police, investigator, and magistrate outfits…
Because we’re crying for the missing, too…
Because we are no more spared than anyone else…
Because we are doubly, triply bruised…
Because the same faith produced the executioner and the victim…
Because we’re groggy, lost, and we’re trying to understand…
Because we spent the night on our doorstep waiting for someone who will never come back…
Because we’re counting our dead…
Because we’re in mourning…
The rest is only silence…
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This ain't your grandma's "Swan Lake."
Ballez is a group of queer and trans artists, performers and musicians who are creating spaces for non traditional bodies and identities in the world of ballet. Artistic Director Katy Pyle founded the group alongside other like-minded individuals, including Jules Skloot, in 2011 after finding that the world of ballet did not celebrate or allow space for queer and trans bodies and narratives.
"Ballez re-writes classics from the ballet canon to celebrate the stories and performances of queer people, and reimagines the classically gendered characters of those stories in our own image," Pyle told The Huffington Post. "We diverge from the classical ballet gender binary and present, instead, multiplicity, complexity, and alternatives to the classical norms. The characters in our shows play with, and break, the classical rules in terms of how they dress, present, dance and behave in relationship to one another."
Now, Ballez is engaged in a Kickstarter campaign to fund a production of "Sleeping Beauty & The Beast," a queer reimagining of two classic tales that inserts the history of lesbian and queer activists in the narrative.
The Huffington Post chatted with Pyle this week about "Sleeping Beauty & The Beast" and the orgins of Ballez as a performance collective.
The Huffington Post: What is the history behind Ballez? How did it come about?
Katy Pyle: Ballez began in 2011 out of a latent desire within myself to return to the expressive dancing and narrative world of ballet, which I had loved as a child but been shut out from when my politics, gender, sexuality and body changed as a teenager.
I connected with a group of downtown dance friends around these desires, including my long-term choreographic collaborator Jules Skloot, and the word "Ballez" was born, initially as a joke. We thought, "what could be more ridiculous than downtown, queer dancers expressing their values in a ballet?" But, I love an anachronism, and I began ardently pursuing this very confusing question, with Jules and a group of wonderful, radical thinkers and movers.
After some research and initial proposals, Ballez had a residency at Brooklyn Arts Exchange to begin our first performance project, "The Firebird, a Ballez," and we started offering weekly classes, open to anyone who wanted to come into the studio and grapple with these ideas with us. After several work in progress showings around town, I was commissioned by Danspace Project to present the show in Spring 2013, and we brought in the 45 musicians of the Queer Urban Orchestra to play Stravinsky's score live, a cast of 15 wonderful queer activist/dancer performers, and we had three glorious sold out shows at St. Mark's Church. We went on to reprise the show that Fall, and were then invited to perform at the Brooklyn Museum, Abrons Arts Center and in various festivals around town.
In what ways does Ballez queer these classic shows from the ballet cannon? Why is this important?
Ballez re-writes classics from the ballet canon to celebrate the stories and performances of queer people, and reimagines the classically gendered characters of those stories in our own image. We diverge from the classical ballet gender binary and present, instead, multiplicity, complexity, and alternatives to the classical norms. The characters in our shows play with, and break, the classical rules in terms of how they dress, present, dance and behave in relationship to one another.
We take classic tales, that are part of a wider culture, like "The Firebird," "Sleeping Beauty" and "Beauty and the Beast," and create new stories that don't just include us, but celebrate us at the center of something grand, noble and glorious.
To insert ourselves into the ballet canon is pretty intense. Ballet has been very exclusive, imperialist, hierarchical... and by putting our bodies and our very different value systems into the canon, I hope that we can CHANGE its course and make more room for diverse representation.
The work we do serves to create new representations within the world of ballet and seeks to create more space for new bodies, stories and identities to see themselves reflected, admired and revered within that world... which I hope then translates into a greater sense of pride and nobility for queer people to inhabit in the greater world.
Why is it important to create spaces for queer, trans and gender-nonconforming people in the world of ballet?
The ballet world is woefully narrow in its scope of representation. And I think the form itself suffers from it. There are a lot of incredible dancers, like me and the people I work with, who have been shut out from that world because of those narrow ideas of how things should be, who should belong and what people can do. And because of that, a whole treasure of insights, ideas and beautiful dancing has been lost. And while there has been a modicum of space for gay men within the form, the experiences of queer women, gender non-conforming people and trans people has been completely ignored.
But I think we actually have a whole lot to offer. From my experiences living as a queer person in the world, I have learned to partner differently. I have not been expected to play a certain de facto role in my relationships, in terms of my gender and self-expression. I am a feminine-presenting person and yet, within the queer community, I am allowed to be a boss, to be strong and to lift up my partners, literally and metaphorically! I am allowed to be aggressive and powerful in my presentation and in my dancing. That is not something I experienced in the classical ballet world, and I think that's ridiculous. There are so many ways to be in our bodies, and I think the form of ballet should reflect that reality, and stop perpetuating a narrow gender binary (that's actually pretty boring).
The ballet world is woefully narrow in its scope of representation
What do you want people to take away from "Sleeping Beauty & The Beast"?
I want our audiences to leave the theater with a radically shifted sense of what a ballet is, what it should be and who it can represent. I want people to experience connection, love and transformation with these exquisite queer dancers and their very deep commitment to their performances. I want people to be moved by the orchestra, the costumes, the lights, and the story we are dancing. I want people to experience new possibilities. And ultimately I want this performance to resonate out from our community in New York City, to young dancers growing up all over the country and beyond, so that they could imagine possibilities for themselves, to be loved, valued, cherished and celebrated, just as they are, in a way that I never had access to.
Want to see more from Ballez? Head here to visit the "Sleeping Beauty & The Beast" Kickstarter.
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Brace yourself, America! There are transformations coming your way -- male-to-female makeover transformations to be exact, courtesy of Amnesia Sparkles, the alter ego of artist, photographer and writer Adrian L. Acosta.
According to her bio, Amnesia became the first crossdresser on "American Idol" when she auditioned in 2002. The winner of the inaugural Miss Thang Beauty Pageant, she is also the creator of GenderFun.com, a website focusing on gender and sexuality, and has launched a business to perform "male-to-female makeover transformations on men who enjoy being transformed into women."
Amnesia has carried out these transformations, which include a full makeover involving makeup, wigs and clothing and a photo shoot, in her Brooklyn, New York studio since 2013 but now she wants to reach men in other cities.
"We've been helping girls in the New York City area explore their gender identity through the art of makeup and photography for the past three years," Amnesia wrote on the GoFundMe page that she launched in hopes of funding her trip. "This can be a scary endeavor for many individuals, especially in a society that tells boys to 'MAN UP'... It's my dream to travel all around the United States giving MTF transformations to girls who simply can't afford a trip to the Big Apple, but have always dreamed of someone dolling them up."
(In the clip below, Amnesia Sparkles takes "American Idol" by storm)
The Huffington Post recently caught up with Amnesia Sparkles to learn more about her transformations and find out how her own life has been changed in the process.
The Huffington Post: How did you get started doing these male-to-female makeover transformations?
Amnesia Sparkles: I’ve been doing male-to-female makeover transformations on friends since 1999. It wasn’t until early 2012 that a 23-year-old young man I met on the Internet, "Alexis," expressed his desire for me to turn him into a girl. It took me a year after that transformation to launch the business. Another young man, "Chelsea," became my first official client in 2013.
What exactly happens when a man comes to you for a transformation? Walk me through a session.
"Justine," one of my clients, blogged about his first experience getting a transformation with us. It’s great insight into what happens on the day of a transformation.
Many people who are unfamiliar with what you're doing might wonder "Is this drag?" or "Are you -- and the men who come to see you -- gay? Are they transgender?" How do you respond to these questions?
Many people confuse gender identity with sexual orientation, so, naturally, they think that a man who dresses like a woman must be gay. However, as I explain in one of my latest videos, 90 percent of my clients self-identify as "straight." That’s not to say that, while dressed as women, they won’t have sex with other men but since they are in a "femme mode" state of mind, they are tapping into their female sides and thus having sex with a man while they are dressed as women would still make them "straight."
However, many of my clients dream of having a lesbian experience, meaning they dream of having sex with another man who is dressed like a woman and/or a cis female while they themselves are dressed as women. In the end, I would say many of my clients are pansexual. I feel most of my clients are way more sexually liberal than your average homosexual or heterosexual. As for me personally, I’ve only had the opportunity to have sex with individuals who have a penis but I often find myself attracted to pre and post-op transexuals and cis women.
Ultimately, sex for me is all about the chemistry between me and an individual. It’s about being dominant and submissive, flip-flopping, being playful, and giving each other a great deal of physical pleasure. I emphasize the word “giving.” The best sex for me is ultimately about getting off while focused on helping someone else (you like) get off.
(The clip below features one of the "girls" who received a transformation from Amnesia Sparkles)
Some people might also wonder if these men want to be women or if they identify as transgender or if they identify as crossdressers who enjoy dressing up in women's clothing and/or presenting as women but very much identify as men. What are your thoughts on that? Once the clothes and makeup come off, are your clients longing to put it back on or wear it permanently? Or is it seen as a hobby or a limited experience?
The answer to all of these questions is "yes." Of course, as with any pleasurable experience in life, my clients want more of the same thrill once we are done with a transformation session. I believe one of the lessons provided by these makeover transformations is that nothing is permanent in life -- not our exterior, not out mental and emotional states. At the end of each transformation I try to emphasize that they should focus on how it feels to transition from a man to a woman and back to a man. Once you start to accept this feeling of transitioning you realize that life itself is a transition we are all going through. We are constantly learning and changing form.
Why do you want to take your makeover transformations on the road?
Part of the reason I’m taking my makeover transformations on the road is to connect in person with girls in their hometowns and not in New York where I’m based -- especially since many of the girls can't afford a trip to New York. I want to connect without a YouTube screen between us. I want to dance with my girls in their hometowns. I want to to hear their stories which I might add to the book I'm writing. Their stories matter. And since I officially became a U.S. citizen in early 2015, another reason for the trip is because I want to see and feel firsthand this great country of ours.
What do you hope people take away from what you do -- both the men you transform and the general public?
If there is only one thing folks witnessing and folks getting transformations done during my gender-bending cross-country adventure come away with, I hope it is that sometimes you have to listen to your life's calling, even if it means stepping out of your comfort zone. You have to go on an adventure to places (physical, emotional, and mental) you’ve never been before and most importantly you have to rely on the kindness of strangers. You have to take a leap of faith and hope for the best. As a nation, in these troubled times, I hope folks feel the same way instead of wanting to build “walls” to keep people out.
How has doing these makeover transformations touched your own life?
I’m currently in my mid to late 30s. I feel like the first three decades of my life I was mainly focused on me and what I could get out of life. By providing male-to-female transformation services, I discovered the great pleasure that comes from coaching and helping someone come out of their shell; the pleasure of “being of service" -- of touching someone’s life. There is no greater pleasure than to see my clients blossom as they get over the fears society has installed in them. I rejoice in seeing them live life on their own terms. They remind me of the scared young man I used to be and the “woman” I’ve become.
For more information on Amnesia Sparkles, head here. To learn more about her trip across America, visit her GoFundMe page here.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
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BEIRUT, March 27 (Reuters) - Syrian government forces backed by heavy Russian air support drove Islamic State out of Palmyra on Sunday, inflicting what the army called a "mortal blow" to militants who seized the city last year and dynamited its ancient temples.
The loss of Palmyra represents one of the biggest setbacks for the ultra-hardline Islamist group since it declared a caliphate in 2014 across large parts of Syria and Iraq.
The army general command said that its forces took over the city with support from Russian and Syrian air strikes, opening up the huge expanse of desert leading east to the Islamic State strongholds of Raqqa and Deir al-Zor.
Palmyra would become "a launchpad to expand military operations" against the group in those two provinces, it said, promising to "tighten the noose on the terrorist group and cut supply routes ... ahead of their complete recapture."
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were still clashes on the eastern edge of Palmyra on Sunday morning, around the prison and inside the airport, but the bulk of the Islamic State force had withdrawn and retreated east, leaving the city under President Bashar al-Assad's control.
Amaq, a news agency close to Islamic State, said its fighters launched a twin suicide attack against government forces in west Palmyra, without giving details.
Syrian state-run television broadcast from inside the city, showing empty streets and badly damaged buildings.
It quoted a military source saying Syrian and Russian jets were targeting Islamic State fighters as they fled, hitting dozens of vehicles on the roads leading east from the city.
Russia's intervention in September turned the tide of Syria's five-year conflict in Assad's favor. Despite its declared withdrawal of most military forces two weeks ago, Russian jets and helicopters carried out dozens of strikes daily over Palmyra as the army pushed into the city.
"This achievement represents a mortal blow to the terrorist organization and lays the foundation for a great collapse in the morale of its mercenaries and the beginning of its defeat," the army command statement said.
In a pointed message to the United States, which has led a separate Western and Arab coalition against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq since 2014, the military command said its gains showed that the army "and its friends" were the only force able to uproot terrorism.
Observatory director Rami Abdulrahman said 400 Islamic State fighters died in the battle for Palmyra, which he described as the biggest single defeat for the group since it announced its cross-border caliphate nearly two years ago.
The loss of Palmyra comes three months after Islamic State fighters were driven out of the city of Ramadi in neighboring Iraq, the first major victory for Iraq's army since it collapsed in the face of an assault by the militants in June 2014.
Islamic State has lost ground elsewhere, including the Iraqi city of Tikrit last year and the Syrian town of al-Shadadi in February. The United States said the fall of Shadadi was part of efforts to cut Islamic State's links between its two main power centers of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.
On Friday the United States said it believed it had killed several senior Islamic State militants, including Abd ar-Rahman al-Qaduli, described as the group's top finance official and aide to its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Islamic State and al Qaeda's Syrian branch the Nusra Front are excluded from a month-long cessation of hostilities in Syria that has brought a relative lull in fighting between the government and rebels battling Assad in the west of the country.
The limited truce has allowed indirect peace talks to resume at the United Nations in Geneva, sponsored by Washington and Moscow. But progress has been slow, with the government and its opponents deeply divided over any political transition, particularly whether Assad must leave power.
The government delegation, which portrays the fight against terrorism as Syria's overriding priority, will return to the talks next month bolstered by its battlefield gains.
"The liberation of the historic city of Palmyra today is an important achievement and another indication of the success of the strategy pursued by the Syrian army and its allies in the war against terrorism," Syrian television quoted Assad as telling visiting French parliamentarians.
The Observatory said around 180 government soldiers and allied fighters were killed in the campaign to retake Palmyra, which is home to some of the most extensive ruins of the Roman empire.
Islamic State militants dynamited several monuments last year, and Syrian television broadcast footage from inside Palmyra museum on Sunday showing toppled and damaged statues, as well as several smashed display cases.
Syria's antiquities chief said other ancient landmarks were still standing and pledged to restore the damaged monuments.
"Palmyra has been liberated. This is the end of the destruction in Palmyra," Mamoun Abdelkarim told Reuters on Sunday. "How many times did we cry for Palmyra? How many times did we feel despair? But we did not lose hope."
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Jim Harrison, one of the most prolific writers in contemporary American fiction, died on Saturday in his Patagonia, Arizona home. He was 78.
His publisher, Grove Atlantic, confirmed the news, The New York Times reported. The cause of death has yet to be determined.
Described as “a man of prodigious memory and free-wheeling brilliance and erudition,” Harrison penned nearly 40 books in his lifetime, including the novels “Wolf” and “A Good Day to Die,” books of essays and poetry and a memoir. But he was best known for “Legends of the Fall,” a collection of novellas whose title work was made into a film starring Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins. The picture won the Academy Award for best cinematography in 1995.
An avid outdoorsman who spent much of his life writing in solitude surrounded by natural beauty -- first in rural Michigan, then Montana and Arizona -- Harrison showcased his love for the American wilderness in his work.
“His books glisten with love of the world, and are as grounded as Thoreau’s in the particulars of American place -- its rivers and thickets, its highways and taverns,” literary critic Will Blythe wrote in a 2007 review of Harrison’s novel “Returning to Earth.”
“Bawdily and with unrelenting gusto, Harrison’s 40 years’ worth of writing explores what constitutes a good life, both aesthetically and morally, on this planet,” Blythe added.
Harrison was a robust, barrel-chested man who loved hunting, fishing, drinking and eating. His voracious appetite for life, and its many earthly pleasures, impressed nearly as much as his celebrated body of work.
Tributes to the author recalled his passion for food (he once ate 144 oysters, just to see if he could); for booze (one summer, he personally tested 38 varieties of Côtes du Rhône); for cocaine (he once stuck a straw in “a big Bufferin bottle of great coke. We didn’t even bother doing lines”); and for women (he was married to his late wife Linda for more than five decades, but wasn't shy about talking publicly about his many affairs).
Harrison was also a prodigious cigarette smoker.
“[He] smokes so much that even when he is not smoking it still seems like he is smoking,” writer Tom Bissell quipped in Outside magazine in 2011.
Compared in size to a “beer salesman” or “sumo wrestler,” Harrison wore a bushy mustache and was blind in one eye, the result of a broken glass bottle, pushed into his face by a young girl when he was 7.
“His eye … is sighted off on a different plane, increasing the feeling that Harrison is a man with his own unique sense of balance,” writer Jim Fergus wrote about the author in 1986 for Paris Review.
Born in Grayling, Michigan in 1937, Harrison launched his writing career in the amid personal tragedy. In 1962, his father and sister died while on a hunting trip, killed by an intoxicated driver. Harrison told Outside magazine that the incident “cut the last cord that was holding me down.” He said he finished his first poem after their funeral.
In the decade-and-a-half that followed, Harrison found critical success -- he received a Guggenheim fellowship for his poetry in 1969 -- but floundered financially. In the 1970s, he was making around $10,000 a year, and things became so dire that he said he contemplated suicide.
Several of his famous friends came to his aid during that time, including actor Jack Nicholson, who reportedly loaned him $15,000 to finish writing “Legends of the Fall.”
Harrison would later speak of the difficulties of being a writer.
“It isn't easy when it's good,” he said, according to NPR. “It takes your whole life to do it.”
On Sunday, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, a friend of Harrison's, paid tribute to the author on Twitter.
“The Ancient Minstrel,” Harrison's most recent book of fiction, was published this month.
He is survived by two daughters and three grandchildren.
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Comic artist Dudolf is at it again.
Months after befuddling the Internet with a panda hidden in a sea of snowmen, the Hungarian doodler (whose real name is Gergely Dudás) unleashed a new head-scratching puzzle -- this time with an Easter theme:
Can you find the Easter egg hidden among the bunnies? Tell us in the comments -- but no spoilers please!
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A fake tombstone for Donald Trump mysteriously appeared in New York's Central Park on Sunday morning.
Walkers discovered the grave marker with the epitaph "Made America Hate Again" near the Sheep's Meadow lawn section, Gothamist reports.
It featured the billionaire businessman's birth year of 1946, but not a year of death.
It's currently unclear who was behind the stunt.
Annie Reiss described it to Gothamist as "definitely provocative," while Robert Cokie told the New York Daily News, "I support it. It's political satire."
Instagram user Sachin RB told The Huffington Post that he took his photo of the marker at around 8 a.m. Sunday. Park officials said they removed the "tombstone shortly after it was discovered."
Editor's note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.
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A little girl clopping around the kitchen, feet swimming in her mother's high heels. A tween sneaking daubs of her mom's lipstick and trying on her pearls. A teenager borrowing a coat, now stylishly vintage, from the back of her mom's closet without asking.
The trope of girls trying on their mothers' clothes is the story of girls learning how to perform femininity, cloaking their young bodies in disguises of maturity and experience. The torch of traditional womanhood is passed down in enamel bracelets, pencil skirts, pumps and scarves, each girl trying out adulthood by pretending, however briefly, to be her own mother.
Photographer Rowan Metzner chose never to stop this mother-daughter game of make-believe. In her photo series, "In My Mother's Clothes," which she began working on in 2009, Metzner takes on characters based on elements of her mother's extensive and striking wardrobe and shoots self-portraits.
"Each photograph is designed to be a vignette and window into a narrative," Metzner told The Huffington Post via email. "It struck me how many different types of characters could be created out of one person’s wardrobe and that on any given day that person could be totally different from the next." Her self-portraits as different assumed characters draw inspiration from the work of Cindy Sherman, as well as celebrating the artistry of the fashion world.
While each portrait is inspired by individual items from her mother's wardrobe and portrays a unique character, Metzner says the project stemmed from a childhood fascination with her mother's clothes. "For as long as I can remember, and I am sure longer, I have played dress-up in my mom’s clothes," she said. "I always looked up to my mom as a role model and how she presented herself to the world. To me she was the ideal archetype of woman, insanely smart, drop-dead gorgeous, confident, everything I wanted to be. I would play dress-up and pretend to be that woman."
"We learn so much from our mothers. We learn how to be a woman," Metzner told me. "I think clothes and accessories play a huge part in that."
While Metzner's series emphasizes the deep connection between women, mothers, and the transmission of identity through clothes, it's also interested in teasing out the inextricable role of performance in how women present themselves and how they're judged.
"There are two constants in this series; all of the garments come from one woman’s closet and I always act as the mannequin," she pointed out. "The fact that all of these looks and characters came from one wardrobe demonstrates the flaw in making visual judgments about people."
And as for her mom, the wardrobe supplier behind the project? "She loves it!" Metzner said. "She has been such a great help; there is no way I could have done it without her."
Check out more photos from the series below, and more of Metzner's work on her website.
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Cats prance from room to room, expressing their whims and fears spontaneously. They scratch, they bellow, and they quietly watch the world go by from a fur-covered windowsill. They’re certainly more intrinsically motivated than their canine counterparts -- you won’t find a cat that puts its owner’s social needs above its own.
All of which is to say, cats and artists have a lot in common.
So it comes as no surprise that lions and tiny tigresses have served as the subjects of art dating back to ancient Egypt, through Gustave Courbet’s soft-whirling oil paintings, and contemporary woodblock prints.
An upcoming exhibit at the Worcester Art Museum, dubbed "Meow," will provide a historical survey of these feline portraits, including a woodcut created in 1912 depicting a gardener and her curious cat onlooker, and a 1975 lithograph of a mysteriously winged Siamese. The museum’s director of audience engagement, Adam Rozan, wrote in a press release, “Cats have given rise to a plethora of creative online projects, videos, and memes that mix humor and artistry. While the Internet has allowed for viral consumption of this content, this phenomenon isn’t new.”
While humor doesn’t factor into most of the images on display, many artists did choose to portray cats’ expressiveness in their work. A 20th-century lithograph called “Girl with Cat and Tiles” depicts a dainty blonde holding a squirming, ready-to-pounce tabby. For this and other crazy cat pics, see below.
"Meow: A Cat-Inspired Exhibition" -- including an interactive installation featuring live cats, a community art show and special art classes -- will be on view at Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts from May 21 to Sept. 4, 2016.
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Can love be captured in just five words? The whole sweeping, passionate arc of a romance novel? Twitter users think so! Well, sort of.
In the trending hashtag #My5WordRomanceNovel, tweeters have been composing super-succinct flash stories that capture a love story. For some, that looks sentimental or desolate; for others, it looks like "let's order another large pizza." In fact, many of the stories from the hashtag game lean tongue-in-cheek rather than earnest. It's pretty tough, it seems, to convey epic ardor spanning decades via just five words.
The classic several-word story challenge is often traced back to Ernest Hemingway's legendary (and contested) six-word heartbreaker, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." This construct allows one whole word more than the #My5WordRomanceNovel game -- that's another 20 percent of storytelling time.
In the five-word romance version, things must be snappier, though not all participants handled the loss of that word with aplomb:
Brands being brands, of course, corporate accounts hopped on this hashtag like their businesses were at stake. From Qdoba ("You and Me. Qdoba. Forever.") to Peanut Butter & Co. ("Peanut butter and jelly sandwich") to Bruegger's Bagels ("Us. Together. Forever. With bagels.") to the more tenuously linked brands (has anyone ever fallen in love in a way that involved homeowner's insurance, protein powder, or Zippo lighters?), corporate Twitter handlers know one thing everyone else on the social media site should: Hashtag games are a delightful way to challenge yourself as a writer and to discover cool new people to follow. And of course (duh), to get cool new people to follow you.
Plus, this magazine's Twitter maven might have found the most romantic five words in the English language:
Here are more of our favorite five-word romance novels -- contribute your own in the comments or on Twitter!
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The first images and videos released of the historic Syrian city of Palmyra, which government forces retook from the self-styled Islamic State on Sunday, have given archaeologists hope that many of the historic city's structures are still intact and restorable.
Footage of parts of the city appeared to show that it had been reduced to rubble, and Syrian television showed many valuable artifacts inside Palmyra's museum smashed or torn up. But Palmyra as a whole hasn't been destroyed to the degree that many experts feared.
"We were expecting the worst. But the landscape, in general, is in good shape," Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria's Directorate-General for Antiquities and Museums, told Agence France-Presse. "The joy I feel is indescribable."
Antiquities experts may even be able to start restoration work "in a year's time" and restore all the damaged structures in five years, Abdulkarim told AFP.
UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said she "welcome[s] the liberation of Palmyra" and is ready to send emergency assessment experts to help map the city's ruins.
Palmyra, which is located in central Syria, once served as a trade hub in ancient times that linked several civilizations, including Persia, India and China, to the Roman Empire, according to UNESCO. Many of the city's art and architecture reflect the styles of the city's local, Greco-Roman and Persian inhabitants in the first and second centuries, it added.
Now, multiple roads run through the city, connecting it to major government strongholds in the country's west, such as Damascus and Homs, to eastern territories, such as Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, which ISIS controls.
Palmyra is also close to many gas fields that previously provided the majority of the electricity in its surrounding areas. It remains unclear, however, whether or not government forces have retaken control over the gas fields.
After seizing control of Palmyra in May, ISIS extremists blew up a number of Palmyra's ancient monuments, including the Temple of Bel, Temple of Baal Shamin and Monumental Arch of Triumph, which were constructed almost 2,000 years ago. The assailants, who follow extremist interpretations of Islam, believed that many of Palmyra's monuments and artifacts were objects of idolatry that had to be destroyed.
UNESCO condemned the destruction of Palmyra's monuments as a "war crime" and said that extremists were "terrified of history."
ISIS has also used the city's ancient Roman amphitheater as the site of public executions. In July, it released a video that appeared to show 25 men being lined up and shot dead in front of the Roman theater in front of an audience. The terrorists have also killed hundreds of civilians, including a renowned elderly antiquities scholar, since they took control of Palmyra, the Syrian government said.
Before the onset of the Syrian civil war in 2011, some 150,000 tourists visited Palmyra every year, according to the BBC.
Palmyra's recapture marked one of the largest victories in the fight against the extremist group since its rise to power in Syria and Iraq two years ago. It was also the largest single gain for Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces since Russia launched an aerial campaign in the country in support of the Assad regime in September, per Reuters.
Syria's military said it would now use Palmyra as a base to launch further attacks on ISIS, which experts say has been losing ground in Syria and Iraq in recent months. In a speech in Brussels on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that the reason Islamic State militants have been carrying out attacks outside the Middle East is due to their failures within the region.
Take a look at the photos below to see what Palmyra looks like now:
Archaeologists Revive Missing Activist’s Dream Of Reconstructing Palmyra
Women Risk Death To Film What Life Is Like Under The Islamic State
Everything You Need To Know About The Islamic State
Are Western ‘Victories’ Against the Islamic State Really That Significant?
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Celebrated author Harper Lee wasn't known for mincing words, and in a newly released letter from decades ago, she had some choice ones for a property then owned by Donald Trump.
In fact, she suggested it was a lot like hell.
"The worst punishment God can devise for this sinner is to make her spirit reside eternally at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City," Lee wrote in a 1990 letter to her friend Doris Leapard.
The letter is currently up for sale at Nate D. Sanders Auctions.
While Lee's letter was penned just a few months after the casino opened, Trump's Taj Mahal filed for bankruptcy the following year. The Taj Mahal kept the Trump name, but it is currently owned by billionaire Carl Icahn, who took control after the casino emerged from Chapter 11 earlier this year.
Lee died last month at the age of 89, less than a year after the publication of her second book, "Go Set A Watchman."
Although Lee fiercely guarded her privacy, she was by many accounts a prolific letter-writer and the auction includes 29 of her missives. As of publication time, the high bid for the letter that mentions the Taj Mahal is $1,330. The auction ends on Thursday evening.
Editor's note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist
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When you see Kristen Cummings craft studio you might think, “Wow, this woman sure loves beads.” However, upon second look, perhaps even the odor of the room, you’ll soon realize Kristen isn’t working with jewelry beads, she’s working with jelly beans.
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We can't believe this happened in "Sesame Street."
Bert and Ernie rap along to Warren G and Nate Dogg's 1994 smash hit "Regulate" in this incredible mashup video.
It's the latest wonderful effort from Adam Schleichkorn, who transformed the cast of the educational kids' show into Bone Thugs-n-Harmony for a performance of "Tha Crossroads" this earlier month.
This time the fictional street's two best friends take center stage.
"This song honestly ended up being just [as] tough as my last one (Crossroads), if not tougher," he wrote on his YouTube channel "isthishowyougoviral" on Monday.
Schleichkorn revealed he "almost bailed on it several times." But he said the song was the most requested in the comments section, "so I felt as if I had to give the people what they wanted." See how it compares to the original:
Schleichkorn's channel has gotten more than 7.6 million views since he launched it in 2012. His Bone Thugs-n-Harmony mashup has garnered 1.7 million hits alone:
He's also helped "The Muppets" perform the Beastie Boys' classic "So What'cha Want."
And he had Barney the Dinosaur rapping along to "Get Money" by Junior Mafia featuring Notorious B.I.G.
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