Originally choreographed in 1869, "Don Quixote" is a ballet based off Miguel de Cervantes's classic novel El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha), featuring lots of tambourines and castanets. The iconic ballet, first performed at the Ballet of the Imperial Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow, will be the final broadcast of the season for Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema.

"You always feel happiness performing this ballet," prima ballerina Ekaterina Krysanova, who plays the lead role of Kitri, explains in the video below. "It’s like champagne. The kind of emotions that cannot even be expressed when you hear your first entrance, you immediately get wound up. Then for three hours until the third act, you just dance, like a bright and strong ray of light."

Long story short, "Don Quixote" is the tale of an eccentric man who, after reading a book about ancient chivalry, embarks on a quest to find his ideal woman. When he stumbles upon the radiant and energetic Kitri, Quixote is smitten. Except she's already in love with Basilio, played by principal dancer Semyon Chudin. Lots of dancing ensues. 

The iconic ballet, choreographed by Alexei Fadeyechev (after Marius Petipa and Alexander Gorsky) to a score by Ludwig Minkus, is a Bolshoi classic. "Leading artists always rehearse this play with trepidation," said Bolshoi prima Maria Alexandrova, who has also played Kitri in the past. "But it's one of very few performances that leaves you with a rush of strength at the end. I think that's why everyone loves it. I really love stories where we ignite the fire ... And we really ignite it." 

"Don Quixote" will play Sunday, April 10, at locations throughout the U.S. Visit the Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema website for tickets, times and details.

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Every year, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) features the best of the best in housing design -- and this year's picks don't disappoint.

The organization announced the results of the 2016 Housing Awards on Thursday, featuring 10 winners across three categories: single family, multifamily, and specialized units.

The purpose of the awards -- which are open to U.S. properties designed by architects licensed in the U.S. -- is to highlight "the importance of good housing as a necessity of life, a sanctuary for the human spirit, and a valuable national resource."

Below, see the 10 award recipients for 2016 -- and prepare for some major home envy:

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For the older ladies of Ms. Senior Arizona, pageants are about so much more than just a silly tiara. For the last 27 years, the state pageant has been a place where older women go to make friendships rather than to cut off the competition.

"They build a relationship with all the ladies," executive director Herme Sherry told The Huffington Post. "You come away with a whole new group of friends and gain so much confidence."

There are no questions about solutions for world peace or swimsuit competitions. The women instead model evening gowns, show off their talents -- whether it's tap dancing, yodeling or performing a monologue -- and most importantly, sum up their life philosophy.

The women must be over 60 to participate, and they've had contestants well into their 90s. 

"So many of them have raised families, had careers, and gone through all kinds of things," Sherry, a former pageant winner herself, says. "They are so excited about doing something for themselves now, because they've spent their lives doing things for others." She says many women get help developing their talents and go on to perform at local senior centers. The proceeds from the event ticket sales go to a charity that supports survivors of domestic violence.

The winner gets the honor of representing Arizona in the national competition, Ms. Senior America, later this year. The Ms. Senior America pageants have been around since 1971, the brainchild of a classically trained singer named Dr. Al Mott.

But what makes the women in these pageants so beautiful isn't really about looks at all. 

"They know what life's about and they have wonderful souls," Sherry says. "And they are so excited about doing something new." 

Check out some photos of the beautiful contestants from this year's pageant below. 

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Migguel Anggelo sees his acclaimed cabaret act, “Another Son of Venezuela,” as a theatrical testament to the American dream.

“If you work hard, especially in this country, your dreams can come true,” Anggelo, 43, told The Huffington Post in an interview. “I’m an example of that.”

As its title suggests, “Another Son of Venezuela” is very much a celebration of the Brooklyn-based singer’s Latin heritage. But the show, which is directed by Obie Award winner David Drake, is anything but a traditional concert, with its star weaving anecdotes of love, loss and family into a high-energy set that includes nods to the Buena Vista Social Club and Nina Simone. There are costume changes, feathers and sexy dance numbers, too.

Anggelo’s interest in a variety of musical genres is also apparent in the show, as well as on his two albums, 2011’s “Donde Estara Matisse” and 2014’s “La Casa Azul,” which incorporate pop, folk and even opera. When “Another Son of Venezuela” returns to Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater in New York on April 11 and 21, he and his band, The Immigrants, are planning a special tribute to “The Sound of Music,” the classic movie musical that inspired him to become a performer at a young age.

“When I was a baby, I saw ‘The Sound of Music’ and I said to my mom, ‘Oh, I want to sing just like [Julie Andrews].' I wanted to be one of the von Trapp kids,” Anggelo, who also cited Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli and Freddie Mercury as influences, quipped. “Thank God we grew up in the mountains!”

But for all of its glitz and glamour, “Another Son of Venezuela” also delves into darker, and more personal, territory. In one heartbreaking moment, Anggelo recalls the moment he first came out as gay.

“I remember when I was 12 years old, I told my mom, 'I think I like boys.’ She was a ballet dancer, so she had very good, gay friends, and she understood me,” he said. His father, who died when Anggelo was just 13, felt differently. “He told me he’d rather have a prostitute daughter than a gay son. But he was the one who put me in dance classes, acting classes … so maybe he didn’t have the time to see his son grow up and see [other aspects] of being gay.”

Once his Joe’s Pub run wraps, Anggelo will resume work on his third album, “English With An Accent,” which he describes as a “Latin take on Björk.” In July, he and The Immigrants will travel to Russia as a cultural envoy under the auspices of the U.S. State Department, where they’ll perform at the Moscow International House of Music, among other venues.

While Russia’s controversial “gay propaganda” legislation has deterred many high-profile stars from performing in Russia, Anggelo says he isn’t concerned.

“At first I thought, ‘Oh no, they’re going to kill me!’ But then, I thought, 'I’m going to [present] a new experience for them,'” he said. “I want people to know me. This is my reality, and there’s nothing wrong with it.”

Migguel Angelo and The Immigrants will perform in “Another Son of Venezuela” at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater in New York on April 11 and 21. Head here for more details. 

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If you're a woman who doesn't smile for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, then you've likely been accused of having a resting bitch face. 

Poet Olivia Gatwood turned her resting bitch face-induced shame into art. In a two-minute slam poem, she exposes resting bitch face for what it actually is: a symptom of the much greater societal issue of how women's bodies are constantly under surveillance and subject to the approval of men.

The poem begins by laying out the many instances in which women are perceived as "mean girls" or "bitches" -- wearing headphones without listening to music to avoid conversation, clutching keys in between fingers as a makeshift weapon, not laughing when something isn't funny and, of course, not smiling. But these actions go far beyond petty meanness, and are indicative of the ways that women are constantly protecting themselves. 

"Resting Bitch Face, they call you," she says. "But there is nothing restful about you." 

And there isn't. Women go to incredible, exhausting lengths to maintain a feeling of safety and security -- and resting bitch face is just one small part of it. 

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Audra McDonald has made history as the star with the most Tony Awards under her belt, but there was a time when the actress truly believed she would have to give up her dreams on ever setting foot on Broadway's big stage.

As McDonald tells "Oprah: Where Are They Now?" in this weekend's upcoming interview, she envisioned her time at the prestigious Juilliard School as a powerful jumping off point for making her long-held Broadway goals a reality. However, McDonald's initial experience there took her in a completely different direction.

"I entered into the classical vocal program, so, all of a sudden, I was on this different path," she explains. "I was studying with a teacher whose ... goal was to make my voice an operatic voice."

Not only that, but McDonald was to focus solely on her classical training and nothing else. 

"I was not allowed to sing Broadway," she says. "And I wasn't allowed to audition for musicals or anything like that."

I just really hit bottom. Just decided, 'Maybe I just don't need to be here anymore.'

For a California girl who had always dreamed of singing on Broadway, the experience was devastating.

"Here I was, finally in New York, literally living on Broadway -- my apartment was on Broadway! -- and I'd never been further away from my dreams," McDonald says. 

Away from home, away from her family and friends, and feeling her future slipping through her fingers, McDonald says she felt lost.

"I just really hit bottom," she says. "Just decided, 'Maybe I just don't need to be here anymore.' It was a place of real pain."

McDonald opens up about her battle with depression and subsequent suicide attempt on this weekend's airing of "Oprah: Where Are They Now?", Saturday, April 9, at 9 p.m. ET on OWN.

Related: Martin Luther King, Jr. personally stopped one "Star Trek" actor form quitting the show

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Warning: This post contains nudity and may not be suitable for work environments.

If you're not familiar with shunga, the early Japanese tradition of creating explicit images of sexual activity, welcome to the pleasure dome. Literally translated to "spring pictures," shunga date back to Japan's Edo period, from approximately the 17th to 19th centuries, when the country was experiencing a boom of economic growth and a new abundance of leisure time. That meant more art, more horniness, more erotica. 

While Edo-era Japan was characterized by a strict social order, and sexual digressions like adultery were strictly forbidden, there was a designated space where more salacious desires could run free: Ukiyo-e, the floating world. This cultural bubble was a legally authorized safe space where sexual pleasure ruled paramount. Red light districts, brothels and kabuki theater were all designated areas where citizens could explore their sexual fantasies. 

And then there was the shunga, ink paintings and woodblock prints depicting couples, mostly heterosexual but some queer as well, getting it on. The images are characterized by hyper-flatness, warped perspectives and bawdy humor, generally representing a giddy attitude towards sex, with all its pleasures and humiliations. Along with ecstatic facial expressions, both male and female genitalia are engorged generously, exaggerating every last hair, wrinkle and drop of moisture. Considering the puritanical understandings of sex that permeated Western Christian culture at the time, shunga is something of a beautiful anomaly.

The images were often commissioned by aristocratic males, though the artworks were also gifted to young brides as good luck charms and maturing young adults as educational materials, so they did not cater exclusively to the male gaze. Speaking to the widely accepted nature of the graphic images is the fact that they were often created by traditional painters, who were not penalized for their erotic predilections. With titles like "Pillow Book for the Young: All You Need to Know About How the Jeweled Rod Goes in and Out," there wasn't much subtlety involved. 

Shunga was banned by the Japanese Shogunate in 1722, but its legacy lives on -- and turns on -- to this day. Just ask Kio Griffith, the Los Angeles-based curator behind "Neo Japonism: Shunga," a survey of contemporary artists reinterpreting classic shunga prints. Griffith enlisted artists to have their way with an original shunga print, navigating the space between then and now, copy and original artwork. "It has to be recognizable," Griffith explained in an interview with The Huffington Post. "But the artists can play, adding their own style, their own humor, and elements relating to modern culture. It's about putting your ego into it, but allowing it to be truly representational."

This is the eighth time Griffith has organized such an exhibition, inviting contemporary artists to riff on classical art movements. "There is a long tradition in art history of a student copying the master to get better at their craft," Griffith said. "It’s not just about copying, but how you work yourself into a composition."

Griffith himself prioritizes including artists who are just beginning their careers in his shows. "You have to give experience to the artists trying to break into the scene!"

Griffith's ongoing series of exhibitions, called "Faux Sho," has previously covered eras including impressionism, expressionism, and symbolism. "At one point I thought, this is all Western art," Griffith said. "I should branch out to Japonisme." In 2015, he organized a show inspired by Western artists who were inspired by Japanese art, including Vincent van Gogh and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. 

At first, Griffith mounted the shows mainly in coffee shops, spaces he felt were more accessible than the often insular gallery scene. "I think the general public is a little bit in fear of the white cube," he said. This iteration, however, takes place at the Japan Foundation in Los Angeles, who invited Griffith to curate a show for the space. 

Growing up, Griffith spent half his life in Japan, and was constantly exposed to works of Japanese art. Not surprisingly, the naughty stuff stood out. "It's startling because of the erotic nature of it, but also, shunga is a higher art form than the traditional woodblock prints in terms of the use of color. A single one can use over 90 woodblock plates. They also really stretch techniques of perspective and flatness. You know that things are enlarged out of proportion but you don’t know what is real -- the genitalia, the face, the body, the setting. But when you look at the whole thing it’s very magical and all seems to make sense somehow." 

For "Neo Japonism," Griffith recruited artists from both Japan and Los Angeles to rework iconic 17th century smut, honoring the works' identifying features while imbuing them with their own artistic input.

Artists Daphne Hill and Anna Stump transform a Katsukawa Shunsho print into a three-dimensional collage, replacing stark flatness with layers of newspaper, butterflies, gold lace and an artfully placed octopus. The image, a depiction of a master and his servant, is at once feminine and rough, its jagged-edge girliness a contemporary response to shunga's questionable male aristocratic origins. Artist Ted Meyer recreates Tsukioka Settei's black-and-white ménage à trois in full color -- and adds a special guest. It appears some lucky man is making love to two versions of Yayoi Kusama, one of the world's most famous living artists, atop a bed of red and white polka dots. Christina Kelly reinterprets "Courtesan and Wealthy Merchant" by Sugimura Jihei, incorporating elements of the California landscape into the backdrop.

"Neo Japonism: Shunga" will be on view until April 23 at the Japan Foundation in Los Angeles. In the meantime, see some of the works on view, juxtaposed with the originals that inspired them.

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It's been nearly 18 years since Wilmer Valderrama was introduced to America as the ethnically ambiguous foreign exchange student Fez on Fox's "That '70s Show." In that time the actor says he's seen some progress when it comes to diversity on television but he feels networks could be doing more. 

The 36-year-old star spoke to The Huffington Post this week about wanting the TV industry to go beyond developing diverse pilots and how it felt to work with the cast of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" during his recent guest appearance as patient Kyle Diaz.

Valderrama acknowledges the "major progress" made by streaming services and networks for a more diverse TV landscape but says networks and studios are dropping the ball by not turning the diverse pilots they help develop into full series.

"I think television has become a lot more ambitious when it comes to conceptualizing a show -- the tones, the universes, the characters, the premises, the stories," Valderrama told HuffPost. "But I also have to admit that as much as they’re developing a lot of these pilots and as much as they’re developing a lot of vehicles for Latinos and African Americans, we’ve yet to see how many networks and how many studios are really willing to pick up these shows to series, and really get[ting] behind those shows and truly help[ing] them become a success."

And the actor is no stranger to the process of developing a series, Valderrama created and executive produced MTV's verbal sparring show "Yo Momma" in the mid-2000s. He also currently stars alongside Meagan Good in Fox's "Minority Report," which premiered last fall but promptly had its season episode order cut from 13 to 10 due to low ratings.  

"I think [networks'] intentions are in the right place, to try and develop as much diversity as possible," he said. "But unfortunately I think a lot of networks lack a bit of that mojo, that courage to actually give those shows a real shot and allow audiences to really find themselves within the leading stories and the leading characters."

But "Grey's" creator Shonda Rhimes, he says, is a great example of those in the industry trying to change the game by conceptualizing series that revolve around not only women but people of color. And this Thursday, Valderrama will officially debut in a Shondaland original as musician and MS patient Kyle Diaz on ABC's "Grey's Anatomy."

"You know a Shonda Rhimes show when you see it, that’s one thing that’s exciting: to be able to come into an existing universe that's all kind of intertwined in the same world," he told HuffPost about his time working on set. "And all these characters are so diverse and that to me is also really special... She’s able to create worlds that are not only diverse, but that really look like what we are used to navigating in the United States. That to me is something to be very proud of." 

"Grey’s Anatomy" airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

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A photographer who has spent more than half his life obsessively documenting American cities is creating an expansive and eye-opening record of how poor, segregated neighborhoods have transformed over time. 

Camilo José Vergara, 71, has systematically photographed the same set of intersections in New York, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities over and over again since 1977. He continues to work on the "Tracking Time" series, and his forthcoming book Detroit Is No Dry Bones will be published later this year.

The Chilean-born photographer usually focuses on the built environment rather than people, returning to familiar spots to discover blighted houses replaced with high rises or falling into further decay; churches turned into restaurants and stores into churches; mom-and-pop shops boarded up or taken over by chain businesses.

“Stuff that isn’t deteriorating kind of bores me,” Vergara said.

Vergara differentiates his work from photographs that are meant to stand alone and “astonish” a viewer. Instead, his work is best digested a dozen or a couple hundred images at a time. He sees himself as an archivist, both creating the original documents and then curating them.

“You find meaning in some aggregate images, and that’s what I’ve done all my life,” Vergara said. “That’s the great function of photography, is that it’s not so much focused on the extraordinary -- it’s the everyday.”

Vergara's entire collection is a portrait of decline and renewal at both a neighborhood and national level, one that particularly resonates as many cities grapple with rapid gentrification and the displacement of long-time residents and small businesses. His method of time-lapse photography has created a record of those everyday surroundings that might otherwise be lost.

When Vergara isn’t criss-crossing the country, he is poring over his extensive collection, digitizing older photographs and looking for common threads. Trained as a sociologist, he conducts research and interviews to flesh out stories he pulls from his images.

He's focused on churches and the role of religion in the poor neighborhoods he is drawn to. In another series, he highlights urban folk art that never makes it into museum collections: the hand-painted signs and murals that adorn liquor stores, laundromats and community centers. A recent collection captures the agricultural scenes painted on food trucks in Los Angeles’ Latino neighborhoods -- possibly endangered as they shift toward more gourmet fare, Vergara said.

“Things disappear so quickly,” he said. “And then you realize … your city doesn't look like that anymore.”

Vergara has won a National Humanities medal and MacArthur fellowship. And the Library of Congress acquired Vergara’s archive last year, cementing its value. But his work did not initially earn approval from art world gatekeepers, nor from the artist himself.

His first project, more traditional street photography in Harlem and the Bronx in the early ‘70s, attracted little interest. Vergara scrapped the idea, but at the time chose to hold onto the images because “they reminded me of how I had wasted my life.” They’ve since been published widely.

“The irony is that all my life I’ve been interested in failure, and now I can’t consider myself a failure,” he said, laughing. 

There’s failure lurking in many of Vergara’s photographs, but there’s also much more to see, if you keep looking. Vergara certainly will -- he's compelled to return to the sites he’s chosen, capture how they've changed yet again and bring his archive up to date. 

“This work sort of pulls you in, it’s like a river,” he said. “I imagine I’ll be doing it until the last day I live.” 

Many more photographs from Vergara's “Tracking Time” series can be seen on his website.

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At 104, we imagine there's not a lot you haven't seen or done. Perhaps that's why centenarian Jack Reynolds decided to celebrate his birthday by getting his very first tattoo. 

The great-granddad broke a Guinness World Record by getting inked, becoming the oldest person to receive their first tattoo. 

The Chesterfield, England native's choice of tat was simply his nickname and date of birth -- "Jacko 6.4.1912." 

Though it was his first time going under the tattoo needle, Reynolds seemed relaxed joking, "I'd rather be doing this than getting a haircut," and praising his tattoo artist for being "so gentle!" His daughter and grandson were right there with him, also getting tattoos, for moral support. 

Other post 50s have gotten inked in their golden years, to commemorate some sort of milestone and to show that age really is just a number. 

Reynolds' feat helped raise over £2,450, or approximately $3,400, for a local hospice. It's not the first time the centenarian has braced for a challenge to support a good cause. At age 102, Reynolds raised money for the ALS Foundation by partaking in the popular ice bucket challenge. 

What a badass. 

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Wearing an over-sized yellow sombrero and yelling "¡Arriba! ¡Arriba! ¡Andale! ¡Andale!," Speedy Gonzales raced straight into the hearts of viewers when he debuted in the 1950s. But with recent news that an animated film featuring "the fastest mouse in all of Mexico" could be on the horizon, we wondered if the little Mexican mouse has a place in an industry that's trying to eradicate Latino stereotypes.

Speedy Gonzales may have been a mouse with a heroic heart, often helping his fellow mice in need, but his exaggerated thick accent and portrayal of Mexicans eventually caused Cartoon Network to take the show off the air in 1999. 

"It hasn't been on the air for years because of its ethnic stereotypes," Cartoon Network spokeswoman Laurie Goldberg told Fox in 2002. "We have such a huge library, I think we intend to go with popular shows that aren't going to upset people. We're not about pushing the boundary. We're not HBO. We have a diverse audience and we have an impressionable audience."

But Goldberg also noted that Speedy remained widely popular in Latin America, with many Hispanics having grown fond of the mouse over the years. And on Monday, Deadline exclusively reported that the Looney Tunes character is being considered for a Warner Bros. animated feature film with Mexican actor Eugenio Derbez voicing the mouse. 

“In Mexico we grew up watching Speedy Gonzales,” Derbez told Deadline. “He was like a superhero to us, or maybe more like a revolutionario like Simón Bolívar or Pancho Villa. He watched out for the little people but with a lot of bravado and a weakness for the ladies. I’m really excited to be bringing this character to the big screen. And besides being Mexican -- my full name is Eugenio Derbez Gonzalez and I have big ears. The casting couldn’t be better.”

The response to the possible movie has been mixed, so we want to know: Do you think the Mexican mouse is suitable to star in a film in the 21st century? Vote in our poll below!

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Earlier this week, dozens of boys in Thailand took part in Poy Sang Long, a traditional rite of passage for young Buddhists from the Shan ethnic group.

The annual ceremony, which normally spans three days, marks the initiation of boys, typically 7 to 14 years old, as novices in the Buddhist community. The boys' participation in this rite helps them and their families accumulate merit, which Buddhists believe moves them along the path to achieving enlightenment.

As part of Poy Sang Long, the boys have their faces decorated and dress up in lavish costumes -- a reference to Siddhartha Gautama, who was said to be a prince before embarking on the religious journey that led him to become a Buddha.

At the end of the three days, the novices remove their colorful costumes and begin their study of Buddhist doctrine.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Thailand-based photographer Taylor Weidman followed two youngsters, 10-year-old Han and 11-year-old Kemachart, as they prepared for their initiation. According to Getty Images, the boys are neighbors from Chiang Mai who traveled to Mae Sariang, a small town in northern Thailand near the Burmese border, for the ceremony.

Take a look at more of Weidman's photos of the runup to Poy Sang Long below:

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The next smokin' hot thing in wedding photography? Colorful smoke bombs.

With their pretty plumes in all colors of the rainbow, smoke bombs add a dreamlike quality to wedding portraits that sparklers just can't compete with. 

But don't be fooled by their billowing beauty; these smoke bombs can get quite hot, so be sure to give them time to cool down before properly disposing of them. And use common sense -- i.e. avoid dry fields, forests or any other area that could potentially catch fire. Head here for even more safety tips.

Below are 19 magical wedding pics that are quite literally "the bomb."

 H/T Elite Daily

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This person is in the art of healing. 

Auberon Wolf, a 29-year-old tattoo artist who identifies as genderqueer, has attracted media attention for their tattoos over scars of trauma survivors. The artist, who is a self-harm survivor, aims to help people turn a new leaf and reclaim their bodies. 

The 29-year-old, who works at Birthmark Tattoos in Vancouver, British Columbia, inks survivors of self-harm, domestic violence and attempted suicide, among other forms of trauma.

Wolf said that the healing work is inspired by their own experiences with self-injury. The artist told The Huffington Post that they'd self-harm on-and-off for years and tattooing over the scars turned out to be cathartic. 

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Have we run out of would-be satirists yet?

Venerable food writer Calvin Trillin, in the latest issue of The New Yorker, poses the question to us all once again, in the form of a humorous poem entitled "Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?"

If they haven’t, we’ve reason to fret.
Long ago, there was just Cantonese.
(Long ago, we were easy to please.)
But then food from Szechuan came our way,
Making Cantonese strictly passé.

The poem concludes with nostalgia for long-past days "When we never were faced with the threat / Of more provinces we hadn’t met." 

The oddly tone-deaf poem faced sharp backlash on Twitter, with many Asian writers voicing dismay with the doggerel verse's undertones of yellow panic and xenophobia. But of course, Trillin and various defenders made a common reply for those who run afoul of social justice activists these days: The poem was satire, and therefore the outrage was misdirected. As author Celeste Ng pointed out, the label of satire is all too often used as a retroactive excuse for simple bigotry.

A nasty outburst brushed under the rug (“he’s just a satirist, you know”) or a comedy piece with racist undertones recast in a more positive light (“it was meant to be satire”) fit this bill, and Trillin’s might. He clearly aimed for humorous poetry, not aggressive racism, but the satire bit ... eh, that’s unclear. But the satire excuse isn’t just problematic because it’s used to cover up for offensive, non-satirical garbage, but because it erases the responsibility to execute satire well. If something is intended as satire but poorly done, satire is no get-out-of-jail-free card, something many authors -- Michel Houellebecq and Jonathan Franzen, for example -- and their admirers don’t seem to grasp.

Like ironic racism, misguided satire is a favored pastime of the denizens of certain pockets of white male privilege. Also like ironic racism, bad satire often manifests as a pointless reenactment of hurtful stereotypes and tropes. “Look, here I am, saying horrifying things that are painful for the less powerful to hear, as people in positions of hegemonic privilege tend to do!” say these writers, chortling at their self-deprecation. Such satire doesn’t really achieve anything because it fails to puncture a widely accepted and yet problematic way of thinking; it’s performative both of one’s own enlightenment and, in a perverse way, the regressive thoughts lying underneath.

Perhaps Trillin really did want to make a point about moneyed white food critics, but it feels akin to taking a group of affluent students on a field trip to gaze upon the difficult living conditions of homeless people in their town. Those kids might learn a valuable lesson, but their education is being won at the expense of the dignity of those from whom they’re learning. Every marginalized group or person is not a potential tool in the enlightenment of a white man. (For what it’s worth, white men don’t even hold a monopoly on clumsy satire and ironic racism -- see Chelsea Handler’s "Uganda Be Kidding Me" and Chris Rock’s appalling Asian accountant gag at the Oscars.)

Well-off white dudes aren’t new to using minority cultures as props to playfully skewer their own highly entitled communities’ foibles -- in theory, it might be satire of the white community, but ultimately more insulting to, in this case, Chinese people, whose varied cultures and cuisines play no more than a bit role in this charming tale of American foodies who are just a bit too obsessed with keeping up with their fellow gourmands. Chinese cuisines merely make the grade as props in a discussion by and about white American restaurant culture, of which Trillin is very much a part.

As Jezebel editor Jia Tolentino put it in the comments section of the site’s truly brilliant takedown, A Sixth-Grader Writes a Book Report About the New Calvin Trillin Poem in The New Yorker, “the call is deeeeeeply coming from inside the house in a way that makes me stop and say ... why.” 

Another commenter responded, calling it “Columbusing Columbusing” -- basically, acting like he’d discovered how white people act like they’ve discovered things that were actually invented by people of color. (Hint: Asian activists and writers have been talking about the problematic way white people talk about and appropriate Asian cuisines for a long time.) Worse, he was doing it in a way that clumsily missed that target and seemed to mock white food enthusiasts merely for chasing trends rather than for insensitivity toward Chinese cultures -- while making a bit too much comical hay from the “too many to name” provinces from Szechuan to Shaanxi.

This poem, at best, achieves painfully muddled messaging. “Have they run out of provinces yet?” the poem repeatedly asks, not specifying who “they” might be, but in context, implying a vague Asiatic other of threateningly indeterminate hugeness. “They,” the entity throwing out province after province of Chinese cuisine, juxtaposes with “we,” the gormless Western foodies slurping up each dish in turn. It is, quite literally, us vs. them.

Trillin defended himself to The Guardian's Julia Carrie Wong, saying that he’d previously written a similar poem about French food published in The New Yorker. “It was not a put-down of the French,” he said. The poem, “What Happened to Brie and Chablis,” however, doesn’t at any point seem to take aim at a proliferation of French cuisines, or seem overwhelmed at the innumerable French regions, instead more directly tweaking foodie culture for chasing trends and abandoning long-established classic dishes like coq-au-vin:

You miss, let’s say, trout amandine?
Take hope from some menus I’ve seen.
Fondue has been spotted of late
And -- yes, to my near disbelief --
Tartare not from tuna but beef.
They all may return. Just you wait.

The notable difference -- it’s clearly a lamentation about beloved foods going out of style, not about a more diverse array of regional cuisines being brought to the marketplace. Besides, as author Matthew Salesses pointed out:

Others pointed out that he loves Chinese food and would never intentionally write such a poem with any intention but to mock white foodies. On The Stranger, Rich Smith quoted English professor Samuel Cohen: “He's been a food writer and poet of doggerel verse for a million years and I've seen him riding his bike around Chinatown, where he loves to eat. He is not actually complaining about the variety of regional Chinese cuisines and he is not actually nostalgic for the days of chow mein.“ Fair enough. As Smith added, “I think that's a bold bit of irony! ... It rests on Trillin's reputation, which me and many poets my age seem to be unaware of.” 

Guess what: Good satire shouldn’t rest on the author’s reputation. It’s not in the intent, or the reputation -- it’s in the execution. Cohen, and Trillin, are old enough, and well-educated enough, to know this. As a mere high schooler completing an assignment to write a 500-word satirical essay in the tradition of Jonathan Swift, I turned in an over-the-top piece making an argument I personally found absurd, and was surprised to receive it back with the comment that it wasn’t really satire. “There are people who would write this without any satirical intent,” my teacher told me. “But ... you know I don’t think this!” I said. “You can’t assume that your audience already knows what you think,” he explained.

If the success of a satirical piece depends on your audience already knowing what you think, that piece is in trouble -- even if you’re Calvin Trillin. If you find out that everyone is reading it dramatically differently from how you intended it, that's an opportunity for reflection on your subconscious biases, and your writing skills. Unfortunately, stomping your feet and saying "it's satire" doesn't make it so.

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Warning: This piece contains nudity and may not be appropriate for work.

We heard her before we saw her. The sound of Oakland-based performance artist Xandra Ibarra’s laughter echoed from the other side of the Broad Museum while I roamed around with a friend. At first, I wondered: what could be making someone laugh in here? That Jeff Koons sculpture of Michael Jackson and Bubbles isn’t that funny.

There’s something jarring about loud, boisterous laughter in a museum, a place that seems to demand whispers and hushed tones. Following the sounds, we found Ibarra walking around in tall yellow heels, nude except for a tan breast plate complete with nipples, carrying a long nylon sack filled with paradigmatic “white lady accoutrements,” furs, blond wigs, pearls, ballet shoes and fake breasts. Her voice oscillated between high-pitched giggles and orgasmic whimpers as she made a couple loops around the museum’s second floor, the audience entranced. Large-scale artworks by the likes of Koons, Christopher Wool and El Anatsui were rendered stagnant and dead when juxtaposed with Ibarra’s lively presence, fleshy body and hysterical laughter.

The piece, titled “Nude Laughing,” is drawn from John Currin’s 1998 painting “Laughing Nude,” which features a nude white woman with her face caught in the middle of maniacal laughter, straddling the line between the erotic and the grotesque. However, by performing the act of laughter in real life and in her own body, Ibarra adds another dimension to the laughing nude.

“I want to capture what I can of these white nudes in my brown figure and skin and enact a union between sound and gesture that can’t be captured within a painting,” Ibarra explained in an email to The Huffington Post. “I want to bring these nudes to life in the ‘wrong’ body and enhance the grotesque, tactile and expressive dimensions of how I imagine white womanhood.”

According to the artist, whiteness and white womanhood are intimately tied to the complexities, impossibilities and possibilities of racialized womanhood. Rather than performing white womanhood as an expression of aspiration, Ibarra is doing so to communicate the difficulty of and pressure to relate to white womanhood.

After her final lap, Ibarra laid down in the middle of the floor, kicked off her heels and pulled the nylon cocoon over her head and body. She silently writhed around in slow, fluid motions -- a stark contrast to her noisy jaunt around the museum.

Over the past few years, the artist’s work has explored cockroaches’ ecdysis, the molting process of invertebrates, in order to literally and figuratively wear the abject status of being Latina, according to Ibarra. Through her performances and photographic series surrounding molting, she explained that she has navigated around fixed images and exploitive expectations through the cucaracha -- fears of overpopulation, endurance and infestation.

“During ecdysis, the insect sheds old skin only to reappear exactly the same ... Like the cockroach, I remain the same -- a spic -- even after shedding hyperracialized costume as skin and skin as hyperracialized costume,” Ibarra said. “The viewer and the world does not allow for this transformation ... There is no transformation, just bodily presence as a racial knot.”

In addition to playing with this metaphor, the artist uses nudity to join and embody a centuries-long conversation in art history surrounding the nude. Instead of being the subject (typically male) attempting to represent an objectified body (typically female), she herself is both the creator and the creation.

“The nudity in this performance and in many of my works is essential and necessary because of the fleshy materiality that my ‘spic’ skin conveys. I think racialized bodies give way to an endless array of interpretations and significations depending on their context, history, and specificity,” Ibarra noted. “Is the nude brown body in a museum? A bus station? A desert? A painting? A sex trafficking ad? What’s surrounding it? How is it positioned? I am interested in the endless significations of the nude body in various contexts.”

At the end of “Nude Laughing,” Ibarra was no longer laughing and was even more exposed than before, having removed her breastplate and shoes. She walked down the Broad’s birth canal-like staircase and disappeared through the lobby. We were left -- an audience full of different shades of brown, black and white, reminded of our own bodies and the invisible complexities that hang between them.

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A dancer's body, when in motion, is a magnificent machine. Every limb, every arch, every glance conspires to turn a human being into a supple sculpture, a living shapeshifter, whose every gesticulation is on point. 

Photographer Nir Arieli captures what happens dancers let go of the precision, the control, the stamina -- and simply be. The series is titled "Flocks," which, in the artist's native language of Hebrew, means both "company," as in dance company, and "flock," as in a flock of animals. In the images, Arieli explores the relationship between a team of similarly passionate and talented individuals and a herd designated by nature and circumstance.

"Dancers are like a special species," Arieli explained to The Huffington Post, "and the company is a place that ties their destiny together in a very intense way. They create, practice, perform and travel together." Arieli was interested in the space between individual creativity and the group identity that emerges from such an intense group dynamic. 

In the series, scantily clad dancers pile atop each other like fall leaves that had just been raked into a heap. Arms, legs and heads drip languidly like laundry hung out to dry, a stark departure from the usual pristine configurations of a dance troupe before a camera. 

Arieli explained that he attempted to choreograph his subjects using words instead of movements. With adjectives and descriptive language, the artist called out directions like "release the movement from your body," "let your body parts intertwine with the other members of the company," and "don’t allow any black spaces to form between you." At the core, however, Arieli left each dancer pile to emerge organically, and did not specify how exactly they should look. 

"The most interesting part of this project was to watch how each company's own unique physical way of communication came to he surface," he said. "This is why every picture is different, and yet there is something fundamental that they share, and that connects them all together."

This series features photographs of the world's leading dance troupes, including the Nederlands Dans Theater II, Batsheva Dance Company, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Shen Wei Dance Arts, Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal, Ballet Hispanico, Pontus Lidberg Dance, Ailey II, and Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. Each is shot in the companies' own studios, using natural light.

Arieli hopes his photos can capture an alternative image of the contemporary dance world, one that usually remains hidden in shadow. "My interest in the dance world is never where the mainstream spotlight is. I want to show my viewers something that they can’t see on stage. Something private, something personal. My projects with dancers are very still, I am not interested so much in the movement but in the moments before it starts and after it’s over."

Arieli's "Flocks" will be on view from April 21 to June 4, 2016 at Daniel Cooney Fine Art in New York.

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Google “pinup girl” and you can scroll through pages of nearly identical images. Heeled feet, stocking-clad legs, and lily-white models are all staples of this image we associate with sexual liberation in America. Only specific waist-to-hip ratios or skin tones are represented. 

As a first-generation immigrant from India, artist Nimisha Bhanot wanted to apply the visual trope to her own experiences. When describing her project in an email to The Huffington Post, Bhanot said she “appropriates vintage American pinup art from a South Asian-North American perspective. I am juxtaposing North American acceptance of women's sexual liberation against common societal perception of the South Asian woman.”

In order to do this, she sifted through images of pinup girls that could be altered to fit in with commonly held ideas about the South Asian experience. The result is a rich series filled with contradicting imagery; one model lies on her back, exposing bare legs and cleavage, while wearing traditional tattoos and makeup.

“I think in a time where we are constantly seeing South Asian culture being appropriated, this is a way of taking back the 'All-American Sweetheart' and giving her an identity that is more reflective of modern diaspora,” Bhanot said.

“The subject's outward gaze increases its confidence by making the viewer aware that it's being watched, observed and potentially judged,” she added. And indeed, her subjects make bold, direct eye contact with the viewer, demonstrating that the poses and looks they’ve chosen might be performative.

“I hope that when people see my work, that they gain an understanding of the ever-complex immigrant identity,” Bhanot said.

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The Port of Los Angeles is a 7,500-acre port complex located about 20 miles south of downtown LA. Since the 1800s, the harbor has been used as a trading post, with $1.2 billion of cargo entering and exiting the port each day, from trade partners including China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam. From a distance, the port, which employs 3.6 billion people worldwide, is so massive it's difficult to digest, the 43-mile stretch of shipping containers, cranes and ships warping to resemble a Lego set to the random passerby. 

Just a few minutes from the port is Angel's Gate Cultural Center, an art gallery and educational community space nestled away between a high school campus and a slew of military buildings. Aside from being a locus of commerce, with ramifications rippling out around the world, San Pedro is also a bourgeoning arts community, close to but distinctly outside the madness of LA's institutionalized art world.

Studios are affordable, as some real estate developers let artists use empty storefronts as galleries, and there's a weekly art walk on Thursdays. Although it's technically in LA county, up until now, San Pedro has managed to remain relatively self-contained. "That’s such a treasure in a certain way," Martabel Wasserman, the recently appointed Curator of Community Engagement at Angel's Gate explained to The Huffington Post. "To be able to make work outside of the pressure and expectation that come with being in a major city. That’s something to fight to preserve."

For her first exhibition at Angel's Gate, Wasserman decided to go big and tackle the ubiquitous tension that defines the city's reality. "How do you reconcile the really strong labor movement in this town, which is part of what makes it so great, with the pristineness of its natural beauty?" Wasserman asked.

Wasserman describes how Angel's Gate is physically amidst the push and pull of the two forces of labor and nature. Look in one direction and you see the Port of Los Angeles, all monstrous machines and hulking vessels. From the other you see cliffs, clear ocean, even whales occasionally. "I’m so drawn to the landscape because it’s so charged, so close to this epicenter of power that affects the whole country."

Her exhibit's title "Hold Up," stems from the Latin word for sustainability, sustinere, which breaks down to tenere (to hold) and sub (up from below). "It's such a perfect phrase," Wasserman said. "It simultaneously evokes an image of a pillar and a blockage." While most art exhibits with an environmental bent charge forward with a certain agenda, "Hold Up" operates differently, destabilizing traditional notions of activity and passivity, reform and revolution.

Some artists revel in the insurmountable strain between nature and work, teetering back and forth between sides to eventually settle in the complex in-between. An image by Daniel Joseph Martinez, simply reading "Beneath the asphalt / the beach," summarizes the strange beauty of the peculiar landscape's constant lopsidedness. 

Those that don't stay still, however, take flight completely. Ba Na Na, an artist collective consisting of JD Samson and Drew Denny, transforms a car into a conduit for the wind, shedding the vehicle of its utility in favor of sensuality. "They have repurposed certain technologies, taken away their use value and made them erotic instead of utilitarian," Wasserman said. "That seems like a profound gesture in terms of sustainability -- pleasure instead of productivity." Culminating in a performance on April 9, Ba Na Na will explore the uncanny fetishization of all things au natural. 

Another collective, Institute for Flying, made up of Samantha Cohen and Samuel Every, aims for flight quite literally. As Cohen explains in her Guidelines for Flying: "I have been working with the Institute for Flying, working on the project of helping humans evolve into flying creatures. We have figured out that in order to achieve this collective bodily transformation, it is imperative to look beyond Darwinism, to see that non-human creatures are not in patriarchal capitalism. They have strange relations in which they crawl inside, wrap around, feed off of and live upon each other. They are collaborative, intersubjective, concerned with pleasure and beauty."

Aligning flight with queerness and utopian vision, and presenting them in opposition to notions of patriarchy and evolution, the Institute invites viewers not only to save our current world, but to insist on the possibility of another one. "There are these queer ideas of sustainability," Wasserman said. "That we have to change things so drastically, reform isn't enough. We have to imagine them in a utopian way."

"Hold Up" is on view until April 9, 2016 at Angel's Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro, California.

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Spring has sprung, and the year 2016 is well underway. So, the baby name website Nameberry has taken a tally of the most popular baby names of this year ... thus far. 

These rankings are based on the most-visited baby name pages on the Nameberry website in 2016 -- from a total of nearly 20 million views as of April.

At this point, it appears Olivia has overtaken last year's girl name winner, Charlotte. The traditionally male counterpart, Oliver, also reached the top 10. 

For other boys' names, Ezra takes the top spot, with the other top 10 names looking nearly identical to 2015's results. However, Levi and Wyatt are rising in popularity and replaced Jude and Jasper. 

Without further ado, here are the top 10 baby names of 2016 so far.

For Girls:

1. Olivia


2. Amelia


3. Charlotte 


4. Ava


5. Isla


6. Arabella


7. Aurora


8. Adeline


9. Penelope


10. Eleanor

For Boys:

1. Ezra


2. Asher


3. Atticus


4. Declan


5. Oliver


6. Silas


7. Milo


8. Levi


9. Henry


10. Wyatt

Nameberry also calculated the "furthest-rising names," based on which names have jumped the most spots on the rankings list so far this year. Here they are, along with how many places they jumped up the list:

Girls:

Astrid, +55

Sadie, +49

Elise, +47

Isabella, +33

Julia, +27

Thea, +26

Eloise, +24

Maya, +20

Aria, +18

Audrey, +16

Boys:

John, +44

Tobias, +43

Elijah, +39

Daniel, +38

Maxwell, +35

Xavier, +34

Julian, +30

Gabriel, +26

Samuel, +26

Finally, Nameberry identified the baby names new to the top 100 rankings thus far in 2016. Here are those newcomers:

Girls: 

Amara

Annabelle

Anouk

Freya

Jade

Juliet

Lily

Madeline

Molly

Ophelia

Phoebe

Willow

Zara

Zoe

Boys:

Abel

Augustine

Charles

Elias

Gideon

Hugo

Isaiah

Lewis

Lucian

Nathan

Nolan

Simon

Wesley

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