In the video above, Marilyn Monroe looks elegant as ever at the wedding reception for her third marriage to playwright Arthur Miller.

See Monroe chat with guests and share a kiss with Miller at the 1956 New York wedding around the 1:14 mark, along with other never-before-seen intimate scenes from her day-to-day life, courtesy of Vanity Fair.

The footage, captured by photographer and friend Milton H. Greene, will be displayed in the Morrison Hotel Gallery at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in West Hollywood along with behind-the-scene photographs starting July 16 in an exhibit titled “Some Like It Hot.”

“Seeing this film footage for the first time gives you the chills,” photographer and Morrison Hotel Gallery co-owner Timothy White told Vanity Fair. “They’re like home movies, yet one of the biggest stars of our time has obviously let her guard down and allows Milton to film her most playful, private, and important moments in her life... It’s a window into something we’ve never before seen... but always wanted to.”

Monroe was married three times before her death in 1962. She married her first husband, James Dougherty, in 1942 at age 16. The pair divorced in 1946. Her second marriage to baseball star Joe DiMaggio ended 1954. She and Miller divorced after five years of marriage in 1961, one year before her death.

H/T Vanity Fair

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Dave Holmes seemed bound to be a mere blip on the national radar when he lost MTV’s “Wanna Be A VJ” contest in 1998. Still, the network was so impressed by the Missouri native, who had devoted his adolescence to poring over Top 40 playlists and dissecting Michael Jackson, Madonna and Duran Duran videos with fervor, that executives opted to hire him anyway.

Ever the pop culture aficionado, Holmes became a ubiquitous MTV presence over the next three years, hosting “Total Request Live,” “Say What? Karaoke” and a plethora of Spring Break-themed shows. From the outside, it seemed like a dream come true. The reality, of course, was much more complicated.

“I thought that if I were ever able to just step into my dream life – and a job at MTV was absolutely my dream life – that it was going to fix everything for me,” Holmes, now 45, told The Huffington Post. “I thought that it would turn me into some idealized version of myself. [But] the process of searching for my place in the world didn’t end there. I still had a long way to go.”

Now a writer-at-large for Esquire.com and a SiriusXM personality, Holmes reflects on his pre- and post-MTV journey in a humorous, yet poignant, new book of essays, Party of One: A Memoir in 21 Songs. Each of the book’s chapters is titled after a song that represents one of his life milestones, including hits by Prince, Bruce Springsteen and the Spice Girls, among others. Collectively, they create a literary “mixtape,” if you will. In it, Holmes doesn’t shy away from discussing his early struggles with his sexuality as a closeted gay teen, often in a wry, self-effacing way. 

“To be a young gay kid is to work around the clock,” Holmes writes in one chapter, before a cheeky footnote clarifies: “In 1984 you could get called a faggot, and then the guy who said it to you would put his headphones back on and resume listening to Twisted Sister or Mötley Crüe or whatever other group of men in bustiers, fishnet stockings, and full faces of L’Oréal products he had been enjoying before he accused you of being gay for holding your books the wrong way.” 

While he admits to still being “a little self conscious” about his musical tastes, Holmes said many readers have already responded to his professed passion for the MTV days of yore.

“If you grow up having that sort of weird, dull pain of not fitting in or not feeling like you belong or feeling like what you are is not what you’re being told you’re supposed to be, you tend to gravitate toward art, music, theater ― things where the emotions are heightened,” Holmes told HuffPost. “Popular culture is something we all share together, and people like to hear about it and talk about.”

The book also delves into Holmes’ time at MTV, his public coming out in a 2002 Out magazine profile and his eventual move from New York to Los Angeles, where he now lives. In hindsight, he said that he wishes he’d addressed his sexuality sooner, possibly even during his time on the air at MTV, but feels it would’ve been problematic for a number of reasons.

“I look back at the self that I was when I was 28 or 29, and I don’t know if that guy would’ve been the world’s best spokesperson,” Holmes, who was already out to friends, family and colleagues during his MTV stint, said. “I was still dealing with some sh*t back then, so maybe it’s for the better that I didn’t publicly make any sort of announcement until I was a little more secure.”

These days, he said he’s the happiest he’s even been, having amassed a “really, really good group of gay friends” with whom he’s experiencing a “second adolescence” of sorts.

“I have to imagine that kids are still finding things that they love and that mean something to them. Somebody’s favorite video just came out today."

“Many of our straight friends are settling down and having kids or are just moving out of L.A. and New York and into the suburbs, so that leaves a bunch of us who, at 45, hang out together and cause trouble,” he quipped. “In a lot of our cases, we didn’t really have our 20s. We were working things out when most people get out and carouse.”

In Holmes’ case, that renewed vigor also means new music. Although the industry is a vastly different place than it was during his “TRL” run, he said he still loves discovering new tunes, naming recent albums by The Hold Steady, Fifth Harmony and Tegan and Sara as favorites. As grateful as he is to MTV for launching his career, he doesn’t watch much of the script-based programming that the network now favors. Criticizing that shift, he said, is “a bit like complaining that the clothes at Baby Gap don’t fit you – they’re not for you.” 

“It’s not for me, but it’s not supposed to be for me,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s my age or just the world we live in now, but I find it much harder to keep up with what’s going on. I don’t even understand how the Top 40 works anymore.”

Still, he added, “I have to imagine that kids are still finding things that they love and that mean something to them. Somebody’s favorite video just came out today. It might not be something that reaches across all corners of the population, but it’s getting to the people that it needs to get to.” 

Below, listen to “The Gayest Hour In Your Day,” a playlist Holmes created exclusively for HuffPost Queer Voices. 

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Surely the “Ghostbusters” news cycle is older than Zuul by this point. It feels like the new reboot has been stirring up rumors and controversy for ages. But this weekend, finally, four women will strap on proton packs and rescue New York City from paranormal forces. Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones star in the update of the 1984 classic. It’s directed by Paul Feig, who made “Bridesmaids,” “The Heat” and “Spy.” What else should you know about the film?

Let’s recap its gestation and release in the form of several relatively spoiler-free questions:

Is it just a reboot of the original with women instead?

Yes and no. The general context is the same: Three paranormal investigators respond to a potential haunting, recruiting a fourth member along the way. Eventually they save New York City from ghostly destruction. The characters are similar, but not identical, to the ones Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson brought to life in the 1984 original. The New York Public Library doesn’t play a part in this one, and there’s no house call that turns into a romantic conquest. The quartet is, however, still vanquishing an evil mastermind channeling another dimension in hopes of conjuring up the apocalypse. You will see the Ecto-1 car, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, Slimer and the classic theme song (repurposed terribly by Fall Out Boy and Missy Elliott). 

What ever happened to “Ghostbusters 3”?

Well, in many ways, that’s how we got here in the first place. Dan Aykroyd wrote a script for a third “Ghostbusters” installment in the 1990s. Called “Ghostbusters 3: Hellbent,” the story found the Ghostbusters meeting the devil as their business floundered. But the rest of the cast wasn’t so keen to return, especially Bill Murray, who wavered publicly about his involvement, telling David Letterman in 2010 that he’d only participate if his character “was killed off in the first reel.” Still, Ivan Reitman, who directed and produced the first two movies, reportedly signed on to helm the third installment. From there, the project was plagued by starts and stops, with Aykroyd saying in 2012 that Murray would not be part of it, if the three-quel were made at all. As recently as 2013, Aykroyd still indicated the movie was a go. (“I read one that Danny [Aykroyd] wrote that was crazy bizarre and too crazy to comprehend,” Murray said of the “Ghostbusters 3” script in 2014.)

But Ramis, who played Dr. Egon Spengler, died in 2014, and Reitman bowed out of the project one month afterward. The script was revised, and Paul Feig signed on to direct instead. It soon became clear that he was not making “Ghostbusters 3,” though ― he had his eye on a female-centered reboot. With that, “Ghostbusters 3” was slimed. Katie Dippold, who wrote “The Heat,” was brought on to compose the reboot script with Feig. She confirmed to The Huffington Post earlier this week that she was never involved with “Ghostbusters 3.” Feig tweeted a collage of McCarthy, Wiig, McKinnon and Jones in January 2015, leading to speculation that they were the finalized cast. (Emma Stone said she turned down one of the roles because “a franchise is a big commitment.”) By July, Feig gave us the first glimpse of the quartet in uniform. 

And what about that all-male reboot?

Oh yeah, that. As Feig was in negotiations with Sony, Anthony and Joe Russo, who directed the two most recent “Captain America” movies, also discussed potential “Ghostbusters” remakes with the studio. Their version, billed in the media as a “counterpart” to Feig’s, would have stemmed from Ghost Corps, a new production company formed by Aykroyd and Reitman. The hope was to cast Channing Tatum and Chris Pratt. But after Deadline reported the news, it was quickly contradicted. A Birth Movies Death follow-up indicated the male- and female-centric movies would operate in tandem, eventually leading to a huge convergence of all the Ghostbusters. There was also a prequel of some sort in the works. 

But before we knew it, the Tatum-Pratt project was quashed altogether. “There is no status with that for us,” Joe Russo told Forbes earlier this year. “There was a period there when Paul Feig was engaging Sony in talks about ‘Ghostbusters’ and we were also engaging them. He was further along with his process than we were and he closed his deal, so that’s the only ‘Ghostbusters’ world that’s being explored right now over at Sony. Once we took ‘Infinity War,’ it [took] us off the table for any kind of any potential work on a ‘Ghostbusters’ project.”

Did we really need to endure all that online misogyny along the way?

How about we stop giving voices to sexist dudes stuck in a far lamer era? If you haven’t already heard about the chauvinistic reactions from 33-year-old man-children still anticipating their next frat kegger, read about it here.

“I see people complaining on Twitter, like, ‘What’s my son going to be able to look up to if it’s women?’” Dippold told HuffPost. “It’s like, ‘No, you just answered your own question. He will look up to these women.’ It will hopefully have a great impact on this ridiculous world we live in.”

So, is “Ghostbusters” any good?

Reviews have been positive but tepid. My stance is this: You can see where the film has “studio tentpole” written all over it. (Feig said he can’t even admit that McKinnon plays a lesbian in the film, so you know Sony has wielded a tight grip.) The action is bloated, and the editing is choppy. The characters don’t have room to lean into their individual quirks, and even though there are plenty of laughs (at least in the first half), the totality feels strained. That said, we’re talking about a cast of improvisors who are known for uproarious reaction shots. There are plenty of those. If only the ladies could have riffed more. Perhaps it’s the family-friendlier PG-13 rating that prevented them from reaching maximum weirdness. Regardless, it’s cheerful and enjoyable, and who’s going to complain about that?

As of now, the movie has a decent 73 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes ― though some online writers are wondering whether male critics, whose numbers outweigh their female counterparts, were harsher toward the movie, thereby dampening its reception. Despite the film’s flaws, it has a winning spirit. Dana Stevens explained it well in her Slate review: “These women are having fun just being together and getting to don matching jumpsuits and whale on undead spirits, and their evident joy makes us happy to hop in the hearse for a ride-along.”

Who is the movie’s breakout star?

Easy: Kate McKinnon. Wiig and McCarthy’s roles are a little thankless ― it’s Jones and McKinnon who get most of the laughs, as their characters are more outlandish. McKinnon probably has the fewest lines, but she’s still the movie’s ace. It’s because she’s a pitch-perfect reactor, as often seen on “Saturday Night Live.” Her body language and facial expressions are zany gold, and the movie knows to let her eccentricity emerge in just the right places. Also look out for adorable cameos from Zach Woods and Ed Begley Jr.

I’ve heard the original cast returns.

That’s not a question. Anyway, this has been confirmed for quite some time, and yes, Murray, Aykroyd, Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts all pop up. 

Is there an end-credit sequence?

Yep! It includes a major callback to the original.

Will “Ghostbusters” be a hit?

This is a rotten summer for blockbusters. Most sequels and reboots have underperformed, partly because they aren’t good and partly because not many people were invested in them in the first place. Box office forecasters expect “The Secret Life of Pets,” which opened to dynamite dollars last week, to challenge “Ghostbusters” for the weekend’s No. 1 slot. The industry’s coveted international coffers took a blow this week when China announced it would not release “Ghostbusters” because the country bans entertainment that “promote[s] cults or superstition.” As of Tuesday, Variety and Deadline predicted “Pets” would top “Ghostbusters” by as much as $20 million domestically, despite impressive pre-sales for the latter. That doesn’t mean it’s an outright bomb, considering “Pets” is coming off an overwhelming $104.4 million debut. The end goal is for “Ghostbusters” to recoup its $144 million budget, which shouldn’t prove difficult. 

How about a sequel?

Is this Hollywood? Producer Amy Pascal says the franchise’s possibilities are “endless.” Reitman’s Ghost Corps production company is still in the picture, but Reitman has made it clear that he doesn’t know the full plan yet. He called the Tatum-Pratt rumors “bullshit” in an iO9 interview earlier this week, while still stating his team has “a number of things that are in the works already.” We at home know that one of those “things” is an animated movie.

Who ya gonna call?

Your mom, hopefully, to tell her how great it is that women are headlining an expensive studio comedy. And then your (future) children, to tell them that one day we will no longer consider such things revelatory. 

“We were in the middle of production and getting hammered on all sides just trying to make this funny movie, and I get sent this picture on the internet of this guy who made his daughter the jumpsuit with the orange stripes and a proton pack,” Feig told The Daily Beast. “This little girl, looking fierce. I burst into tears. This is why we’re doing it. It’s not for all these guys!”

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Artists are pulling no punches during this presidential campaign.

Murals, paintings and digital art depicting Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and the major issues for debate have emerged in recent weeks. Some pieces are distinctively less flattering than others.

For our “If This Art Could Vote” project, The Huffington Post is rounding up the most notable images. We’re inviting artists to submit their own works as well, via this link here.

See some of the submissions below, and click here for the complete list.

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GOP presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump has chosen Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) as his vice presidential running mate, just as everyone assumed earlier this week when the news initially leaked. But what nobody knew ― and what no one was seemingly prepared for ― was what the new campaign logo would look like. Well, it’s out now, and, predictably, everyone on the internet is now a graphic designer.

As you can see, they’re choosing to emphasize the ticket’s “T-P-ness,” which will remind many people of “toilet paper,” and fewer, wonkier people of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement ― or TPP, as it’s more popularly known ― which Trump furiously opposes but which Pence ardently supports. 

But mostly, everyone on Twitter wants to know one thing:  

It’s a little discomfiting!

Ahh, well, I can’t unsee that. This next one, either.

Back when Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton released her campaign logo, it very quickly drew out the amateur design critics ― as well as some professional ones, who were happy to give Politico their withering commentary. You can be assured that the new Trump/Pence design will give everyone a second bite of this particular apple.

It’s fair to note that this recent trend in campaign logos has been oddly phallocentric.

In the end, I think it’s important to focus on the fact that graphic design is a really difficult field, and within that field, the worst logo is still tronc’s.

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.

~~~~~

Jason Linkins edits “Eat The Press” for The Huffington Post and co-hosts the HuffPost Politics podcast “So, That Happened.” Subscribe here, and listen to the latest episode below.

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When Erica Garner walked into ABC News’ Presidential Townhall on race on Thursday, she expected to be productive. She expected to be respected. She expected to be heard. 

Instead, she told The Huffington Post that she was “silenced” when there was no mention of her father, Eric Garner, or their family. She said ABC producers ignored her questions for President Barack Obama, which she says she was promised she could ask. She walked off set yelling that the network used her for ratings. She was eventually able to speak with Obama, but she was livid that she had to get loud to have her voice heard. She tweeted about her disappointment.

“It’s a shame as black people that we have to yell and become belligerent to have our voices heard,” she told HuffPost.

What Garner faced Thursday night is something that black women face all of their lives. 

Too often, black women’s voices aren’t heard. It becomes frustrating to the point where we feel like we have to speak louder and louder until we’re screaming to be heard. Even when we’re yelling, people don’t hear us. They throw the “angry black woman” stereotype in our faces and tell us to quiet down. 

More and more black women are rejecting the label that we are “angry” and “loud,” however. 

After hearing about Garner’s situation, Feminista Jones tweeted that she could relate. She said the routine silencing of black women ― by non-black people, black men and ourselves ― builds up into rage, understandably given how much oppression we face.

She tweeted the hashtag #LoudBlackGirls to highlight why silencing black women is dangerous. Jones also called for black women to reclaim the terms “loud,” “ghetto” and “ratchet” and share how they find their voices. 

Other black women followed suit and spoke up. They used the hashtag to share why their voices matter and deliver some much needed receipts on how conversations that black women start are leading major movements. Their tweets were powerful, important and LOUD.

WE WILL NO LONGER BE SILENCED! 

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Immigrants and people of color help make America great. And lest you forget it, Brooklyn-based artist Xenia Rubinos is here to remind you.

In her song, “Mexican Chef,” off her sophomore album Black Terry Cat, Rubinos pays tribute to the many hardworking Latinos who plant, pick and cook the food Americans eat, walk our dogs, raise our children, take care of our elderly and generally take on many of the jobs that many people do not want. 

For instance, she sings: 

Paired with an funky, addictive tune, Rubinos’ lyrics are catchy AF. It only takes one listen for the song (and its message) to get stuck in your head ― as well it should. 

Everyone who busts their ass raising, feeding and building America absolutely deserves our gratitude, so give it up!

Watch the music video for “Mexican Chef” above.

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“Glee” star Chris Colfer is reveling in his role as an author, just releasing the fifth installment of his hugely popular fantasy series, The Land of Stories (This one is titled An Author’s Odyssey). And he’s excited about what he describes as the “closest thing to going to the homeland”: having a role in “Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie,” due out in the U.S next week.

But Colfer, 26, is also currently energized by the presidential election. He’s helping to turn out the vote and raise money for Hillary Clinton, whom he’s looked up to and supported for many years. He even surprised her by showing up at one of her book signings in 2014.

“Being a child in the ‘90s, I grew up in a very conservative household,” he told me in an interview on SiriusXM Progress. “All of my family were Republican — they’re still Republican. Our dinner table arguments should be filmed, because they’re so hysterical. She was constantly on the news for being ambitious. I remember even as a kid people were labeling her as, ‘How dare this first lady be ambitious?’ like it was a negative quality. And I remember seeing how many times she was publicly told, ‘No, you can’t do that. No, no, no.’ And she always said, “Yes, and…Yes, and…’ I remember as a kid secretly looking up to her. I think she’s quite extraordinary.”

Colfer is, however, reticent when it comes to speaking about Donald Trump, simply because he thinks the GOP candidate just gets too much attention.

“If I’m gonna have a voice politically, I want it to be positivity for Hillary,” he explained. “I don’t want it to be negativity for Donald Trump. Because I feel like people get trapped in that. As soon as you say something negative about Trump that’s all that people post, that’s all that people write. Because he’s a click hole.”

Colfer, an openly gay actor who played the openly gay Kurt Hummel on the groundbreaking “Glee,” also weighed in on how much things have changed in the seven years since the musical TV series first aired.

“The world has changed so much during that time,” he said. “And when I first started, actors were told, ‘Do not come out of the closet if you want to have a career. Keep it to yourself. You don’t make it known.’ The world has changed so much ― it’s strange to think of the mindset that I was in pre-‘Glee,’ pre-’Modern Family,’ pre-marriage equality.”

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Everybody needs a vacation sometimes. But if you can’t manage to hop a flight between now and the end of your lunch break, then a virtual trip is the next best thing. The below videos are the brainchild of explore.org, a nonprofit that aims to bring people around the world closer to nature. The best part of these clips, however, is that nothing happens in them. Well, nothing that doesn’t happen at nature’s pace, of course.

These long, slow Facebook Live video streams capture sunsets, bears fishing for salmon and puffin birds lounging in real time, with no fast-forwarding and absolutely no hurry. They make for a great way to escape the world from your desk and let your mind relax. Take a look:

 Katmai National Park, Alaska

 Katmai National Park, Alaska

Seal Island, Maine

Round Island, Alaska

Round Island, Alaska

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To the likely chagrin of language traditionalists, a bunch of edgy new words were added to the Oxford English Dictionary last month. BRB, TTYL, l8r and other initialisms are among the additions to its printed pages, along with many two-word phrases, including “starter marriage” and “wake-up call.”

If you feel like you’ve read the news of these particular dictionary additions before, you might’ve. Oxford English Dictionary is the more discerning version of the company’s reference collections, and it’s a sort of end-all, be-all of wordhood – once you’ve made it there, you’ve made history, and you’ll never be erased.

By contrast, Oxford hosts a range of other reference texts, including Oxford Online, a resource for emerging language trends, or, as the Head of U.S. Dictionaries for Oxford Katherine Martin told The Huffington Post, “a snapshot of the way English is used right now.” So, words like ROFL and tl;dr were added to Oxford Online before they made the cut for the OED.

Notable among the new OED editions, which were dominated by netspeak, was a phrase that’s relatively new even though it’s not tied to technology: power couple.

The phrase stands out, and not just because it’s a two-word entry. (These aren’t so rare, Martin explained: “English is a language that can form words by compounding, and it happens that sometimes you can leave a space in between them. Whereas other languages that can form words that way, like German, have these super-long words.”)

What’s interesting about “power couple” is that it marks a change not in technological advancement, but in social advancement. Although powerful men and women have been envied and revered in the past ― and certainly ambitious couples existed long before this dictionary addition, if we’re to include Sonny and Cher, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, etc. ― there doesn’t seem to have been a word to describe a pairing of romantic partners who are each successful in their own right. 

“I think you would expect this word to come about in the late 20th century,” Martin said. “We’re seeing two ambitious people with powerful careers being married to each other.”

The first recorded use of the word, according to the OED, is from Newsweek in 1983. The sentence reads, “Robert and Elizabeth Dole have become a Washington power couple, heirs to all the attention and mystique the title implies.”

Even though the sentence is the first recorded use of the word, Martin emphasizes that coinage can happen much earlier than recorded use. People may speak the phrase, or it may be written in less public outlets. In fact, Martin thinks the Newsweek example indicates that the word was already commonplace by then; if the word “power couple” implies something to readers, then they’re likely already familiar with it.

“I would not expect to see this phrase being used that much earlier,” Martin says. “In the late 20th century, there was a new social reality for married couples. Before then it was relatively uncommon for married women to have high-powered careers.”

One theory is that the word originated in fan discussions of soap operas, specifically in reference to a pair from “General Hospital,” Luke Spencer and Laura Weber. The couple was referred to at the time as a super couple, a phrase that may be more apt to Laura’s super-human ability to recover from a coma, and come back from the dead. From there, the phrase evolved, taking on new meanings as it grew.

A Google trends search shows that “power couple” saw a spike in usage in 2015, surpassing another phrase that’s in many ways its antithesis: alpha male. Not that the two are directly correlated, but machismo and equality can be at odds, and for now, the term for equality is winning out.

The uptick is worldwide, not just in the United States and the U.K.; a closer look shows that “power couple” has gained steam in Brazil and India, where reality shows bearing the word as a title have aired successfully. Both series feature celebrity couples living together in one house, competing to demonstrate whose relationship is the strongest. In India, the winners were dance show creator Naved Jaffrey and his wife Sayeeda, who he married two months after they were introduced.

On the show, Huffington Post India explains, “Participants have to carry out various tasks that test their individual courage as well as their relationships. Their significant others have to bet amounts on their partners’ abilities to complete these tasks.” This implies that, at least internationally, “power couple” can be taken to mean more than ambition and success; happy, healthy couple-hood in itself is an accomplishment.

Such a bald celebration of married life might not be as big of a hit in America, where “The Bachelor” franchise ― hinged on the romance of finding love, but not exploring what comes next ― is a wild success. That “power couple” has taken off here at all is a wonder. Singledom is increasingly celebrated by feminists as a means of retaining independence, and legally “single” couples as a way of forging their own path, one that doesn’t involve the baggage-heavy moniker of marriage.

Why, then, do we fixate on celebrity marriages, or unions between wealthy CEOs, ransacking public traces of their personal lives for any hint of normalcy, of relatability? It could be that power couple-hood is an image that promises an alluring fantasy: marriage and independence, two ideas that are presented as at odds, existing together in harmony.

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As every child knows, the world is a place of wonder, magic and adventure.

A walk through the forest becomes a journey into the lair of an ancient dragon or a hunt for ancient treasure. An abandoned house is consumed by dark spirits who must be avoided. An old wardrobe is a portal to another world.

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Lebanese artist Huguette Caland is a big fan of comfort. So after her father died in 1964, when she officially decided to pursue her longtime dream of becoming an artist, she resolved to overhaul her entire wardrobe. Having long felt uncomfortable in the traditional couture of the time, and the way they hung on her larger shape, she opted for loose, flowing caftans she decorated herself.

“My clothes changed my life. I could really enjoy my life,” she told The L.A. Times.

In the 1970s, Caland collaborated with designer Pierre Cardin on over 100 caftans she illustrated by hand. In “Mirror,” featured below, Caland drew swooping outlines of a woman’s nude form ― two half circles for breasts, a triangle of curly-cues between the legs ― representing a minimal, cartoon body whose features swallowed her own. Beneath the veil of her smocks, Caland’s own shape was free to grow and shrink unnoticed, communicating a message her artwork so often did: that bodies are constantly in flux.

Caland was born in 1931, the daughter of Bechara El Khoury, the first president of independent Lebanon. She was raised in Beirut, a cosmopolitan hub for artists and intellectuals, during a political moment of tolerance, openness and free expression. Caland always knew she wanted to become a painter; however, life interfered, and she put the idea on hold to care for her father when he fell ill, get married and have children. 

Following the death of her father, Caland studied at the American University of Beirut before moving to Paris at 39 years old for the full bohemian artist experience, leaving her family in Lebanon. “I wanted to have my own identity,” Caland said. “In Lebanon, I was the daughter of, wife of, mother of, sister of. It was such a freedom, to wake up all by myself in Paris. I needed to stretch.”

Caland’s narrative diverges greatly from the ones we’re often told about women in the Middle East. She was fiercely independent, passionate, naughty, silly and never sorry. “For a Middle Eastern woman she did everything that was unexpected,” her daughter Brigitte told The Huffington Post in an interview. “I recently watched a Lebanese interview from 1974 where she said: ‘You never ask for freedom, you just take it.’ And she did. She took her freedom and just lived it.”

Throughout much of Caland’s long and wildly prolific career, she remained fixated on the feminine body, the ways it bulges and bends and rearranges itself topsy-turvy. In fine black-and-white ink drawings and lush oil paintings, Caland seemed endlessly transfixed by the ability of bodies to fit together. That a finger could pop so perfectly into a mouth or a belly button. That a chin from a particular angle could so precisely resemble a pointy nose.

Caland presents the body as a carnivalesque playground, a fleshy patchwork quilt, a soft landscape of openings, protrusions, points, dips and curves. “Sometimes it’s just a line that says it all,” Brigitte mused. 

In 1973, Caland embarked on what’s become her most well-known series, titled “Bribes de Corps,” or “Body Bits.” In these large-format oil paintings, bodies are appear as abstract color fields, buzzing pastel shapes that brush and bump up against one another with electric intensity.

Part Georgia O’Keeffe, part Ellsworth Kelly, the images employ minimal means to express unbridled sensuality. In the image above, two glowing, peach-colored lumps simultaneously allude to a pair of buttocks, a couple of bulging thighs. Caland rejects the common vocabulary of sexuality that both privileges and demonizes a handful of “private parts,” revealing the erotic potential swelling beneath every square inch of human flesh. 

In 1987, Caland moved to California, setting up a studio in her Venice Beach home. “Before she built her studio in Venice, she would say that her name —Caland — was like ‘California land,’” artist Sandy Lajer, a friend of Caland’s, expressed in an interview included in a Hammer Museum catalogue. “She wanted to be here — the hills, the palisades — and the climate in Los Angeles is very similar to Lebanon’s, so she felt at home here.”

In Los Angeles, Caland’s home became a salon-like hub for artists and intellectuals from around the world. According to her daughter, Caland was always cooking feasts, hosting guests, sharing ideas and collaborating on art. One of her most documented relationships is with L.A. artist Ed Moses, whose face Caland was somewhat enamored with before they even met. Caland painted his face, long and angular like a Modigliani in real life, many times from afar.

Eventually, in Los Angeles, the two grew close, though their relationship was at times contentious. Moses was convinced he had something to teach Caland, a burden too many women artists are made to bear. “She had a different point of view, which I thought was a little bourgeois,” Moses said in an interview about Caland. “And so I gave her a bad time about that. I thought I was educating her so she would know what was happening. I don’t know if it did any good or not.” 

Regardless, Caland’s commitment to her work and her vision was unwavering. “She always was extremely steady, very focused, very productive,” Brigitte said. “She was a workaholic. I cannot remember my mother not working as long as I can think of her. She started working and she worked and worked and worked.” 

Now, at 85 years old, Caland lives in her native Beirut. Her Los Angeles legacy lives on at the Hammer Museum biennale “Made in L.A. 2016,” which features a survey of Caland’s work, spanning the 1960s to the 2000s. 

“We wanted to represent the depth of her practice and all of the styles and turns that occurred over the course of her history,” Hammer curator Aram Moshayedi told HuffPost. “It offers a sampling of every body of work that she produced, starting in 1967, with a self-portrait produced just after she studied in Beirut. It was a difficult thing to make the selections because she was quite prolific.”

To a contemporary audience, Caland’s works scream of the sex-positive feminism that permeates the work of many young, women artists. Brigitte explains though, that Caland was never much concerned with addressing feminist politics ― or any sort of politics, for that matter, in her work. “She lived feminism, but it was not something she thought of,” Brigitte said. It was always her unconscious that guided her. As she always put it: ‘My hand is independent to my spirit.’”

The things Caland was concerned with were the elemental joys of being in the world. Bodies, humor, love, play. These fundamental pleasures nourished Caland through times of hardship ― of exile and war and moving and starting over. “She alway was very happy,” Brigitte said. “I never heard my mom complain or be angry. If she were she would get over it very quickly. It has been a lesson for all of us.” 

As Caland herself put it: “Sometimes you feel like you’ve lived such a long time. It’s like a train running down a track. I love Venice. I love every minute of my life. I squeeze it like an orange and I eat the peel, because I don’t want to miss a thing.”

Caland’s work is on view as part of “Made in L.A. 2016: a, the, though, only,” on view at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles until August 28, 2016. 

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According to statistics from 2008, one in three American women will have an abortion in their lifetime.

It’s a commonly cited (and sometimes contested) statistic, one that illuminates a greater reality: many women in this country will need access to safe abortion care at some point in their lives. Unfortunately, of the abortions that take place each year, a significant amount ― global statistics have estimated around half ― remain medically unsafe.

An organization called the 1 in 3 Campaign is attempting to look beyond the numbers its name imparts. In its play “Remarkably Normal,” director Marie Sproul and writer Jessi Blue Gormezano are sharing stories from the real women ― the one in three ― who’ve received and provided abortion care. Described as a “documentary play,” the production is based exclusively on interviews and experiences submitted to the grassroots movement by women who want to end the stigma attached to abortion. From a Planned Parenthood educator to a teenager living in the South, the storytellers aim to express the emotions and humanity of a common experience that political discussions underplay.

“I believe that theatre is a great tool in helping to drive and direct social change by opening people’s hearts and minds,” Sproul explained in an interview with The Huffington Post. Two years ago, she helped co-produce and direct “Out of Silence,” a series of five-minute scenes ― also based on true stories ― created for student activists to perform on their college campuses “to help create a dialogue around the issue of abortion.”

Today, she’s not only continuing to bring awareness to the issue of abortion, she’s helping women directors, writers, designers and actors do so in an industry dominated by men ― in a national tour of her full-length play. “One of the things that we lack in the theater are stories about women, being told by women, being directed by women, being designed by women,” she told HuffPost.

We checked in with Sproul and Gormezano following the a performance of “Remarkably Normal” in Cleveland, Ohio last month:

”Remarkably Normal” is described as a documentary play. Can you elaborate on this?

Jessi Blue Gormezano: All the text in the play comes straight from written stories or videos submitted to the 1 in 3 Campaign or from interviews that I conducted. Names have been changed for anonymity but every word that is spoken in the play was spoken or written by someone in real life.

What is it about the “documentary” nature of “Remarkably Normal” that sets it apart from more fictionalized plays?

Marie Sproul: The interview play is a really powerful tool in telling the real stories of people who have actually had to make these decisions in their own lives. For those who don’t know what an interview play is, it is a play in which the playwright interviews people on a particular subject and then uses that material to create the play and the characters in it. The audience experiences the play as the interviewer, hearing the responses of the people to whom the questions were asked.

This type of play allows for several things to happen that are really exciting. One, the characters have more freedom in telling their stories to you, because you (the audience, who is now the interviewer) have asked them to tell you their story. Two, the characters are telling you about things that have happened to them in the past, so they are not living in the really heavy emotions of that moment ― not that these emotions don’t come back up in the present. 

It is a completely different experience to have someone look you in the eye and tell you their story. When this happens, it is impossible to just dismiss them. It immediately humanizes a them. 

What is it like, as a director and a writer, threading together the stories of various people willing to share their experiences with abortion? 

MS: Challenging! I certainly felt the weight of responsibility in telling these real stories from real people ― giving voice to the unheard. I was determined to tell these stories in a way that would honor those who bravely shared them with us.

JBG: It was a honor being entrusted with these stories. Each person’s story could be its own play, so editing was the most challenging element of creating the script. The question I continually asked myself as I was editing, was, Is this an experience or an opinion? When something was an opinion rather than an experience, I would usually have to let it go. It’s so easy, particularly when exploring such divisive content, to shut off our ears when we start hearing opinions that differ from our own, so my goal was to keep the bulk of the stories firmly rooted in personal experience, which is much harder to dismiss.

Can you tell me a little bit about the decision to call the play “Remarkably Normal”?

JBG: Finding a name for this play was harder than writing it! So many of the titles that we brainstormed felt very heavy ― and while the play certainly tackles very challenging moments in people’s lives, it isn’t dark or bleak. The script is composed of very honest, straightforward, personal stories about a subject that is rarely talked about. There is actually lot of humor in the telling of the stories as well, so we wanted to find a title that embraced the tone of the piece and welcomed audiences into these stories rather than created yet another barrier.

What, in your opinion, is contributing most to the stigmatization of abortion today?

JBG: The silence. The fact that so many people receive abortion care in this country and yet there is so little space in our culture to share those experiences. That silence, in many cases, creates shame or a sense of ― no one wants to hear about this so I’ll just keep this to myself. Or ― what if this person judges me for my choice to have an abortion? Many people that are aligned with the anti-abortion movement have saturated their homes, the media and the internet with such strident messaging, and have effectively diminished the space for nuanced, honest dialogue about the realities of abortion care to take place.  

I spoke with a woman who identifies as pro-life but believes people should have access to comprehensive sex education as well as safe and legal abortions.  She didn’t feel comfortable identifying as pro-choice because she wanted abortion care to be the absolute last alternative, but she still believed in bodily autonomy and reproductive justice. Hearing her point of view made me realize that so often black-and-white labels simply do not suffice. And the more we cling to them as a society, the more and more we regress.  

MS: I think a big part of it is that it is easy to think of abortion as just a political issue. Doing so makes it easy to dehumanize people who have had or need abortion care. Hopefully “Remarkably Normal” will help to bring the focus back to the people involved and help people empathize [and understand] that when one in three women have an abortion, it is indeed a remarkably normal occurrence. And that more than likely, someone they know and love has probably had one. 

How do you see storytelling playing a part in the destigmatization of abortion in the future?

JBG: The telling of our own stories and being witnessed in our truth is a powerful thing. But I think the real power lies in the listening. Listening, really listening, to our “enemy,” or people who simply disagree with a belief we hold strongly is one of the scariest things we can do, but it’s also one of the most powerful.  By listening, we find common ground ― maybe not initially ― but eventually it emerges and that’s where we really start to unlock our empathy and compassion. The more we can see ourselves in someone we may disagree with, the harder it is to vilify or stigmatize them.

MS: When you listen to someone’s story, it humanizes them. People can have very strong opinions and beliefs about issues like this, and then they meet someone ― or someone they love is faced with making this decision ― and suddenly, it isn’t quite so black and white anymore. They begin to understand that the people faced with making these decisions are normal, everyday people just like them who are trying to make the best decision for themselves and their families. 

What do you hope the next American president will do to support safer access to abortions, big or small?

MS: My hope is that the next president will use their pulpit to advocate strongly for the rights of all women to have access to safe health care.

JBG: I hope the next president puts aside the failed political rhetoric and truly listens to people’s experiences with abortion. We need someone who sees that the restrictions and stigma, not abortion care itself, have been the real cause of harm to our family members, friends and neighbors. And then they need to fight (like hell) to ensure that abortion care is affordable and accessible for all that need it. It’s beyond time.

Editor’s Note: Throughout the course of our email exchange, Marie Sproul credited the following people for their involvement in the production of “Remarkably Normal” ― Rachel Cooke (producer), Ty Hallmark (tour and company manager), Catharine Miller (choreographer), Jessi Blue Gormezano (playwright), Taylor Reynolds (assistant director), Ellen Houseknecht (stage manager), Paige Hathaway (set designer), Kelsey Hunt (costume designer), Palmer Hefferan (sound designer), and Samuel Brown (lighting designer and technical director), along with cast members Shanta Parasuraman, Tracey Conyer Lee, Gisela Chipe, Evelyn Spahr and Joshua Everette Johnson. She also thanked KJ Sanchez, “a master of the interview play,” and 1 in 3 playwrights Allyson Currin, Caleen Jennings, Jacqueline E. Lawton, Anu Yadav, DW Gregory, Nicole Jost, Kristen LePine, Jennifer L. Nelson and Karen Zacarias.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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When, after naming her firstborn Charlotte, Chelsea Clinton named her second child Aidan, people quickly began speculating that the former first daughter may be a massive “Sex and the City” fan.

Inspired by this notion, we scoured the popular HBO series (and its film adaptations) for baby name ideas... beyond Charlotte York’s secret made-up baby name, Shayla, of course.

Without further ado here are 44 baby names inspired by the show’s leading ladies, love interests, recurring friends and a few special guest characters.

Girls

Carrie

Charlotte

Miranda

Samantha

Natasha

Lily

Rose

Chloe

Bunny

Enid

Louise

Magda

Mary

Amalita

Susan

Laney

Maria

Courtney

Lily

Lexi

Bitsy

Boys

John

James

Preston

Harry

Steve

Smith

Jerrod

Aidan

Trey

Stanford

Anthony

Brady

Jerry

Skipper

Richard

Vaughn

Jack

Berger

Robert

Bill

Aleksandr

Marcus

Bobby

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Raising a toddler is a true test of patience, endurance, self-preservation and stain removal abilities. As a result, comedy is a welcome source of relief. 

Many parents in the throes of toddler parenting share their hilarious observations on Twitter ― finding LOL-worthy humor in the chaos, messes and exchanges with these “tiny drunk people.”

We’ve rounded up 24 tweets that perfectly capture life with toddlers.

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Welcome to the Hello Kitty Cafe Pop-Up, the first Hello Kitty cafe in the U.S. The spot opened over the weekend in Irvine, California, with people waiting more than four hours for pastries and coffee drinks with ― you guessed it ― that adorable creature’s face emblazoned on top. Here’s a look at the scene:

While all may look cheery in photos, people were less than enthused with the multiple-hour wait for their treats. 

“A 5 hour queue and one sunburn later I got to enjoy a strawberry mint lemonade and a sprinkle covered birthday cake... #neveragain” one visitor said on Instagram. 

“Four hour wait. Ummm. Why?!?” said another. 

That’s a long time to wait for the human equivalent of catnip, though it does look purr-ty delicious:

The cafe serves sweet treats, sodas, coffee and tea. It plans to expand the menu to include more Sanrio characters later this year.

The U.S. is home to a roving Hello Kitty food truck, and other countries have their own Hello Kitty cafes. But the California pop-up is the first store of its kind in the U.S., the Orange Country Register reports. 

The Hello Kitty Pop-Up Cafe will be open for a year, and then it will move on to another location. If you’d rather not wait in line, you can always make a cat cake yourself. 

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Warning: This piece contains nudity and may be inappropriate for work environments.

On July 17, 2016, in the midst of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, 100 women joined forces and got naked.

The mass undressing was organized by photographer Spencer Tunick, who has been planning his large-scale nude photography project, titled “Everything She Says Means Everything,” for months.

In May, Tunick called out for volunteers to participate in his vision, to interrupt business as usual at the RNC with a flood of nude bodies. The only requirement: be a woman ― whether Democrat, Republican, or any other political platform. Tunick hoped the work would serve as an act of peaceful protest, combatting the hateful rhetoric Donald Trump and his followers have directed at women, through the simple power of collective creation. 

The message resonated. Over 1,800 women signed up to participate. Each participant submitted a statement explaining their reason for getting involved. One wanted a way to remember her body during pregnancy, another hoped the experience would help her heal after she was sexually assaulted. Some wanted to accept and celebrate their aging bodies, others to leave a positive impact on their daughters.

Many hoped to stick it to the RNC. The woman came together outside Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena the day before the convention was scheduled to start.

Cleveland-based participant Jennifer Dienes traditionally votes Republican, but was disgusted with the bigotry and hostility Trump ushered into the party’s ethos. She originally supported Rand Paul, but now is leaning Libertarian. “I don’t support the Republican party with Trump at the forefront,” she explained to The Huffington Post. 

Dienes had never participated in a nude photo shoot before, or anything similar. “There were a few people trying to scare me out of it,” she said. “A lot of people were saying, ‘My mom is going to kill me!’ But it was presented in a classy, peaceful way. Sometimes you just have to stand up for what’s right. I’m proud of what I did.” 

During the shoot, the diverse, undressed subjects each held a large, round mirror above their head. Reflecting the earth and sun and sky, as well as the fleshy forms of the manifold women around them, the mirrors spoke to the communal power of womanhood, a force almost supernatural in its strength. As Tunick explained in a statement: “The mirrors communicate that we are a reflection of ourselves, each other, and of, the world that surrounds us. The woman becomes the future and the future becomes the woman.”

Ohio resident Deanna Bergdorf published a Facebook note processing the experience. She described her nerves while heading to the conference site, and her anger when addressing what’s at stake in the upcoming election. “I fought to hold in my tears as [Tunick] explained that we were gathered together to make a statement against the rhetoric of hatred that’s being spewed out from the Republican party; against the misogynistic, xenophobic, racist, anti-LGBTQ, ableist platform that has defined hating others as an acceptable American lifestyle.”

Bergdorf’s anxiety diminished as the crowd disrobed, and distinctions between bodies began to seem barely distinguishable and fully insignificant. “I was struck by the sameness of all the different bodies,” she expressed. “All kinds of shapes and sizes were present. We were old and young; we were mahogany and golden, pale and bronze and freckled. Some of us were sleek and lean and ‘unblemished’ by pregnancy and childbirth and years of breastfeeding. Others held decades’ worth of stories in their wrinkles and creases and folds.

“But, the most interesting affect of this collection of difference was (to me) its overwhelming sameness. I had to look closely to even notice who was fit and who was ‘fluffy’ because that kind of detail, or maybe categorization, became little more than background noise.”

In a statement, Tunick dubbed women’s bodies one of the most controversial subjects in the upcoming presidential race. With “Everything She Says And Means,” women joined together to show just how non-controversial a woman’s naked body is. The project rejects the sexualization, objectification and prohibition of the woman’s nude figure. (Public nudity is, by the way, illegal by way of indecent exposure in the state of Ohio.) Instead, Tunick’s images present the nude body as something natural, empowering, courageous and collaborative. 

“Holding up the mirrors with the other undressed women, it was really special,”Dienes said. “Seeing all the light reflected on all the bodies and faces. Everyone was so happy. We were proud.”

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“My interest in the world of the senior dog began as my own dogs began to approach the end of their days,” photographer Nancy LeVine explains in a blog post. “This was at a time when I had lived enough years to start imagining my own mortality. I entered a world of grace where bodies that had once expressed their vibrancy were now on a more fragile path.”

LeVine is the artist and author behind Senior Dogs Across America, a compilation of photos and stories dedicated to “anyone who has ever loved a dog, young or old.” LeVine traveled across the country to meet her aging canine subjects, hitting cities and towns like Kauai, Hawaii; Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts; and Natchez, Mississippi. Her book showcases just 86 of the images she captured, which pay simple tribute to the pets who have remained loyal, happy and persistent as they’ve matured alongside their human companions.

”I saw how the dog does it,” Levine continues on her blog. “How, without the human’s painful ability to project ahead and fear the inevitable, the dog simply wakes to each day as a new step in the journey. Though their steps might be more stiff and arduous, these dogs still moved through each day as themselves — themselves of that day and all the days before.”

The dogs in LeVine’s series sit atop tractors in Wyoming, lay upon stoops in Maryland, attempt to squeeze themselves onto chairs in Colorado. Their poses and expressions remain eerily similar to those of humans, as they gingerly approach LeVine’s lens, stare confidently into the camera, or calmly ignore their surroundings in favor of perfect tranquility. They demonstrate what it is we love about the pets who’ve stuck by our sides for the years we, too, have aged. 

“They remind us of the best in ourselves,” the book’s publisher, Schiffer, writes. “And as they lose their vigor and youth, they reflect our own inevitable aging with courage and calm.”

There are millions of adult dogs who need homes today. For more on the allure of adopting an older pet, check out our past coverage here. You can see more photos from Senior Dogs Across America below. The book is available now through Schiffer Publishing.

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