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Feminist Comic Artist's Early Unpublished Works Finally Collected For The First Time

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Trina Robbins changed the game for women comic artists.


In 1970, she created the first ever all-women’s comic book, “It Ain’t Me Babe Comix.” A few years later, hungry for more, Robbins teamed up with a powerful gang of lady artists, expert and amateur, to create “Wimmen’s Comix,” which, for years, explored issues including menstruation, abortion, food, family, sexuality, and sorcery in crisp, graphic detail.


In the 1980s, Robbins was hailed as a feminist comic hero yet again, becoming the first woman to draw Wonder Woman for DC Comics. And when she wasn’t working on that, she was creating a little comic called “Dope.”



Robbins came across a dinged up copy of Sax Rohmer’s 1919 novel “Dope” in a San Francisco used bookstore in the 1970s. She was immediately drawn to the unusual title, and quickly sucked in to the pulpy drama surrounding a young actress who became entangled in the glamorous and destructive drug culture of 1920s London. “It was just so visual, it had to be tuned into a comic,” Robbins said. 


And so, beginning in 1981, Robbins translated Rohmer’s words into a stunning graphic novel, which appeared four or five pages at a time in the back of Eclipse Magazine. There were talks of compiling the snippets into a complete graphic novel, but they never came to fruition, and Robbins’ work remained uncollected, until now. 



Drew Ford is a comics aficionado who is out to, in his words, “save the history of comics, one book at a time.” Ford collects and publishes out-of-print comic and graphic novels through his imprint “It’s Alive!” While searching through archival comics in danger of falling through the cracks, Ford stumbled upon Robbins’ “Dope,” and immediately remembered reading it as a kid. 


“It stood out so much and was so different than everything else,” he explained to The Huffington Post. “For the time period it was very offbeat, it doesn’t look like your standard comic book fare. Trina really had her own voice and her own style.” Ford started researching “Dope” and found, to his surprise, that it had never before been collected. 



Ford was drawn to the mysterious, film noir style of Robbins’ work, as well as the dark and sensational subject matter of the narrative itself, something Ford understood as ahead of its time. “It showed the effect of drugs on our culture. You see celebrities dying of drug overdoses. Now we have plenty of stars telling their stories about going to rehab but, in the early 1900s, no one was talking about that.”


Together, Robbins and Ford are determined to collect the entirety of “Dope” for the first time and publish it, as originally intended, as a 96-page graphic novel in sleek black and white. Ford is currently raising funds on Kickstarter to make the vision possible, and is hoping to raise $10,000 by Aug. 19, 2016. (At publication time, Ford had already raised over $8,000.) Follow the link to get involved. 


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Artist Creates Stunning, 5-Story Mural To Support Same-Sex Marriage

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Artist Joe Caslin has once again made a larger-than-life effort on behalf of marriage equality. 


The Irish native created a spectacular, five-story mural titled “Love Wins,” which depicts a lesbian couple sharing a tender embrace on a building in downtown Belfast, Northern Ireland. The two women featured in the piece are Belfast residents who traveled to the U.S. to tie the knot, because same-sex marriage isn’t legal in their home country, Caslin told BBC Radio Ulster.  



In 2015, Caslin created a similar image of two men on a building in Dublin before Ireland legalized same-sex marriage that November. His Belfast painting is part of a city-wide LGBT rights campaign with Smirnoff and was unveiled ahead of Belfast Pride, which kicked off July 29 and runs through Aug. 7. 


“Northern Ireland is the only territory now on the islands of western Europe that doesn’t have same-sex marriage ― and it’s same-sex marriage, not civil partnership,” Caslin said. “I felt it was an ideal time, coming up to the Pride festival that takes place this weekend, to reignite that conversation.”



Marriage equality remains a contentious issue in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Assembly has reportedly considered allowing same-sex couples to legally marry on five occasions. According to the BBC, four of those efforts failed to attract a majority of votes, while the final attempt was blocked by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in November 2015. 


Here’s to hoping Caslin’s work will move the needle in the right direction. 

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All-Female Skate Crew Challenges Patriarchy, Gentrification In NYC

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Meet the Brujas, the Bronx’s all-female skate crew and the subject of the New York Time’s aptly named mini-doc, “Brujas of the Bronx.


The video, released on Facebook July 29, explores the ways in which the group of young women of color are staking their claim in New York City’s male-dominated skateboard scene – and beyond.


“Skateboarding, even though it has a very revolutionary energy, it’s very heteronormative and very patriarchal,” explains Brujas co-founder Arianna Gil in the video above. “That in a lot of ways makes skateboarding less cool. I was critical of them because they were exclusive, sort of, to women.”


It’s with this in mind that she co-founded Brujas.


Named for “Skate Witches,” a 1986 video which depicts female skateboarders pushing men off their boards, Brujas represents camaraderie and sisterhood among female skateboarders. “It’s a way to find people who think about the world the same way as you. That’s why we skate every day,” explains Gil. 




In an accompanying interview with the New York Times, Gil said the collective also empowers women and people of color to reclaim their freedom in rapidly gentrifying communities. “Every time we skate, it’s a way to tell the city we’re not just going to take these changes in stride. We’re here to add a little chaos,” she said. 



grab a copy of the @newyorktimes and enjoy your sunday afternoon ☕️ #stayrevolutionary

A photo posted by brujas (@wearebrujas) on




With the help of social media, the group also organizes, hosts and announces upcoming events and workshops that promote inclusivity, acceptance and cultural empowerment. In June, the Brujas collaborated with By Us for Us, a project advocating Black-Asian solidarity, to organize an “Anti-Prom” at a former factory in Brooklyn. 


“Brujas was never just limited to skateboarding,” Gil told the N.Y. Times. “It’s about regaining power for our community in any way we can.”




At present, the group is focusing on putting together a free alternative summer camp for local youth who would otherwise have nothing to do during the summer months, complete with nutrition classes, alternative medicine workshops and hikes through Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. It’s just one of the many ways this group spreads it’s magic to the community and beyond. 


To learn more about this badass group of women, check out New York Times mini-doc (above) and accompanying article. Follow the Brujas on Instagram for information regarding upcoming workshops and events


H/T Vibe

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How The New 'Hamilton' Cast Made A True Believer Out Of A Skeptic

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


 


“Hamilton” has won almost too many awards, too much acclaim, too many rapturous public testaments to its life-changing power, not to entice pushback.


So, of course, it has: Historians have substantively criticized various aspects of the musical, inspired by Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton. One article argued that the show doesn’t even pass the Bechdel test, a conclusion which requires a highly unforgiving interpretation of the “The Schuyler Sisters,” in which Angelica and Eliza Schuyler first appear and take in the revolutionary atmosphere in the streets of New York.


Then there are the more personal reactions, all the more insistent because everyone else loves the show. Musician Laurie Anderson told The Atlantic that she had to leave after Act I: “It’s history lite, and musical lite, and it’s just … It’s horrible.” If you don’t like musicals, she tells the interviewer, you won’t like “Hamilton.” “It’s not that different.”


A July 2016 episode of the Bravo comedy about Upper East Side parents, “Odd Mom Out,” guest-starred a number of the musical’s actors in an entire episode on the Hamil-steria and the low-key backlash to the hype. Jill, the too-cool-for-school mom at the heart of the show, scoffs with her snarky BFF, Vanessa, that a Broadway show can’t be as life-changing as all the wealthy, smug moms at her children’s school insist. (Except deep down, of course, they really, really, REALLY want to see “Hamilton.”) 


I’m not proud to admit that I was a too-cool-for-"Hamilton” gal myself. The world seemed obsessed with something that, from my samplings of it, struck me as a well-executed but equally dorky spin on “Schoolhouse Rock.” Musicals aren’t my jam, so would “Hamilton” really be different? I’d overheard my fiancé and friends listening to it, caught video clips of performances at the Tonys ― nothing that made me excited for more.


Then something happened that I fully admit I did not deserve: I got a ticket to “Hamilton.” (Apparently the key was buying them nearly a year in advance ― thanks, future in-laws!)


By the time our big night rolled around, though, the show had changed. Original cast members Lin-Manuel Miranda, Daveed Diggs, Phillipa Soo, and Leslie Odom, Jr. had made their final bows. I was wondering why I needed to venture to the suburbs of Hades Times Square on a Friday night for what Barack Obama himself rousingly called “a civics lesson,” and meanwhile everyone else seemed to be debating whether “Hamilton” could even be a thing without Miranda and, to a lesser extent, the other departing original stars. My coworkers swooningly asked if Diggs would still be performing the night of my show. (Nope.)


On “Odd Mom Out,” as Jill and Vanessa resolve to finally get tickets to the show, a waiter (played by Javier Muñoz, the new Alexander Hamilton), remarks that the friends will miss Miranda’s last performance, that very night, and Vanessa throws her phone down in irritation. “Well, there goes that. We snoozed, we losed,” she groans serio-comically. (His actual last performance was July 9, two days before the episode aired.)


In Rolling Stone, Richard Morgan compared Miranda’s performance to his replacement, Muñoz, who was previously his regular Sunday stand-in, allowing for the widely acknowledged superiority of the latter’s singing voice but nonetheless painting a bleak image of a Miranda-less show: “Muñoz delivers smoothness, ironed out by the weight of fitting in. With Muñoz, you can foresee the day years from now when the role of Hamilton will be played by a Mario Lopez, Oscar Isaac or Pitbull to help flagging sales.”


Pitbull? Ouch.



 Sydney James Harcourt, who now plays Aaron Burr, told Rolling Stone: “[Miranda] can break your heart eight shows a week, 52 weeks a year, with a poignant sob in his voice during ‘Hurricane.’ I’ll take that over a high C.”


Fair. But if you’re worried that the emotions were packed up when the departing stars cleared out their dressing rooms, this is a false dichotomy.


When Muñoz and Lexi Lawson, who replaced Soo as Eliza Hamilton, stormed through “Hurricane” and “Burn,” my heart was so firmly lodged behind my epiglottis I couldn’t swallow. When the replacement leads sing “It’s Quiet Uptown,” and Muñoz’ voice breaks at the mention of giving up his life for that of his dead son, the emotion in the room is almost unbearable. Really, I wept until my shoulders shook and eyeliner streamed down my neck. The night I attended, the challenging part of Angelica Schuyler was played not by Renée Elise Goldsberry, the original and current star, but by a guest actress: Elizabeth Judd. I would never have guessed that she wasn’t a regular based on her knockout performance, from Angelica’s mercilessly quicktime rap verses to her powerful singing ― and an emotional delivery that packed every note with luminous mischief, conflicted regret or wounded rage.


Despite my initial doubts ― I am not a musical theater fan, I don’t understand when it became cool to bury civics lessons in Broadway shows like spinach in your kids’ brownies ― “Hamilton” is undeniably a work of bonafide genius. The music and lyrics are genius; the easy swing between hip-hop and other musical genres throughout the narrative is genius; the staging and choreography are stunning enough to watch as a show in their own right. Miranda, not to mention the other original cast, don’t need to perform in the show to elevate it to an emotional chest-punch and an intellectual confection; Miranda already made it that by just writing “Hamilton.”


What he wrote is a work of musical theater that would present huge challenges to a celebrity performer without a wide range of skills, for one thing. Maybe Pitbull could perform a “Cabinet Battle,” but it’s hard to wrap one’s mind around him convincingly getting through “Hurricane.” Not just any theater kid could pull off the ridiculously rapid pace of the Lafayette/Jefferson part. Maybe we’ve never seen Mozart conduct his own symphonies, but he did a pretty damn good job of writing down his works of genius ― difficult to perform but timeless when achieved.


Casting performers who can offer off-the-charts talent along with charisma, a bit of personality (see: Andrew Chappelle, who was performing Daveed Diggs’ role as Lafayette/Jefferson last week and stole the damn show) and a finely tuned emotional register is the next step, and one Miranda and “Hamilton” have excelled at. Javier Muñoz may not be the quirky composer of the show, but he’s no Mario Lopez: He’s a cancer survivor, openly gay and HIV-positive, born to Puerto Rican parents in Brooklyn, who has, like Miranda himself, fostered his specific artistic talents and emerged, despite plenty of obstacles, on top of his field.


There’s nothing more idealistically American and inspiring than taking something great and opening it up to more people who just want their own shot. By, as has been well-advertised, casting actors of color in lead roles and casting a wide net outside of traditional Broadway pipelines, the show has clearly done itself plenty of favors. With the show’s casting for its Chicago run, which opens this fall, it’s providing more opportunities for immensely talented and diverse performers to wow crowds in starring roles.


This serves a broader audience, too. The sooner we all learn to say goodbye to Miranda and the original cast, the sooner we can appreciate the expanding opportunities for us all to actually see “Hamilton.” Lin-Manuel is only human; he can’t perform seven days a week in multiple theaters in cities across the country. Bringing the show to Chicago, and extending the show’s run for years longer, will mean, increasingly, it won’t just be wealthy white New Yorkers, and wealthy white tourists, who get to experience the electricity of being in the room where “Hamilton” happens. That electricity doesn’t depend on any specific cast ― it depends on the strength of Miranda’s show, and the many surpassingly talented people the show taps to perform it.


The world already fell in love with Miranda, Diggs, Soo and the rest of the original cast, but chances are the new cast will be no less brilliant, charming and ready to sweep us off our feet. Hamil-steria Phase 2? Just wait for it.


 Follow Claire Fallon on Twitter: @ClaireEFallon

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Here's Adam Lambert As You've Never Seen Him Before

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Halloween may still be months away, but Adam Lambert just gave fans an advance peek at his forthcoming turn in Fox’s next live musical event, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” 


On Monday, the 34-year-old pop star shared a snapshot of himself in full costume on Instagram, and the look fits his edgy, theatrical style to a T.  



Eddie. #rockyhorrorpictureshow

A photo posted by ADAMLAMBERT (@adamlambert) on




Lambert will star in the live version of the cult musical as Eddie, a biker and ex-lover of Dr. Frank N. Further (Laverne Cox). The character was memorably played in the 1975 movie by Meat Loaf. 


Also slated to star in Fox’s version, which will air on the network Oct. 22, are Victoria Justice, Ryan McCarten and Christina Milian. 


October can’t get here fast enough! 

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Why This Mom Doesn't Give A Sh*t If Her Body 'Bounces Back'

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An Australian mom is showing what it means to embrace stretch marks, “droopy boobs” and other physical transformations that come with having kids.


Olivia White, who blogs about parenting on House of White, posted a stunning professionally shot photo of her postpartum body on Facebook. The blogger is mom to 2-year-old Annabelle and 5-month-old Theodora aka “Teddy.”



In the Facebook caption for the above photo, White shared this powerful message:



“Puffy face, droopy milk filled boobs, wider hips and belly full of stretch marks!! That’s my post-baby reality, no ‘bouncing back’ here!


And you know what? I couldn’t give a shit! Because I’m not the same person I was before I had babies, so why would would I want my body to reflect something and someone I no longer am?


Those droopy boobs fed my babies and grew them up big and strong.


Those hips and rippled belly was home to my little babes for nine months.


It might not be the ‘transformation’ body so many ogle or aspire to! And sure, some days I wish it didn’t jiggle so much and was a bit ‘firmer’ but then I just remember the awesome shit it’s done and cut myself some slack and go eat a cheeseburger, because we earned it.”



White told The Huffington Post that she initially had these postpartum photos taken just for herself, but later decided to share them with the social media world. 


“After seeing so many photos of ‘fit mums’ and slender models showing their post-baby body only days later looking like they never even carried a child, I thought well why can’t I show mine!” she said. 


White’s post has received thousands of likes on Facebook, and the comments section is filled with positive messages, praising her empowering words and the intimate photo, taken by Sleeping Grace Photography


However, some Facebook users have reported the mom’s post, leading to its removal and reinstatement multiple times over the past few days. Yet White said she still hopes her words continue to reach others, especially new moms. 

The mom said she’s pleasantly surprised to see that her post has already touched so many people. “What has stuck with me the most is the thousands of women who have commented, emailed and messaged me saying ‘thank-you’ ― that they needed to see this and that they feel it’s taken so much pressure off them to ‘bounce back,’” she said. 


“I think these days it can very easily become all-consuming ― this idea of the ‘perfect body’ and for mums, this ridiculous pressure to ‘bounce back,’ she told HuffPost, adding, “It’s not about ‘bouncing’ back because you’re not the same person you were before.”


“You are a mother now,” she continued. “You carried a child/children for nine months. You worked SO hard to do that. Why would you want to hide that?”


Ultimately, White’s message to new moms is simple: “Embrace the changes and just enjoy motherhood without the pressure to change your body back to something!”


Preach!


H/T Mic

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Jared Leto In 'Suicide Squad' Is The Worst Kind Of Movie Villain

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Somewhere along the way, Hollywood decided that villainy is synonymous with camp. Evil, in its most uninspired cinematic forms, is coated in showy extravagance. While a little outsize depravity can be fun, this weekend’s “Suicide Squad” proves we have hit a plateau where bigger is almost certainly not better. 


Of course, I am referring primarily to Jared Leto, he of the insufferable rat-gifting, always-in-character method acting that led to an obnoxiously calculated take on the psychopathic Joker. Leto is proud of his performance ― the self-inflation radiates off of him every time he’s onscreen, which is far less frequent than one would assume, given how extensively he has teased this role for the better part of the past year. (Good move, Warner Bros.) Leto said he prepped for the project by watching footage of violent crimes on YouTube, but his works seems more like a the result of a checklist than a study in delinquency. His mantra must have been, “Wide eyes, empty hearts, can’t lose.” That slow, maniacal laugh? “All the best villains have one,” he probably said, practicing over and over in the mirror. And when it’s time to speak, oh, a guttural garble will do. “Here I am, boys, call me Mr. J!” (No, really. He made people on the set call him Mr. J.) 


Leto cranks up everything he does in “Suicide Squad” to an 11. Surely, to some degree, despite the praise he’s doled out in interviews, Leto thinks he is one-upping Heath Ledger’s full-bodied “Dark Knight” performance and Jack Nicholson’s batty “Batman” turn. But he lacks their brooding complexity. The Joker of “The Dark Knight” was a terrorist with a cause, whereas the Joker of “Suicide Squad” is merely a joke. And an uninteresting one, at that. 



Leto follows similar cues that plagued Jesse Eisenberg in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” earlier this year. Eisenberg was all mania and no motive. The actors intend to depict demented schizoids ripe for sociological examination; instead, they’re costumed brats. Not even comic-book movies should reduce the pathology of murderers to wacky stereotypes and tics. The Jokers of yore avoided it, as did, for example, Jim Carrey’s comedic timing in “Batman Forever” and Ian McKellen’s sympathetic take on Magneto in “X-Men.” But Eisenberg and Leto are smug and formulaic, and they are unaided by the grimy, ugly aesthetics of “Batman v Superman” and “Suicide Squad.”


A peppy Margot Robbie, playing the bat-wielding Harley Quinn, fares somewhat better, but by the second half of “Squad,” Robbie is used primarily for “quirky” one-liners and deranged reaction shots, and her hyperactive-but-too-cool-to-care schtick runs thin. There is, again, barely the slightest examination of the fear-inducing madness that makes villains intriguing, which renders these overly theatrical performances unintriguing. 


It’s easy to see where superhero films have encouraged this deficit of nuance. As the genre’s budgets skyrocketed, so did the visual effects. So did the costuming behind which actors attempt to disappear. And so did the choppy editing and limited characterization that vexes the worst elements of these movies. In “Batman & Robin,” Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze trafficked mostly in lame puns. “The Amazing Spider-Man” fumbled the arc of Rhys Ifans’ over-digitized Jekyll-and-Hyde transition from Dr. Curt Connors to The Lizard. And in “X-Men: First Class,” January Jones was left to play Emma Frost as a vixen, resulting in a one-note exploitation that uses seductiveness as a key weapon. 



I’m not a fan of the largely infantile superhero craze, but I was amped for “Suicide Squad” because of its premise. As a kid, I favored the villains in popular culture. I imitated the Wicked Witch of the West in my living room, dressed as Darth Vader for Halloween and opted to meet Cruella de Vil instead of Snow White at Disney World. Villains are more gripping, with their muddled psychology and preening dominance. I’m attracted to them because there’s something inherently queer about wielding such campy power in the face of a society that does not attempt to understand you.


So, at last, I thought, “Suicide Squad” is the comic-book movie for me. Its edgy first trailers, which arrived before reports of reshoots and backstage drama set in, seemed to promise a rich exploration of bad guys banding together to save the world. What a pleasantly cynical premise! One that, by way of incoherent editing and a gaudy soundtrack of pop songs, David Ayer’s film botches. This was the chance for the DC Universe to make its characters cool again, to tease out their inner workings like the best scoundrels of cinema: Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates, Nurse Ratched, Daniel Plainview, Annie Wilkes, Gordon Gekko, Alex Forrest, Baby Jane Hudson. Leto and Eisenberg are channeling the slithery Alan Rickman school of villainy, except they’ve replaced the collected gall of Hans Gruber and Severus Snape with an overcooked lunacy. Instead of slick, satirical camp, it’s unrefined, grandstanding camp ― all ham and no chill.



Give me back my nuanced villains. Other performers have pulled it off in this decade, with the help of decent dialogue and a touch of restraint. See: Adam Driver’s conflicted power trip in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” Lena Headey’s frosty drive on “Game of Thrones,” Donald Sutherland’s nonchalance in “The Hunger Games,” Leonardo DiCaprio’s cheerful sneers in “Django Unchained.” But when villains are just on hand for quips and whips, they aren’t much of characters at all. And when they’re played with all ego and no poise, as they are by Leto and Eisenberg, it’s just not fun anymore.

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Olympian Allyson Felix Says Strong Black Women Have Helped Her Carry On

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Allyson Felix will channel her alter-ego when she steps on the track Saturday, Aug. 13 for the women’s 400-meter race at the Olympic Games in Rio. 


Her easy-going nature will fade as she listens to Beyoncé’s “Diva,” her routine pregame tune, and she’ll go into full-on beast mode. She’s hungry for first place.


Despite this year being the Los Angeles native’s fourth appearance at the Olympics, Felix admits to The Huffington Post that preparation for the races ― which will cement her track legacy ― has been a challenge like never before.


Just weeks prior to the Olympic trials, Felix injured her right ankle. She couldn’t walk, let alone run. 


“My preparation was going so well that when I suffered that injury, it kind of shook everything up,” the 30-year-old told HuffPost. “I wasn’t sure that I’d even still be going to Rio. It threw a big wrench in my plans and I just had to kind of pick up the pieces and get creative.”



Felix said her shot at competing looked bleak, but she kept her faith. She entered rehab and regained the strength to walk and then run. Despite coming up short in the women’s 200-meter, Felix was able to snag a spot on the U.S. Women’s Olympic team this year for the 400-meter race and the 4x100 relay.


I don’t even know how this happened,” she told HuffPost. “I wasn’t even walking a few months ago and, somehow, I’m on the team.”


She said she owes her determination to the women who came before her, from whom she gets her strength. And her journey to this year’s games, despite losing both her grandfather and pet dog, has been a reflection of that.


Felix praises her mentor and Olympic legend Jackie Joyner-Kersey for guiding her and paving the way for her both on and off the track. Now, she’s doing the same for others with Folger’s #OneCupAtATime campaign which gives gratitude for the life lessons mentors provide their mentees. With the campaign, Felix is celebrating the family, friends and coaches in her life who helped her become a track star.



The six-time Olympic medalist said she’s working to improve the conditions for black women in sports just like her foremothers.


“I think as a black female, our value seems to be so much less than our [male] counterpart so that’s always something that we’re aware of and you try to change [that] for the next generation” she said. “I think that it’s amazing that there are so many strong black athletes that are out there, like Serena Williams, who are doing such amazing things and breaking barriers and breaking people’s thoughts of what I should be. So for me, I definitely try to focus on a positive image and change for the next generation.”


She also gave a nod to everyday women, like her mother and 97-year-old grandmother, who she said, “give me the strength to carry on.” 


After a trying 2016, Felix said she will lean on that strength and her spirituality to help her to cap off her legacy at the games.


“This year, more than anything, I think it was just a test of faith,” she said. “I feel like I really had to put that to the test and I think it’s only by the grace of God that I made the team... I think that that’s a part of sports and just going through different challenges or even just a part of life and you have to rely on what you believe in.”



 


For more Olympic coverage:



 

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Finally, Your Cat Can Protest Trump With Butt Jewelry

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It can be hard for cats to engage in civic life. U.S. law prevents them from voting, and though some of them run for president every now and then, they never seem to get invited to debates. 


Luckily, politically minded pussycats (and their owners) now have a new way to express their opinion on how they feel about Donald Trump - in the form of cat butt jewelry. 


A new website called TrumpHoleCovers.com is selling bejeweled pendants featuring The Donald’s face.


 



The Trumped-up trinket comes in three different models, each showcasing one of Trump’s trademark facial expressions: The Rich Smirk, The F-Bomb and The Ragin’ A-Hole.


Looking behind the gaudy, cheap costume jewelry and you’ll see the product slogan: “Protecting The Country From Pussy A**holes.”


The idea of protesting with a pussycat posterior belongs to two advertising professionals Marta Ibarrando and Evelyn Neill. 




“We were mad about Trump in a way that strikes a chord with us as human beings, women and, for me, as an immigrant from Spain,” Ibarrando told The Huffington Post. “We must do something to prove to America that Trump is an a**hole.”


Putting Trump’s visage near a feline’s fanny may seem like proof of animal cruelty, Neill has been surprised by her cat’s reaction to the butt jewelry.


“My own cat kind of liked it and that scared me,” she admitted to HuffPost. 


That said, since the apparatus is made out of small parts and an elastic that could be harmful if swallowed, make sure to only let your cat wear it with supervision. And if your cat absolutely hates the thing, don’t force the issue. Trump has already made us all suffer enough.

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Documenting The Last Tattoo-Faced Women Of The Lai Tu Chin Tribe

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For the women of Myanmar’s Lai Tu Chin tribe, face tattoos are a coming-of-age ritual that has long been part of the people’s tradition. Parallel lines form geometric patterns that spread like spiderwebs across the faces of Lai Tu Chin women, growing ever fainter as they age. In 1976, however, the military faction ruling the Lai Tu Chin region banned the ceremony moving forward, meaning the current generation of tattooed women, called Hmäe Sün Näe Ti Cengkhü Nu, will be the last. 


Australian photographer Dylan Goldby, who lives and works in Seoul, has long been interested in gentrification and the stories and lives that get left behind as a result. When he learned about the disappearing tradition of face tattoos among Lai Tu Chin people, Goldby knew he wanted to document the last generation of elderly women, whose faces told stories that might soon disappear.



The photographer met the Lai Tu Chin tribe for the first time in June 2015, on accident, while visiting a nearby region and accidentally stumbling upon the village, often kept out of tourists’ view. He knew right away there’s was a story worth capturing. “They were open, they shared interesting stories, and there really wasn’t much known about them,” Goldby explained in an email to The Huffington Post. “I was compelled to make something, and the rest just took care of itself in a way. There was never really a question of if I would do the project, only when.”


With the help of anthropologists and individuals who spoke the Chin language, Goldby returned to the villages of the Lai Tu Chin, around Mrauk-U in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, the following February. Although he faced many practical challenges ― being far from home and away from dependable power sources, for example ― it was the language barrier that proved the most trying. 



The problem wasn’t just that Goldby wasn’t himself familiar with the Lai Tu language. Rather, it was the nebulous parameters of the language itself. “There are no official guidelines for the language for the Lai Tu people,” he said. “Each village would have its own dialect and often pronunciation that varied from person to person. Coupled with the lack of an official writing system up until now, this made transliteration of simple things like names and cultural terminology extremely difficult.”


Through collaborating with members of the government as well as the Chin tribe committee, Goldby managed to procure accurate transliterations of the Lai Tu dialect to include in his archives. “Language was the toughest thing,” he explained, “because not only should it be comprehensible by our English language readers, but the words used in the Lai Tu dialect of the Chin language should maintain their meanings when the written form of their language becomes prevalent.”


Goldby documented the thoughts and words of his subjects as well as their images. “I didn’t care about the pain, because all the girls looked so beautiful with their tattoos,” one subject, Bout Chai, said.



In his photographs, Goldby captures the last living generation of Lai Tu women with facial tattoos. The ink is made from natural ingredients, as Goldby explained to Slate, including the soot from cooking lids. Although the image of geometric patterns spread across a woman’s face is surely striking, the photos capture so much more. With his close-up portraits, Goldby depicts a changing world, a dying way of life, and the last living embodiments of past traditions. 


“The main goal of this project was to promote the importance of the Lai Tu Chin culture,” Goldby expressed. “As with all cultures of the world, it is changing. The modern world and access to information have wrought changes that we cannot undo. However, I firmly believe that it is important to maintain knowledge of our own unique cultures. This is just one tribe within a nation of minority ethnicities, but they are a unique and beautiful part of the human race.”


You can purchase a photography book of Goldby’s work, titled Hmäe Sün Näe Ti Cengkhü Nu. Proceeds from the book will support efforts to provide clean drinking water and education for the Lai Tu Chin people.


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How The Gorgeous Language Of Maps Helps Us Understand The World

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Mapping is a tradition dating back thousands of years, and it might seem like there’s no ground left to cover. But cartographers’ tools still offer new and unique ways to order and understand the world.


In their book Cartographic Grounds: Projecting the Landscape Imaginary, Harvard Graduate School of Design professors Jill Desimini and Charles Waldheim break down the conventions of mapping through the centuries and show how contemporary designers can use them. 


The book, released this summer by Princeton Architectural Press, stems from a 2013 exhibition at Harvard that was meant to provoke architecture and design students to look to cartography for different tools and creative ways to represent the landscape in drawings, according to Desimini.


“Part of the idea of the project is to expose all of the variations and encourage people to see the world in as many ways as possible, and maybe try to draw it in different ways, so design is kind of not being lazy or doing similar things over and over again, but [matches] the diversity of the world,” Desimini said.


In one map, the LSU Coastal Sustainability Studio used a technique called “land classification” that uses colors, symbols or patterns to differentiate real or potential land uses. In the studio’s map of New Orleans, proposed restoration and protection strategies are color-coded ― for example, dashed white lines represent sites for wastewater treatment and cypress forest regeneration, blue indicates where sediment-diversion tactics can be used, and yellow areas represent relocated neighborhood development away from marshlands.



“In a sense, we were really just looking to heighten precision and diversity, but I was really amazed by all the different perceptions you had of the landscape depending on the point of view, or what the map was trying to tell,” Desimini said.


In another example, Desimini and Waldheim use a painting by the late architect Zaha Hadid of a project in Hong Kong to show how the cartographic style of shaded relief can be used in urban design. A shaded relief map uses color and tonal variations to depict changes in elevation and landform.


Hadid’s proposal “calls for leveling the ground to the lowest elevation and rebuilding it from excavated rock into a polished mountain,” the authors write. “The tectonic vision is clearly articulated through surficial rendering and a carefully considered palette.”



While the book is geared at students and practitioners in the fields of architecture and design, there’s plenty to wow anyone with an amateur interest in maps and their history ― like Leonardo da Vinci’s map of western Tuscany from 1503.


The map “has incredible hill shading, one of the finest examples of chiaroscuro applied to topography, making it a precursor to later shaded-relief drawings,” write Desimini and Waldheim.



Desimini is now experimenting with some of the ideas in the book as she creates drawings for her current work. She grew up making maps of both real and imaginary places and served as the navigator on her family’s cross-country road trips, tracing their route on road atlases with a highlighter.  


The collection she curated with Waldheim shows how maps, and the information the maker decides to include, create narratives and help viewers understand a sliver of the world. Some of the maps are incredibly simple, while others require a manual to understand their intricacies.


“The navigational maps were kind of difficult to get into, but also amazing once you did ― like the idea that once you’re flying, you’d only need to see high points and low points,” she said. “So you’re looking at a landscape of these tiny peaks and valleys, and how that changes the way you think about it is really great.”



At any comprehension level, the different views of the world captured in Cartographic Grounds are fascinating.


Maps “still, I think, trigger imagination,” Desimini said. “The appreciation of them is universal.”


See more of the maps below.








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'The Bachelor' Might Try To Increase Diversity, According To New ABC Chief

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Recent research suggests that one highly effective way to increase diversity in new hires is simple: Expand the pool of diverse candidates interviewed for each job.


What if that job is to star in ABC’s long-running, long-homogenous dating reality show, “The Bachelor”? That may be no different, according to new ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey, who discussed the show’s storied problems with diversity with journalists on Thursday. 


“I would very much like to see some changes there, and I think one of the biggest changes that we need to do is we need to increase the pool of diverse candidates in the beginning,” she told reporters. “Part of what ends up happening as we go along is there just aren’t as many candidates.”


Entertainment Weekly reports that Dungey, who replaced previous ABC chief Paul Lee in February, fielded questions about diversity controversies in “The Bachelor.” Lee, notably, had hinted strongly that the Season 12 Bachelorette would be “diverse,” but his departure and the casting of JoJo Fletcher as the series lead once again reframed the network’s commitment to diversity as lip service.


In focusing on increasing the diversity in the contestants, Dungey also pointed out that the network’s bias may not be simply toward white leads, but toward fan favorites. The show leads have, in recent seasons, come from a pool of eligible men or women who advanced far in the competition on “The Bachelor” or “Bachelorette,” only to be heartbroken in front of Bachelor Nation.


Dungey is not the first player at ABC to suggest that the franchise is hesitant to stray from this model to cast a lesser-known lead of color because, as she put it on Thursday, “it’s worked very well for us because the audience feels really engaged in helping to choose that candidate.”


The new ABC chief also copped to watching Lifetime’s “UnREAL,” a dark, satirical drama set behind the scenes of a fictional reality show that bears a striking resemblance to “The Bachelor.” While the franchise’s affable host Chris Harrison has reacted with hostility to “UnREAL” and its unsettling portrayal of reality dating TV, it seems not everyone at ABC shares this antagonism. 


Did the casting of a black bachelor for the second season of “UnREAL” provoke any urgency among ABC executives? “I don’t think we’ve ever actually had a full sort of network conversation about ‘UnREAL,’” Dungey said. “I enjoy watching it as a viewer, however.”


And there’s a lot of blue sky between “a full sort of network conversation” about “UnREAL” and a less quantifiable jolt among the ABC brass. Lifetime, it’s been said many times, beat “The Bachelor” to the punch by casting a black suitor before the much more established reality show did so. Maybe the sense of being leapfrogged for a historical moment will be the thunderbolt the network needs to make some progress.


H/T EW.com


For more on “The Bachelor,” check out HuffPost’s recap podcast, “Here to Make Friends”:






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We Wish We Could Devour These Photos Of Dream Meals From Fictional Books

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Anyone who’s read To the Lighthouse can practically taste the boeuf en daube served at Mrs. Ramsay’s dinner party, just as anyone who’s read Harry Potter dreams of butterbeer. Because eating is such an emotional experience, reading descriptions of food can be evocative, mainlining the reader’s senses with the character’s. At least that’s the premise behind photographer Charles Roux’s “Fictitious Foods,” a series of still lifes cataloging the meals served in classic literature.


“I feel like my spirit is inhabited by stories and my brain pictures what I read with a keen precision,” Roux said in an email to HuffPost. “I am first a reader, and then gradually became more and more of a creator.”



While he studied photography at Icart Photo in Paris, Roux discovered that he was drawn to still-life paintings — images that got him thinking about food as a strong metaphor and motif.


When he began the “Fictitious Foods” project, a few sensory-fueled books came to mind to kickoff with: Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, with its iconic madeleine cookies, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, with its wild tea party.


“I paid very close attention to details, both written descriptions and implicit symbols or metaphors, but more specifically, to my instincts and the way I felt about the whole book, my interpretation of an atmosphere,” Roux said.



For Roux, cooking the meals he photographed himself was a vital aspect of the project – eliciting memories of books read with a very tactile process.


“I collected all the props myself, from antique stores, family, friends, second-hand, and cooked the food myself. It was important to me to do everything on my own. Searching props, cutlery, plates, flowers, learning how to cook this and that, was entirely part of my process,” Roux said, adding, “Reading is something very personal and very individual.”


Regardless of whether Roux’s moody, high-contrast photos match the feelings evoked within you while you read, his shots are fun to look over while you savor their rich details.


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KC And The Sunshine Band Are Back With A Dance Anthem For Equality

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Disco legends KC and the Sunshine Band are back with a brand new song that aims to get you to break out those boogie shoes once again. 


The Huffington Post got an exclusive first look at the lyric video for “We Belong Together,” which can be viewed above. Images of same-sex couples canoodling on crowded city streets and sun-drenched beaches appear as the band’s frontman, Harry Wayne “K.C.” Casey, pleads for unity. 


“We can make it last forever, make it last/We can’t go wrong with this feeling,” Casey sings over a synthesized beat. “We belong, we belong together.”  


Fans of KC and the Sunshine Band’s 1970s hits like “That’s the Way (I Like It)” and “Get Down Tonight” will likely embrace the new tune, which is a modern spin on the band’s upbeat, Grammy-winning style.


The release of the song coincides with a slew of concert dates, too. The band will be performing in El Cajon, California; Dallas, Texas and Atlantic City, New Jersey, among other cities.  


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Our Insane Election, As Seen Through 131 Works Of Art

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Introducing HuffPost’s election art project, If This Art Could Vote. Explore dozens of works of art about the 2016 presidential election, or submit your own.

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'Bloodline' Star Norbert Leo Butz Is Ready To Go 'Girl' Crazy

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Thanks to his latest act, Norbert Leo Butz can add a new title to his ever-expanding resume: “song anthropologist.”


The two-time Tony-winning actor-singer, who also stars on the Netflix serial thriller, “Bloodline,” and the PBS medical drama, “Mercy Street,” returns to the New York stage this week with his acclaimed concert, “Girls, Girls, Girls.”


While many of his contemporaries are content to revisit their Broadway hits in a concert format, Butz will opt for something radically different when he hits New York’s Feinstein’s/54 Below on Aug. 5. Featuring songs by Loretta Lynn, Elvis Costello, Johnny Cash and Ray LaMontagne, “Girls, Girls, Girls” is a personal — and heartfelt — celebration of women in both classical myth and contemporary society. Along the way, he’ll share anecdotes about the women in his life, including his wife, Michelle Federer, their three daughters and his three sisters. 





“Basically all of my relationships are with girls and with women — overwhelmingly so,” Butz, 49, told The Huffington Post. “I found myself, in my 40s, wanting to find some sort of deeper insight into [some of the things] they were feeling.”


That curiosity prompted Butz to delve into literature on feminist philosophy and classical mythology, and coincidentally, he said, “all of these sort of titular female songs started coming on my iTunes, almost in tandem with reading about these Greek goddesses. It was almost like these archetypes were being represented in contemporary pop music, country music and so on.”


Butz’s Feinstein’s/54 Below run also celebrates a CD recording of a 2013 incarnation of “Girls, Girls, Girls,” which will be released Sept. 9. Bringing the show back three years later, he said, feels particularly appropriate at a time when Hillary Clinton is America’s first female presidential nominee. 



“I think of myself as a fairly progressive guy. I love women, and I’ve always tried to treat them well,” he said. “But even so, I’ve been reductive, I think, of the women in my life. I think society is.”


Putting the show together, Butz said, allowed him to “get in touch with the feminine within myself,” too. Audiences can expect him to approach the evening’s set with “maybe a little more recklessness than they’re used to.”


“It’s straight from the heart,” he said. “I’m gonna take some risks. If you fall on your ass, well, it’s the type of audience that will appreciate a risk well-pursued.”  


Norbert Leo Butz stars in “Girls, Girls, Girls” at New York’s 54 Below from Aug. 5 through Aug. 12. For more information, head here

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10 Hilarious Comics That Poke Fun At The Wild First Year Of Parenting

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A little over a year ago, Alison Wong created New Mom Comics to document her new adventures in the world of parenting. Now she’s turning her viral webcomic into a book.


New Mom Comics: The First Year is a compilation of over 50 parenting comics, covering topics like babyproofing, breastfeeding, blowouts and more.


“I created New Mom Comics because it was what I wished I had as a new parent: a humorous companion to add to the blur of taking care of a newborn,” Wong told The Huffington Post.


“I decided to make a book of the first year because it’s a really transformative time and the first birthday is a great milestone to cap it off,” she added. “Each comic is like a condensed story, so having them in an album is richer and really brings it all together.”



New Mom Comics: The First Year is currently available for pre-order on Wong’s website. The artist launched a crowdfunding campaign with a goal of reaching 5,000 pre-orders by the end of August for a December ship date.


“There are many parent guides, but this book is like a friend telling you how it really is with humor and love,” she said. “The book takes you through the first year of new parenthood, highlighting many of the main pain points and milestones. I think readers will find that parenting makes us do unexpected and ridiculous things, and it’s fun to find humor in that.”


Ultimately Wong just wants to share the highs and lows of baby-rearing and make her fellow parenting rookies feel less alone.


“I think what’s great is that this book is not just for new and expecting parents ― but even experienced parents will be able to reminisce and relate,” she added. “That first year goes by so fast, and I think these comics will let them relive that year that’s so fleeting.”


Keep scrolling to see more illustrations from New Mom Comics: The First Year.


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Alyssa Milano Posts 4 Awesome Breastfeeding Selfies On Instagram

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It’s World Breastfeeding Week, and parents across the globe are celebrating with awareness-raising eventsart projects and even “brelfies.” Even Alyssa Milano is joining in on the fun.


The actress and breastfeeding advocate posted four breastfeeding selfies on Instagram with the hashtag #WBW2016.



#wbw2016 #normalizebreastfeeding

A photo posted by Alyssa Milano (@milano_alyssa) on





#WBW2016#breastfeeding #WBWGoals #SDGs

A photo posted by Alyssa Milano (@milano_alyssa) on





In honor of #wbw2016. #normalizebreastfeeding.

A photo posted by Alyssa Milano (@milano_alyssa) on






The photos appear to show Milano breastfeeding her now almost-2-year-old daughter Elizabella at different ages. 


As she notes in the captions, Milano is on a mission to #NormalizeBreastfeeding and raise awareness about World Breastfeeding Week, which this year focuses on the connection between nursing and the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals.


To learn more about World Breastfeeding Week and this year’s theme, visit the official website


And hats off to Alyssa Milano for continuing to advocate for mothers around the world. 

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Blogger On The 'Significance' Of Being Black And Traveling Abroad

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Oneika Raymond has visited nearly 90 countries and turned her passion for traveling into a career. But, as a black woman, going abroad holds a certain significance to her.


Raymond writes about swimming on the edge of the Victoria Falls in Zambia and going on a safari in South Africa on her blog Oneika The Traveller. But she explained to The Huffington Post in the video above that being black and abroad often “means that you are one, or one of very few, black people in a particular place.”


She added that this is usually why as a black traveller she feels as if she’s “being a representative for the whole diaspora and for the whole black race, because you will get questions.” 


Raymond said she’s trying to serve as an inspiration for her other “brothers and sisters” who may not have the opportunity to travel or who don’t know that “traveling is even a possibility because it’s not on their radar.” But, like all things, there are some downsides to being black and abroad, including racial profiling. 


“Traveling as a black woman, and particularly traveling as a black man, does not come without its challenges,” she said. “But then on the flip side, on the positive side, being black and abroad means sometimes being treated like royalty in the places you go.”


For Raymond, the “black travel movement” is something she embraces wholeheartedly. 


“I am so happy to see people, particularly people like myself, people who look like me, getting out there and traveling to expand their horizons,” she said. “To seek a different sort of education. To give themselves more opportunities. I love it.”   


This video was produced by Choyce Miller and Nick Palladino, and edited by Taylor Thompson. 

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A Definitive Ranking Of Every 'Bailey School Kids' Book Ever Written

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The ‘90s was a great a decade for serialized literature of the young adult variety. Think: “The Baby-Sitters Club,” “Goosebumps,” “The Magic Tree House,” later editions of “Encyclopedia Brown.” If I was addicted to anything as an elementary schooler, it was a book title that started with “#” and was readily available via that tissue-paper catalog of Scholastic titles teachers handed out every few weeks. 


And it really didn’t matter how ridiculous the premise of the series seemed. Authors Marcia T. Jones and Debbie Dadey started their own in 1990, and most millennials will recognize the first few books by their comically random titles: Dracula Doesn’t Drink LemonadeWerewolves Don’t Go to Summer Camp, Ghosts Don’t Eat Potato Chips. There it is: “The Bailey School Kids.”


The kids at Bailey School never expected their teachers, camp counselors, babysitters, coaches, neighborhood eccentrics or any adult not immediately related to them to be supernatural creatures, but they always were. After dozens of books, you’d think the school district would wise up to the fact that it was employing and engaging with a significant percentage of undead or mythologized people, but it did not. 


How many times did it fail to recognize the early signs of Dracula’s presence, a wizard’s veiled intentions, or a literal dragon? At least 51 times. Below, a definitive ranking of every book in “The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids” series:



51. Werewolves Don’t Go to Summer Camp


OK, it seems like a fair assumption. 


50. Cupid Doesn’t Flip Hamburgers


He shoots arrows and acts cherubic, duh.


49. Leprechauns Don’t Play Basketball


Heightism.


48. Hercules Doesn’t Pull Teeth


I don’t know, it would be an incredibly realistic thing for him to do.


47. Elves Don’t Wear Hard Hats


Only hats with bells.


46. Genies Don’t Ride Bicycles


K.


45. Giants Don’t Go Snowboarding


Big feet, I get it.



44. Dracula Doesn’t Play Kickball


Kickball is typically played during the day. Dracula cannot play kickball.


43. Wizards Don’t Wear Graduation Gowns


But, like, they wear something suspiciously close, right?


42. Witches Don’t Do Backflips


I have to disagree here.


41. Ghouls Don’t Scoop Ice Cream


Lactose intolerant.


40. Knights Don’t Teach Piano


They’re too loud. Armor.


39. Santa Claus Doesn’t Mop Floors


Seems like he should, IMO.



38. Bogeymen Don’t Play Football


But the idea of a bogeymen football team is amusing. 


37. Dragons Don’t Cook Pizza


Not for lack of heat, though. Obvious.


36. Pirates Don’t Wear Pink Sunglasses


Do pirates count as mythical creatures?


35. Phantoms Don’t Drive Sports Cars


Only modest family vehicles.


34. Frankenstein Doesn’t Plant Petunias


Thus begins a string of Frankenstein scenarios.


33. Frankenstein Doesn’t Slam Hockey Pucks


Bad wrists.


32. Frankenstein Doesn’t Start Food Fights


Dr. Frankenstein is rolling in his grave RN. 



31. The Bride of Frankenstein Doesn’t Bake Cookies


She’s gluten-free. Sure.


30. Monsters Don’t Scuba Dive


Too broad. Next.


29. Aliens Don’t Wear Braces


Can we fact-check this?


28. Mummies Don’t Coach Softball


Deceased humans cannot play softball, let alone coach.


27. Angels Don’t Know Karate


Dubious.


26. Trolls Don’t Ride Roller Coasters


Me neither.


25. Goblins Don’t Play Video Games


Gotta ask Jareth the Goblin King about this one.


24. Werewolves Don’t Run for President


To date, no.



23. Ninjas Don’t Bake Pumpkin Pies


Points for sheer arbitrariness.


22. Vikings Don’t Wear Wrestling Belts


Because they are not wrestlers. So it checks out.


21. Dragons Don’t Throw Snowballs


Too hot.


20. Gremlins Don’t Chew Bubble Gum


Points for the visual.


19. Gargoyles Don’t Drive School Buses


They sit atop French cathedrals.


18. Bigfoot Doesn’t Square Dance


It does seem very unlikely.


17. Wolfmen Don’t Hula Dance


I wish it were wolvesmen.



16. The Abominable Snowman Doesn’t Roast Marshmallows


But it’d be cute.


15. Ghosts Don’t Ride Wild Horses


Domesticated are OK.


14. Robots Don’t Catch Chicken Pox


Impossible!


13. Dracula Doesn’t Rock and Roll


He neither rocks, nor does he roll.


12. Sea Serpents Don’t Juggle Water Balloons


This is evocative.


11. Werewolves Don’t Go to Summer Camp


Can’t stand sleepovers.



10. Martians Don’t Take Temperatures


Is this, like, a mercury-on-Mars situation?


9. Dracula Doesn’t Drink Lemonade


Only blood. We know this.


8. Zombies Don’t Play Soccer


Too dead.


7. Cyclops Doesn’t Roller-Skate


Lack of peripheral vision, guys.


6. Skeletons Don’t Play Tubas


No diaphragm.


5. Ghosts Don’t Eat Potato Chips


Casper couldn’t.



4. Mermaids Don’t Run Track


Ridiculous, because tails.


3. Wizards Don’t Need Computers


They don’t. This is proven.


2. Vampires Don’t Wear Polka Dots


Classic and seemingly true. 


1. Unicorns Don’t Give Sleigh Rides


Bam.



 





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