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Amanda Knox Documentary Among Four Newly Announced Netflix Originals

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The Toronto International Film Festival starts the prestige of Oscar season, and as this year’s lineup continues to pour in, Netflix has joined the crop of studios that will introduce their films at September’s festival. The streaming service announced four original documentaries, all of which will premiere on Netflix before the year’s end.


The documentaries’ subjects are Amanda Knox, mythical volcanoes, ivory trafficking and rescue workers in war-torn Syria and Turkey. 


The quartet of films, announced Tuesday in a press release, does not mark Netflix’s first festival bow. The service’s inaugural feature, “Beasts of No Nation,” premiered at last year’s Venice and Toronto film festivals before arriving on Netflix in October. Because of the simultaneous Netflix launch, most theaters refused to play the movie. No matter: Netflix is going all-in on the originals front. In addition to other titles, the company also recently acquired “Selma” director Ava DuVernay’s race documentary, “The 13th,” which premieres at the New York Film Festival days before launching on Netflix and opening in select theaters. 


Below are the four titles that will premiere at Toronto next month, along with the descriptions from Netflix’s press release.


“AMANDA KNOX” (Netflix Launch: Sept. 30)


Was she a cold-blooded psychopath who brutally murdered her roommate or a naive student abroad trapped in an endless nightmare? In the Netflix Original Documentary “Amanda Knox,” directors Rod Blackhurst (Tribeca Audience Award–winner “Here Alone”) and Brian McGinn (IDA Award–winner “Chef’s Table”) and producer Mette Heide (Peabody Award–winner “India’s Daughter”) explore the notorious case that made headlines around the world.


“INTO THE INFERNO” (Netflix Launch: Oct. 28)


Werner Herzog and volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer embark upon a global journey exploring some of the world’s most mythical volcanoes in Indonesia, Ethiopia, Iceland and North Korea. Speaking with scientists and indigenous peoples alike, they seek to understand the complex and deeply rooted relationship between mankind and one of nature’s greatest wonders. Produced by Werner Herzog Film and Spring Films, “Into the Inferno” artfully blends reportage, history and philosophy into a riveting cinematic experience.


“THE IVORY GAME” (Netflix Launch: Nov. 4)


“The Ivory Game” is an epic documentary feature that goes undercover into the dark and sinister underbelly of ivory trafficking. Award-winning director Richard Ladkani and Academy Award®–nominated director Kief Davidson filmed undercover for 16 months with a crack team of intelligence operatives, undercover activists, passionate frontline rangers and tough-as-nails conservationists, to infiltrate the corrupt global network of ivory trafficking. A production from Terra Mater Film Studios and Vulcan Productions, the film follows poachers in pursuit of the ‘white gold’ of ivory. Time is running out for the African elephants, dangerously nearing closer and closer to extinction.


“THE WHITE HELMETS” (Netflix Launch: Sept. 16)


A Netflix original short documentary, set in Aleppo, Syria and Turkey in early 2016. As the violence intensifies, “The White Helmets” follows three volunteer rescue workers as they put everything on the line to save civilians affected by the war, all the while wracked with worry about the safety of their own loved ones. Moving and inspiring, “The White Helmets” (directed by Academy Award®–nominated director Orlando von Einsiedel and producer Joanna Natasegara) is both a snapshot of the harrowing realities of life for ordinary Syrians who remain in the country, and a humbling portrait of the power of the human spirit.

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15 Stunning Photos Show There’s More To Women Than What Meets The Eye

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Every woman has a different story about her body ― and a new campaign is highlighting just how beautiful these differences are.


Created by Australian photographer Amy D. Herrmann, the Kickstarter campaign titled “Underneath We Are Women” features photographs of 100 women in their underwear proudly showing off their bodies and the different physical and mental hardships each woman has endured.


“I wanted to create a project that was as much about the diversity of women’s bodies as it was about the stories behind those people,” Herrmann told The Huffington Post.


The series features a diverse group of women ranging from 19 to 73 years old. The group of women photographed for the series include a breast cancer survivor, a lesbian couple with their child, a trans woman, a disabled woman, an eating disorder survivor, a body builder and many more. 


“You will see the true diversity of women in both physical appearance and the stories underneath that exterior,” Herrmann wrote about the campaign on Kickstarter. “You will see the many ways in which women are born and the ways in which they change and develop through their entire lives.”


“Underneath We Are Women” is an honest and raw depiction of women and their bodies. 


Watch the Kickstarter video for the campaign below. 





A Kickstarter campaign was recently launched to raise money to make the campaign into a photo book. The book will feature “100 women, 100 bodies and 100 stories,” according to the campaign’s Kickstarter website. The book will also include each woman’s body image story alongside her photo. 


Herrmann explained to HuffPost why she thinks it’s so important to highlight women’s empowerment through body image.


“What if we began to see images that promoted diversity and acceptance, imagine how women might begin to feel if they actually felt included in this society,” Herrmann said. “We spend too much time thinking about the negative aspects of ourselves and it’s time to change that. It’s time to stop perceiving a woman’s confidence as arrogance and disguising self-depreciation as some type of modesty.”


Included beside each photo is what every woman feels “underneath” her exterior such as “Underneath I am positive” and “Underneath I am resilient.”  



By depicting what’s underneath a woman’s exterior, Herrmann hopes her work will serve as a reminder that we all have our own struggles and some of these battles aren’t always visible.


Herrmann explained on Kickstarter:



Society [has] developed a myriad of stereotyped responses to certain body types. That is, the fat girl who needs the gym. The skinny girl who needs to eat more. The disabled woman who needs sympathy. The beautiful girl that is always happy. But these are simply programmed responses created by us and for us to suit a greater societal ideal for what is deemed acceptable and “normal.” What if you actually knew these people? What if you took the time to hear their story? You’d hear that the fat girl goes to the gym 4 times a week and is on her journey to becoming a personal trainer. You’d hear that the skinny girl has terminal Cancer. The beautiful girl is living with depression. The disabled woman is perfectly able. You’d hear and see truth. How beautiful is that?



Scroll below to see 15 of the 100 women featured in Herrmann’s “Underneath We Are” series.  


Images may be considered NSFW to some readers. 



Head over to Kickstarter to read more about the “Underneath We Are Women” campaign. 

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Kanye’s Collaborator Said Some Truly Absurd S**t About Black Identity

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Vanessa Beecroft is an artist. Vanessa Beecroft is a well-known Kanye West collaborator. Vanessa Beecroft is also an incredibly privileged Italian woman who unleashed a dumpster fire of ignorant commentary in a recent interview with New York Magazine.


Let’s back up, though: Some of us know Beecroft as the woman who helped design the set of Yeezy Season 3 and other Kanye projects. Others might know her as the progenitor of controversial artworks like “White Madonna with Twins or the delightfully unhinged presence in “The Art Star and the Sudanese Children.”


In “White Madonna,” Beecroft appears to be breastfeeding two black children from Sudan in a custom-made Maison Margiela dress. In the aforementioned documentary, Beecroft can be seen ― and this is real, friends ― attempting to adopt those two same Sudanese children, unbeknownst to her husband or two children back home, and despite protestations from local Sudanese women.


All of us, after reading Amy Larocca’s interview in NY Mag, think Beecroft is woefully detached from planet Earth. (Sorry, that powder protein is not working.) She might be a friend of Kanye, but she has a heavily covered history of sounding and acting like a plain ol’ racist white lady.





Here are just a few excerpts from the NY Mag profile that effectively underscore Beecroft’s status as “absolutely not woke.”


There was this moment:



“I have divided my personality,” she says. “There is Vanessa Beecroft as a European white female, and then there is Vanessa Beecroft as Kanye, an African-American male.” Later she tells me, “I even did a DNA test thinking maybe I am black? I actually wasn’t. I was kind of disappointed, and I don’t want to believe it. I want to do it again, because when I work with Africans or African-Americans, I feel that I am autobiographical. If I don’t call myself white, maybe I am not.”



And this gem, in reference to the Yeezy Season 3 aesthetic:



“The image came out of one of my books, and I thought, Perhaps this is Woodstock, because it looked really fashionable and glamorous, but no. That was a refugee camp … I wanted the people to look poor. Poverty and elegance were the key words. Poverty and elegance. No trends, no fashion. Real poverty, what you encounter when you travel to Africa, Mexico, those countries where people wear their clothes with dignity and they look elegant and they look like they have intelligence. When we were casting, I said, ‘Please don’t have anyone who looks stupid. Or fancy. Please. Classical, poor, and elegant.’”



And this:



As an adult, she began to cast black women when she first came to America. “My first black project was originated by the fact that I met a bluesman from Chicago in Italy and he was white and he was really, really upset by being white, he kept saying, ‘If only I was black.’ He felt discriminated against. And that really triggered something for me. I said, ‘I’m going to be black, too,’ ” she tells me. “I had wanted to move to the States because of the presence of African-Americans. When I landed at JFK, my first impression is being welcomed by all of these African, or maybe Jamaican, air people that help you at the airport with your luggage. They were so kind. Welcome! I was so happy to see mixed races. In Italy, they are in the street selling gadgets.”



And this, which is just an affront to Beyoncé:



As for popular culture, she’s working on “a Barbie doll project” for Mattel. Perhaps some of them will have “caramel Beyoncé skin,” she says, acknowledging murmurings (including from her husband) that Beyoncé’s “Formation” video owes her some creative debt. But she doesn’t get into any of it too deeply, she says, because she has only the vaguest idea that someone named “Beyoncé” actually exists.




Is there more? Oh, yes, there is more. Beecroft calls her home a “favela,” despite the fact that she enthusiastically explains her need for wealth, because she has “nannies and tutors and trainers” to pay. She describes Kanye as her “Orestes,” which is a comically misplaced reference to Greek mythology. And she insists that everyone in South Sudan is an Alek Wek lookalike.


And we could go on.


But the bottom line is this: When a white woman named Rachel Dolezal confessed to deceiving the Spokane NAACP chapter by presenting herself as a black women, the world reacted accordingly. But when a wealthy performance artist like Beecroft tries her hand at similarly habitual cultural appropriation, she lands herself smack dab in the middle of New York Magazine  ― with as many art world endorsements as she could muster. 


In the profile, interviewer Larocca was, at times, pretty forgiving of Beecroft’s wild life assertions: “She appears unaware of — or at least unconcerned with — the debates and discussions that captivate most members of these [art and fashion] industries (and their critics). Nor is she preoccupied with political correctness, and in fact seems to enjoy blithely poking at its taboos.”


Lilly Workneh, senior editor of HuffPost Black Voices, has a better take: “You can’t adopt blackness at your own will just so you can try to make your work more palatable for people of color/black folks. She’s a white woman who is deliberately questioning her race and trying to claim blackness or black culture because her work revolves around it and that’s not only delusional, it’s totally disrespectful ― both to the same black people she works with and those she seeks praise from. It’s appropriation to the max.”

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Latina Redefines What It Means To Be Undocumented In Powerful Video

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Brenzy Solorzano is here to redefine what it means to be undocumented.


In fact, in a video posted on Monday by mitú, the Los Angeles-based Latina makes a case for why she is in fact actually “documented.” She also wants to let people know that she’s certainly not in the United States looking for a hand out either. 


And to the critics who think otherwise, she says: 



I just wanna let you know that I am not freeloading off your f***king government because as far as I’m concerned, if I’m going to school and I’ve never gone to bed without a meal in my stomach and I keep a roof over my head, that’s because I’ve earned it all by myself. 



Solorzano also explains in the video why she’s never liked being referred to as a “dreamer” by politicians when she actually considers herself a “do-er.” At the end of the video, she urges viewers to recognize why immigrants like her cannot be undocumented. 


“So maybe if you took a look beyond what’s in front of your eyes, you’d understand that there’s no such thing as being undocumented, that borders only exist because we create them,” she said. “To be documented is to choose to live, to dream, to exist, to fight, and aspire with no barriers. That’s why I am here. I am DOCUMENTED, and no one― no one― can take that from me.”


Watch the full video above. 

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Artist Transforms Vintage Flower Photos Into Your New Best Friends

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Have you ever found yourself in a garden, staring in awe at the violets, pansies, carnations and roses hovering nearby, wondering if they, “Fantasia”-style, were looking back at you? Well, if a grumpy orchid has yet to throw you shade, the time is now. 


In her series “Flora,” artist Angela Deane paints on top of found vintage floral postcards, creating anthropomorphized flower beds that are either adorable or terrifying, depending on whether or not they show their teeth. 


“I’ve been painting on found photos for several years now,” Deane wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. “I like how they act as a kind of blueprint to a new image, a new life, a collaboration of sorts between myself and a stranger.”



Deane discovered these particular images at a flea market in a batch of vintage wildlife postcards. “There was something about the 1970s feel to them that I loved ― the way the color is saturated and imperfect in places on the card stock, the inherent kitsch of cheesy romance in some, the simplicity of others.”


The artist left with a miniature garden of her own ― in the form of 30 retro postcards. 


When she began painting, Deane rendered her flowers in states of despair and exasperation. “I was feeling angry and sad about the injustice and pain of these recent times,” she said, “and I looked at the flowers spread out in my studio and thought Mother Nature is also wailing, angry, crying.”



But Deane quickly realized that Mother Nature is not so one-dimensional. She convinced herself that the garden of her dreams would surely express feelings of joy and exuberance, as well. 


“I suppose it’s a mix between my own feelings, day-to-day projected onto these flowers that then become creatures, and, at the same time, each of them [suggesting] a mood to me,” she explained. “The density of color, the folds of a petal, the eyes so naturally find their place and expression. It’s wonderful to watch them spring to life.”


Look through the snapshots of Deane’s delightfully animated take on the natural world below. Be warned, you may never be able to enjoy “alone time” in the outdoors again. As Deane said: “My studio looks like a funny room of a hundred little friends now.”


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7 Lessons For Raising A Toddler, From 1 Hilarious Dad

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As first-time parents watch their babies grow into toddlers, they reach a new level of child-rearing expertise. That seems to be the case for La Guardia Cross anyway. 


The “New Father Chronicles” vlogger decided to share some of his new parenting wisdom in a hilarious new video called, “7 Daddy and Toddler Lessons.”


In the video, he shows what he’s learned from raising his now-21-month-old daughter Amalah ― with adorable interruptions from the toddler herself. The lessons range from how to decipher toddler babble to how to move a sleeping toddler.


Watch the video above for all his toddler survival tips.

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Barbra Streisand, Cher To Rally With Gay Fans For Hillary Clinton

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Two of Hollywood’s most legendary divas are calling members of their gay fanbases to unite in support of Hillary Clinton


Barbra Streisand will perform at a Sept. 9 LGBT campaign fundraiser for Clinton in New York, Buzzfeed reported Tuesday. The 74-year-old Babs, who’s currently touring the U.S. in support of her forthcoming album, “Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway,” is slated to croon for the Democratic presidential nominee and her supporters at an LGBT for Hillary event at Cipriani Wall Street. 


Meanwhile, Clinton has also been endorsed by none other than Cher. The singer-actress, who celebrated her 70th birthday in May, will headline an Aug. 21 fundraiser in Provincetown, Massachusetts ― Cape Cod’s premier LGBT resort town, the Cape Cod Times reported Aug. 2. 


Both Streisand and Cher have been outspoken in their support of Clinton for quite some time. At the Aug. 2 opening of her “Barbra: The Music… The Mem’ries… The Magic!” tour in Los Angeles, Streisand repeatedly bashed Republican nominee Donald Trump before a stirring performance of one of her signature tunes, “Happy Days Are Here Again.”


Noting that she’d already performed “Happy Days” for three sitting presidents (John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Bill Clinton), Streisand vowed to sing the song once more for “the next President Clinton,” Entertainment Weekly reported


Similarly, Cher has always been one to speak her mind when it comes to political affairs, and has praised Clinton numerous times on Twitter. 










Like Streisand, Cher also didn’t mince words when it comes to Trump.  






Of course, the experience of cheering Clinton on alongside your favorite stars doesn’t come cheap. Tickets for the Streisand-headlined gala start at $1,200 and top out at $250,000, while the tickets that remain for Cher’s event start at $2,700. Even so, this is history in the making, folks.  


Your move, Madonna

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British Library To Celebrate Harry Potter’s 20th Anniversary With New Exhibition

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This article originally appeared on artnet News.



Believe it or not, 2017 will mark the 20th anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Sorcerer’s Stone in the U.S.), the first volume in J.K. Rowling’s wildly popular book series. In honor of the occasion, London’s British Library is teaming up with the famous author to present a historically-minded Harry Potter exhibition.


The Hogwarts library, of course, figures prominently in the series, with Harry and his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, spending hours researching obscure tomes to help them in their adventures. During a moment of epiphany in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, famously-bookish Hermione exclaims, “I’ve got to go to the library!”



The exhibition, “will take readers on a journey to the heart of the Harry Potter stories,” reads the press release, and will illustrate Rowling’s own reliance on library research through objects that reveal the historical basis for the magical world of the books.


Centuries-old treasures from the library collection will be on display, including “wizarding books, manuscripts and objects,” which will be paired with material from the archives of the author and her UK publisher, Bloomsbury. (Hopefully, this will include the opportunity to see firsthand Rowling’s original Philosopher’s Stone manuscript, featuring her hand-drawn illustrations, but this has not been confirmed.)



The exhibition doesn’t appear to have a title yet, but it does have a hashtag, #HarryPotter20. The anniversary will also be celebrated with new Hogwarts house-themed editions of the first book, allowing fans to choose their favorite among Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin.



“We at the British Library are thrilled to be working with J.K. Rowling and with Bloomsbury to mark the twentieth anniversary of Harry Potter, and to inspire fans with the magic of our own British Library collections,” said Jamie Andrews, head of culture and learning at the British Library in a statement.


The exhibition is on view at the British Library from October 20, 2017–February 28, 2018.

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15 Cartoons New Parents Will Relate To Instantly

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When Bonnie Kimmerly was on maternity leave with her first child, she started sketching cartoons about the struggles of new parenthood. Now over a year later, she’s turning those illustrated adventures into a book.


Mama Is Drawing a Blank features Kimmerly’s musings about the first year of motherhood, alongside spot-on cartoons about topics like kid messes, babywearing and mealtime with infants.


“I hope that parents can relate to my stories and realize that they are not alone in their struggles with pregnancy, breastfeeding, sleep, and whatnot,” Kimmerly told The Huffington Post. “I also hope that they can find a moment to laugh and not take everything too seriously.”


Keep scrolling for a sampling of cartoons from Mama Is Drawing A Blank. And visit Kimmerly’s website, Instagram and Facebook page for more parenting art.


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This Powerful Artwork Will Move You To Make A Difference

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Rock the Vote’s “Truth To Power” campaign is all about engaging young people during this year’s high-stakes election. And with hot-button issues like climate change, mass incarceration, police brutality and other dominant headlines, the organization carved a space for artists to share their takes on the pressing topics. 


HuffPost’s Alyona Minkovski took a tour of Rock the Vote’s pop-up art exhibit, which ran in Philadelphia during the Democratic National Convention in July, to check out a few of the pieces on display. Luis Calderin, the organization’s vice president of marketing and creative, explained that the “issues-based art show” was created to spark a dialogue about the problems of today, rather than focus on individual candidates.


“What we wanted to do was bring people together and have issues-based conversations, from the panelists to the art work,” he told Minkovski.


One of the more than 250 pieces on display was Michael Murphy’s “Identity Crisis,” which speaks to the gun violence problem in the United States. From one perspective, the suspended guns appear to be organized in the shape of the United States, but from another, they collectively form the shape of a large handgun. 




The art show also highlighted the numerous lives that are lost to police violence every year. Artist Ann Lewis chose to showcase the issue with her aptly-titled art piece called “ ... and counting,” which documented the hundreds of people who have been killed this year with a striking, visual presentation. The installation was made up of more than 600 toe tags, each of which hung from the ceiling and bore the name of a person killed by police. 


One of the most poignant aspects of the installation is that the piece isn’t truly finished. A few nameless toe tags also hung from the ceiling, leaving space to add to the exhibit as the number of people killed by police grows. 



Calderin urged those who felt moved by the installation to speak up in hopes of stopping the violence.


“If this statistic matters to you, if this tag as an individual matters to you — that’s someone in your neighborhood or that’s your family member — this is your time to make a difference,” he said.  


Check out the video above to see more pieces and hear from one of the artists featured in the show. 

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This Poet Says What Every Person With Multicultural Heritage Needs To Hear

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Omar Musa wants to use his voice any way he can ― whether written, spoken, screamed, or sung. The second generation Malaysian-Australian has devoted his life to weaving stories in a variety of habitats, environments, tempos and beats. Some that slip off the tongue with an easy rhythm, others that are best silently mulled over on a written page. 


Musa, who made a name for himself as a novelist, slam poet and TED-talk giver extraordinaire, recently released a hip hop album titled “Dead Centre,” officially adding rapper to his repertoire. For Musa, however, the divisions between media are subsidiary. All are simply vessels through which to express the same words, stories and ideas.


For this reason, rapping does not symbolize some sort of departure or new beginning. If anything, it’s a homecoming. “Hip-hop is considered to be very modern but we’ve inherited this energy – the storytelling, music-making and poetry – from our ancestors and forefathers,” Musa explained in an interview with The Guardian. “There’s this same ancient seam running through it, no matter where you’re from in the world.”



This same message flows freely through one of the standout songs on his album “Dead Centre,” titled “The Past Becomes You.” The song features Musa along with Tongan-Australian rapper Hau Latukefu, Sikh-Punjabi rapper L-Fresh the Lion, and Israeli-Australian singer Lior Attar. The four individuals recite poignant oral histories, touching on their family origins, the struggles they’ve faced, and the power of music and words to transcend hate. 


The video, directed by Stackhat, features the musicians in both plainclothes and their respective traditional garments. Dressed in a Baju MelayuMusa weaves together past and present, his own journey with that of his father, who was also a poet. “Did they know it when they planted the seed, that the poetry would grow into a family tree?” Musa raps. “Many fruits, many flavors, the canopy to shade us, the music and the leaves help the planet to breathe. We’re passing on our breath to our children.” 


Visions of the musicians themselves are interspersed with clips of Malaysian, Tongan and Punjabi culture, faces that, Musa says, “often don’t get traction on television screens.” The artists craft an epic patchwork of eras, origins, families and traditions, using language and music to transcend the boundaries that so often seem impenetrable. Also, you may nod your head to it without noticing. 


We reached out to Musa to learn more about the song and new album. Read on below.





You’ve spoken in previous interviews about feeling like an “in-betweener” ― at once Malaysian and Australian, among other identities. Do you have a memory of when or how you first began to identify with this idea of living in the space between? 


Hard to say. I think when you grow up in an Australia where whiteness is often the measuring stick of legitimacy, as a brown, black or ethnic person you feel it almost as soon as you gain consciousness.


But I’d say it was a connection of two events when I was around 9. Someone in the playground in Australia saying “go back to where you come from” but then soon afterward going to Malaysia (where my dad is from) for the first time, and a kid teasing me for being the “white boy.” It’s easy to let these types of experiences make you feel lost and dislocated, but I try to think of being an “in-betweener” as an enriching, empowering thing. It’s an ongoing struggle, though, and probably ever will be. 


At what point in your life did you realize you wanted to become a poet? Was there a specific person or work that especially influenced you? 


I never had the outright realization that I wanted to become a poet, but I knew I liked poetry from a young age, maybe 10. My parents both love poetry and my dad was a poet in Malaysia. He used to tell me that he and his friends used to make up improvised poems called “pantuns” for fun in the shanty, and that poetry was best when it was performed. What I got from that was that poetry lived and breathed, that it was liberating, that it could be a part of daily life, and maybe most importantly, that it was fun. 


What about hip-hop? Did hip-hop always play an important role in your life? 


I remember hearing Snoop Dogg on the radio in the early ‘90s and thinking, “That sounds really cool.” But it wasn’t until I came across Ice Cube, Wu Tang Clan and Public Enemy in my early teens that the penny dropped. In my mind, this was the sort of poetry my father had been telling me about: living poetry, full of breath and blood. It was cool, it told stories, it was personal, it was political, and it was made by people of color, unlike a lot of the poetry we had to read at school. And a lot of rappers referenced Islam in their rhymes, so I felt like I could relate to it. 


What, in your view, does hip-hop offer that other musical genres cannot? 


I think the verse-heavy nature and lyrical density of rap lends itself well to delving really deeply into stories and ideas. I also think that because rapping is almost spoken, it aligns itself closely with oral traditions that feature so heavily in cultures all around the world, which I guess is what “The Past Becomes You” is about.





Was it difficult to transition between slam poetry and hip-hop lyrics? What do you think distinguishes the genres, or connects them? 


It wasn’t difficult. It seemed very natural. But it took me a while to realize that spoken word afforded the space to play with timing and treat the text like a monologue, that I didn’t have to adhere so strictly to a beat. Then again, you can rap without music and do spoken word with music, so I try not to make too many distinctions. They are both about bringing words to life in an embodied, physical way. 


What was your initial vision for “The Past Becomes You”? Did the song go through any major changes while you were working on it? 


Me and Joelistics (producer from Melbourne) wanted to make “The Past Becomes You” really cinematic and textured. Because it had so many voices on it, we didn’t want it to seem like a stereotypical posse track. We conceived of it as being in the same vein as N.W.A.-era Dr. Dre or Bomb Squad production, where the beat completely changes three or four times during the course of the song.


I thought of it as epic, like a sea journey. But it was a bit overblown at first, so Joelistics had to chop it back a bit. Lior has sung ancient Hebrew hymns with symphonies, so he definitely brought that epic flavor.


Can you talk about the imagery you incorporated into the music video? What is the significance of these images and what do you hope to communicate to your viewers? 


We wanted to show some faces of a modern Australia that often don’t get traction on television screens. We wanted to celebrate the beauty and vibrancy of our cultural heritages ― Malaysian, Tongan and Punjabi ― and how, as rappers, we have inherited the spirit of very ancient practices, and how we carry them with us at all times. By I think the director, Stackhat, from Sydney, did a stellar job. I suppose by flicking between our modern clothes and traditional dress, we were making a point about how its OK to have multiple or hybrid cultural identities in an Australian world that so often wants to make identity narrow or rigid. 


Do you think you’ve faced additional hurdles in your career due to Islamophobia? How has dealing with prejudice shaped your work? 


In terms of my career, I think it’s less a matter of outright prejudice, than well-meaning people wanting you to be an “Every Muslim,” or a spokesperson when you don’t want to be. It can be very reductive.


I’ve faced hurdles in the world due to Islamophobia, that’s for sure. I’ve had hate mail from psychopathic anti-Muslim keyboard warriors. The other month, I had an immigration officer in the U.S. really trying to intimidate me and at a certain point he said in this really withering way, “You’re a writer, are you? What do you write about? Drones?” What a weird thing to say, but I can only assume he had asked this particular question because of my Muslim name.


I’ve come to expect that people will sling vitriol at you, try to intimidate you. That your very existence sticks in their craw. But I’d like to think it made me fiercer and braver as a writer and a human. As famous Aboriginal writer Uncle Kevin Gilbert once said: “You sharpen your spear on the hardest stone!”


Check out Musa on Twitter and Facebook and download “Dead Centre” on Spotify or iTunes

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Ira Glass Explains Why 'Serial' Became Popular So Much Faster Than 'This American Life'

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With “Serial” fans anxiously awaiting information on the third season of the acclaimed podcast, “This American Life” host and executive producer Ira Glass reminisced with HuffPost about the initial success of the series. 


Glass, who spoke with host Alyona Minkovski alongside Mike Birbiglia to discuss their new comedy “Don’t Think Twice,” explained that it took his radio show four years to garner a million listeners per episode. “Serial,” on the other hand which Glass also works on, reached the same benchmark in just four weeks when it began in 2014, he said.


“It’s so different because you don’t have to work through the middle man of the radio stations and get people to listen at a certain time,” Glass said. “And just people who like podcasts now are looking for podcasts that they might like. It’s kind of like a growing market and people feel like, ‘Oh, I kind of like this. Tell me another.’”


But even without the extra steps of having to navigate radio politics, those working on “Serial” still didn’t anticipate it becoming the runaway success that it did.  


“We were really surprised, like all of us who work on ‘Serial,’ that it became that popular,” Glass said. He explained that the show’s host Sarah Koenig and producer, Julie Snyder, first approached it thinking, “Well, no one’s going to hear this, so let’s just do whatever we want.”


Watch the full conversation with Ira Glass and Mike Birbiglia below.  




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Mom-To-Be's Stunning Maternity Photos Are A Pastel Dream Come True

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A mom-to-be’s gorgeous milk bath maternity photos are taking the internet by storm.


Neva Michelle Santiago of Neva Michelle Photography took photos of expecting mom Keturah Antongiorgi on Aug. 2. Antongiorgi, an army officer stationed in central Texas who is expecting a son in September, knew she wanted to incorporate a milk bath after finding similar photo shoots online.


“All of them were beautiful, yet still owned its own sense of uniqueness,” she wrote on her blog. “Something about the way the milky-white water disguises just enough lured me in.”



The shoot took place at Antongiorgi’s home and actually required coffee creamer, not milk, to get the water’s milky glow. Santiago, who also took Antongiorgi’s sex reveal photos, chose the flowers placed around the mom-to-be.


“As for the color scheme, I wanted it to be soft and feminine, so I chose to go with more pastels and white colors,” Santiago told The Huffington Post. “I wanted her to remember how peaceful and happy she felt in the last month before her baby boy arrived.”


On the same day as the photo shoot, Santiago posted one of the photos as a sneak peek on Facebook that has gotten more than 1,600 reactions. The photos got even more attention when Antongiorgi’s cousin tweeted one from the shoot that racked up more than 28,000 retweets and 64,000 likes as of Wednesday. 


Santiago told HuffPost she was “overwhelmed with gratitude” for all the support of her photos and called the shoot “an absolute dream.” Antongiorgi echoed those feelings and wrote on her blog that she was “ecstatic with the end result.”


“You really can expect nothing less from Michelle!” she wrote. “She’s truly talented and passionate when it comes to her job and it shows in her work. What an awesome experience!”


See more photos from the maternity shoot below. 


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Cynthia Erivo Just Slayed A Beyoncé Song For #Ham4Ham

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Cynthia Erivo, Tony-winning Broadway superstar and generally beautiful human being, just performed a live rendition of Beyoncé’s “Sandcastles.”


We repeat: Cynthia Erivo, the personification of all things melodious and great, just sang a song from “Lemonade.” And somehow, the world hasn’t spun off its axis into some alternate reality where Erivo and Beyoncé are co-queens of the universe.


The cover was part of #Ham4Ham ― a series of live performances that take place outside of the Richard Rodgers Theatre, aka, the home of the musical “Hamilton.” The current “Color Purple” star stopped by to belt Bey’s slow jam to adoring fans, all the while rocking one of the best high-waisted ensembles we’ve ever seen.





And yes, as host Rory O’Malley correctly screams in the video above, Cynthia is the greatest vocal force on Broadway. Remember when she serenaded Misty Copeland with a rendition of George Gershwin’s “Summertime”?







Swoon.


For more “Hamilton” coverage:


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Please Enjoy This Collection Of Kanye West's Weirdest Noises

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Kanye West loves making weird noises while rapping almost more than he likes frowning. 


YouTube group BORT collected some of Kanye’s unique shrieks, shouts, AHHHs, deep breaths and roars for a minute-and-a-half video. 


Set against an orange backdrop that would make Yeezy proud, a true West fan will be able to pick up on the songs sampled in the video. And who knows ― with the right finessing, this could be Pablo’s next single. HEH?!




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‘Stranger Things' Intro Gets Smiley, Hug-Filled 80s Sitcom Makeover

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There are enough 80s references in Netflix’s “Stranger Things” to rival an Ernest Cline novel. The summer hit weaves in nods to “The Goonies,” “Poltergeist,” “E.T.,” and more though out the series.


But the one thing about the 80s that the show is completely void of is a nod to the cheesy, family sitcom.


That is until now — and if you like to geek out over the show, you’ll like this a waffle lot.


YouTuber Tim Bennett has nixed the series’ eerie intro and reimagined it as a happy-go-lucky 80s sitcom that you need to see and hear in order to fully appreciate.


For instance, Bennett takes the red, Stephen King novel-inspired title font, fills it in and makes it a sunnier, happier yellow:



He even makes title cards for each actor, using the show’s few feel-good moments to emphasize sitcom intro tropes.


There’s the sweet kid baring a toothy smile:



We’ve got your dopey donut-eating cop:



Here’s the wacky mom:



And then there’s that kid who just happens to have the perfect face for any show on ABC’s Friday night lineup in the 1980s:



Bennett also swaps the show’s cool but spooky synthesizer theme song for Randy Newman’s song “Strange Things” from the “Toy Story” soundtrack, which just adds to its snuggly vibe.


The parody has just one flaw – the exclusion of Shannon Purser.


Purser portrays the character Barb, a high school student (and style icon!!!) many fans find so relatable, she has spawned her own hashtag on Twitter called #WeAreBarb






Expect #WeAreWaitingForBarbsTitleCard to trend soon.

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Lucky Tourists Discover 400-Year-Old Petroglyphs On Hawaii Beach

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Long walks on the beach are a given for any tropical vacation, but rarely do they result in anything more than a glorious sunset.


But for two visitors to the Hawaiian island of Oahu, a quick stroll on a beach in the town of Waianae turned into a historic occasion when they stumbled upon a series of what are thought to be 400-year-old petroglyphs.



Petroglyphs are images carved into rock surfaces by past civilizations. Tens of thousands of them have been found throughout the Hawaiian islands, often depicting people, nature and human activities.


Lonnie Watson and Mark Louviere of Fort Worth, Texas spotted the artifacts when the sands shifted with the ocean waves, revealing a total of 17 figures, thought to be carved into the sandstone by ancient Hawaiians.


“For some reason there was a beam of light…just a beam,” Watson said in a Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) press release. “It landed right on one of them and for some reason I just turned my head. I said, look, it was just a stroke of luck.”


Talk about two guys from Texas being this blessed and this honored,” he said in a DLNR video. “I’m humbled about this whole thing.”



Though this is likely not the first time the petroglyphs have been seen by modern-day humans, it does mark the first time they have been made known to DLNR officials. Now, the agency’s State Historic Preservation Division is working with the U.S. Army to document and preserve the artifacts.


Ancient petroglyphs have been found throughout the Hawaiian islands, but experts say these ones are particularly unique.


“We find a lot of petroglyphs that are a foot or so tall, but [one of these] measures 4-5 feet from head to toe. It’s pretty impressive,” said Army archaeologist Alton Exzabe in a release.


He also says the location of the newly uncovered petroglyphs makes them a rare find.


“The Army in Hawaiʻi manages several thousand archaeological sites, but this is the first one with petroglyphs directly on the shoreline,” he said.





Glen Kila, a Waianae resident who is a descendent of the families who first settled on the Waianae Coast, says these petroglyphs are an important part of native Hawaiian heritage, serving as recorded history.


They record our genealogy and religion,” he said in press release, adding that the petroglyphs “can only be interpreted by the lineal descendants who are familiar with [the area’s] history and culture.”


Since the petroglyphs are so culturally and historically significant, the DLNR emphasized that visitors should feel free to look at, but not touch the fragile figures.


See more photos of the fascinating carvings in the slideshow below:


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31 Tremendous, Classy, Very Terrific Portraits Of Donald Trump

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If nothing else, this election season is providing Americans with a vast trove of drawings, portraits and comics inspired by GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump.


The Huffington Post has been collecting them as part of its new political art project called If This Art Could Vote, which features works about the presidential candidates and major election issues like income inequality, social justice, immigration, climate change and gun violence. (You can submit your own art right here.)


Enjoy the assortment of Trump portraits below, or scroll through our full collection. Art is getting great again! 









































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These Quirky Illustrations Show The Delightfully Weird Side Of Love

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Artist Sarah Graley and her boyfriend Stef have been dating for five years. In that time, their quirky relationship has provided plenty of fodder for her comic series “Our Super Adventure.”



“Every comic I draw as part of this series is a real-life event,” Graley told The Huffington Post. “So all the super cute and also super gross stuff really happened!”



Day 2 at #glasgowcomiccon !!!!

A photo posted by sarahgraley (@sarahgraley) on




The couple lives Birmingham, UK with their four cats Pesto, Toby, Wilson and Pixel, who frequently appear in the comic series as well. 


“Stef and I are super comfortable around each other and both kind of forget sometimes that we’re not the same person,” the artist told HuffPost. “I know that probably sounds really mushy, but it’s true! Stef is also pretty sassy, which I think is easy to tell from the comics.”




“Stef is an amazing boyfriend,” she added. “We have so much fun together and we’re both just really on the same level.” 



Six years ago, the couple first connected online. Graley was creating merchandise for Johnny Foreigner, a band that Stef was also a fan of. They began chatting online before meeting in person at a concert. A year later, they started dating and a year after that, they moved to Birmingham together. 



“He's got my back and I really appreciate it,” Graley said. 


Below, even more comics that capture their funny relationship dynamic:












To see Graley’s other work, head over to her website.


H/T Bored Panda

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'Pete's Dragon' Is Summer's Best Blockbuster

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Earlier this week, I praised the young heroes of “Stranger Things” and “Little Men,” two of summer’s finest pop culture offerings. The protagonists’ ingenuity in the face of stubborn, skeptical adults is enough to ward off monsters of all stripes. This weekend, another movie joins their ranks: “Pete’s Dragon,” which pits the titular woodland kid against egotists who hope to profit off his bestial pal’s mystifying existence. 


“Pete’s Dragon” is a live-action reboot of the 1977 sing-along that has assumed second-tier status in the Disney canon. The new version, an indie-to-blockbuster transition for “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” maestro David Lowery, is superior, and I say that as someone who enjoyed the original as a youngster. Its excellence makes up for the mediocrity of Disney’s other two summer releases, “Finding Dory” and “The BFG.” In practice, it’s more on par with April’s “The Jungle Book,” channeling a similar serenity from which noisier cinematic spectacles could take pointers. 



There’s a great deal to admire about “Pete’s Dragon,” which draws the most heinous summer movie season in recent memory to a stronger close. After almost every reboot or sequel faltered, it’s nice to cling to this hopeful note. Lowery’s $65 million update is a small life raft battling the tides of Hollywood’s bromidic mainstream output. It’s also a cathartic tearjerker that offers a comfort we desperately need amid the collective debris of 2016. 


“Pete’s Dragon” starts with a car crash that orphans 4-year-old Pete. Stranded in a dense woods, the panicked tot is comforted by the arrival of a doe-eyed green dragon that quickly becomes his protector. So begins a buddy tale of awe-inducing magnitude. But this is not a redux of “The Jungle Book,” which also fixated on a young boy aging in the wilderness. The dragon, whom Pete names Elliott, is nonverbal and uninvolved in whatever creature politics might haunt his homeland. In keeping, Lowery’s sense of setting is a marvel. The semi-feral Pete scales trees and flounces through nature in front of a camera that treats him like a slice of meditative bliss. By the time the film fast-forwards six years, Pete’s sad origin story has become the opposite ― he is liberated by his ignorance of society’s conventions. All he needs is the company of his pal Elliott. 



To boot, the forest is a venerated part of this unnamed city, which boasts nary a cell phone or other significant marker of time. (There’s a record player in one scene, but is that an indicator of era or quaintness?) A devoted park ranger (Bryce Dallas Howard) knows the thicket’s ins and outs, and courtesy of her rosy father (Robert Redford), she also knows the lore about an elusive dragon that roams through it. But when certain townsfolk learn that Elliott is indeed real, they decide he is a better source of revenue than he is wonderment. The movie’s second half finds Pete learning about life outside the woods, and then, in an indictment of greedy capitalism, trying to rescue his colossal friend from being caged and displayed. There’s a chase sequence that will thrill kids, but it’s hardly the highlight. That belongs to the many wordless moments, roving scenes of discovery that present a world far grander than the one outside of your theater’s four walls. 


The stateliest part of “Pete’s Dragon”? It does not showboat or traffic in cheap nostalgia. The project justifies its existence from the opening frame. It’s a sweet yarn about nice people willing to believe in the so-called magic of a storied dragon. Pete's adult support is more steadfast than that of the "Little Men” and “Stranger Things" protagonists, but this movie captures the same enterprise that comes with childlike wonder. By the time Redford closes the film with a voice-over about growing up, “Pete’s Dragon” will have already won you over. It wears earnestness on its verdant sleeve, and the story is better for it. A little soul is what this summer needs.

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