What if your favorite children’s book was (*gasp*) written by a lousy kid-hater? 

Well, if your childhood fave was Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny, or any of Margaret Wise Brown’s many classic picture books, rest easy: Notwithstanding recent reports to the contrary, Brown did not loathe ankle-biters.

A New York Post review of a new biography of Brown, The Great Green Room by Amy Gary, boldly termed the late author “a bisexual rebel who didn’t like kids.” Though the biography itself explores Brown’s romances with men and at least one woman, and her unconventional career and love life, it’s fairly thin on evidence that the writer didn’t like kids. 

Instead, as evidence, the Post marshals up a throwaway line from a 1946 Life profile. In response to the interviewer noting that her penchant for hunting is unusual considering that cuddly animals feature largely in her children’s books, Brown commented, “Well, I don’t especially like children, either. At least not as a group. I won’t let anybody get away with anything just because he’s little.”

In this, as the Post review points out, she was in good company. Several great children’s authors have also characterized their approach to children as take-no-prisoners rather than cuddly. Maurice Sendak told The Guardian that he refused “to cater to the bullshit of innocence.”

“There’s a cruelty to childhood, there’s an anger,” he once said. 

Perhaps this isn’t a coincidence ― there could be creative value in an author looking at children not as an innocent monolith, a tabula rasa on which to inscribe ideas about the world, but as highly articulated individuals with their own personalities, flaws and conflicts. Not only that but, as Sendak hinted, individuals with underdeveloped empathy and self-control.

There could be creative value in an author looking at children not as an innocent monolith ... but as highly articulated individuals with their own personalities, flaws and conflicts.

One quality evident in In the Great Green Room is Brown’s fascination with children, and her unusual ability to study them and get inside their experiences. Like many famous children’s writers ― again, Sendak, as well as Louisa May Alcott and A.A. Milne ― she chafed at writing for kids, feeling that it wasn’t a respected literary calling. But while her work for adults never caught hold, her children’s books were wildly successful, in no small part because, from early in her career, she patiently observed the reactions of young students to her work.

“She kept extensive notes on what captured the children’s attention and what bored them,” writes Gary. “The children, too, shared stories, songs, and poems with Margaret so she could home in on the words they used at each age level [...] She was in awe of how naturally the children expressed themselves.”

Though books like Goodnight Moon might seem basic, they arose from years of close study of children; how they speak, think and observe the world around them. Though Brown never had children of her own, she did have close relationships with several children throughout her life, according to Gary. Her longtime on-and-off lover, Bill Gaston, had sons, whom she cared for deeply and hoped to be a stepmother to. Eventually, Gaston’s infidelity ended the affair before it ever led to marriage. She also became close friends with a former student, Dot, and was the godmother of her daughter, Laurel.

“Through Dot’s life,” writes Gary, “Margaret witnessed motherhood firsthand. Margaret watched Dot open her children to the world around them in the day and comfort them at bedtime.” 

Loving your friend and her kids isn’t proof you love kids, sure. But saying you “don’t especially like children [...] as a group” isn’t proof you hate them, either. And if Brown’s life spent learning from and writing for children proves one thing, it’s that she offered kids the best kind of love possible: a love based on honesty, openness, and really, genuinely seeing them.

Every Friday, HuffPost’s Culture Shift newsletter helps you figure out which books you should read, art you should check out, movies you should watch and music should listen to. Sign up here.

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Newlyweds Lindsay Pergola and Richie Guarini skipped a traditional first dance in favor of something much, much better: a phenomenal performance of the most iconic “Dirty Dancing” scene.

At their Dec. 31 wedding in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, the couple surprised their guests with the “Time of My Life” dance that Baby (Jennifer Grey) and Johnny (Patrick Swayze) performed at the end of the 1987 movie. And, of course, they nailed the famous lift. 

“It was my favorite movie growing up and I always had the idea in the back of my head ever since I could remember,” the bride told The Huffington Post. “Then when we got engaged I asked Richie if he would do it with me and he agreed!”

A relative posted a video of the performance to Facebook after the wedding. It has since been viewed more than 12 million times.

The couple’s family and friends were blown away by the big surprise. 

“Everyone flipped out and all we could hear was everyone screaming and clapping!” the bride said. “Afterwards everyone was like, ‘OMG I can’t believe you guys did that, that was amazing! Everyone was shocked over the fact that I got Richie to do that and that he pulled it off!” 

Lindsay has been a dancer her whole life and teaches classes at Essex Dance Academy in Fairfield, New Jersey. Richie, however, had no previous dance experience. They began practicing a month before the wedding, just a couple times a week -- though you’d never know it based on their stellar performance. 

Watch the couple bring down the house in the video above. 

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After learning his wife wanted more photos of their kids, Phillip Haumesser set out to fulfill her request. In the process, he learned to look at photography from a different angle.

Phillip takes stunning photos of his sons, 1-year-old Reuben and 3-year-old Richard, on the 10-acre farm he and his wife, Natasha, own. Knowing Phillip’s interest in photography, Natasha surprised him with a camera for his birthday a few months after mentioning she wanted more pictures of the kids. That’s when Phillip decided his sons would be his subjects.

Everything didn’t go so well at first though. In fact, Phillip described his first photo shoot with the kids as a “nightmare.” 

“The kids got bored immediately because Dad was trying to get them to pose and sit still, something I discovered quickly that is not the natural state for children 2 and under,” he told The Huffington Post.

After that, Phillip decided to take a break from snapping photos. During his time off, he found the work of photographers Lisa Holloway and Iwona Podlasińska. Inspired by their photos, he decided to give photography another shot with a different approach.

“I decided we were just going to try to make this fun and not care about how the photos turned out, and if we got some good ones it would be a plus,” he said. “So we did just that. I just let the kids start playing in the barnyard with the animals and I would even get in there and play with them, sometimes I forget we are even taking photos, then I’ll just step back and snap some photos.”

Phillip and Natasha loved the final results. Phillip admitted to The Huffington Post that his sons are more creative than he is so he simply follows them around to see what they do, whether that means playing with the cows and chickens or staring up at the sky. Phillip said the photos have become a “photo diary of their everyday lives.”

After being interested in photography for so long, Phillip has finally seen how fun the creative hobby can be. He made it clear though that his sons are what make photography so rewarding.

“I found my excuse to learn photography, it’s spending time with my kids,” he said. “And that is now my most favorite thing to do!

See more photos Phillip took of his sons below. For more of his work, head to Facebook or his site.

H/T Bored Panda

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Singer Solange Knowles stuns on the latest cover of “Interview” magazine and opens up in an interview conducted by her superstar sister Beyoncé. 

Solange, who released her acclaimed album “A Seat At The Table” in September, talks with Beyoncé about a number of captivating topics including womanism, family, love and some of the most personal decisions she’s made to date. In the interview, which is conducted over a phone conversation the Knowles sisters shared, Beyoncé prompts Solange to discuss how she has been able to define and express herself through her art. It includes comes some congratulatory praise from big sis, too.  

“I remember thinking, ‘My little sister is going to be something super special,’ because you always seemed to know what you wanted. And I’m just curious, where did that come from?” Beyonce asks in the interview, to which Solange replies:

“I have no idea, to be honest! I always knew what I wanted. We damn sure know that I wasn’t always right. [both laugh] But I’d sit firm, whether I was right or wrong. I guess a part of that was being the baby of the family and being adamant that, in a house of five, my voice was being heard. Another part is that I remember being really young and having this voice inside that told me to trust my gut. And my gut has been really, really strong in my life.” 

The two go on to pay tribute to their mother Tina Lawson and father Matthew Knowles for the valuable lessons they instilled in them growing up, both of whom are featured on Solange’s latest album.

The “Cranes In The Sky” singer also opens up about the inspiration and meaning behind the hit single and why she chose to bare her soul through her music. 

“’Cranes in the Sky’ is actually a song that I wrote eight years ago. It’s the only song on the album that I wrote independently of the record, and it was a really rough time,” Solange says. “I used to write and record a lot in Miami during that time, when there was a real estate boom in America, and developers were developing all of this new property. There was a new condo going up every ten feet.... I think we experienced Miami as a place of refuge and peace. We weren’t out there wilin’ out and partying. I remember looking up and seeing all of these cranes in the sky. They were so heavy and such an eyesore, and not what I identified with peace and refuge.”

That was until, Solange says, she realized the cranes in the sky symbolized a much deeper meaning that eventually seemed to bring things full circle in her life.

“I remember thinking of it as an analogy for my transition—this idea of building up, up, up that was going on in our country at the time, all of this excessive building, and not really dealing with what was in front of us,” she said.  “And we all know how that ended. That crashed and burned. It was a catastrophe. And that line came to me because it felt so indicative of what was going on in my life as well. And, eight years later, it’s really interesting that now, here we are again, not seeing what’s happening in our country, not wanting to put into perspective all of these ugly things that are staring us in the face.”

Check out the full cover story in Interview magazine. 

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Amazon shoppers, prepare yourselves: a giant Amazon bookstore is hitting Manhattan IRL this spring.

A whopping 4,000 square feet of Time Warner Center will be taken over by the company as it opens its first physical retailer on the right coast (Amazon currently has bookstores in Oregon, Washington, and California). The NYC store is just the first of a few Amazon plans to open on this side of the country, with ones in New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois to come.

The decision to revert from the digital world to the real world stems from the fact that 91 percent of retail shopping that still happens in physical stores, the LA Times reports.

“My expectation is Amazon will take all the best of online and apply it to the physical store,” Brendan Witcher, an analyst at research group Forrester, said to the Times.

He added that a physical store would facilitate window displays to catch the attention of occasional shoppers and allow new users to “experience the Amazon brand.” 

Not everyone is convinced by the sentiment behind Witcher’s pitch. “Amazon’s new brick and mortar bookstore is wildly banal,” Dustin Kurtz wrote for The New Republic. “The store ... betrays inexperience with retail.” 

“Can’t Amazon let the book-selling old guard have anything?” HuffPost’s Claire Fallon asked.

The Amazon Books news came not long after the announcement of Amazon Go just last month. Amazon Go, a Seattle-based grocery store, uses deep learning technology to allow customers to grab whatever they want and leave. 

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Continuing his efforts to diversify the Catholic church’s hierarchy, Pope Francis has appointed an Asian American to lead a diocese in the United States for the very first time. 

On Tuesday, a papal representative to the United States announced that the pope picked Bishop Oscar Azarcon Solis, an immigrant from the Philippines, to be bishop of the Salt Lake City diocese.

There have been at least two other Asian-American Catholic bishops, according to Rev. Linh Hoang , O.F.M., an associate professor of religious studies at Siena College. They were Bishop Dominic Luong, a Vietnamese American, and Bishop Ignatius Wang, a Chinese American. Both men are retired auxiliary bishops, meaning they were appointed as helpers to a diocesan bishop, who is the official pastoral and legal head of a diocese.

Solis, who came to the United States from the Philippines in 1984, was formerly an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles. He will be the first Asian-American fully in charge of an entire diocese as its top bishop, Hoang told The Huffington Post in an email.

He said that Francis’ decision to appoint Solis demonstrates the pope’s support for the “immigrant population all over the world.” Hoang also said this is a great moment for both Asian American Catholics and Pacific Islander Catholics.

“These communities have worked diligently together to bring awareness to their presence by participating actively in the Church. They value the support of the Church when many came as migrants and refugees,” Hoang told The Huffington Post. “Many feel that it is time that the Church not just recognize their many gifts but utilize their eagerness to proclaim the Gospel and promote the Church.” 

Asian Americans are a minority within American Catholicism. According to the Pew Research Center, about 3 percent of American Catholics are Asian.

About 18,000 of Utah’s 300,000 Catholics are Asian, according to Susan Dennin, the Salt Lake diocese’s communications director. The largest demographic within that group is the Filipino community.

Since Solis is fluent in Spanish, Dennin told The Huffington Post that the bishop’s arrival in Salt Lake City would also be appreciated by Utah’s Hispanic Catholics, who make up more than 60 percent of Utah’s Catholic population. 

“As an immigrant himself, he can speak to the immigrant from his heart,” Dennin told The Huffington Post in an email.

Solis will be officially installed as bishop of Salt Lake City’s diocese on March 7, according to Vatican Radio.

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President Barack Obama in his farewell address to the nation Tuesday argued that empathy for those who are different is an essential pillar of democracy.

Quoting one of American literature’s most famous characters, Atticus Finch from “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Obama urged Americans to “start with the premise that each of our fellow citizens loves this country just as much as we do; that they value hard work and family like we do.”

He asserted that fighting racism and bigotry requires both political and social change. 

“Laws alone won’t be enough. Hearts must change,” he said. “If our democracy is to work in this increasingly diverse nation, each one of us must try to heed the advice of one of the great characters in American fiction, Atticus Finch, who said, ‘You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.’”

“For blacks and other minorities, it means tying our own struggles for justice to the challenges that a lot of people in this country face ― the refugee, the immigrant, the rural poor, the transgender American, and also the middle-aged white man who from the outside may seem like he’s got all the advantages, but who’s seen his world upended by economic, cultural and technological change,” he continued.

But Obama said the onus is equally on white and native-born Americans to understand the discrimination faced by minorities and immigrants, both historically and in the present day ― delivering an indirect rebuttal to President-elect Donald Trump, who ran a campaign predicated on divisiveness and fear-mongering against such groups.

“For white Americans, it means acknowledging that the effects of slavery and Jim Crow didn’t suddenly vanish in the ‘60s; that when minority groups voice discontent, they’re not just engaging in reverse racism or practicing political correctness; that when they wage peaceful protest, they’re not demanding special treatment, but the equal treatment our Founders promised,” Obama said.

“For native-born Americans, it means reminding ourselves that the stereotypes about immigrants today were said, almost word for word, about the Irish, Italians and Poles. America wasn’t weakened by the presence of these newcomers; they embraced this nation’s creed, and it was strengthened.”

Obama noted that political polarization and social stratification prevents this type of common understanding.

“For too many of us, it’s become safer to retreat into our own bubbles, whether in our neighborhoods or college campuses or places of worship or our social media feeds, surrounded by people who look like us and share the same political outlook and never challenge our assumptions,” he said. “The rise of naked partisanship, increasing economic and regional stratification, the splintering of our media into a channel for every taste ― all this makes this great sorting seem natural, even inevitable. And increasingly, we become so secure in our bubbles that we accept only information, whether true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our opinions on the evidence that’s out there.”

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Aziz Ansari will host his first-ever “Saturday Night Live” episode on Jan. 21, the comedy sketch show announced Tuesday.

The honor of hosting the iconic show has been a long time coming for the actor, writer, comedian and co-creator of the Emmy award-winning Netflix series “Master of None” ― but it’s also a huge milestone for diversity in comedy.

Ansari’s appearance on the show will mark the first time “SNL” has cast a South Asian entertainer as host in its 41-year history.

Ansari’s career reached an all-time high in 2016.

Not only did “Master of None,” which he co-wrote with Alan Yang, win an Emmy for Best Writing for a Comedy Series, it took home a Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Comedy Series and a Peabody Award, with several more Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. The groundbreaking show is also debuting a second season in 2017.

All this, as the Washington Post points out, makes the Indian American actor a timely choice for the coveted spot as “SNL” host, just like “Rogue One” breakout star Felicity Jones, who will host the week before.

But Ansari’s “SNL” debut also seems like a personal win for the comedian, especially since his advocacy for diversity in Hollywood has grown louder in recent years. After all, the “Indians On TV” episode of “Master of None” was essentially a critique of the stereotyping that Indian-American actors face in casting. 

“I still wonder if we are trying hard enough,” the comedian wrote of making film and TV more diverse in a 2015 column for the New York Times.

“Even at a time when minorities account for almost 40 percent of the American population,” Ansari added, “when Hollywood wants an ‘everyman,’ what it really wants is a straight white guy. But a straight white guy is not every man. The ‘everyman’ is everybody.”

“SNL,” with its prestige in the entertainment industry and its cult-like following, is arguably one of the most visible platforms (and career-boosters) for celebrities. Yet in the show’s 41-year-long run, the people who have benefited from its coveted host spot were overwhelmingly white.

More than 90 percent of “SNL’s” past hosts have been white, with black celebrities making the second-best showing, according to a data breakdown by IndieWire. Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu are the only two Asians who have ever hosted the show (not including Fred Armisen and Bruno Mars, who are mixed-race) and that was more than 15 years ago, IndieWire reported.

(IndieWire also noted that “SNL” taps a “diverse” range of talents to host the show, “but many decline or can’t be secured for a variety of reasons.”)

So when Ansari steps out onto the stage for his “SNL” monologue at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, he’ll not only be debuting on his own merits as a professional, he’ll also be reflecting his vision for the future of Hollywood ― and it’s one that is decidedly more diverse.

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If you felt uncomfortable with Scarlett Johansson’s controversial casting in the live-action adaptation of the “Ghost in the Shell,” we have good news: The original Japanese anime film is returning to the big screen for a limited time!

Lionsgate and Funimation Films announced this week that Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 “Ghost in the Shell” will play at 110 theaters across the U.S. for two days only, on Feb. 7 and 8.

Oshii’s original animated film is based on a manga series of the same name that Masamune Shirow created. It follows government agent Major Motoko Kusanagi, a human-cyborg hybrid, as she chases down a mysterious computer hacker known as The Puppet Master. 

FUNIMATION/GHOST IN THE SHELL

Critics became even more frustrated when reports surfaced that the film’s producers were testing visual effects to make Johansson appear more Asian. Paramount admitted to the tests, but denied that any visual effects were used to alter Johansson’s appearance.

Asian-American actresses, including “Fresh off the Boat” star Constance Wu, spoke out against the controversial casting and critics launched a petition demanding the film’s producers to consider an Asian actress for the role.

Showings of the original “Ghost in the Shell” film will play more than a month ahead of the live-action film, which debuts in the U.S. on March 31. But its resurrection doesn’t seem to be in response to the backlash against the live-action film.

When Lionsgate and Funimation announced the original film’s return to theaters, they also detailed plans to release a Blu-Ray collector’s edition of the anime film to the market on March 7.

“‘Ghost in the Shell’ is truly a seminal work in anime cinema and it helped firmly establish a market for the genre with U.S. movie audiences,” Fumination founder and chief executive Gen Fukunaga said in a press release Monday. “We’re excited to be partnering with Lionsgate to bring the original ‘Ghost in the Shell’ movie back to U.S. theaters.”

The original Japanese “Ghost in the Shell” film will air in theaters with English subtitles on Feb. 7, while the English-dubbed version of the anime film will play in theaters on Feb. 8. You can find a list of theaters featuring the film here.

Below, watch a side-by-side comparison of “Ghost in the Shell’s” original 1995 anime film and the upcoming 2017 live-action version.

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This #HipHopHarryPotter hashtag will enchant even the grumpiest muggle.

Twitter users gave J.K. Rowling’s boy wizard a hip hop makeover on Tuesday night.

Courtesy of a game that Comedy Central’s “@Midnight with Chris Hardwick” show started, people reimagined their favorite rap song titles and lyrics ― but with a decidedly Hogwarts-esque twist.

“Don’t go chasing Quidditch balls,” anyone?

Check out some of the funniest posts we’ve seen so far below:

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Writers searching for some inspiration may want to head to Mark Twain’s home in Hartford, Connecticut, this year. 

The Mark Twain House & Museum is opening the author’s personal library to scribes searching for some peace, quiet and the ghost of literature’s past. On four nights throughout 2017, writers can sign up to work in Twain’s personal library for three hours of uninterrupted creative bliss.

Spots are limited and a three-hour session costs $50. But the prospect of plotting or completing your work surrounded by the personal book collection of one of America’s greatest authors may be priceless. 

The library’s rules are strict ― no wifi and no pens (only pencils are allowed in the historic house). Plugs are “few and far between,” so make sure those phones and laptops are fully charged.

“Participants will have the house to yourselves,” a note on the library’s website states. “Feel inspired by the beautiful sounds of the fountain in the family conservatory; rest your eyes upon Twain’s bookshelves as you ponder your next word.”

Twain, whose real name was Samuel Clemens, moved his family to Hartford in 1871. He hired New York architect Edward Tuckerman Potter to design the house in 1873. 

The author referred to the years he spent living in the Hartford house as some of the most productive of his life. He wrote his most famous works there, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

H/T Uproxx

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Up until now, George R.R. Martin has treated the release of his new novel like the God of Death. And there is only one thing we say to the God of Death:

Not today.

Now, all of that has changed. According to Martin, The Winds of Winter is coming this year. 

The book is the sixth installment in Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, which is the inspiration for HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” In his last lengthy update in January 2016, Martin confirmed that the book would not be out before Season 6 of the HBO show, saying, “No one could possibly be more disappointed than me.”

This new update came after Martin responded to a fan’s comment on his recent blog post titled “Doom, Despair, Defeat.” In the post, Martin laments the losses of the Giants in the NFL playoffs and “Game of Thrones” at the Golden Globes. Though the author normally likes to keep blog comments on topic, the fan noted how Martin’s last update on the status of the book was a year ago, so the author obliged.

“I think it will be out this year,” he wrote. “(But hey, I thought the same thing last year).”

In his response, Martin wrote that the book is “not done yet,” but he’s made “progress,” adding, “not as much as I hoped a year ago, when I thought to be done by now.”

The last part is a bit disconcerting, but who cares? Did you read that?

“I think it will be out this year.”
George R.R. Martin

Praise the old gods and the new! 

The upcoming Season 7 of “Game of Thrones” was delayed this year because winter has finally come on the show and production wanted bleaker weather. If Martin’s book is arriving this year, it’s possible the release could coincide with the debut of Season 7.

But all of this could just be the dreams of a sweet summer child ...

We’ve been here before. Like we already mentioned, the novel was thought to be coming out in 2016. That obviously didn’t happen. 

As one fan on Reddit put it, “Is it sad that I still believe him, even after all the times he’s said this?”

Another responded with a video:

Good grief ...

But don’t lose faith, people. The gods are good.

Martin could’ve said the book would be delayed even more. He didn’t. He said he thinks it’ll be coming out this year. Because of that, all men must freak out.

H/T EW

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Somewhere, Ryan Reynolds is probably feeling a tad bit jealous. Reynolds’ onetime smooching buddy, Andrew Garfield, has already given his lips to another man. 

During an appearance on “The Late Show” on Tuesday, Garfield explained why he kissed Reynolds at Sunday’s Golden Globes, a moment that went viral on the social networks. “I just wanted Ryan to know that I loved him no matter whether he won or lost,” Garfield told Stephen Colbert. “It doesn’t matter. It’s how you play the game, and he showed up and gave his all. It doesn’t change anything in my heart.” (Reynolds had just lost Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, to Ryan Gosling.)

What can come next but irrefutable proof that Garfield is comfy kissing other men (as long as it’s for laughs, at least)? The actor leaned in for a peck from Colbert that turned out to be surprisingly steamy. “You’re a very gentle lover,” Colbert said.

Never let him go, Stephen.

Colbert is one of many to cheer on Garfield’s Golden Globes lip-lock. Reynolds’ wife, Blake Lively, laughed during the exchange, and Garfield’s ex-girlfriend Emma Stone called it “hilarious” backstage after the award show. Even Gosling thought it was charming: “I mean, I’m happy for them, honestly, you know?” he said. “Good for them.”

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Unless your parent is a gourmet chef or bento box master, school lunch is usually nothing to write home about.

For artist and father Dominick Cabalo, however, his son Nicholas’s lunches are a canvas for creativity.

Cabalo, who lives in Southern California, makes elaborate illustrations on each of 12-year-old Nicholas’s paper lunch bags, usually depicting popular animated characters and colorful superheroes. 

Cabalo began drawing on the bags about three years ago to help Nicholas make new friends in elementary school.

“I noticed he was a bit shy when it came to talking to others,” he told The Huffington Post. “So by creating a piece of artwork to ‘break the ice,’ kids would come up to him and start talking and hopefully a conversation, or better yet, a new friendship, would start.”

Though Nicholas is in middle school now, he still asks his dad to draw on the lunch bags, and will make requests for characters or drawings that he’d like to see on the next bag.

Some of the illustrations have timely significance, such as an entire month of creepy characters to celebrate Halloween in October or this beautiful Princess Leia portrait Cabalo created in memory of Carrie Fisher.

Cabalo has drawn about 400 lunch bags in the past 3 years. He explained on Imgur this week this week that the bags have really helped his son become more confident at school.

”He’s broken out of his shell because of this, and I like to think that I had a hand in helping him do this with these bags,” he wrote.

Nicholas keeps most of the bags (at least those that make it home from lunch unsoiled). “Some come back in better condition than others,” Cabalo wrote on Imgur. “We may lose one to the occasional soggy sandwich or leaky drink, but that’s to be expected.”

As for the bags that make it home intact, Cabalo posts their photos to Instagram. His favorites, he tells HuffPost, are the more time-consuming series of bags that can be joined up to create a larger image, such as the “Finding Nemo” triptych below.

Scroll through some of this incredible dad’s work below and visit his Instagram here.

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Warning: Spoilers for “This Is Us” ahead. 

You’re not the only one who cries while watching “This Is Us.”

Justin Hartley, who plays Kevin Pearson on the hit NBC series, says that he tears up not only watching the series but also while reading the show’s scripts for the first time. 

“We’re right there with you ...  I’ve cried watching the show and I know what’s going to happen. I already read it. I was in it. I know what’s going to happen and I can’t help it … It speaks to you,” he told The Huffington Post during a Build Series interview. “Our writers are out of this world.” 

“This Is Us,” which co-stars Mandy Moore, Milo Ventimiglia, Sterling K. Brown and Chrissy Metz, follows the emotional ups and downs of a family as their lives intersect in surprising ways. 

One of the most powerful scenes so far for Hartley involved Kevin’s nieces on the show, the daughters of Brown’s character Randall. In it, Kevin shares a “secret” ― that he actually likes to paint. He then shares one of his paintings to the girls and describes what it means to him. “There’s no dying,” he says. “There’s no you, or me or them. There’s just us.”

In a way, Hartley said, that touching moment (for both Hartley and the viewers) helps sum up the meaning of the series. 

“People walk up to me and they feel obliged to tell me how the show has moved them or how it made them cry,” Hartley said. “One of the things, I haven’t ever had so many women come up to me and tell me that I made them cry. And they’re smiling about it, which is kind of an odd thing. Usually it’s not a good thing. My mother always told me, ‘Don’t make women cry.’” 

Along with all of the emotional moments on “This Is Us” are plenty of bright spots.

“We’re not telling any jokes, but situationally it’s hilarious,” Hartley said. 

During this week’s episode, which aired Tuesday night, Kevin is seen trying to figure out his love life. His previous love interest Olivia makes a surprise return, throwing a wrench into his current relationship with Sloane. 

Looking ahead, fans should be ready for a big surprise involving Kevin’s past. 

“One of the things I love is what’s coming up for Kevin. There is a backstory bombshell … You won’t see it coming,” Hartley said. “And then when it happens it’s going to explain a lot of things that he’s been doing. And then it’s going to make you wonder, ‘What the heck is he going to do?’ You’ll see him go after something with vigor.”

“This Is Us” airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC. Watch the full BUILD interview with Justin Hartley below. 

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Where does masculinity live ― in the body or the mind? How does one cultivate it ― lifting weights, buying cars, providing for one’s family? When does it thrive and when is it threatened? What makes it fragile and what makes it toxic? 

A multimedia exhibition titled “ManUp!” at the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, curated by Roman Stollenwerk, features artwork addressing the changing shape of masculinity in the 21st century. Rather than accepting masculinity as an inherited trait or static condition, the contributing artists explore manhood as a continuous string of performed behaviors and learned rituals, all of which come together to resemble a fixed identity. 

The artists on view use photography, collage, watercolor and mixed media installation to envision understandings of manhood that often slip through the cracks of cultural visibility. Transmasculine performance artist, stunt person and bodybuilder Cassils uses their own body as a medium, undergoing intense physical challenges to show that the human body is always in a state of becoming. Cassils frames their physical form not as an inherited vessel but a fleshy canvas constantly in flux, as malleable as a lump of clay. 

“I use my physical body as sculptural mass to rupture societal norms,” Cassils explained in an earlier interview with The Huffington Post. “It is with sweat, blood and sinew that I construct a visual critique and discourse around physical and gender ideologies and histories.”

For a 2011 video titled “Fast Twitch//Slow Twitch,” Cassils documented their physical transformation during an intense bodybuilding regimen. Along with taking portraits of their shifting image, Cassils archived workout regimens and diets ― complete with raw eggs and raw meat. By documenting the acts necessary to acquire an exaggerated, muscular physique, Cassils reveals both the artifice and the hard work that manliness not only leaves room for, but requires. 

Another artist on view, Amy Elkins, addresses alternative manifestations of masculinity, ones that privilege softness as much as strength, in her photographs of young male dancers in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her series “Danseur” depicts young men, ages 12 to 18, who challenge gendered expectations by combining exceptional athleticism with grace, vulnerability and quiet self-composure. 

“I am fascinated with the art and sport of ballet and contemporary dance, specifically with young men who push past gender stereotypes associated with dance and challenge societal notions of masculinity,” Elkins explained in an previous interview with HuffPost. Her images show how the boundaries that separate art and sport, performance and identity, masculine and feminine, are far more mercurial than they first appear. 

Then, in his series “Tryouts,” photographer Ryan James Caruthers captures the dangerous consequences a fragile masculinity can have on men themselves. The artist mined his memories growing up as a closeted queer boy and an artist in an environment that didn’t acknowledge his fledgling instincts. “Growing up in a suburban New Jersey town, males my age were always preoccupied with sport,” he told HuffPost. “I had a constant disconnect from traditional forms of masculinity, as my interests were in other areas.”

With his thin, pale frame, Caruthers looked and felt nothing like the conventionally macho figures accepted by his peers. His photos revisit this complex and painful phase in Caruthers’ adolescent life, before he came to terms with his body, his desires and himself. Caruthers goes through the motions of various sporting events ― swimming, wrestling and baseball, among others ― his spindly frame and distant gaze resembling more the muse of a Pre-Raphaelite painting than a jock in a yearbook. 

“ManUp!” arrives at a particularly fraught moment in terms of gender politics. After being painfully close to electing the first woman president, America is soon to be lead by a man who elevates brute masculinity, whose public image has been bolstered after objectifying, degrading and humiliating others. With Republicans threatening to defund Planned Parenthood and overturn Roe v. Wade, the hazards women will face in the coming months are abundantly clear. Yet the future of masculinity is nearly as tenuous, and the consequences are similarly grave.

It is not only women who are oppressed by patriarchal hegemony. The traditional tenets of masculinity ― power, stoicism and dominance ― are holding men back rather than urging them forward. (In fact, it can literally kill them.) Today, it is crucial to look past feeble and outdated understandings of masculinity and explore the potential of human beings untethered by societal expectations and gender norms.  

The artists of “ManUp!” offer alternative understandings of masculinity that don’t rely on notions of biology or stereotypes, but rather view manhood as a complex network of rituals and desires, distinctly organized in every individual in which they appear. They reject the idea of an “ideal man” against which all others will fail to measure up, and in doing so, support the idea that people should be free to live their lives ― free to express themselves through their appearance, actions and gestures, molding their gender identity like a work of art along the way.

“ManUp!” features work by Marshall Astor, Ryan Caruthers, Cassils, Christopher Dacre, Amy Elkins, Steven Frost, Pilar Gallego, Oree Holban, Wynne Neilly, Conrad Ruiz, Devan Shimoyama, and Scott Vanidestine, and is curated by Roman Stollenwerk. The show runs until March 17, 2017 at The Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art.

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George Lucas is well known for his love of Wookiees, droids, Stormtroopers and interstellar cantina scenes. He’s less known for his love of Norman Rockwell paintings and R. Crumb comics.

But according to The New York Times, we should probably get used to associating Lucas with the finer aspects of the art world, rather than just the intricacies of hairy humanoids from planet Kashyyyk. Why? Because the “Star Wars” creator is about to open a giant museum in Los Angeles that will house 10,000 paintings along with book and magazine illustrations.

After years of planning, the museum’s board of directors announced on Tuesday that the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will be built in Los Angeles at a cost of $1 billion. After previous attempts to place his vision in Chicago and San Francisco ― both of which were met with some opposition ― the filmmaker has decided to open the Lucas Museum near the coastal city’s Exposition Park, a popular spot for art institutions.

”This is the first museum of its kind, with an unprecedented collection that features fine art and popular art from illustration to comics, an insider’s perspective on the cinematic creative process and the boundless potential of the digital medium,” reads a statement on the museum’s website. It continues:

The Lucas Museum will be a barrier free museum where artificial divisions between “high” art and “popular” art are absent, allowing you to explore a wide array of compelling visual storytelling. Visitors who might be less inclined to visit a traditional fine art museum will be invited to engage with and relate to art forms they recognize and love.

The collection includes works by Edgar Degas, Winslow Homer and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, as well as illustrations, children’s art, comic art and photography from various periods. It will be housed in what’s been described by various press outlets as a “futuristic-looking” museum.

Is it surprising that a Hollywood icon like Lucas would want to open a museum dedicated to both “high” and “popular” art? Probably not. After all, famous cultural critic Camille Paglia once dubbed him “the greatest artist of our time.” 

And yes, “Star Wars” fans, there will be some objects from your favorite galactic epic in the museum mix, too.

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In 2005, the American Film Institute (AFI) decided that the line “Show me the money!” from the 1996 movie “Jerry Maguire” was the 25th best movie quote of all time.

Now, The Huffington Post is exclusively releasing director Cameron Crowe’s explanation for how he came up with the iconic line of dialogue. (The description is part of a video extra featured on the 20th anniversary edition Blu-ray release of the movie.)

In the short clip, Crowe claims that he was interviewing the then professional football player Tim McDonald when the Phoenix Cardinals star said the now famous line to him. As Crowe sets the scene:

There was one guy that I interviewed very early on, his name was Tim McDonald and he played for, at the time, the Phoenix Cardinals. And he was there with his buddy and his buddy was watching CNN “Moneyline.” [McDonald] had one eye on “Moneyline,” too.

And he just said, “I’ve gotten my butt kicked for five years. My contract is finally up. And I’ve told my agent one thing ...

At this point in the clip, actor Cuba Gooding Jr. is shown filming the memorable scene, shouting, “Show me the money,” as the character Rod Tidwell. In “Jerry Maguire,” Tidwell played for the Arizona Cardinals (the team changed their name from the “Phoenix Cardinals” for the 1994 season).

The clip then returns to Crowe, who adds, “A little chill went through me because I just knew that was such a defining thing for him. I couldn’t get the line out of my head.”

Through the course of spending more time with McDonald, Crowe decided that the meaning of the line wasn’t greed, but necessity. “He’s not greedy at all,” explains Crowe. “He’s just got a few more years left where he can get paid for what he does [and needs to support a family] ... I just thought, that’s a hero.”

Watch the full clip below, which also features Tom Cruise filming the scene in his agent character’s office.

Hit Backspace for a regular dose of pop culture nostalgia.

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If President-elect Donald Trump expects U.S. taxpayers to fund the construction of his proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border (that money “will be paid back by Mexico later!” he claimed), shouldn’t we at least get a say in what it looks like?

Maybe, suggests a light-hearted Change.org petition, which is calling for Trump to commission Bulgarian artist Christo to design the controversial barrier. Initiated by conceptual artist Luis Camnitzer, the petition is titled “Commission Christo with an Orange Running Fence that Separates the U.S. from Mexico.” It reads: 

Dear President-Elect Donald Trump: Please commission U.S. artist Christo’s with the creation of a new a version of his Running Fence to separate the U.S. from Mexico. His first project in Sonoma was completed in 1976 with great success. Though only 24.5 miles long then, in full length today it would transform a racist project into a public art event, and help improve the image of the U.S. with a cultural veneer.

Christo (along with his late wife, Jeanne-Claude) is known for his environmental artworks that often take the form of temporary miles-long or island-sized installations across the globe. “Running Fence,” for example, stood for two weeks in 1976, consisting of an 18-foot-high stretch of white nylon curtains that extended 24.5 miles in California’s Sonoma and Marin counties.

A Smithsonian blog described the work as a mechanism that “didn’t divide the way fences do, but brought people together.”

New York City played home to another one of Christo’s installations ― a string of orange curtain “gates” that snaked through Central Park in 2005. Camnitzer called specifically for the Christo-commissioned wall to be orange, perhaps a less-than-subtle nod to the color often associated with America’s president-elect.

Most critics have appropriately interpreted Camnitzer’s petition as a funny gesture, rather than a serious suggestion. “The suggestion is hilarious, not least because it seems to pinpoint perfectly the dynamics of soft power, thus becoming eerily plausible in today’s twisted world,” Jillian Steinhauer wrote for Hyperallergic.

Since Trump promised that Mexico will pay for his highly contested wall, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray countered on Tuesday, claiming “there is no way his country will pay.” While a number of critics are doubtful the wall will ever come to be, there is some relief in imagining a reality in which Christo’s inclusive designs replace what many view as a symbol of intolerance.

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The presidency of Barack Obama has meant many profound things to many Americans. When he quoted Harper Lee’s classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird during his farewell address on Tuesday night, it was a poignant reminder of just one more: the significance of having a president who loves books. 

Obama, who authored two books before becoming president, has long described himself as a voracious reader. He’s been dubbed the “reader-in-chief,” using his bully pulpit to promote independent bookstores, the value of leisure reading, and even specific books. 

In a 2015 Politico article, he’s quoted as telling young students that he loved “adventure stories” like the “Hardy Boys” series and Treasure Island when he was a kid. As a high schooler, he immersed himself in American classics. While finishing college at Columbia University, he later told his biographer, “I had tons of books. I read everything.” 

More recently, Obama has professed admiration for Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance and Doris Lessing’s hefty feminist novel The Golden Notebook. In 2015, he surprised observers with the revelation that his favorite book of the year was not a serious political work or biography, but the perspective-shifting literary novel Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. The same year, he interviewed Marilynne Robinson ― not the other way around. (For those who aren’t familiar, she’s an acclaimed literary novelist who weaves religious themes into her quiet narratives.)

In short, our president has been a bookworm, a man who reads curiously, wide-rangingly, for pleasure as well as for profit. Obama hasn’t been the first American president to love the written word ― even President George W. Bush, who many on the left dismissed as doltish, read prolifically, though he left it more to his wife, first lady Laura Bush, to actively promote literacy. But Obama’s sheer delight in literature, philosophy, history and the full scope of what books can offer was frequently on display during his administration, and for bookworms like us, such a reader-in-chief will be missed.

Are we speaking too soon? Will President-elect Donald Trump, come Christmas, march down to Politics and Prose or New York City’s The Strand bookshop to pore over piles of novels and nonfiction, hot from the presses? Maybe if there are copies of The Art of the Deal, one of his own ghostwritten publications, on sale. Trump has, in past interviews, struggled to name a favorite book other than his own best-sellers. (On one occasion, he suggested the Bible, though he couldn’t name a favorite verse.) Our own Jason Linkins compiled an in-depth survey of reporting in November that suggests Trump rarely, if ever, reads anything except headlines and magazine covers about himself.

We’re not getting our bookish hopes up.

Instead, we’ll just say: So long, Reader-in-Chief Obama. It was a beautiful eight years.

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