There is something about the music we connect to when we're young that beautifully helps shape our identity. We want to scream from the rooftops, "This is how I feel!" but we so often can't. Luckily, clothes and accessories can do the proverbial screaming for us. Often, it's written off as a moody teenage phase (and sometimes it is), but for some, it's an absolute vibe that becomes a part of everyday life all the way to the end.And so, when a man took to the subreddit r/goth to show off HIS goth look from teen to middle-age, many rejoiced. The OP writes, "Fashion Friday: 'It's not just a phase, mom' 18 vs 48 years old." Under this is a split photo. On one side is the 18-year-old version of himself, hair slicked back, eyes full of dramatic dark liner and shadows. He's in all black (natch) with a Nosferatu t-shirt tucked into leather (or possibly pleather) pants. One hand is tucked into said pants, while the other dramatically holds up a glass—his body tilted in the ultimate cool pose, as he shows off his black nail polish.On the other side is the now 48-year-old version. He wears a black sleeveless The Sisters of Mercy band shirt showing off lots of tats and an intense stare under his tiny glasses. Under the photo, he writes, "Less hair but more tattoos, and at least I don’t have to pose in my parents’ backyard anymore :)" A man posts a photo of himself at 18 and at 48 showing off his goth looks.Reddit, Hemlox76The comments under the post are undeniably goth in nature. The first immediately references death when they write, "Looking stylish in both pics. I'm currently 33. Goal is to be buried in goth attire." The OP replies, "Well, a black suit is usually standard :) Myself, I’d go for just a hole in the ground in the woods and an ash tree planted over me if that was legal over here."This commenter explains how their music influences brought them to the goth lifestyle. "Heh. I came by mine honestly. Dad likes Black Sabbath and science fiction/fantasy, Mum likes Steeleye Span, Edward Gorey and gothic novels. Their kid likes all of it, plus goth rock and power metal. They thought it was weird when I was a teenager, but now that I'm an adult we go to shows together and my mum buys me black lace and darkly themed vintage :)"And this kind Redditor compliments the OP: "You aged like a fine wine brother. And your hair colour now suits you. Granted I was 4 when the first pic was taken, but yum to both." Goth guy explains how goth fashion emerged from the music. www.youtube.com, Jake Munro The goth vibe, in music, clothes or all-around attitude, started gaining in popularity in the late 70s, as a term to describe atmospheric post-punk bands. The term got thrown around a bit, but the overarching idea is music and clothes that are dramatic, moody, and emotional. To paraphrase an old adage, "I'll wear black until they find a darker color," certainly applies. Both musically and in appearance, think Robert Smith, the front man for the English band The Cure. The official music video for Pictures of You by The Cure. www.youtube.com, RHINO The whole mood is steeped, at least in attitude and clothing, in Gothic literature which goes way farther back than just the 1970s. Moody heartbreak and even mysterious horror were romanticized in books like Frankenstein and Dracula. It was cool to be sad, and beautiful to be heartbroken.And even though the goth baseline might appear dark, the Reddit thread illustrates that its community is often like a tight-knit family—with great taste in music AND clothes.

When you’re a professional chef, you look at a kitchen much differently than the average person who’s only cooking for three people a night. It’s similar to how a mechanic listens to their car's engine or a professional soccer player watches their kid play AYSO. An experienced chef, who goes by @Friends_and_Neighbors on TikTok, recently shared some tips with her followers while making a trip to the industrial kitchen supply store, and one was a controversial choice: picking up bus bins for her home kitchen. “We use it to contain dirty dishes & keep the sink clean," she wrote in the comments below the video. "Some use them for schlepping clean dishes back to their respective place in the kitchen. So many opportunities for success, with bus tub." @friends_and_neighbors_ or else ✨ jkjkjk but they are nice & make life easier. 1. Thick cutting board retains moisture better when you oil it, and therefore has a longer lifespan. 2. A honing steel helps to maintain the edge of your knife in between sharpens. Sharp knife is safer & more fun lets be honest 3. Bain Marie to hold your tools or tasting spoons. Instead of a spoon rest try a Bain Marie filled with hot water for your tools. 4. small sheet trays & resting racks in a home kitchen? Great for organizing Mise during a cook, resting meat, roasting small amounts of veg. 5. @cambromfg makes a product called a CamSquare - they come in pint & quart sizes and are clear. The lids are watertight for the most part & are great for spice or dry storage. Better than disposable delis. 6. Bus tub! We use it to contain dirty dishes & keep the sink clean. Some use them for schlepping clean dishes back to their respective place in the kitchen. So many opportunities for success, with bus tub. #cook #homecook #kitchenorganization #kitchendesign #kitchenware #restaurant #hospitality But many commenters were repulsed by the idea of a bus bin in their kitchen. "No one in the history of forever has said, ‘I need a bus tub at home,’ been watching too much of the bear or something," L. AG wrote. "Skip the bus tub, but all the rest are a must," Buick added. However, Becca disagreed: "Everybody seems anti-bus tub, but isn’t the point just to have a place to put your dirty dishes that isn’t the sink, so it’s easier to use your sink while you’re cooking?"The video’s reaction inspired the chef to come back with a follow-up video that explains how she uses a bus bin in her kitchen. Mainly, it’s to augment sink space so that it won’t fill with dishes, making it easier to wash your hands or defrost meat. “I had no idea that this was gonna be controversial, but apparently using a bus bin in your home is controversial,” she said in the video. @friends_and_neighbors_ 3 use cases for bus bin with terrible background video ur welcome #kitchenhacks #kitchenorganization #kitchen #cooking #cleaning How to use a bus bin in your kitchen1: Dirty dish staging Your sink and your counters are now clear. You can thaw meat, clean vegetables, wash hands, or fill water bottles.2: It augments the capacity of your sink If you have a single sink, now you have a double sink; you can pre-soak dishes in the bus bin, or you can wash in your regular sink and sanitize in your bus bin.3: Clean dish staging Maybe you want to unload your dishwasher into a bus bin and then walk around your kitchen, putting everything where it belongs in one trip instead of two or three. To use a bus bin or not?Courtney Iseman, a writer at Tasting Table, agrees with the chef: bus bins are a must in the average American kitchen. “Bus bins can be used to organize ingredients, hold linens, and store any number of various odds and ends, like takeout containers and smaller storage container lids," she writes. "This is where the lightbulb goes off for us at home: If bus bins can be used for all this organization and storage, can't we use that convenience in our own kitchens?” For some, the bus bin is a great idea to make their sink more functional. For others, they’re an eyesore that’ll only make the kitchen more messy. The bus bin, a big chunk of sturdy plastic, may not be glamorous, but it challenges us to rethink our kitchens and see greater potential in our sink than we may have thought initially.

In a world increasingly dominated by AI-generated perfection and filtered faces, Jacob Ryan Reno's art feels radical. The 26-year-old hit the delight jackpot, drawing large crowds to his "Terrible Art" stand, where he embraces his artistic inadequacy and, therefore, transcends into a viral sensation and profound joy.There's no catch—he's genuinely bad at portraiture. And people are lining up for hours to pay him for it. See on Instagram Every Sunday at Logan Square Farmers Market in Chicago, you'll find Reno sitting next to a small, blue folding table. Leaning against it is an extensive hand-painted sign reading: "TERRIBLE PORTRAITS, $5."Then, beneath in smaller handwriting: "5 TERRIBLE MINUTES."It's quickly clear that something extraordinary is taking place. See on Instagram How does one begin to describe Reno's self-proclaimed "terrible" drawings? Is it performance art? A subversive act? Simply a man proudly owning his mediocre (at best) portrait skills?Armed with nothing more than art pens, poster board, and an unwavering commitment to never improving his craft, Reno charges $5 for five minutes of what he calls "an incredibly human experience." His portraits feature elongated heads, jagged hair resembling haystacks, noses that look like wine bottles, and mouths drawn like bananas. Yet people line up eagerly, sometimes waiting hours for their turn to be immortalized in wonderfully wonky form.Reno's sketches are crude, disproportionate, and "sometimes awkward." Eyes bulge, pupils are dilated. Hair often seems like a messy afterthought. Teeth are drawn uniformly, like a pack of pearly, trident gum smiling up at you. See on Instagram "I am, indeed, a terrible portraitist," the Chicago artist told As It Happens guest host Rebecca Zandbergen. "I have no intention of getting better. Actually, I intend to get worse, to be honest with you."From house party disaster to artistic philosophyReno's journey into terrible portraiture began seven years ago at a DePaul University house party, where he studied screenwriting. What started as a simple drawing exercise with a friend turned into a pivotal moment for Reno when he produced a horrifyingly inaccurate portrait of his friend, and he looked "genuinely disappointed," asking, "Is this how you see me?" The memory of that mutual laughter stayed with Reno through various career attempts, including a stint as a brand strategist that he left because it "didn't align with my values."Later, the rediscovery of that original terrible portrait last spring sparked an epiphany. "Something is interesting about this," Reno recalled thinking. Over time, Reno's whimsical experiment has evolved into a philosophical statement about authenticity, human connection, and the value of imperfection in our increasingly polished digital world. See on Instagram "I fully acknowledge that I am not a skilled portrait artist," Reno told CBC Radio with characteristic honesty. "I have no desire to improve. In fact, I plan to decline further, to be frank." This commitment to deliberate mediocrity isn't laziness—it's artistic rebellion against the pressure for constant self-improvement and digital perfection.Performance art meets community connectionIt's important to understand that the portrait itself is only half the experience. Setting up his folding table with jazz music playing in the background, Reno transforms each sitting into a performance piece. He engages clients in genuine conversation, asking about their lives, relationships, and dreams while his pen captures their essence in wonderfully distorted form."I want to make it as comfortable and as inviting an experience as I possibly can," Reno explained. Here's a little secret: although the timer may say five minutes, he almost always goes over, prioritizing the human connection over efficiency. This approach has created something remarkable: a community gathering point where strangers become friends through shared laughter at their own terrible portraits. See on Instagram One particularly touching moment occurred during his second week, when a nervous 10-year-old boy approached with $5 from his father. Despite Reno's warning that the result might not be appealing, both artist and subject burst into laughter when the portrait was revealed. "We laughed for about two and a half minutes," Reno recalled. "That moment was really a clear indication that this is something genuine and positive."Reno's viral success… and celebrity commissionsSince launching his farmers market booth in May, Reno has completed approximately 600 portraits and gained massive social media attention. His Instagram account @terrible.portraits has attracted followers worldwide, leading to features on major news outlets including the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and CBC Radio. The phenomenon has even reached celebrity circles—Questlove has reportedly requested a commission, and the Chicago band Wilco invited Reno to sketch them before their performance at the Salt Shed. See on Instagram The viral nature of Reno's work speaks to something more profound than mere novelty. In an era of AI-generated art and Instagram filters, his deliberately imperfect portraits offer a refreshing antidote to digital perfection. "I strongly believe in art being everywhere," Reno said, "but I also worry that in an era of AI-generated art and ChatGPT, we might be losing the art of face-to-face communication."This philosophy has resonated with clients who find the experience liberating. Victoria Lonergan, a former colleague who encountered Reno at a bar, described watching him work as both horrifying and hilarious. "When he flipped it around, it was just so funny. I think I laughed for five minutes," she said, before framing the portrait and hanging it in her living room.The "terrible" empire is growingReno's success has naturally led to expansion beyond the farmers' market. He now appears at weddings, birthday parties, and private events, bringing his unique brand of artistic mediocrity to celebrations across Chicago. His dream gigs include bar mitzvahs and quinceañeras, events where his ability to create joy through shared laughter would be especially appreciated.The wedding market represents a fascinating evolution of his work. While traditional wedding photography seeks to capture perfect moments, Reno offers couples and their guests something entirely different: portraits that are so deliberately imperfect they become ideal conversation pieces and icebreakers. As one couple from Lincoln Park noted after collecting not-so-flattering portraits from both Reno and a traditional Key West street artist, "at least you're upfront about it." See on Instagram Perhaps most remarkably, Reno has created a genuine community around his work. Regular market-goers know to expect him on Sundays, and his impromptu appearances around Chicago generate excitement among followers who never know where he'll pop up next. The Reddit Chicago community has embraced him enthusiastically, with posts about his work generating hundreds of upvotes and comments from satisfied customers.The success of "Terrible Portraits" suggests a broader appetite for creative experiences that prioritize human connection over technical excellence. While AI can now generate flawless portraits in seconds, Reno offers something artificial intelligence cannot: genuine human interaction, shared laughter, and the beautiful imperfection that makes us most human.As Reno continues his terrible artistic journey, refusing to improve while paradoxically perfecting the art of joyful failure, he reminds us that sometimes the most beautiful thing we can create is a moment of genuine human connection—even if the portrait looks nothing like the person sitting across from us.

What I'm going to share here may well be futile, and many people who need to hear this message and take it to heart probably won't. But America is at a precipice we've been hurtling toward for years, and if we don't do something now to slow the momentum, I fear we'll soon find ourselves plummeting over a proverbial cliff, one and all. It's worth an attempt to pull us back from the brink.We all know that political polarization in the U.S. is reaching a fever pitch. What many people don't seem to recognize is how they individually play a role in it, especially those who are adamant that the "other side" is to blame for the division. As a lifelong political independent, it's been terrifying to watch my fellow Americans become more and more entrenched in hyper-partisanship, seemingly unaware of how they themselves are contributing to the problem, simply by allowing themselves to be pulled further into the partisan binary. We can't divide America into "left" and "right." Photo credit: CanvaDemocrats say Republicans are the problem. Republicans say Democrats are the problem. The vast majority of us absentmindedly use black-and-white ideological terminology that line up with our political parties to describe our fellow Americans—liberal or conservative, left or right, red or blue—as if 342 million people fit neatly into two political/ideological boxes. As a result, many Americans have found a home and an identity in those boxes, and unfortunately, some have built them into fortresses from which to shoot at the other side—figuratively and literally. But no matter how people feel about one box or the other, neither of them is really the problem that brought us here. The problem is the premise that they are built on, which is that there are two opposing sides in the first place. It was inevitable that partisanship in a two-party system would eventually leads to an intractable division featuring extreme, binary thinking pushed by those who benefit from that polarization. The "other side" isn't just different, it's depraved. The 'other side" isn't just misguided, it's malicious. The "other side" isn't just wrong, it's evil. This kind of thinking is a feature, not a bug. George Washington tried to warn us about the perils of partisanship. Giphy George Washington tried to warn us about this in 1796 when he said that the "spirit of party" was America's "worst enemy" and would eventually lead us to our demise. We're right there, right now. Partisanship has been fully weaponized by those seeking and wielding power, pitting Americans against Americans, convincing them that the "other side" isn't just wrong, but evil. ("But the other side really is evil!" you might be thinking. Thank you for proving the point. The "other side" says exactly the same thing.) The walls of those political and ideological boxes have gotten so high and so thick that we've lost the ability to see one another's humanity.Many things have gone into how we got here, of course, and there's plenty of blame to be tossed around. But instead of finger pointing when we talk about our polarization problem, what if we were to look inward and own our own individual part in it, whatever that might be? I would love to invite every American of every persuasion to take a pause, zoom out, and honestly engage with these self-reflection questions: Do I tend to label people as liberal/left or conservative/right based on what I know about their beliefs? Do I assume a certain political party affiliation based on what someone looks like/how they dress/where they live?Do I describe states and cities as "blue" or "red" and make judgments about those places based on those labels?Do I use generalized terms like "the left" or "the right" to describe large swaths of the American population? Does the media I watch or listen to speak in those binary terms? Is one used positively and one used negatively? Partisanship is divisive in its very nature.Photo credit: CanvaDo I check multiple sources to find what's true before I react or form an opinion about something I see on social media?Do I seek out a variety of commentary to genuinely try to understand different perspectives? Do I contact my legislators when I want to see a change in policy, or do I just argue with people on social media about it?Do I recognize when people are debating in an effort to seek truth and when they're using rhetorical tricks to "win" an argument?Am I spending more time engaging with people online than I am in real life?Do I pay more attention to the extreme voices on the political spectrum than to the moderate ones? Am I aware of how social media algorithms affect what I see and am exposed to? Do I see how the extreme element of the "side" I most align with is being used to paint my political persuasion in a negative light? Do I see how the same thing is being done with the extreme element on the other "side"? Do I acknowledge when someone from my "side" shares misinformation? Do I call it out? There''s b.s. all over the political spectrum. Giphy Do I think of a large portion of my fellow Americans as enemies or adversaries? Why do I view them that way? Do I want to see my fellow Americans as enemies or adversaries? How can I see them differently?Am I suggesting we stop using labels like left/right, liberal/conservative, etc. altogether? As much as possible, yes. These labels barely help us understand one another anymore—most often they are used to stereotype people or to take one person's objectionable action and ascribe it to the entire "side." So much of our current situation is a result of the extreme generalization of Americans into two groups, when in reality, very few people actually think, believe, live, and act within the confines of however those group labels are defined. Most of us know this intellectually, of course, but it's so easy to be pulled by language to one extreme or the other in a polarized political climate, especially via social media. That polarization is purposeful, by the way. Giving people a political identity and an "other side" to fight against is one of the easiest ways to gain political power. Unfortunately, it's also playing with fire. (And if you think only one party does it, think again. It's just much easier to spot when it's done by people we disagree with.)We can't solve our problems using the same means by which they were created. We can't change the politics that weaponizes partisanship if we ourselves are furthering and fueling it with partisanized thinking and rhetoric. We can't respond to political and ideological extremism with more extremism, even if we think our extremism is justified. Literally every extremist thinks their extremism is justified. Black-and-white, us vs. them thinking is extremism. It's becoming so common, we're getting numb to it. None of us is immune here—this stuff is designed to tap our most primal instincts—but we have to fight it in ourselves. When we feel a push or pull toward binary extremes (which is easily mistaken for believing we're on the righteous side of things) we can consciously pull ourselves back to a place where we see one another's humanity before everything else. I'm not both-sidesing here or implying that there aren't any legitimate issues with any particular party/side/ideology. What I'm saying is that partisanized discourse has become a zero sum game and too many Americans are willingly being used as pawns in it. While we can't control what other people do, we can reflect on the part we as individuals play and dedicate ourselves to being part of the solution instead of contributing to the problem. Of course, stepping away from political labels and partisanzied discourse won't instantly solve all of our issues as a nation. But if enough Americans refuse to play the partisan game and reject the binary rhetoric of left/right, liberal/conservative, red/blue, Democrat/Republican, perhaps we can help prevent the U.S. from plunging into the dark, dangerous chasm we've found ourselves at the brink of. It's worth a shot, at least.

Saving it for one last time. The post The only Traveling Wilburys song George Harrison ever performed first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Some iconic tracks. The post Which song held the number one spot for the longest in 1972? first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

She started off playing a serial killer child, and picked up an Oscar nomination at 11 ... where is she now?

We Are Not OK!

Grocery shoppers across the United States have a reason to rejoice this month. Fan-favorite supermarket chain Trader Joe's is expanding once again!