Bedugul Coffee: We talked to Andy Warhol's ghost. Kinda

The Huffington Post

Culture Shift is a newsletter curated by the HuffPost Culture writers and editors.

This week we're talking about Andy Warhol and his ghost, a vigilante poet, why you should read more women authors, and a queer rock camp in Southern California.

How One Dutch Mother Became A Vigilante Poet

"The woman, 34, has a pseudonym: Lumen van Stralen, meaning 'ray of light.' She is real, but she'd rather you not know her true name. Before she christened herself anew, she was a journalist who wrote about religion for Dutch language magazines. Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity... As a child, she had imagined writing a book in a way no one ever had." (Read more here)

Andy Warhol Likes McDonald's And We Know Because We Spoke To Him, Kinda

"We set off on our own very noble, deeply journalistic and DEFINITELY NOT batshit insane mission to contact the spirit of Andy Warhol on what would have been his 87th birthday. We gathered our best digital and analog recorders, downloaded a few iPhone apps, and found Warhol's first Factory... The building was demolished in 1967; it's now a parking garage. At midnight, we showed up with a piece of birthday cake, lit the candles and floated some questions into thin air. " (Read more here)

Why I've Chosen To Read (More) Women Authors

"It never occurred to me -- or, at least, it didn't trouble me -- that I read far more books by and about men than books by and about women. There were a few fabulous exceptions, but overall gender didn't dictate my reading list, the same way it didn't dictate selecting a doctor or a roommate. Citing progressiveness, I claimed not to see gender. I read what I read because I liked solving the central puzzles, liked the anti-establishment tones, liked the thinly veiled philosophy lessons at the core of each story." (Read more here)

Queer Rock Camp Is About More Than Music. It's About Identity

"It's late June in Long Beach, California. Bass lines and drum counts echo through the halls of Temple Israel, where the teens inside learn to play rock music -- some for the first time. But this is not a Jewish day camp. It's called Queer Rock Camp and the kids inside are along for a wild ride." (Read more here)

Your Office Job Is A Horrific Dystopia, According To This New Book

"Fiction, never the last to arrive, has taken its own cracks at office culture -- think of Joshua Ferris' dark office comedy And Then We Came To The End, which crystallizes the temporary hive-mind that can arise in workplaces through use of a collective first-person narrator. Think of Dave Eggers' The Circle, which dramatizes the creep of new tech conglomerates, like Google, from the inside. There's something different, however, about Helen Phillips's debut novel, The Beautiful Bureaucrat." (Read more here)

11 Women Artists Who Should Have Their Own MoMA Retrospectives

"To help speed up the progress train -- or, let's be honest, to simply shine yet another spotlight on the art world's inability to stop undercutting the potential of 50 percent of the planet's population, here's a list of deserving women artists, compiled by a few of the writers and editors of HuffPost Culture, MoMA should take heed to consider. " (Read more here)

How To Be More Like Andy Warhol, According To Andy Warhol

"In honor of our favorite bleached blonde tabloid junkie with an eye for glitter, fame and all things deeply superficial, we've compiled a handy guide to living à la Andy. Blond dye not included." (Read more here)

It's A Slap In The Face When White Women Wear Black Hairstyles

"The concept of cultural appropriation has become a frequent topic of conversation, but still, the fashion world continues to make the most painfully obtuse, racially insensitive editorial decisions. If it's not a white model photographed in blackface, it's an article declaring baby-hair and cornrows as the latest 'trends' -- even though those black styles have been around forever. This week, Allure magazine drew criticism for posting a brief article teaching 'straight haired girls' (ie: white girls) how to get an afro. " (Read more here)