Interesting trends and topics that are being written about
A roundup of some of the most interesting trends and topics that are being written about around the world. They write it, we post it, you read it.
The Making of Pulp Fiction By: Vanity Fair, March 2013
In 1986, [Quentin] Tarantino was a 23-year-old part-time actor and high-school dropout, broke, without an apartment of his own, showering rarely. With no agent, he sent out scripts that never got past low-level readers. 'Too vile, too vulgar, too violent' was the usual reaction, he later said.... 'Like a lot of guys who had never made films before, I was always trying to figure out how to scam my way into a feature,' Tarantino tells me. Though he was indisputably king of all movie knowledge at Video Archives, the suburban-L.A. store where he worked, in Hollywood he was a nobody.
Surrounded by videos, which he watched incessantly, he hit upon an idea for recycling three of the oldest bromides in the book: 'The ones you've seen a zillion times — the boxer who's supposed to throw a fight and doesn't, the Mob guy who's supposed to take the boss's wife out for the evening, the two hit men who come and kill these guys.' It would be 'an omnibus thing', a collection of three caper films, similar to stories by such writers as Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett in 1920s and 1930s pulp magazines. 'That is why I called it Pulp Fiction,' says Tarantino.
Our take: The making of the movie — with Samuel Jackson fighting for his role — is as riveting as the film itself.
Royal Bodies By: London Review of Books, February 21
Kate [Middleton] seems to have been selected for her role of princess because she was irreproachable: as painfully thin as anyone could wish, without quirks, without oddities, without the risk of the emergence of character. She appears precision-made, machine-made, so different from Diana whose human awkwardness and emotional incontinence showed in her every gesture. Diana was capable of transforming herself from galumphing schoolgirl to ice queen, from wraith to Amazon. Kate seems capable of going from perfect bride to perfect mother, with no messy deviation."
Our take: Don't stop reading Hilary Mantel's piece midway — like everyone, including the British PM — seems to have done. There's fascinating stuff — about pandas, Henry VIII and why we are all Barbara Cartland now.
Drugs Over the Online Counter By: n+1, February 18
There are two websites where you can add a gram of heroin to your shopping cart as if you were buying asparagus on Fresh Direct. One belongs to Sigma-Aldrich, the St Louis chemical company that synthesises pure opioids for use in laboratory studies. For this you need to be a federally accredited laboratory. The other isSilk Road, the anonymous marketplace where drugs are priced in untraceable Bitcoin currency. For this you just need an internet connection.... Although you might be perturbed if a salesperson offered you heroin from behind a department store counter, the aesthetic of the product page makes the transaction seem instantly mundane."
Our take: It is not the easiest place to get to online, but the digital black market of drugs operates, and once you are there it is as easy as placing books on a shopping cart. The aftershocks are entirely offline.
What Have the Stealth Jets Got? Radio! By: Wired, February 20
For the first time, America's top-of-the-line F-22 fighters and Britain's own cutting-edge Typhoon jets have come together for intensive, long-term training in high-tech warfare. If only the planes could talk to each other on equal terms... For all their sophisticated engines, radars and weapons, the American and British pilots are reduced to one-way communication, from the Brits to the Yanks. That is, unless they want to talk via old-fashioned radio."
Our take: They are top-of-the-range stealth jets, but they can communicate to each other only through radio that can be intercepted, betraying their location. Thundering typhoons!
Source : ET
Interesting trends and topics that are being written about
A roundup of some of the most interesting trends and topics that are being written about around the world. They write it, we post it, you read it.
The Making of Pulp Fiction By: Vanity Fair, March 2013
In 1986, [Quentin] Tarantino was a 23-year-old part-time actor and high-school dropout, broke, without an apartment of his own, showering rarely. With no agent, he sent out scripts that never got past low-level readers. 'Too vile, too vulgar, too violent' was the usual reaction, he later said.... 'Like a lot of guys who had never made films before, I was always trying to figure out how to scam my way into a feature,' Tarantino tells me. Though he was indisputably king of all movie knowledge at Video Archives, the suburban-L.A. store where he worked, in Hollywood he was a nobody.
Surrounded by videos, which he watched incessantly, he hit upon an idea for recycling three of the oldest bromides in the book: 'The ones you've seen a zillion times — the boxer who's supposed to throw a fight and doesn't, the Mob guy who's supposed to take the boss's wife out for the evening, the two hit men who come and kill these guys.' It would be 'an omnibus thing', a collection of three caper films, similar to stories by such writers as Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett in 1920s and 1930s pulp magazines. 'That is why I called it Pulp Fiction,' says Tarantino.
Our take: The making of the movie — with Samuel Jackson fighting for his role — is as riveting as the film itself.
Royal Bodies By: London Review of Books, February 21
Kate [Middleton] seems to have been selected for her role of princess because she was irreproachable: as painfully thin as anyone could wish, without quirks, without oddities, without the risk of the emergence of character. She appears precision-made, machine-made, so different from Diana whose human awkwardness and emotional incontinence showed in her every gesture. Diana was capable of transforming herself from galumphing schoolgirl to ice queen, from wraith to Amazon. Kate seems capable of going from perfect bride to perfect mother, with no messy deviation."
Our take: Don't stop reading Hilary Mantel's piece midway — like everyone, including the British PM — seems to have done. There's fascinating stuff — about pandas, Henry VIII and why we are all Barbara Cartland now.
Drugs Over the Online Counter By: n+1, February 18
There are two websites where you can add a gram of heroin to your shopping cart as if you were buying asparagus on Fresh Direct. One belongs to Sigma-Aldrich, the St Louis chemical company that synthesises pure opioids for use in laboratory studies. For this you need to be a federally accredited laboratory. The other isSilk Road, the anonymous marketplace where drugs are priced in untraceable Bitcoin currency. For this you just need an internet connection.... Although you might be perturbed if a salesperson offered you heroin from behind a department store counter, the aesthetic of the product page makes the transaction seem instantly mundane."
Our take: It is not the easiest place to get to online, but the digital black market of drugs operates, and once you are there it is as easy as placing books on a shopping cart. The aftershocks are entirely offline.
What Have the Stealth Jets Got? Radio! By: Wired, February 20
For the first time, America's top-of-the-line F-22 fighters and Britain's own cutting-edge Typhoon jets have come together for intensive, long-term training in high-tech warfare. If only the planes could talk to each other on equal terms... For all their sophisticated engines, radars and weapons, the American and British pilots are reduced to one-way communication, from the Brits to the Yanks. That is, unless they want to talk via old-fashioned radio."
Our take: They are top-of-the-range stealth jets, but they can communicate to each other only through radio that can be intercepted, betraying their location. Thundering typhoons!
Source : ET
