“In order to make a film of one of China’s most famous novels, the multimillion bestseller, Wolf Totem,” Andrew Simpson “has 18 months to raise a pack of Mongolian grassland wolves to sit, snarl and fight on cue.”
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How Tap Dancing Died, And The Came Back To Life
Brenda Bufalino talks about the disappearance of venues for tap shows through the 1950s and ’60s, as rock ‘n’ roll took over, and about the Tap Renaissance of the 1980s, of which she was at the forefront.
Orientalism Inverted: The Javanese Painter Who Exoticized Europe (And Himself)
“When the [19th-century] European taste for the exotic was ascendant, there was a unique case of Orientalism inverted, in the dandified figure of the Javanese painter Raden Saleh, who mastered the technique of Western artists and even mimicked their sensibility.”
Thomas Heatherwick On Redesigning London’s Red Double-Decker Buses
“Heatherwick describes why a second staircase and third door can help the busses stick to a timetable and reveals the best way to disguise traces of kebab smeared on a seat.”
The Intrepid Ones: Muxes, The Third Gender Of Oaxaca
“The indigenous Zapotec culture of Oaxaca is not divided by the usual dichotomies: gay or straight, male or female. There’s a commonly accepted third category of mixed gender – people called muxes (said to derive from mujer – Spanish for ‘woman’). Some are men who live as women, or who identify beyond a single gender.”
Hit Hollywood Franchise, Or Semiotic Text? Academics’ Fixation On Alien
Academics have always loved science fiction, of course. … But the cottage industry of analysis that has sprung up around Alien is something else again. … We’ve had Alien as feminist allegory … Alien as mothering fable … Alien as abortion parable” – not to mention Marxist critique and Freudian field day. Tom Shone surveys the literature.
Looking Back At Joss Whedon’s Old Roseanne Episodes
“At the tender of 24, he was a story editor and staff writer for Roseanne, securing the writing credit on five episodes in the second season … [Since] Whedon’s wry, hyper-articulate voice is so distinct it’s practically trademarked, I was curious: Would his contributions be evident even in these early scripts?” (Yup.)
Kafka’s Final Absurdity: How His Papers Ended Up Being Hoarded By An Israeli Cat Lady
“For the past 40 years, the women of the Hoffe family have held an assortment of Kafka’s primary drafts, letters, drawings and, possibly, unpublished manuscripts.” (Esther Hoffe was the mistress of Kafka’s agent, Max Brod.) “[The] women have guarded [the papers] closely, and to this day no one is sure exactly what they contain.”
Staging An Ant Ballet (Yes, With Real Ants)
“[Ollie] Palmer’s project, Ant Ballet, is an augmentation of ant societal behavior. By appealing to their most base instincts – hacking the pheromone signals that ants rely upon for communication – Palmer is able to manipulate ants, to choreograph their movements.”
In Praise Of The Internet’s Longest Tubes
“If the Internet is a global phenomenon, it’s because there are tubes at the bottom of the ocean. A look at the undersea cables that connect us.”