Lockdown 2–Electric Boogaloo! Frankly at this point in proceedings hibernation feels like the best option. If you need us we’ll be in our cave.
However, The Cut continues, if in sliiiightly truncated form this week. Hey, look, some of us have lives too, yeah? We kid. Always lovely to see you. Enjoy the usual hunk of palaver.
Now is the time. Here is the place. This is The Cut.
November, as members of The Readership will be well aware, is the month of Nanowrimo. Many of The Cut’s staff are again putting their nose to the grindstone and getting 50,000 words of a first draft down. And yet we can still put a weekly edition of this newsletter down? Goddamn, that’s a professional. With that in mind, we present a history of an invention that democratized the act of writing…
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201028-history-of-the-ballpoint-pen
Owning a Banksy is a dream for most street art fans—one that sadly is out of reach unless you have very deep and very full pockets (or happen to be a bit handy with a forklift). But you can own a Ganksy right damn now for a much smaller chunk of change. The evil geniuses at vole.wtf have fed the work of the pseudonymous street artist into an AI, and the disturbing results are available to buy. It’s a limited edition, and at the time of writing prices start at £123, rising by a quid with every Ganksy sold. Get in there quick!
A couple of food links now. We loved this Vittles piece on the offerings at local chip shops that really don’t travel. Although we’d be very happy to see some of these snackeroos at our local chippy. Who’s up for a Wigan kebab?
https://vittles.substack.com/p/the-hyper-regional-chippy-traditions
Speaking of regional goodness that’s hard to come by, Vice have a fascinating bit on Tikim, an incredibly influential but rare book on Filipino cuisine that changes hands for hundreds of dollars. That price ticket puts the book out of reach for many of the cooks that could use it the most…
Onto our film section. Back projection was for decades the mainstay of film special effects, until the advent of green and or blue screen ushered in the digital age. Now, in a slightly more advanced form, it’s back as a valid and flexible VFX proposition. It’s not exactly a low-budget option, though. Introducing The Volume…
A good title sequence can take a film to another level. A great title sequence has a life beyond the film. Presenting exhibit A—Trainspotting. Art Of The Title takes an admirably deep dive into the making of this iconic blast of pure cinema.
http://artofthetitle.com/title/trainspotting/
We’d heard that Rutger Hauer’s moving speech at the end of Blade Runner was improvised. But there are more big moments in SF and fantasy cinema that we were surprised to learn were made up on the spot. Hey Malkovich, think fast!
https://whatculture.com/film/10-iconic-sci-fi-movie-moments-that-were-totally-improvised
The Situation will be informing our fictional landscape for years to come, as we come to terms with the reality of an apocalypse that is very different to the one we imagined. We enjoyed this look from The Slipper at how comics have told pandemic stories over the years.
https://the-slipper.blogspot.com/2020/07/viral-comics.html?m=1
And finally. Exit Music. Presented without further comment.
See you in seven.
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 