Latest news with #Tamara
Boston Globe
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
In her latest novel, Barbara Shapiro mixes Manet, Boston, and a possible haunted painting
But the Connecticut native, who writes as B.A. Shapiro, cut her teeth as a novelist writing Boston-set ghost stories and thrillers with paranormal elements. In her latest, ' Advertisement 'I actually published five novels very Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The book in a nutshell: Boston resident Tamara Rubin — great-great-great-great granddaughter of Impressionist Tamara hangs 'Party' in her Tremont Street home and becomes so obsessed with it she must leave the house to get work done, 'to avoid the lure, like an addict who can't be anywhere near her drug of choice.' Advertisement The plot shifts between current-day Boston and 19th century Paris, where readers meet members of the famed impressionist circle, including Manet, Degas, Monet — and 'Party' apparently holds some kind of magic power. It somehow survives major disasters; it seemingly can't be destroyed. Tamara sees a character wink. The artist's signature at the bottom of the painting changes before her eyes. She begins to have nightmares about the painting. She wonders if Morisot's ghost haunts it. The historical story unperpinning the plot is compelling, well-researched and at least loosely true. While 'Party' is fictional, it sparked me (and likley more readers) to Google: Morisot really was to Manet's brother. Manet really did With events upcoming at What sparked this book? I'd read about Berthe Morisot when I was working on 'The Art Forger.' I'd scribbled her name down and threw it into my file of ideas. When I was thinking about the next book, I saw that note, and got totally fascinated with her. The whole idea of this unsung talent grabbed me. The quality of her work, the misogyny, what it was like for a woman in those days. I felt she really got screwed, and that if I wrote a book, people might Advertisement Was there really a romance between her and Manet? There was. Historians acknowledge that she and Manet were in love, but no one knows for certain whether they had a physical affair. But, hey, I'm writing novels, so of course they're going to have a physical affair– and they're also going to have an illegitimate child. Right. What draws you to the lives of artists? When I was little, I wanted to be an artist. My parents were very supportive. My mother signed me up for classes. My father built me a studio in the basement. It was great, except for the fact that it became clear really quickly I had no talent. So I became an art-appreciator. You earned your Masters from Tufts in Sociology in '75 and your PhD in Sociology from there in '78. You said you never studied art history. How do you begin researching? I read piles of books, [research] online. I go to lots of museums. Like Tamara, I discovered that a lot of museums have tons of paintings by Degas, Manet, and Monet. While most museums have at least one or two Berthe paintings, the numbers don't match at all. You've written about Abstract Expressionists, Post-Impressionists, Impressionists. What group of artists would you write about next? I'm actually working on a novel about Advertisement What caused the pivot from ghost stories/mysteries to artist-based historical-fiction? Once our kids finished high school, we moved back from Lexington to Boston [in 2005]. We were in the South end and just surrounded by artists. I could walk to different museums. I decided to take a chance on writing a book about art. And I loved it. I switched from murder-mystery/ supernatural into art-mode. You said you painted as a kid. Do you paint now? I actually tried taking watercolor classes recently, and once again – ehhh. I'd love to sing, but I can't do that either. Lauren Daley can be reached at ldaley33@ Follow her on Twitter and Instagram a . Lauren Daley can be reached at
Daily Mirror
20 hours ago
- Health
- Daily Mirror
'I swapped student life in the UK for Caribbean island - and saved myself £88k in tuition fees'
Tamara Leslie's five-year medical degree in Anguilla costs £8,000 a year A student has moved to a Caribbean island for university - saving herself £88k in tuition fees in the process. Tamara Leslie, 20, started a biomedical course at the University of Sussex but quit after a week - when she discovered she could get the same qualification for less. The student, who is originally from Papua New Guinea but has been living in Eastbourne, East Sussex, would have forked out £16k-a-year in tuition fees in the UK as an international student. She would have spent £128k on a three-year undergraduate degree and a further five years in medicine - as she did not initially get into medical school. She looked into other options and realised she could study medicine on a five-year course at New Anglia University, Anguilla - costing roughly £8,000 a year. Tamara is currently doing a year on a pre-med course before a four-year medical degree. She packed up her life to move 4,220 miles and loves the "freedom" and "independence" it has given her. Tamara said: 'You have those moments where you just think about your whole life and you plan everything. 'All my friends are going to finish university and I'll still be there. I understand medicine is an arduous course but I thought that surely there must be another way to get this done a bit quicker. Ultimately the money and the time and everything coming to New Anglia just won me over." Tamara had to pay more for her tuition fees in the UK as she is not a UK citizen. As she did not get accepted onto a medicine course initially, she was completing a three-year undergraduate course in biomedical science first. She said: "I was a permanent resident in England at the time but I wasn't a citizen so obviously it wouldn't have applied to me to have normal tuition fees as a home student." But Tamara quickly worked out the course was not for her in September 2024. She said: 'Class size is definitely a big influence on it. In my classes in Brighton it felt like it was 100 to 150 of us. I couldn't really raise my hand because I felt I would waste other students' time so everyone just keeps quiet." Tamara contacted SME, Study Medicine Europe, and went through various university options with an agent after starting at Sussex. She said: "She gave me all these options of European universities to start next September, but this was the only option to start early in January. 'I submitted my application, and I think I got accepted the next day, so I dropped out of university and then I came here." Tamara said the Caribbean appealed because of the " weather and location". She said: "It reminded me of my home country. It kind of felt familiar to me. "I think your environment influences you a lot, so it would be helpful for me to be somewhere nice and sunny rather than somewhere just cold." The degree will be recognised everywhere as it meets the GMC criteria - a set of standards for those who train to become doctors. To start with she was the only person on her pre-med course, which allows her to experience 'a more personal relationship with your teacher'. Despite having no family in the Caribbean, the people there have made her feel welcome and a part of the community. Tamara said: 'Every time you walk into stores everyone says good morning. "It's just so cheery and happy. I feel like that's why I didn't get a chance to be homesick - because it didn't take me too long to connect with people. 'When I travelled to the UK for the first time as a kid, people were a bit closed off and it took me a while to make friends. Here, time isn't a factor - you can click with someone immediately.' Tamara pays "roughly the same" same for her student accommodation but gets more bang for her buck. She pays $500 a month for rent. She said: "I remember looking at accommodation when I was going to Sussex and the cheapest was roughly £400 per month. With the money I'm paying here I definitely wouldn't be able to get this with whatever I would have paid in the UK. "Here we've got a balcony, an outdoor sofa, a living room. It's crazy. It's also roughly about a six minute drive to campus." She has a part-time job working at a beach bar, which helps her fund daily expenses in Anguilla. Because her course is aimed at her getting her qualifications as quickly as possible, her timetable is 8am to 3pm every week day - instead of having lectures spread out like it is in the UK. She said: 'It can get hard sometimes in the sense that school can get quite tasking but I think it all depends on how you manage your time. I've been balancing it pretty well so far.' Tamara plans to complete her final two years of her course in the UK to do her clinical rotations, as New Anglia University offers these in the UK. She said: 'It's worth my money to be here, but when it comes to it, I'd rather shadow the NHS because the healthcare here is a bit slow. 'I think we, as humans, get so stuck in a cycle which we're so used to, but I think it's best to go out of your shell because it's the best way to grow as an individual. My biggest advice is to go for it.'
Bangkok Post
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Bangkok Post
A surreal telling
You are not alone if you get into Superstar, the new Netflix miniseries from Spain, without knowing it's based on a real-life figure -- a once-infamous Spanish dance-pop singer from the late 1990s named Tamara, who later reinvented herself as Yurena. Over six chaotic episodes, Superstar offers a fantastical, dreamlike dramatisation of her turbulent rise to fame and transformation into a pop culture phenomenon. But instead of presenting a straightforward biopic, the series delivers something much stranger and more stylised -- an offbeat, surreal trip through the glitter, trauma, and absurdity of notoriety. With its hallucinatory visuals, fractured storytelling and bizarre tonal shifts, Superstar feels like watching a show inside someone else's fever dream. And again, you're not alone if you finish all six episodes and walk away feeling like you somehow know less about Tamara than before. If that's the case, fear not -- Netflix also offers a companion documentary, I'm Still A Superstar, which provides more biographical context and can help ground the dramatic version for those who felt completely unmoored by the miniseries. As the new millennium dawned, Spain saw an explosion of fame that wasn't polished or conventional. Superstar captures that atmosphere, portraying a time when figures from the fringes of mainstream culture burst into public consciousness. Tamara -- improbable, unconventional and unapologetically herself -- embodied this strange, shifting era. For a few brief years, she dominated Spanish tabloid headlines and TV screens, challenging societal expectations of fame, beauty and success. The show reflects this spirit through its disorienting structure, vibrant visuals and larger-than-life characters. That said, this is not going to be for everyone. The show is bizarre -- at times purposefully off-putting. It presents a cast of characters who hover on the margins of society: grating, narcissistic, dysfunctional, and, in some cases, deeply repellent. While the overarching plot traces Tamara's rise in the public eye, each episode focuses on a particular environment or relationship that shaped her journey. These spaces -- be they her childhood home, a reality TV set or the backroom of a gaudy nightclub -- each deserve their own chapter in her mythos. Watching Superstar, I was reminded of the French film Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (2010), a biopic of Serge Gainsbourg that also used surrealism and stylised fantasy to portray an artist's interior world. Similarly, Superstar blends the real with the imagined. The result is an experience that's more emotionally or symbolically true than literally accurate -- although that lack of clarity can be frustrating if, like me, you start the series without any knowledge of Tamara or her career. I can only imagine that many of the characters we see on screen are exaggerated versions of real people, filtered through a lens of satire and dark humour. There are amusing and strange details -- like Tamara's mother keeping a brick in her purse -- that may or may not be true, but feel emotionally symbolic. One particularly weird creative decision is having the same elderly actress portray the mother at every stage of Tamara's life, from childhood to adulthood. It's a bold, surreal choice that feels more metaphorical than realistic. But that's emblematic of the series' overall approach: blending fact and fiction so thoroughly that the line between what happened and what might have happened is nearly erased. The story does progress, mostly in linear fashion, but it's filtered through multiple points of view. This occasionally makes the timeline feel jumpy or disjointed, especially as each new character enters Tamara's life and brings their own perspective. However, the one constant is Tamara's mother, who remains by her side throughout the years. This relationship becomes a kind of emotional anchor, helping to ground the viewer and maintain a thread of continuity amid the chaos. Despite its strangeness, Superstar gradually builds momentum. Each episode adds another layer to the portrait of Tamara -- a woman both vulnerable and audacious, mocked and celebrated, crushed and defiant. By the final episode, the emotional payoff arrives. The tone shifts in a surprising but welcome way. Episode 6 stands apart for its sensitivity and sincerity, pulling back from the wild surrealism to reveal something more raw and heartfelt. It's a poignant conclusion that touches on universal themes: the conflict between parent and child, between control and freedom, between what others expect from us and what we expect from ourselves. Visually, the series is rich and electric. Red is the dominant colour, evoking passion, danger, and spectacle. Some of the musical performances and concert scenes are hypnotic and immersive. The costume and production design is another highlight -- every wig, outfit and glitter-drenched backdrop contributes to the show's heightened, theatrical feel. The lead actors are deeply committed to the material and look the part, fully inhabiting the hyperreal world the creators have conjured. Ultimately, it was the finale that elevated my appreciation for Superstar. Around the end of Episode 5 and especially throughout Episode 6, I started to connect emotionally with the show in a way I hadn't expected. Underneath the satire, absurdity and flamboyant camp is a sincere story about a woman striving to define herself in a world that wanted to mock and diminish her. The push-and-pull between Tamara and her mother -- between personal ambition and familial pressure -- gives the show its emotional weight. Superstar may not be a traditional biopic, but it captures the imagination and wild energy required to survive and thrive in the spectacle of showbiz.
Gulf Insider
22-07-2025
- Business
- Gulf Insider
Apple Launches Online Store In Saudi Arabia With Arabic Support
Apple has expanded its retail presence in Saudi Arabia by launching the Apple Store online and the Apple Store app, which offer support in Arabic for the first time. Customers can now shop Apple's full range of products with exceptional service from dedicated team members. Free engraving in Arabic and English is available for items like AirPods and Apple Pencil. To support flexible shopping, the Apple Store online will offer an affordability option through Tamara. With Buy Now Pay Later, customers can shop their favorite lineups and pay in four-month installments at 0 percent interest. Deirdre O'Brien, Apple's senior vice president of Retail and People, stated, 'We are excited to bring the Apple Store online and app to Saudi Arabia, providing customers with a new way to explore our products and services.' Apple plans to open several flagship stores in Saudi Arabia starting in 2026, including a remarkable location in Diriyah, a UNESCO World Heritage site. This expansion builds on Apple's existing initiatives in the region, including the first Apple Developer Academy, which opened in Riyadh in 2021.
TECHx
22-07-2025
- Business
- TECHx
Apple Store Online Launches in Saudi Arabia
Home » Latest news » Apple Store Online Launches in Saudi Arabia Apple has announced the expansion of its retail presence into Saudi Arabia with the launch of the Apple Store online and the Apple Store app. This marks the first time customers in the Kingdom can access Apple's full range of products and services directly in Arabic. The launch introduces a new way for customers in Saudi Arabia to explore, shop, and receive support from Apple. Deirdre O'Brien, Apple's Senior Vice President of Retail and People, said the company is excited to connect with customers and help them experience how Apple innovations can enrich daily life. The Apple Store online offers a personalized shopping experience tailored to users' existing Apple products. Through the Apple Store app, customers can compare models, save items, and track orders with ease. Apple has also introduced configure-to-order options for Mac, allowing users to customize chips, memory, and storage. For the first time, customers can enjoy free engraving in both Arabic and English on selected products such as AirPods, AirTag, Apple Pencil, and more. • Customers can personalize their Apple Watch combinations • iPhone 16 lineup features Apple Intelligence and enhanced privacy Apple also revealed a range of retail services for Saudi Arabia. Shoppers can get live support via chat or phone to choose the right product. After purchasing, Apple team members are available online for help with setup, switching to iOS, and cellular activation. To improve accessibility, Apple introduced an affordability solution via Tamara, offering Buy Now Pay Later with four monthly installments at 0% interest. The Apple Trade In program is now available in Saudi Arabia. Customers can exchange eligible devices for credit or have them recycled for free. AppleCare+ will provide customers with two years of expert support and device protection. The Apple Education Store is also now active in the Kingdom. Students, parents, and educators can enjoy discounts on Mac and iPad. A back-to-school offer is running until October 21, offering free AirPods or another accessory with eligible purchases. Apple has further announced plans to open its first physical Apple Store locations in Saudi Arabia by 2026. The first flagship location is expected in Diriyah, a UNESCO World Heritage site. This expansion builds on Apple's ongoing investments in the region, including the Apple Developer Academy, which launched in Riyadh in 2021 in partnership with the Saudi government, Tuwaiq Academy, and Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University.
