My Saga, Part 1: Karl Ove Knausgaard Travels Through North America →

Karl Ove Knausgaard, The New York Times Magazine:

When The New York Times Magazine contacted me in December to ask whether I would travel across the United States and write about my trip for them, at first I didn’t think of my missing license. The editor proposed that I travel to Newfoundland and visit the place where the Vikings had settled, then rent a car and drive south, into the U.S. and westward to Minnesota, where a large majority of Norwegian-American immigrants had settled, and then write about it. “A tongue-in-cheek Tocqueville,” as he put it. He also suggested that I should see the disputed Kensington Runestone while I was in Minnesota. It was on display in a little town called Alexandria, near where a farmer had claimed to discover it in 1898, and it could be proof — if authentic — that the Vikings had not only settled Newfoundland but made it all the way to the center of the continent. It probably was a hoax, he said, but seeing it would be a nice way to round out the story.

I accepted the offer at once. I had just read and written about the Icelandic sagas, and the chance to see the actual place where two of them were partly set, in the area they called Vinland, was impossible to turn down.

It says a lot about America, I think, that the most American piece of writing I’ve read in a while was written by a navel-gazing Norwegian. And this is only Part I.

Paul Thomas Anderson: From a Distance →

Jacob T. Swinney, Press Play:

The characters in the films of Paul Thomas Anderson share many similarities. They come from dysfunctional families, they are desperately seeking acceptance, they let their emotions get the best of them, and the list goes on. But a similarity that seems to especially stand out is a sense of isolation. Anderson's characters are adrift, looking for someone or something to connect with in their lonely worlds. This idea is expressed visually through the use of long/extreme long shots. We are often presented with characters lost within the frame, and therefore have trouble connecting with said characters--we become isolated ourselves. Here is a look at Anderson's use of the long/extreme long shot throughout his first six feature films.

His follow-up video should focus on PTA’s unique usage of close-ups. Character faces are always cut-off more than they should be and it always unsettles me—much in the same way the characters in the conversation are unsettled.

Once I find the time to see Inherent Vice, I’ll be writing a review of his career thus far, much in the same manner that I did for Stanley Kubrick.

The Dissolve’s Movie of the Week: 25th Hour

Spike Lee’s 25th Hour was the first movie that, after I watched it, I thought: am I crazy, or was that a terrific movie? It was the first movie I found on my own, took in, thought critically about, and trusted my instinct on. When I found out later on that others thought similarly, I was delighted.

So, of course, I was equally delighted today to see The Dissolve posting a couple of pieces about it. First, from Scott Tobias, we get a thoughtful review/meditation on it, The Ruins and Reckoning of 25th Hour; and second, a conversation between Mike D’Angelo and Tasha Robinson in which they do a great job of hashing out some of the biggest discussion points of the movie.

There’s nothing explicitly spoiler-y about either piece, but I’d recommend having seen the movie before you read them.

Okay, Just One ‘Boyhood Was Robbed’ Post →

Dan Kois, Slate:

But sometimes the academy blows it. That’s the epochal travesty. It was an epochal travesty when Citizen Kane lost in 1941. When The Graduate lost in 1967. Cries and Whispers, High Noon, Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction. In one truly awful stretch in the late ’70s and early ’80s, the academy blew it four years in a row, as Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. all somehow lost Best Picture.

And the academy blew it tonight, when Boyhood lost. This one’s an epochal Oscar travesty. This one hurts.

Okay, and just one snarky jab at Birdman—stop calling it a single-cut movie. It had plenty of cuts; they were just hidden.

Mark Harris, Before and After the Oscars

Mark Harris, Grantland, on 2/9/15:

Or maybe they just really love the movie. If this truly is an Oscar contest between Birdman and Boyhood, I’m not going to complain (much), regardless of the outcome. We have seen Best Picture showdowns — too many to name — between far less worthy contenders. And in a way, these two movies are perfectly matched. Birdman, after all, is a movie about someone who hopes to create something as good as Boyhood.

And, of course, Mark Harris, Grantland, on 2/23/15:

A year in which Birdman wins Best Picture is a year in which the industry’s top prize goes to a good movie rather than a bad one, for which let us give thanks. And a year, or 12 of them, in which Richard Linklater makes Boyhood brings us back to what we’ve known all along, which is that there are some achievements that do not need the validation of a statuette.

I’m too biased in favor of Boyhood to write anything that’s fair, but it’s the day after, and I’m still annoyed. Here’s my biggest gripe—there’s a sizable portion of the populace out there who in the next month or two are going to make the time to see the Best Picture winner of 2014. They’ll generate some cash and some buzz and their lives will be just a tiny bit more complete because of it. And it kills me that the movie they’re going to watch is Birdman, and not Boyhood. My metric for the best movie of the year (from back when I used to see a lot more movies) has always been the same—if all of the prints of all of the movies from a given year were all in the same room, and the room caught fire, and you could only save one to show to future generations, what movie would it be.

2014, you save Boyhood. End of discussion.

How Photography Bridged the Autism Gap Between Father and Son →

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Taylor Glascock, Vantage:

It started in 2007, when Archibald began to notice that there was something different about his son. At the time, Eli had not been diagnosed with autism. There were tantrums and odd fascinations with household objects, strange behaviors and failures to communicate. Raising a child is difficult, but this was something else. A commercial photographer, Archibald adapted by doing what he did best. He took photos.

Incredible images. And I respect/appreciate that this is a story that’s being told that doesn’t have a sweet, clean, happy ending.

Boston’s Winter From Hell →

E.J. Graff:

But for those of us living here, it’s not a pretty picture. We are being devastated by a slow-motion natural disaster of historic proportions. The disaster is eerily quiet. There are no floating bodies or vistas of destroyed homes. But there’s no denying that this is a catastrophe. 

A total reframing of this recent spate of storms. I emailed the piece to a friend who lives in Boston, just to, no pun intended, take the temperature of the situation, and see if maybe Graff had been gripped by a bit of fed-up pathos. She confirmed almost everything he said and even added that garbage pickup has started to become sporadic. I think, for some, there’s a sense that, hey, it’s the Northeast, it’s winter, this shouldn’t be surprising. But sometimes it’s the things that we’re expecting that surprise us the most.

Critics in G.O.P. Say Chris Christie Is in a ‘Bubble’ →

Maggie Haberman and Nicholas Confessore, The New York Times:

In Iowa and New Hampshire, Mr. Christie’s negative ratings in some opinion polls are higher than his favorable ones. He has been slower than Mr. Bush to lock down support within the Republican Party’s pool of big-name “bundlers,” and it is unclear how quickly Mr. Christie is amassing cash. A spokesman declined to say, or even provide a range for, how much money the governor’s leadership political action committee has raised.

Chris Christie’s presidential campaign is floundering because of hubris. In other news, it’s below freezing and the cup of water I left outside froze.

Jeff Dekofsky Explains ‘The Infinite Hotel Paradox’ →

Take 6 minutes out of your day and watch this. Your brain will thank you.

/via kottke.org

The Jony Ive New Yorker Profile →

Ian Parker, The New Yorker:

The worktables are higher than a desk but a little lower than the Apple Store tables they inspired. This height—arrived at after much reflection—accommodates seated study and standing visits. (Risking self-parody, Ive later referred to the “simplicity and modesty” of the arrangement.) Samsung Electronics sells vacuum cleaners as well as phones, and employs a thousand designers. Apple’s intentions can be revealed in one room. Each table serves a single product, or product part, or product concept; some of these objects are scheduled for manufacture; others might come to market in three or five years, or never. “A table can get crowded with a lot of different ideas, maybe problem-solving for one particular feature,” Hönig, the former Lamborghini designer, later told me. Then, one day, all the clutter is gone. He laughed: “It’s just the winner, basically. What we collectively decided is the best.” The designers spend much of their time handling models and materials, sometimes alongside visiting Apple engineers. Jobs used to come by almost every day. Had I somehow intruded an hour earlier, I would have seen an exhibition of the likely future. Now all but a few tables were covered in sheets of gray silk, and I knew only that that future would be no taller than an electric kettle.

The cloth covering the table nearest the door was curiously flat. “This is actually complicated,” Ive said, feeling through the material. “This will make sense later. I’m not messing with you at all, I promise.”

A couple of nights ago, I mocked the Apple blogs for how quickly they all linked to this piece. I’m still skeptical that everyone that linked it up, actually, you know, read it. But I did read it. And—it’s as good as advertised. Maybe better. It’s lengthy—17,000 words—but it goes down smooth, especially if you care at all about Apple, Technology, Design, or just about reading really great pieces of writing, e.g.:

I asked Jeff Williams, the senior vice-president, if the Apple Watch seemed more purely Ive’s than previous company products. After a silence of twenty-five seconds, during which Apple made fifty thousand dollars in profit, he said, “Yes.”

For the Apple crowd, this piece goes straight into the canon. I imagine that the Ian Parker will be buzzing about it for a month at least.