Links for January 15th
Film color correction, web3 and crypto, great baseball photos, how many books people read in a year
Hello from New York, where it “feels like 7,” hope you had a smooth week.
Links
Emily St. James at Vox asks and answers (with a few theories) a question: What happened to color in movies and television? Why does everything look muted gray or beige? You’ll also learn something in there, if you are like me, about how color correction works.
This Moxie Marlinspike post about web3 and crypto really seems like it was everywhere, but I found it compelling and informative about some of the illusions and promises of the moment.
Meanwhile, great/classic Allahpundit breakdown of the CDC director’s comments about omicron that ended up with multiple misleading conversations.
This is a tough, but interesting and generous read about Shawn Bradley’s difficult recovery from his paralyzing bike accident.
Recently, I mentioned that Drive My Car has these great nighttime scenes where you sort of relax into the driving, and here’s the director on this very question with an elegant description:
Driving at night is very different from driving in the day. There’s something very abstract about it. The details of the city start to become more blurry, the details of the environment and what’s outside go out of focus, so what you start to see is darkness and light. That abstractness is something I was drawn to. I also think that words said at night are different from words said during the day. Daily life is farther away, and you draw out something different from the characters — their inner selves. Conversations during nighttime drives often end up being deeper conversations.
Also thought this recent Vulture interview with Kenneth Branagh about Belfast and growing up in Northern Ireland was really… nice?
Lighter and interesting alert:
a. These really gorgeous black-and-white photos of Houston Colt .45s (before they changed to the Astros) players, and specifically if you scroll down, a cool photo of the under-construction Astrodome frame.
b. These GQ photos of Shohei Ohtani, which are like of a movie star.
c. Gallup put out results on how many books people read in a year, and even though the topline is people read fewer books, especially older Americans and college graduates, if you really look at the charts, in certain ways it seems like reading books isn’t too different from how it was 20 years ago.
Light book commentary
Very light, as I am in the middle of some work reading.
A note on all this
Thanks for subscribing. Hope you enjoy. The goal here is just to offer up some links you may have missed, and maybe the occasional commentary on something in politics or a book I may have read that you, the reader, might enjoy. If you have thoughts on any of this, hit me up at katherinemillernyc@gmail.com or just tweet at me.