From the Longreads Archive: Roger Ebert
A collection of stories by and about the writer and film critic, who has died at age 70.
Inside Apple’s Plans for Its Futuristic, $5 Billion Headquarters
Steve Jobs had grand plans for Apple’s new headquarters, but now there are questions over whether the company should be going through with them:
“Apple hasn’t announced any major changes to Jobs’s vision, so some of the sought-after $1 billion savings will likely come by rolling back his sky-high requirements for fit and finish. Rather than cement floors, Jobs wanted to use a stone-infused alternative such as terrazzo, buffed to a sheen normally reserved for museums and high-end residences. Jobs insisted that the tiny gaps where walls and other surfaces come together be no more than 1/32 of an inch across, vs. the typical ⅛ inch in most U.S. construction. Rather than a lightweight, sound-absorbing acoustical tile, Jobs even wanted the ceilings to be polished concrete. Contractors would typically erect molds with crude scaffolds to pour the cement in place, but that leaves unsightly ruts where the scaffolding puts extra pressure on the surfaces. According to two people who’ve seen the plans, Apple will instead cast the ceilings in molds on the floor and lift them into place, a far more expensive approach that left one person involved in the project speechless.”
Troy Knapp, a Ghost in the Backcountry
For nearly a decade, a fugitive allegedly terrorized cabin owners in the Utah mountains. The story of what drove him into the mountains, and the months leading up to his capture:
“Knapp launched his first experiment in criminal solitude in September 2000: He stole a Toyota pickup, pointed it west, and didn’t stop driving until he hit Big Pine, California, on the eastern edge of the Sierras. Toothy granite peaks rim the town, a gateway to some of America’s most popular backpacking. Knapp ditched the truck on a dirt road, stripped it of its tools – and two pairs of binoculars – and walked into the backcountry.
“A few days later, a local hiker reported a suspicious man carrying a rifle near the Owens River. A warden from a nearby fish hatchery went to investigate, but while he was gone, his truck and a hatchery building were broken into. Missing were his boots, $3 in change, and maps of the Eastern Sierras and Death Valley National Park. Local cops were put on alert.”
Billy Joel Pays Tribute to Phil Ramone: ‘He Was the King’
A personal reflection on the relationship between a musician and his producer. Ramone, who produced for Joel, Paul Simon, Barbra Streisand and others, died March 30 at age 79:
“Phil perceived that recording hadn’t been fun for me for a very long time. The process was like pulling teeth. I don’t want to do 15 to 20 takes. I start to hate the song. If I gotta do more than a half a dozen takes, I’m ready to leave. I don’t wanna beat something to death. I just want to be as spontaneous and improvisational and free-wheeling and then I can walk away. I don’t think it’s a matter of laziness, it’s a matter of being in love. You gotta love what you’re doing. If you love what you’re doing, you’re gonna do a great job. If you’re starting to dislike the process, you’re gonna hear it on the recording.”
Longreads Member Exclusive: House Heart, by Amelia Gray
This week’s Member Pick is “House Heart,” a short story by Amelia Gray, the author of the novel Threats and short story collections Museum of the Weird and AM/PM. “House Heart” was published in the December 2012 issue of Tin House.
Support Longreads—and get more stories like this—by becoming a member for just $3 per month.
A Nightmare in Real Life: Va. Teen’s Kidnapping Tale in the Philippines
A mother and son from Virginia are kidnapped by terrorists while visiting the Philippines. The story of their escape:
“Every 15 minutes, all night long, the men would shine a bright light inside, checking on the captives.
“Because the militants wouldn’t use names — they called Kevin ‘the boy’ and Gerfa ‘the woman’ or ‘the infidel’ — and never revealed their own, the captives began assigning names to them. Gerfa chose names of parasites that make people sick. ‘The first one I called Enterobius vermicularis,’ — pinworm.’ Another, Falciparum, or malaria. Another was Entamoebas, which cause things like dysentery.
“But her cousin had trouble pronouncing the Latin, so they switched to simpler names. One man had a beard, so Kevin called him Hagrid. Others became Skunk, Tom and Jerry, Pancake and Band-Aid.”
A Man Was Murdered Here
In the summer of 2012, a homeless man named William Greer Jr. was bludgeoned to death in a park in Austin, Texas. Greer’s case remains unsolved, and his daughter is determined to find answers:
“In the weeks that followed her dad’s death, Tangie drove to Austin three times: once to speak to police, once to speak to reporters, and once to commemorate what would have been Greer’s 50th birthday on July 29. On one of those visits, Tangie went to the spot where her father lost his life. She spoke to a transient named Chris who sleeps nearby and asked him if he had seen anything the night of the murder. She knew detectives had already questioned him—and eliminated him from their investigation—but maybe he had forgotten to tell them something that could prove crucial. ‘I was playing detective in a way,’ Tangie told me.
“Chris told her he didn’t remember her dad, but that he did recall another transient sleeping at the same spot before Greer’s murder, and afterward. He gave her a description of the man, and Tangie relayed the information to detectives. But she says they told her Chris wasn’t reliable. ‘If you interviewed him eight times, you’ll get eight different answers,’ a detective said.”
The County Where No One’s Gay
The author visits Franklin County, Miss. where census data shows there are no same-sex couples. He soon discovers that to be untrue:
“‘I think people should be able to marry whoever they want to.’
“I walked over to ask why, in this place where most people seem cool to the idea of gay people, that he took such a progressive stance. He waved me inside the store.
“‘I’m gay myself, that’s why,’ he said in that kind of intense whisper that conveys both urgency and secrecy. It’s the tone you hear a lot in movies like ‘Argo.’
“I was stunned.”
The Ghost in the Machine
(NSFW, not single-page) An in-depth profile of rap legend the D.O.C., who penned many of N.W.A.’s and Eazy-E’s early songs and became an on-again, off-again studio partner to Dr. Dre:
“The shine finally started to trickle down. N.W.A’s first national tour opened in Nashville in the spring of 1989, with Doc doing eight minutes a night as an opening act. The crowds dug him. No One Can Do It Better dropped that June; within three months it sold 500,000 copies. By the end of the tour he was doing 30-minute sets. Radio picked up on “It’s Funky Enough,” a Dre production with way more commercial reach than, say, ‘Fuck tha Police.’ Years later, when Rolling Stone asked Chris Rock to make a list of the greatest rap albums of all time, the comedian put No One Can Do It Better at number 11. ‘I was going to school in Brooklyn,” he wrote, “and the only time you could see rap videos was on a weekend show with Ralph McDaniels called Video Music Box. D.O.C.’s video for ‘It’s Funky Enough’ premiered, and D.O.C. had an L.A. Kings hat on. When I came to school on Monday, half the kids in Brooklyn had L.A. Kings hats on. It was official.'”
Finalists for the 2013 National Magazine Awards
Congrats to the 2013 Ellies finalists
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