#longviews

‘I’m just Tess Vigeland. And I need to figure out how she’s remarkable.’

Our recent Longreads pick, Tess Vigeland’s speech at the World Domination Summit, is now up in video form. It’s our video pick of the day.

‘I must admit that it was intended consciously as a social document. … [but] the storyteller’s first duty is to the story.’

Today’s video pick is “The Complete Citizen Kane,” a 1991 documentary on the Orson Welles masterpiece featuring interviews with Welles from 1960 and 1982, as well as an interview with New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael, whose history of the film was published in 1971:

Raising Kane (1971)

The Cinephilia and Beyond blog has a full list of “essential documentaries” on Orson Welles.

‘They don’t teach us about money in high school.’

Today’s video pick is Modern Comedian’s short documentary on comedian Sara Schaefer, who fell deep into debt even while she was pursuing her dream career and earning two Emmys as a writer for Jimmy Fallon. (Schaefer now co-hosts the MTV series Nikki & Sara LIVE, which has its second season premiere on July 30.)

For further reading on debt from the Longreads archive:

“Why I’m Grateful I Got Sued by American Express and What you Can Learn From My Experience” (Nathan Rabin, June 2013)

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‘Let’s enlist universities directly in the war effort.’

Our video pick of the day is this 2008 talk (1 hr.) by entrepreneur and Stanford professor Steve Blank about how the defense industry first shaped Silicon Valley—starting with Stanford, which after World War II “became a full partner in the military-industrial complex.”

“When I lost my eyesight I thought my painting days were over.”

Our video pick of the day is this 8-minute documentary on Hal Lasko, a 97-year-old man whose family introduced him to Microsoft Paint 15 years ago and “he took off with it.” Lasko, who suffers from macular degeneration, works in a style that’s a blend of pointillism and 8-Bit art.

The film is directed by his grandson Ryan Lasko and Josh Bogdan.

“Build a good name. Keep your name clean. … And if you build a good name, that name will be its own currency.”

Our video pick of the day: Words of wisdom from Patti Smith, from the Louisiana Literature festival, August 2012 (6 minutes)