Because the President’s limousine passed almost exactly in front of Dallas clothing manufacturer Abraham Zapruder on Nov. 22, 1963, just as he was playing with his new film camera, and precisely at the moment that Lee Harvey Oswald fired his rifle from a nearby books depository, his silent, 26.6-second home movie has become the focal point of America’s collective memory on that weird day. For many of us, especially those who weren’t alive when it happened, we’re all watching that event through Zapruder’s lens.
Other footage from the scene turns up here and there, becomes fodder for documentaries (like this new one disproving the “second shooter” theory). But Zapruder’s film is still the canonical ur text of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the most complete and most chilling visual record. In many ways, it prefigured all sorts of American pastimes, from widespread paranoia about government to a loss of faith in photographic truth and the news media, from the acceptance of graphic violence to newer concerns about copyright. Don DeLillo once said that the little film “could probably fuel college courses in a dozen subjects from history to physics.” Without the 486 frames of Kodachrome II 8mm safety film, our understanding of JFK’s assassination would likely be an even greater carnival of conspiracy theories than it already is. Well, maybe.
- 60 Minutes
- ABC
- Abraham Zapruder
- Adam Begley
- America
- Assassination of John F. Kennedy
- Bell & Howell
- Bell & Howell Zoomatic
- Betty Grable
- Bill Bennett
- CBS News
- Central Intelligence Agency
- Clay Bertrand
- Clay Shaw
- Clinton
- computer software
- copyright law
- Dallas
- Dallas Police Department
- Dan Rather
- David Ferrie
- Dealey Plaza
- Declaration of Independence
- Department of Justice
- description
- Dick Gregory
- Don DeLillo
- Don Hewitt
- Eastman Kodak
- Entertainment
- Errol Morris
- Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Films
- Forrest Sorrels
- Freddie Prinze
- George H. W. Bush
- George Holliday
- Geraldo Rivera
- Good Night America
- Guy Banister
- high-speed Internet
- high-speed Internet
- House Select Committee on Assassinations
- J. Edgar Hoover
- J.D. Tippit
- Jack Ruby
- Jackie O
- Jamieson Film Company
- JFK
- Jim Garrison
- Jim Garrison
- Johann Rush
- John Connally
- John F. Kennedy
- Johnson
- Josiah Thompson
- KGB
- Kodak
- Learned Hand
- Lee Harvey Oswald
- Lillian Rogers
- Lincoln
- Los Angeles police
- Marcel Dehaeseleer
- Marilyn Sitzman
- Marilyn Sitzman
- Mark Lane
- Martin Luther King , Jr.
- Max Holland
- National Archives and Records Administration
- New Orleans
- New York
- news media
- Oliver Stone
- Oscar
- Paris Review
- Paris Review
- Pentagon
- printing error
- Richard B. Woodward
- Richard Drew
- Robert Groden
- Robert J. Groden
- Rodney King
- Secret Service
- Single bullet theory
- Supreme Court
- Texas
- the New York Times
- the Times
- The Associated Press
- the New York Times
- the Times
- Time Inc
- U.S. government
- Umbrella Man
- United States
- United States government
- US District Court
- Walter Cronkite
- Warren Commission
- Washington
- White House
- YouTube
- Zapruder
- Zapruder
- Zapruder
- Zapruder film
ebooks are a new frontier, but they look a lot like the old web frontier, with HTML, CSS, and XML underpinning the main ebook standard, ePub. Yet there are key distinctions between ebook publishing’s current problems and what the web standards movement faced. The web was founded without an intent to disrupt any particular industry; it had no precedent, no analogy. E-reading antagonizes a large, powerful industry that’s scared of what this new way of reading brings—and they’re either actively fighting open standards or simply ignoring them. In part one of a two-part series in this issue, Nick Disabato examines the explosion in reading, explores how content is freeing itself from context, and mines the broken ebook landscape in search of business logic and a way out of the present mess.
- Adobe
- advertising-filled webpages
- Amazon
- Amazon Kindle
- Amazon.com
- Apple
- Barnes & Noble
- Cameron Koczon
- Chicago
- Computer file formats
- Culture State of the Web Process Business
- cumbersome systems
- Declaration of Independence
- Digital rights management
- E-book
- e-reader
- e-readers
- e-reading
- ebook distributor
- Educational Development Corporation
- Electronic publishing
- EPUB
- final retail price
- Frank Chimero
- Hachette
- HarperCollins
- HTML
- HTML
- Illinois
- International Digital Publishing Forum
- Internet Archive
- Kindle
- Linux based devices
- low retail prices
- Macmillan
- manufacturing
- Michael Hart
- Mike Monteiro
- Mobipocket
- Mule Design
- Newspaper Club
- Nick Disabato
- online documentation
- Open eBook
- Open formats
- page layout software
- Penguin Group
- Print-on-demand services
- Project Gutenberg
- Publishing
- Random House
- retail price
- same technologies
- Simon & Schuster
- smartphone
- suggested retail price
- Technology
- U.S. Department of Justice
- United States
- University of Illinois
- web developers
- Web development
- web frontier
- web standards movement
- XML
- XML