Friday, April 05, 2013

Rip Van Winkle Syndrome Strikes Again

I think I'm the only blogger who doesn't have any thoughts on Roger Ebert's demise.  In fact, I was shocked a few years ago to hear he was still around.  I had thought Siskel and Ebert was strictly an 80's thing.  It's as if I were in a media blackout the entire time I was having babies (13 years, but who's counting?), and I've never quite caught back up.

Maybe I should just buy this book?
So now it turns out I missed out on knowing (in the Internet sense) a fascinating blogger and memoir-ist. Apparently, even though I thought that I was managing to keep up with things by reading blogs (would you believe, I didn't know who George Clooney was until Mrs. G named him her Secret Boyfriend over at Derfwad Manor?), I seem to have barely scratched the surface.  Maybe you folks should use the comments this weekend to tell me what you think are the most important 2 or 3 things, cultural zeitgeist-wise, I should know about.  Celebrities, writers, social scientists, trends - anything from the last 2 decades that strikes you as being something essential to cultural literacy.  I'm sort of crowd-sourcing my re-education here, if you don't mind. 


Skip the Kardashians, though.  I'm choosing to remain blissfully ignorant of that particular phenomenon.  Also?  I know about smartphones. 
 


10 comments:

  1. Author Hugh Howey. He's had a phenomenal success this past year with his self-published book "Wool" and unlike that 50 shades of shite, he's a good writer. And cute too.

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  2. I was an Ebert fan, but don't own a smartphone, so I don't know where I am on the 'in the know continuum.' I suppose the one source I would send you to that would point you great directions would be Andrew Sullivan's site The Dish. Always something interesting there, and his new subscription model for paying for content is still experimental and getting a lot of attention.

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  3. I think that cultural literacy is probably overrated. I , however, would not be able to survive without my iphone! Ha

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  4. Jim Jarmusch films--if you like Tarantino. I missed out on the 90s culture pretty completely. There's a band called The Red Hot Chili Peppers that I just realized I like.

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  5. You know, I remember seeing a number of Jim Jarmusch films right before I had kids - 1990, 1991. That's how I fell in love with Roberto Begnigni (sp?).

    I've heard of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but I don't know any of their music. I'll have to check it out.

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  6. I never know what's going on.

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  7. Um. I think I may be orthogonal to cultural literacy. It comes of having given up most TV in the 90s.

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  8. I am attempting to stay current and failing miserably on almost everything. However, a good blog to read is Boing-Boing, edited by Cory Doctorow - a little bit of everything that is kind of "out there" - and between you and me, it sounds pretty cool when you say "I read on Boing boing......" Some of the stuff is a bit "techy", but a lot of it is just really interesting.

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  9. You're asking me? But I learn from YOU!

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  10. Myssie1963April 08, 2013

    Do NOT send money to Nigeria, no matter how genuine the Ambassador sounds. We now hate banks and bankers as much as we hate lawyers. All of the really good shows are on HBO and Showtime, except NCIS, which RULES!

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