Nobody's Read Everything
January 30, 2010
I'm going to be offline for a little while (some would say that last rant of mine was a sign I should have gone offline a bit sooner) so I thought I'd leave you with some good sites to check out that you may not have been enjoying.
- Dan C's Lost Garden. Though nominally about gaming (particularly Flash gaming), it's among the most consistently thought-provoking tech-oriented blogs that I read. Every idea of his is one I want to steal, and nothing exemplifies that pattern more than his recent work on Ribbon Hero.
- Sleevage. Album covers, one at a time. Single-topic blogs run by passionate individuals (instead of paid blog barfers) are still among the best sites on the web. This one is a perfect example.
- Modcult. Though I am Jeb's number one fanboy, I will begrudgingly concede that all of the authors of this venerable group blog are awesome curators.
- Mixtape Maestro. Probably the single music blog that comes closest to my own fixations on the production end of pop; I miss its erstwhile spinoff 90s R&B Junkie (the archive is still online), but this is one of those few sites where I try to read every single post and feel let down if I miss one.
- RC3. Rafe Colburn is living proof that some folks really hone their craft at blogging after being at it for a decade.
And then, two newcomers, from a genre I'm dubbing "Under a Rock" blogs:
- Hobbited, where my friend Natalie is mirthfully blogging her way through her first-ever reading of Tolkien's classic The Hobbit.
- Tellywonk, where Anna Pickard is documenting her first viewing of Lost, by trudging through every episode.
Both of those last two blogs touch on a recurrent fixation of mine, the myth of the cultural canon. No matter how ostensibly ubiquitous or universal a particular work of art is, no matter how frequently it's referenced or alluded to in culture, the majority of people have probably never seen it.
My friend Meg told me the other night that, as an early-to-bed morning person, she's never really seen an episode of a late night talk show. I would love to read a blog of her watching an episode of each of the major shows, documenting the things that seem remarkable or bizarre. I've toyed with the idea of blogging my way through playing Beatles Rock Band, since I've never actually listened to any Beatles album all the way through and only know their work from its pop culture ubiquity. This, despite my love of pop music in general. (I first heard "Eleanor Rigby" from Aretha Franklin, "Norwegian Wood" from P.M. Dawn, "We Can Work It Out" from Stevie Wonder, and probably have more examples like that than I can count.)
Inevitably, people react to that revelation from me with something between shock and dismay, often evolving into disgust or revulsion. But it doesn't much bother me; There's lots of culture that I haven't gotten around to participating in. I've never been to an opera, either.
What I'm curious about, though, is how people who are fairly culturally literate and very well-educated respond to works that pervade culture. Under a Rock blogs are great for showing how ideas percolate through the media world, and how those ideas are imperfectly absorbed.
So, confess: What have you never seen, heard, or read?
2:14 AM
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- Earlier: Free Publicity: Who do we help?
- Next: The Power of the Audience
I never seen Star Wars. Any of them. I'm ok with this :)
I've never seen an episode of Star Trek. I might just go watch one.
I've seen Star Wars at least 3 times, and that's a pretty accurate summary.
To the OP, there is no such thing as universal culture, or whichever culture we consider to be universal (coastal elites, perhaps) is hopelessly shallow. IMO, cultures are identfied by their canons (for example, baby boomer journalists have one particular canon, southern baptist fundies another, silicon valley tech enthusiasts another). Even in these subcultures, the majority of people probably haven't read the full canon, but they are certainly heavily influenced by it.
I confess: I talk about Orwell all the time, but the only book I've actually read by him is Homage to Catalonia, which is awesome. I've listened to 1984 and Animal Farm on tape. I don't think that counts.
I've read everything else worth reading.
The Simpsons. I don't know how or why, but I've just never caught an episode, in syndication or initial broadcast.
It's ironic because I really like other cartoons aimed at adults (South Park, Family Guy etc).
I have never seen a James Bond movie. Okay, I saw a ten minute clip once when some guy had diamonds embedded in his face and that was enough for me.
By most definitions I'm a huge Sci Fi fan, but I've only seen an episode or two of TNG.
I'm also a huge film nerd, and recently made a blog post listing the movies I'm supposed to have seen but have not yet, just to get it off my chest. It felt good.
And I have the requisite shelves full of dozens of books that I haven't finished. Oh, how they haunt me.
I've never read the Harry Potter series. I did see the first film, but owing to my wife's strict Potter prohibition, had never finished the film series. That is, until two recent cross-Atlantic flights, on which I watched the entire franchise back-to-back. Each is decent in as stand-alones, but end to end, they tire easily in their monotonous structure. Probably never will finish the books now.
My family and friends would consider me a TV addict, but I've never seen Lost, nary a single episode of 24, The Wire, American Idol, Battlestar Galactica (remake), The West Wing, Desperate Housewives, Gray's Anatomy, South Park... I could go on. It boggles my mind that I could still find content to watch that don't necessary permeate the popular hive mind.
Oh wow, lovely timing. I came by your blog after not having visited for awhile while waiting for a video to load in another tab: Lady Gaga. I've no idea who she is, but yesterday my friend (an opera singer) told me she was great, so I looked her up. For some reason I'd thought she was a tranny.
This isn't usual for me though. While I think of myself as fairly normal (ha), I must be pop-culturally illiterate. So, yes, your "under a rock" bit is spot on. When I'm exposed to tv shows or even many movies, I feel a bit like I'm in a foreign land, not quite getting the cues. It's not that I'm against tv, etc, it's just that there isn't time. And I really enjoy, say, Car Talk, when I'm in need of entertainment. I get that: cars break down, cars need to be repaired. I don't even know what Lost is.
I caught up on hours of pop culture on a 17hr flight recently. I saw 30rock for the first time (I liked it) as well as some reality tv. That I just didn't get. That, I suppose, is how I feel when I watch most tv shows. What in the hell is going on? It is strange, now that I'm thinking about it, to feel totally part of one's culture but not partake in such a huge part of it. Heavens. A bit scary.
But I can't believe I'm in a minority 1) feeling this way and 2) not keeping up with this stuff. Am I?
Great post!
I stopped watching TV when I left for college in 1988: My rooming house had no TV. Four years later, I'd gotten out of the habit of watching and never picked it up again.
So I've missed virtually all of the big TV shows of the late 80s, 90s, and 00s. No Simpsons, no Friends, no Sopranos, no Daily Show, no Cosby show, none of the various CSI variants ...
I *wish* I'd seen a lot of this stuff now, but there's no way in hell I can catch up at this point.
I've never seen Avatar, and I don't think I ever will, because I missed the re-release, and I think it would be missing the point to see it without the 3-D effects.
The reason I missed it is because my brother and I had a screaming match on the way to the theater. He just learned how to drive and really sucked at it; I was angry.