What's Your Pop-Culture?

Director, John Hughes died at 59 yesterday. Hughes wrote, directed, and/or produced seemingly every iconic movie from the 80’s:

Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, National Lampoon’s Vacation, European Vacation, and Christmas Vacation, Pretty in Pink, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, The Great Outdoors, and Uncle Buck.

And, remembering all of these movies reminds me that, at 30, I’m already old...but this isn’t the first time I’ve realized this.

One of my friends made a joke at the expense of his 15-yr-old nephew by referring to him as “the new Ferris Bueller.” With simultaneous boredom and disgust, his nephew looked at him and said, “What’s that…Is that some band from the 90’s?”

Earlier this week, I sat down with a 20-something to watch Unforgiven (Best Picture 1992 starring Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, & Gene Hackman). We are not that far apart in age, but he had never even heard of the movie, and he missed every reference or comparison to other movies I tried to make.

Everything worth hearing from me is stolen. So, admittedly inspired by questions raised in another blog (much more clever than this one) and an article by Chuck Klosterman (also referenced by said blog), I want to know what cutural content is required for you to be fluent among your own peer group.

Klosterman’s article and the related blog argued that ignoring cultural phenomena such as Harry Potter today is a conscious choice to become culturally illiterate and irrelevant tomorrow.

Now, all discussions of Potter aside, I want to know two things:

First, what pieces of pop-culture (music, movies, and TV) form a baseline for cultural literacy among your peers?

And second, what are the new classics? What recent releases (broadly recent; in the last 5-10 years) are the new pop-culture musts?

Is There a Doctor* in the House?

I was in my office last week (minding my own business) reading some articles that a friend asked me to check out, and I ran across an author with this odd credential:

[Guy’s Name], PhD*

Really, guy, an asterisk? I looked at the bottom of the page, expecting to find the qualifying statement or disclaimer to which the * belonged, but there was none. I was really hoping to find something good like:

*some restrictions apply

*degrees listed are purely coincidental

*now with 70% more book lernin’

Can you do that; can you footnote or disclaimer a credential? And while we’re on it, why do we have honorary doctorates? The person hasn’t EARNED a doctorate; he's no more qualified in any particular field, just because he delivered a commencement speech. Someone gave me a couple of books by a pastor with 3 honorary doctorates-and not one actual graduate degree! Isn’t that the professional equivalent of wearing a “World’s Greatest Dad” t-shirt?

That's A Mores

Everyone acknowledges that social norms are illogical. That’s how Seinfeld and his famed “show about nothing” dominated Neilsen ratings for years, and eventually went out on top. [insert awkward Larry King interview here]

One I’ve considered for sometime is the American (especially Southern) premium on politeness. Politeness is probably THE chief virtue in the Southern US, and it trumps actual goodness or kindness almost every time. Kindness is only seen as kind as long as it is polite.

Exhibit A: After Ford was born, friends brought us dinners so that we didn’t have to cook. More often than not people would bring a portion of a meal that they had made for their family to eat that same night or the following night. After one of the meals, I woke up with an upset stomach and thought that I might be getting sick. And the part I feared most was not the actual illness. It was deciding whether or not I should tell the woman who brought the meal just in case I could prevent her family from eating the same meal and ending up with the same sickness.

My Dilemma: To tell the woman who brought the meal that it made me sick would be impolite; not because I’m insulting her ability to cook, but because it would make her feel bad to know that she had made me sick. If she was not going to eat that same meal the following night with her family, I would have had no dilemma. The polite thing to do is obvious—stay up all night and vomit, and then call her the next day and tell her the meal was delicious. But, what if I don’t tell her, and she eats the same meal the next night with her family? Then I could have prevented her family's illness, but chose not to in favor of being polite and receiving spoiled food with gratitude and Southern charm. It's ridiculous, but at 2 am I was actually torn about which was worse – being impolite or sparing a entire family from food poisoning.

So, what would you do? Culturally, which is worse being impolite or unkind?

What to read...what to read?

Alright, here’s my confession; I’m a lazy reader. I hardly read anything prior to seminary, then I read frantically, because I had to, but I really started to enjoy it. I spent last Summer studying for ordination, and told myself that I would get back into reading more, because I can read whatever I want…So far, this has happened too slowly. I like it when I do it…I just have too much inertia to overcome in starting a book or getting into it.

This year, the best books I read were John Owen’s Mortification of Sin and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (see below); I highly recommend both!

So, this summer I want to get back into reading more consistently. The question is: “what do I need to read?”

Here’s my working list to this point:

Richard Niebuhr’s Christ & Culture

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

Alisdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue

Mario Puzzo’s The Godfather

I’m a very slow reader, so I need to make sure that I read good books; good non-fiction, and good fiction. So, I want to hear some of your all-time favorites or recent must-reads. If you could tell me to read one or two books this summer what would they be and why?

One for The Road

So, I just read Cormac McCarthy's The Road...and yes, I'm behind the curve. I read it after strong reviews from Kara, Chad, and Rich. But in my defense, I normally hate reading fiction; I love stories; I love fiction, I just have no patience to read it. It's sad how much I love TV and movies, and how well I know some of them; for years they have been my surrogate literature.

Sadly, I think The Road is the first fictional work I've read from beginning to end since Chocolate Fever.

All that to say, I'm not qualified to offer any substantial thoughts on literature, but it was the best, most painful story I've come across in a long while. I'll admit to crying more than once. McCarthy paints an astonishingly bleak picture for any reader, but I found it an especially difficult read having my own young son to picture at every darkening turn.

So, I want to add my name to the list of hearty-recommenders. The story and desolate style are phenomenal, with lines like, "cold to crack stones," and "a blackness to hurt you ears with listening." I have no earth-shattering or provocative questions as a starting point, but I’d love to hear thoughts from anyone who has read this book or similarly enjoyable dreary reads.