Cultural Events in 2006

Slate.com never lets me down--there's always some offbeat article, interesting critique, or review of the papers for me to delve into at my whim. This time, it's an article entitled "The most amazing--and disappointing--cultural events of 2006." I know technically we're 3 days into 2007, but I still feel the need to mention this article.

The premise? "Slate asked a number of prominent writers, thinkers, and other luminaries to answer the following question: What cultural event most amazed or disappointed you this year?" And thus, a very amusing, 6-page article was born. Here are some of my favorite events (with subsequent critiques) from the article:

1. Art critic and professor Christopher Benfey said, "The demotion of Pluto disappointed me." The AJC's obituary writer did the article on the subject in the style of an obituary, which I thought was a clever spin for a science-related piece. But yes, I would agree with Mr. Benfey--I, too, was disappointed when I heard that Pluto was no longer a planet. And we weren't the only two--several Facebook groups were created to show the shared disappointment. One of the groups currently boasts 753,189 members. No joke.

2. Author Laura Kipnis discussed "the minor scandal involving hard-punching literary critic Lee Siegel who was suspended from the New Republic after it turned out he'd been anonymously writing glowing tributes to himself on the magazine's Web site." Wow. What I think was highly entertaining about this story was that he blogged those tributes under the name sprezzatura, which means "studied carelessness" in Italian. He also claimed to be "constitutionally childlike" and uses this title as part of his defense. Too funny.

3. Author Megan Marshall was most interested in the "reunion of Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne—after a 142-year separation." Nathaniel was buried in America while Sophia was buried in England, but now they reside side-by-side. Awwwww.

4. Executive producer and former reporter David Simon touched on a subject that directly affects me--"the clearest indications yet as to the future of the daily newspaper in America." There were several clashes between the newsroom's desire for accurate, dispassionate, fair reporting and corporate's desire to increase profit margins. The LA Times was the perfect example: the chief editors refused corporate's demands to cut costs and shrink the newsroom staff and were promptly fired because of it. I'm glad they stood up for themselves (and subsequently for others around the country).

I could keep going, but then I'd have to comment on everything in the article, which would take far too long. But I highly recommend reading it...it's very interesting.