Best Pop Culture Experiences of the Decade
This week, The Onion A.V. Club poses the question 'what are your best pop-culture-related memories of the past decade?' to its writers, with predictably entertaining and esoteric results. (As usual, Tasha Robinson's answer is the best and makes me wish she were my friend.) Here are some of my personal best pop culture moments from 2000-2009.
1) Just about any of my experiences at Comic Con would fall into this category, even the dull parts where I was waiting in line. Almost invariably, I fell into conversation with interesting people nearby, and on those few occasions where no one felt like talking, I had reading material in the form of huge sampler manga magazines and comic book previews. (This past year, a guy came past the line, handing out old issues of The Flash and Fantastic Four, refusing money and just smiling at everyone.) After waiting in a long line, meeting Lynda Barry a few years ago was beyond wonderful. But this most recent Con provided me with the best (and most personally embarrassing) pop culture moment of the decade: I saw David Tennant, John Barrowman, and Russell T. Davies on stage together and had a full minute of total fangirl squee. (livyanne will no doubt be telling my children about this story someday.)
2) Seeing The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring with my family and realizing a) Peter Jackson had not messed it up, and 2) the movie was almost exactly how I'd envisioned the story as a child. (Although not quite with the crazy HAWTNESS of many of the male leads--I was a pretty sheltered kid, and most of my mental pictures of the characters came from my favorite illustrators, like Trina Schart Hyman, Michael Hague, and Herge.) Watching the first installment of that series was like being around the campfire, listening to a master storyteller spin a tale that I already knew, almost instinctively, but longed to hear again. The remaining films did not disappoint, either, but nothing topped the sensation of seeing it for the first time.
3) Reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in one day, the morning after they were released. It's very seldom now that I get a chance to read *anything* in one sitting, especially anything as long as those books progressively became. However, I staked out my selfish territory with these three tomes, on the basis that I would be talking to friends later that day, who would have read the entire thing already. And it was true--after each installment, there was a frantic phone call with aratana_miyuki along the lines of "Are you finished?! Can you believe that-?! I know, right? Do you think that-?! No way! Way!" etc. etc. On of these phone calls took place at 11:00PM West Coast time--I was surprised to hear from her, since she lives on the East Coast. It turned out she'd just gotten back from a party, but wanted to talk about the books. The whispered conversation that followed (neither of our husbands had read the book yet, and were incredibly spoiler-phobic) is one of my favorite moments of my friendship with her.
3a) A pop culture low point involved working retail the night Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released. It was dizzying. We sold at least 120 books in 45 minutes. I remember thinking it was worse than the entire Holiday retail season.
4) Seeing the first season of Heroes on DVD during the wild fires in 2007. It was a tremendously unnerving week: we returned from vacation to the smell of ashes in the air; everything was covered in a fine, grey film, and people were panicking. There was a very good chance at one point that the flames would jump over I-15, which would have brought them very close to our apartment complex. There was only so much news we could watch without getting too freaked out and tired. The little Blockbuster franchise in the shopping center nearby turned out to hold the key to distraction/salvation: we watched the entire run of Heroes over about three days, pausing every now and then to check in with my parents, who were housing some friends whose neighborhood was on fire. And it helps that the first season of that show contains some snappy writing, a great premise executed well, and a plot that has urgency and coherence. I was so grateful to the cast, writers, and production staff for putting it together and making me feel like everything would be all right, despite a direct and very real menace to the contrary.
1) Just about any of my experiences at Comic Con would fall into this category, even the dull parts where I was waiting in line. Almost invariably, I fell into conversation with interesting people nearby, and on those few occasions where no one felt like talking, I had reading material in the form of huge sampler manga magazines and comic book previews. (This past year, a guy came past the line, handing out old issues of The Flash and Fantastic Four, refusing money and just smiling at everyone.) After waiting in a long line, meeting Lynda Barry a few years ago was beyond wonderful. But this most recent Con provided me with the best (and most personally embarrassing) pop culture moment of the decade: I saw David Tennant, John Barrowman, and Russell T. Davies on stage together and had a full minute of total fangirl squee. (livyanne will no doubt be telling my children about this story someday.)
2) Seeing The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring with my family and realizing a) Peter Jackson had not messed it up, and 2) the movie was almost exactly how I'd envisioned the story as a child. (Although not quite with the crazy HAWTNESS of many of the male leads--I was a pretty sheltered kid, and most of my mental pictures of the characters came from my favorite illustrators, like Trina Schart Hyman, Michael Hague, and Herge.) Watching the first installment of that series was like being around the campfire, listening to a master storyteller spin a tale that I already knew, almost instinctively, but longed to hear again. The remaining films did not disappoint, either, but nothing topped the sensation of seeing it for the first time.
3) Reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in one day, the morning after they were released. It's very seldom now that I get a chance to read *anything* in one sitting, especially anything as long as those books progressively became. However, I staked out my selfish territory with these three tomes, on the basis that I would be talking to friends later that day, who would have read the entire thing already. And it was true--after each installment, there was a frantic phone call with aratana_miyuki along the lines of "Are you finished?! Can you believe that-?! I know, right? Do you think that-?! No way! Way!" etc. etc. On of these phone calls took place at 11:00PM West Coast time--I was surprised to hear from her, since she lives on the East Coast. It turned out she'd just gotten back from a party, but wanted to talk about the books. The whispered conversation that followed (neither of our husbands had read the book yet, and were incredibly spoiler-phobic) is one of my favorite moments of my friendship with her.
3a) A pop culture low point involved working retail the night Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released. It was dizzying. We sold at least 120 books in 45 minutes. I remember thinking it was worse than the entire Holiday retail season.
4) Seeing the first season of Heroes on DVD during the wild fires in 2007. It was a tremendously unnerving week: we returned from vacation to the smell of ashes in the air; everything was covered in a fine, grey film, and people were panicking. There was a very good chance at one point that the flames would jump over I-15, which would have brought them very close to our apartment complex. There was only so much news we could watch without getting too freaked out and tired. The little Blockbuster franchise in the shopping center nearby turned out to hold the key to distraction/salvation: we watched the entire run of Heroes over about three days, pausing every now and then to check in with my parents, who were housing some friends whose neighborhood was on fire. And it helps that the first season of that show contains some snappy writing, a great premise executed well, and a plot that has urgency and coherence. I was so grateful to the cast, writers, and production staff for putting it together and making me feel like everything would be all right, despite a direct and very real menace to the contrary.