Cultural Literacy

You've probably noticed that most of my trivia questions require knowledge of people and events from the dim and distant past. They're generally easy to answer for people of the Happy Days generation, but can be quite obscure to the youth of today. Modern kids know nothing of Eisenhower or the Ames Brothers, but can go on and on about current newsmakers like Ricky Martin and Madonna. And it's legitimate to ask whether young Joe iPad really needs to know about Leon Spinks or the Jheri Curl phenomenon. (Previous post photo key: Leon Sphinx, Reeses Peanut Butter Stanley Cup, Big BenGay, and Tom and JheriCurl.)

Fortunately, I am happy to serve as the supreme arbiter of American cultural literacy, and will continue to share the occasional truth regarding what people of this country need to know before they can be considered full-fledged members of our society. For example, it is not necessary to know that James Kirk's middle name is "Tiberius", but you darn well better know that his middle initial is "T". If you don't, well, you're probably a commie.

So, while I don't consider it a necessity to know anything about the Spinks brothers, I would hope that everyone in this country knows about the other two important boxers of that time period: Muhammad Ali and Cassius Clay. And while it's not required to know the brand name of the hair gunk that only Lionel Richie should've been allowed to use, it IS important to know that many people made incredibly bad fashion choices throughout the 70s and 80s...both in attire and in personal grooming. (Farrah Fawcett, of course, is the obvious exception.)

I could just make a straightforward list of things that citizens should know, like the fact that Paul McCartney was in another band before "Wings", and that Buddy Ebsen and Andy Griffith were in other TV shows before "Barnaby Jones" and "Matlock". And that the scientific name for the condition of continued employment despite being hideous at everything you do is "The Florence Henderson Syndrome." But for me, it's just more fun to put together small thought puzzles to encapsulate the larger cultural topics -- so I'll keep bringing you these little graphic challenges, and we'll have fun while we test our knowledge of what it means to be American.

Each row of today's photos represents things that are sort of semantically similar. They don't have to be an exact match, but are probably close enough that you'll get what I'm going for. And to be considered culturally literate, you should probably know something about each of these icons. Good luck, enjoy yourself, and have a great day!