These things are starting to feel less like Lists and more like Dear John letters to the idea of mass culture. If you haven't heard, it's all over -- that American Top 40/weekend box office/Nielsen family notion of common experience, the way we gather 'round for important moments and horrific TV and the bad hairdos and the belted, pink overcoats that we all get around the same time. It's a heckuva job, Brownie, managing such a socio-politico-pop-culture disaster. We did the flyover this morning and it's all gone. It's all flotsam. It's Anderson Cooper on a pontoon down there, waving and crying and blogging.

And look at you -- reading a newspaper, of all things. Your kid won't look up from his PSP. You feel adrift more now than ever.

But we must survive. Let's hug it out, put our heads together, and move across the island. There are about five or six of us. We were in the tail section; where were you sitting?