American Gladiators of the Mind

To keep you moderately entertained today, here's a link to a Time.com podcast of an oddball intellectual exercise carried out last week by Time's arts section staff — the critics who write about movies, television, books, pop music and, ahem, art and architecture, as well as our distinguished arts section editor — all of us disputing among ourselves about what was the most important single cultural "thing" of 2007. (The link takes you to a page with several Time.com podcasts. You need to download the one in Entertainment called "The Best Thing of 2007".) In the end we vote! Meaninglessly, I would say, but the conversation has its moments. I, naturally, defend something high minded. Very, very high minded. And heavy. Very, very heavy.

In other, non-thing related news, at Time we have what you might call a holiday escape clause for the entire staff. At the end of the year we shut down the magazine for a week and take off. (Except my hard working colleagues at Time.com, which never goes dark.) So I'm taking off and taking the blog with me. I'll be back up and running on Thursday, Dec. 26. Til then, seasons greetings everybody.