5. Salim Nourallah released Constellation, Ciphers (edit: oops that was actually the end of ‘08), produced Rhett Miller, became a man with a more-than-respectable catalog and further established himself as the reigning godfather of Dallas music.
4. Justin Terveen took photographs and made Dallas look like a cool city to live in. Brock Davis made amazing art every day of the year.
3. Old single women living alone in interesting houses. Particularly, Dallas’ own Ronnie Claire Edwards (here is a street view of the property–I rode by it just the other day) and Pennsylvania’s recently departed Violet Hobaugh (here are some pictures of her home–Laura Kicey’s photographs are how I discovered this story, which takes place really close to where I grew up–in fact I undoubtedly rode by her house a few times, 17 years ago).
2. _why’s disappearance. It’s hard to describe _why’s importance, but you’ll either get it or you won’t (and no harm in the latter). Great places to start: his wikipedia page, his book’s wikipedia page, _why the lucky stiff interview on the setup [dead link], a great _why quote and picture of his book [dead link], and a rather well written “eulogy to _why” (by Javascript guru John Resig).
1. Irony ate itself. Hipsters, as a cultural race, have mostly died off. Maybe it didn’t happen this year, maybe it hasn’t really happened (and it’s just my perception), but it seems like a decent swath of our cultural tastemakers and coolhunters looked around, took a deep breath, and realized they weren’t getting any younger and that the simple life can be good…
Honorable mentions: Type, whitespace, harmonies.