“Had the assassination of John F. Kennedy not happened 40 years ago today, it’s hard to imagine the writing of Six Degrees of Separation, the making of Bonnie and Clyde, the career of novelist Don DeLillo, the apocalyptic music of the Doors or the popularity of ‘Grand Theft Auto’ and other violent interactive games… After Kennedy’s death, the world became bleaker, stranger somehow. The culture — the arts it produced and the audiences that absorbed them — turned suspicious, became less respectful of government, more prone to what some would call ‘paranoiac flights of fancy,’ flights that were alternately sinister and playful.”