Every summer is the same: the weather is warm, the kids are off from school, and the calendar is filled with festivals, trips to pools and beaches, vacation journeys and cookouts.

And yet, every summer is different, too.

From the songs running through our minds and the clothes we see everywhere to the books we're all reading, the movies we're all seeing and even the season's fads, this summer, like every other summer, has its cultural touchstones.

Because it's summer, they are frivolous, cheap, colorful and ephemeral. But because these lazy, hazy days make the best memories, the sounds, sights, tastes and smells of summer 2010 will always be evocative.

Here's a brief guide to some of this summer's best and most indelible memories.

Song: You couldn't get away from the sweet, sun-kissed happiness of Katy Perry's "California Gurls," with Snoop Dogg. (Nope, it has nothing to do with the Beach Boys' 1965 summer anthem, although Snoop Dogg's comment, "I wish they all could be California girls" annoyed the original tune's record company.) And even though we're not on the West Coast, the image of "Daisy Dukes with bikinis on top" is a familiar one.

Not as well-liked but also catchy and heard everywhere was Usher's romantic "OMG." The song, featuring will.i.am, mixes infectious sports-arena chanting and autotune effects.

Heartthrob: Justin Bieber! You'll have to wait until October for the pop star's memoir, "Justin Bieber: First Step 2 Forever: My Story," to read about his "amazing journey to stardom." But wait! Bieber and his side-swept hair also will star in a 3-D biopic that includes a concert. In the Globe and Mail, Dave McGinn wrote that Bieber is "on TV, he's in movies, he's on Twitter, he's in books, he's in your head like a song you hate but can't stop singing. The 16-year-old singer from Stratford, Ont., pretty much controls the universe at this point."

But journalist, attorney and professor Larry Atkins wrote, "There's a decent chance that 40 years from now Bieber fever will become the sniffles," and that's the way a summer romance should be -- memorable and fleeting.

Book: Your summer reading probably included a book whose title started with the words, "The Girl ..." Last week, Amazon's top three books were "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest," with more than 225 days in the top 100; "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," which had more than 410 days in the top 100; and "The Girl Who Played With Fire," with more than 160 days in the top 100. These books, published as the Millennium Trilogy (in English in 2008, '09 and '10), feature the unforgettable character of Lisbeth Salander, an antisocial but fearless computer hacker. The complex mystery thrillers were written by Swede Stieg Larsson, who died of a heart attack at age 50 in 2004, shortly after finishing the manuscripts.

Movie: The funny, bittersweet "Toy Story 3" had audiences laughing and wiping away a tear. Pixar remade in 3-D the first two "Toy Story" movies, originally released in 1995 and 1999. With a new generation of young cowboys and astronauts brought up to speed on the onetime rivalry between Woody and Buzz Lightyear, the studio released "Toy Story 3," in which Andy, the toys' owner, is preparing to go to college. Woody, Buzz and the others endure harrowing trials at the hands of a sinister strawberry-scented Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear before finding peace with another child.

Fans who looked forward to the mind-bending "Inception" either loved it or hated it, but plenty of people saw it. This week saw the hugely anticipated opening of "Eat, Pray, Love," starring Julia Roberts. And products, from international "Eat, Pray, Love" tours to cosmetics and candies, hit the market, cashing in on the inspiring story.

TV: Summer used to be a desolate time for TV viewers, but things have changed. Many of the shows this summer have been actually good, or at least a guilty pleasure. "America's Got Talent" and "So You Think You Can Dance" weren't bad, and "Toddlers & Tiaras" was car-wreck fascinating. A rash of shows about hoarders and people with obsessive-compulsive disorder provided the same tough-love professional help as the long-running "Intervention." "Kate Plus Eight" picked up where Jon left off, "Big Brother" rolled on, and the "Jersey Shore" crew brought their shallow, thoughtless lives to Miami. The best-scripted shows included "Rubicon," "Mad Men," "Burn Notice," "True Blood," "Hot in Cleveland" and "Entourage."

Commercials: Dear Geico: We were tired of the caveman, and the gecko leaves us feeling sort of cold. But bravo on the new ads: "Piggy," "Was Abe Lincoln Honest?" and "Does a former drill sergeant make a terrible therapist?" And thanks for introducing a new nonswear into the vocabulary: "Jackwagon!"

Clothing: The classic abbreviated warm-weather looks featured a few twists. This year, ruffles on necklines and hems were big. Young guys wore knee-length, pieced patchwork madras shorts; teen girls chose floral sun dresses or tanks with short shorts, called Daisy Dukes or boy shorts. And here's a hint: If you are looking at a person wearing skinny jeans cut off at the knee with a lumberjack plaid shirt and a bushy, ungroomed Unabomber beard, you have seen the summer uniform of the hipster guy.

Hair and makeup: Nails were cut short and polished in bright colors, says Sean Dimmer, operations manager of Sephora in Walden Galleria. Spring brought shades of blue or green, with rainbow nails -- one done in every color -- a fun look for young girls. By summer, bright orange and yellow polish were popular. "Lots of brights, neon and glitter," he said.

A touch of coral or pink lipstick brightened many summer faces, says Dimmer. "False eyelashes were huge," he says of the exaggerated, frankly fake long-lashed look that Twiggy would have recognized.

Young guys wore their hair short or medium-length, slightly spiked up, brushed flat or piecey. The front-center point is outdated. For women, braids were back, but this time messy and off-center. Buns, both high and low, showed up, as did some headbands. It was the summer of the Mohawk for young boys.

Footwear: After a few seasons of glitzed-up sandals, simple rubber flip-flops returned, but in a rainbow of summer colors. Old Navy's men's flip-flops came in a dozen solid colors and several patterns, and women's styles included solids, metallics and prints. For women, ballet flats and retro-looking nonbranded sneakers were popular.

Kids' craze: Silly Bandz and Zany Bandz were everywhere. Kellie Klos, manager of Clayton's Toys in Amherst, says the store started getting calls about the colorful silicone bands in the late winter, mostly from grandparents whose grandchildren live in other parts of the country where the craze had already caught on. The store started stocking them soon afterward, in packages that generally cost $4.95 for 24. The soft, stretchy bands, worn as bracelets, are made in hundreds of shapes, in dozens of themes, including dinosaurs, princesses, pets, fantasy, pirates and cowboys. "We've had pretty much every school age buy them," says Klos. "It's been age 5 right up through high school." The new late-summer styles include tie-dyed colors, bands that change color when exposed to the sun, and scented bands.

Sound: If you happened to catch three seconds of any World Cup match between June 11 and July 11, you probably said, "What's that horrible buzzing sound?" It was the noise made by hundreds of fans blowing into hundreds of vuvuzelas, the 2-foot-long plastic horns that mimic a traditional African horn. The droning noise is so annoying -- and so continuous -- that vuvuzelas have been banned from games all over the world.

Beverage: The icy, creamy drink you could grab at the drive-through ruled this summer. Car cup holders were stuffed with Dunkin' Donuts Coolattas, Tim Hortons Iced Capps and McDonald's Frappes and Smoothies. A million calories, but so refreshing!

Adult beverage: Margaritas and mojitos ruled the roost at the Frog Hair Grille on Transit Road in Amherst, says Nancy Mosman, assistant general manager. Summery, fruit-flavored cherry or watermelon martinis were also popular. Beer infused with citrus, including Blue Light Lime and Bud Light Lime, was "huge," says Mosman. "They tried last year with the Bud Light Lime, and it just wasn't that big, and this year it's really taking off."

Food: Five years ago, the word "slider" was almost an insult. Now the cute, petite burgers and sandwiches are everywhere, and made of almost everything, including fish, steak, chicken, ground lamb, even cold sliced ham and turkey. Cute and delicious!

Unlikely working-class folk hero: Who hasn't yearned to make a spectacular exit from a job by cussing everybody out over the intercom, grabbing a beer and sliding down the emergency chute? In mid-August, flight attendant Steven Slater lived that dream. Of course, he was arrested and charged with felonies. But he struck a chord! People wrote songs lauding him and set up Steven Slater fan pages on Facebook, which quickly drew 200,000 fans.

"Look at me!" pastime: Slackline walking, on display almost daily on Bidwell Parkway and in Delaware Park, is similar to tightrope walking, except that the line itself is an inch-wide section of webbing with more give in it than a tightrope. Rather than the tight-fitting, spangled costumes worn by circus tightrope acrobats, slackline walkers favor T-shirts, cotton pants and out-of-season wool caps.

Technology: The "magical" iPad was released in April, but the seemingly endless supply of "apps" for the iPhone were less abundant for the iPad. The Droid operating system, powered by Google, was hugely popular with techies who liked to tinker with the system's settings. Apple fans lined up to buy the iPhone 4 in July, snapping up 1.7 million of them in the first three days, but soon began complaining about a glitch that indicated a drop in signal strength when they held the phone a certain way -- the "death grip." Apple scrambled to fix the problem, handing out free bumper cases to prevent users from putting their fingers over the antenna.

Scandals: Do you remember the first time you heard one of this summer's shocking Mel Gibson tapes? The tapes, recorded by Oksana Grigorieva, the mother of his infant daughter, revealed the once twinkly-eyed, charming, conservative religious man with the occasional mystifying alcohol-fueled anti-Semetic outburst as a violent, panting, vile-obscenity-yelling lunatic. What do women want? How about never hearing from this contemptible rageaholic again?

Bad girls: The long-running Lindsay Lohan drama was dealt with seriously when a tough judge sent Lohan to jail and then to drug rehab in late July for violating probation in her 2007 DUI case. Lohan was sentenced to 30 days in jail but spent less than two weeks there, before heading to rehab for 90 days.

In late July, the insipid "Jersey Shore" drama spilled over into real life when Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi got falling-down drunk and was charged with disorderly conduct. Polizzi tried to downplay the incident, saying, "I didn't hurt anybody -- stuff like that happens in Jersey," but later she admitted that her dad was furious, scolding her, "I didn't raise you like this." A somewhat chastened Polizzi said she had cut back on her drinking.

Betty White, at 88, has our unqualified support to be as outrageous as she wants for as long as she can. But Snooki and Lindsay seem headed for serious problems if they don't change course. Here's hoping that they tone it down and we're talking about somebody new in the summer of 2011.

aneville@buffnews.comnull