Slate Culture Feed

This week, Dana and Stephen are once again joined by Kat Chow, author of the memoir Seeing Ghosts. The panel begins by jumping into the ring with Cassandro, the oddly conflict-adverse biopic about the lucha libre superstar and exótico gay icon, Saúl Armendáriz, who is played terrifically by Gael García Bernal in a provocative, tour-de-force performance. Then, the trio wades into comedian–and future Daily Show host hopeful–Hasan Minhaj’s thorny web of lies with Slate staff writer, Nitish Pahwa, who detailed the devastating impact of Minhaj’s many falsehoods in his essay, “Hasan Minhaj Meant Something to Brown Americans. Was It All an Act?” Finally, the three react to “The 40 Greatest Stand-Alone TV Episodes of All Time,” written by the Slate Staff, a massive labor of love and fun thought experiment that spans The Sopranos, Atlanta, The Larry Sanders Show, Black Mirror, and High Maintenance. In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, the panel discusses the impact the last few years have had on their lives, inspired by Katy Schneider’s essay for The Cut, “The Pandemic Skip.”Email us at culturefest@slate.com. Endorsements:Dana: Dana sent this to everyone she knows–family, friends, etc. It’s a new interview with Martin Scorsese, written by Zach Baron for GQ entitled “Martin Scorsese: ‘I Have To Find Out Who The Hell I Am.’” In addition to films and moviemaking (his latest, Killers of the Flower Moon, is set to be released in October), the legendary director, now 80, also speaks candidly about life, its inevitable end, and his own mortality. It’s a dream of an interview and absolutely sublime. Kat: Small Things Like These, a beautifully written historical fiction novel by Claire Keegan about the horrific conditions women and children endured at Magdalene Laundries in Ireland. Stephen: “Quantum poetics,” an essay in Aeon written by William Egginton, a professor of humanities at James Hopkins University. In it, Egginton describes the ways Argentine short story author, Jorge Luis Borges, and German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg “converged on the notion that language both enables and interferes with our grasp of reality.” Outro music: “Forbidden Love” by OTEPodcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Kat Hong. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows. You’ll also be supporting the work we do here on the Culture Gabfest. Sign up now at Slate.com/cultureplus to help support our work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, Candice Lim and Rachelle Hampton are joined by Daisy Rosario to discuss the hottest show of the summer: Suits. The USA Network procedural follows a magnetic cast of law firm employees who bend the system, fire off quips in court and essentially, wear suits. Suits isn’t the most buzzy or exciting series out there, so how did a show that ended in 2019 experience a resurgence four years later? Since hitting Netflix in June, Suits has been the most-streamed title for 10 weeks and counting, and the conversation has been boiling over onto TikTok, Twitter and even AO3. So how did Suits become the show of the summer and does a certain paralegal-turned-royal have anything to do with it?This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim and Rachelle Hampton. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stefan Fatsis is joined by writer and podcaster Spencer Hall to talk about a busy weekend in college football. The Ringer's Ben Lindbergh discusses Major League Baseball’s playoff races, and the future of Shohei Ohtani. Finally, Slate’s Nadira Goffe and Defector’s Dan McQuade assess the budding Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce relationship, and a new documentary about Kelce’s brother, Jason.College football (2:30): Deion Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes finally lost, and badly.MLB (20:20): Are the Atlanta Braves the best offensive team in baseball history?Kelce (39:30): Will the Swifties take over the NFL? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, Rachelle Hampton is joined by Alexia Fawcett, a PhD candidate in linguistics at UC Santa Barbara and Kendra Calhoun, an assistant professor of linguistic anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Calhoun and Fawcett wrote a presentation titled, “They edited out her nip-nops: Linguistic innovation as textual censorship avoidance on TikTok,” which explored both the ways in which and the reason behind why users have developed language like “unalived” and “seggs.” And while these neologisms originate on TikTok, their increasingly-wide adoption is causing concern among observers who notice a perhaps unnecessarily-broad softening of language across social media.This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re listening back to one of Anna’s favorite episodes, when actor Ellen Burstyn invited us into her apartment for a sprawling interview about her past and present.  In next week’s episode, you’ll hear a new conversation between Anna and Ellen, recorded just a few weeks ago. But until then, you can also listen back to Ellen’s conversation with journalist and feminist icon Gloria Steinem on our show from 2016 here. Did you know we have a weekly email newsletter for the Death, Sex & Money community? Every Wednesday we send out a note from Anna, fascinating listener letters from our inbox, and updates from the show. Sign up at deathsexmoney.org/newsletter, and follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.Got a story to share? Email us at deathsexmoney@wnyc.org. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, Rachelle Hampton is joined by Jane Marie, the host of the award-winning podcast The Dream which recently released it’s highly-anticipated third season all about life coaches. The two discuss the rise of life coaching and it’s connection to the MLM universe, how the internet has accelerated the life coach boom and what exactly the American Dream has to do with any of this.This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim. With special thanks to Vic Whitley-Berry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Stephen and Dana are joined by long-time friend of the pod and co-host of Slate’s Working podcast, June Thomas. The panel begins by puzzling over the return of Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot in A Haunting in Venice, the actor-director’s third Agatha Christie whodunit adaptation. Then, they dig into Jann Wenner’s disastrous New York Times interview with David Marchese in which the Rolling Stone co-founder manages to disgrace himself in almost every conceivable way. Finally, the trio concludes by discussing Naomi Klein’s new book, Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World, which captures the strange ways selfhood is performed in the internet age. In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, the panel reveals their cleaning playlists and audio accompaniments, inspired by Lindsay Zoladz’ essay for The New York Times, “A 20-Minute Cleaning Playlist.”Email us at culturefest@slate.com. Endorsements:Dana: The wonderful world of Better Call Saul table reads (which can be found on YouTube), specifically, the one for “Switch,” Season 2, Episode 1. June: As someone who enjoys reading biographies of unpleasant people, June endorses A Thread of Violence by Mark O’Connel, which chronicles the gripping tale of one of the most scandalous murders in modern Irish history.  Stephen: The West Cork podcast, a non-fiction series reported and hosted by Sam Bungey and Jennifer Forde about the 1996 murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier. Outro music: “Mother” by The Big Let Down.Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Kat Hong. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows. You’ll also be supporting the work we do here on the Culture Gabfest. Sign up now at Slate.com/cultureplus to help support our work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stefan Fatsis and Josh Levin are joined by the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Gay to talk about quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ (possibly) season-ending injury. Gay also discusses American cyclist Sepp Kuss’ historic grand tour win at the Vuelta a Espana and the controversy that preceded it. And finally, the Athletic’s Sabreena Merchant assesses the big storylines in the WNBA playoffs.Rodgers (2:22): Is it too soon to laugh about him doing his own research?Kuss (19:30): Should the cyclist’s team and his teammates have challenged him or allowed him to win?WNBA (38:20): Can anyone take down the New York Liberty and the Las Vegas Aces?Afterball (59:23): Josh on the MLS story of the year: an Argentinian who is not Lionel Messi. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim are joined by Jane Friedman, author of The Business of Being a Writer and the publisher of Hot Sheet, a newsletter about the publishing industry. The three discuss Friedman’s recent battle with AI-generated books that were being published and sold under her name on Amazon. Friedman published a blog about the saga titled “I Would Rather See My Books Get Pirated Than This (Or: Why Goodreads and Amazon are Becoming Dumpster Fires)” detailing the dangers that the increasingly prolific practice presents to authors and the publishing industry at large.This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim and Rachelle Hampton. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If an instrumental tops the charts, it’s probably an earworm: “Tequila.” “Wipeout.” “Dueling Banjos.” “The Hustle.” “Feels So Good.” “Chariots of Fire.” “Axel F.” You can probably whistle or hum several of those from memory. But do you remember the artists? All were one-hit wonders. By and large, instrumental hits throughout chart history were flukes.But there were exceptions: a trumpet player from Los Angeles who pretended to be Latin, made up a fake mariachi band, put sexy models on his album covers and topped the charts almost as much as the Beatles. Or, a try-hard, perm-headed soprano saxophone player from Seattle, who turned holding his breath while playing dizzying runs of notes into an athletic feat.How do songs without words become hits? Why were Herb Alpert and Kenny G so good at it? Why did instrumentals fall off the charts after the ’80s—and who is bringing them back? (Hint: think oontz-oontz-oontz.) Join Chris Molanphy as he throws away the lyric sheet and explains how a catchy melody can be worth a thousand words.Podcast production by Kevin Bendis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.