Slate's Culture Gabfest on Twitter, Grey Gardens, and Susan Boyle.

Slate's Culture Gabfest on Twitter, Grey Gardens, and Susan Boyle.

Slate's Culture Gabfest on Twitter, Grey Gardens, and Susan Boyle.

Slate's weekly roundtable.
April 22 2009 12:02 PM

The Culture Gabfest, "Oh My God, Ugly People Can Sing" Edition

Listen to Slate's show about the week in culture.

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The Culture Gabfest has moved! Find new episodes here.

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 32 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:  

You can also download the program here, or you can subscribe to the biweekly Culture Gabfest podcast feed in iTunes by clicking here. 

Get your 14-day free trial from our sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audio book, here. (Audiobooks of the week: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, read by Ruby Dee, and Julie Andrews' Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, read by the author.) 

Find the Culturefest Facebook page here. Leave us a note and see what other Culturefest listeners have to say about the latest podcast.

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics discuss their adventures in the world of Twitter, the new HBO feature adaptation of the documentary Grey Gardens, and the surprising Web obsession with the gifted but plain singer Susan Boyle.

Here are links to some of the articles and other items mentioned in the show:

Stephen's Twitter feed.
Dana's Twitter feed.
Julia's Twitter feed.
Oprah Winfrey tweets and interviews new-media titan Ashton Kutcher.
Virginia Heffernan's article on the poverty of connectivity in the New York Times Magazine.
Carolyn Kellogg looks at the "Amazon fail" scandal on Jacket Copy, the Los Angeles Times book blog.
The originalGrey Gardens at Criterion.com.
HBO's Web site for the new Grey Gardens.
Drew Barrymore talks about mother-daughter relationships—Barrymore and Beale—on Fresh Air.
Susan Boyle's astonishing performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" on Britain's Got Talent.
Boyle's 1999 performance of "Cry Me a River."
Sarah Lyall's article in the New York Times on Boyle's YouTube popularity.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: the new Korean film Treeless Mountain.
Julia's pick: Now We Can See, a new record by The Thermals.
Stephen's pick: Susan Jacoby's book Alger Hiss and the Battle for History.

You can e-mail us at culturefest@slate.com.

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Posted on April 22 by Jacob Ganz at 12:06 p.m.

April 8, 2009

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 31 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

You can also download the program here, or you can subscribe to the biweekly Culture Gabfest podcast feed in iTunes here.

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Get your 14-day free trial from our sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audiobook, here. (Audiobook of the week: Cornelia Funke's Inkheart, read by Lynn Redgrave; James L. Swanson's Manhunt, read by Richard Thomas.)

Find the Culturefest Facebook page here. Leave us a note and see what other Culturefest listeners have to say about the latest podcast. Also, help the Culturefesters try Twitter by following the feeds of Stephen, Dana and Julia.

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics discuss the new film Sugar and the possible rise of Neo-Neorealism, Levi Johnston's interview with Tyra Banks, and the war between sugar and high-fructose corn syrup.

Here are links to some of the articles and other items mentioned in the show:

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The official Web site for the film Sugar
A.O. Scott's article on neo-neorealism in the New York Times Magazine
Richard Brody's argument against Scott's article in TheNew Yorker's film blog (and Scott's response on NYTimes.org)
Clips of Levi Johnston's Tyra appearance (via Huffington Post)
Rebecca Traister's take on the Levi/Tyra interview in Salon
People.com on the Palins' response to Johnston's interview
Kim Severson's article in the New York Times on the return of sugar
SweetSurprise.com, the Corn Refiners Association's Web site on "The Facts About High Fructose Corn Syrup"
A summary of the HFCS issues on the blog Neurotopia

Additionally, at the end of the Gabfest, Stephen Metcalf interviews University of California-Berkeley philosopher and neuroscientist Alva Noë  about his new book, Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: blog-of-many-interests the Sheila Variations.
Julia's pick: Short, Web-based cooking videos (in particular, New York's video with Le Bernardin chef Eric Ripert).
Stephen's picks: the food blog Vegan Yum Yum and Neko Case's album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood.

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You can e-mail us at culturefest@slate.com.

Posted on April 8 by Jacob Ganz at 11:44 a.m.

March 25, 2009

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 30 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

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You can also download the program here, or you can subscribe to the Culture Gabfest podcast feed in iTunes by clicking here.

Get your14-day free trial from our sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audio book, here. (Audiobook of the week: Poetry on Record.)

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics discuss Paul Rudd and Jason Segel's bromance in the new movie I Love You, Man; the implications of the Obamas' vegetable garden; and the off-the-record media listserv JournoList. And as a bonus, Stephen Metcalf interviews David Grann, the author of The Lost City of Z, after the show.

Here are links to some of the articles and other items mentioned:

The official Web site for the movie I Love You, Man.
Dana Stevens' Slate review of I Love You, Man (where you can also find the Spoiler Special podcast on the movie).
Leslie Fiedler's classic Love and Death in the American Novel,which examines male friendship in American literature.
The New York Times piece on the Obamas' vegetable garden (see map).
Andrew Martin's NYT article about the state of the sustainable food movement.
Mark Bittman's NYT article about the false belief that organic equals healthy.
Michael Calderone's article about JournoList on Politico.com.
Reihan Salam's response to the Politico article on the Atlantic's Web site.
Slate's Mickey Kaus blog entries about the JournoList dust-up.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: the remarkable  work of YouTube Bollywood translation artist Buffalax.
Julia's pick: David Byrne and Brian Eno's album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.
Stephen's pick: Henri-alban Alain-Fournier's Le Grande Meaulnes.

You can e-mail us, and send us your thoughts on how to pronounce the name of Alain-Fournier's book, at culturefest@slate.com.

Posted on March 25 by Jacob Ganz at 11:26 a.m.

March 11, 2009

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 29 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below: 

You can also download the program here, or you can subscribe to the weekly Culture Gabfest podcast feed in iTunes by clicking here.

Get your14-day free trial from our sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audio book, here. (Audiobook of the week: Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys.)

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics discuss the new movie version of the classic graphic novel Watchmen; Elaine Showalter's new book on the canon of female American writers, A Jury of Her Peers; and a 'tween-style makeover for kiddie cartoon hero Dora the Explorer.

Here are links to some of the articles and other items mentioned in the show:

Dana Stevens' Watchmen review.
"What if Woody Allen Had Directed Watchmen?"—a slide show on Slate.
Katha Pollitt's Slate review of A Jury of Her Peers.
Laura Miller's Salon review of A Jury of Her Peers.
Katie Roiphe's New York Times review of A Jury of Her Peers.
A Washingtonpost.com piece about Dora the Explorer's makeover.
Brendan I. Koerner's Slatecolumn about Dora's rise to power.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: Alison Bechdel's graphic novel Fun Home.
Julia's pick: David Segal's segment of the "My Big Break" episode of This American Life.
Stephen's picks: For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver (however you pronounce it) and The Queen Is Deadby the Smiths.

You can e-mail us at culturefest@slate.com.

Posted on March 11 by Jacob Ganz at 12:39 p.m.

Stephen Metcalf is Slate’s critic at large. He is working on a book about the 1980s.

Dana Stevens is Slate’s movie critic.

Julia Turner, the former editor in chief of Slate, is a regular on Slate’s Culture Gabfest podcast.