Slate's Culture Gabfest on Eminem, working with your hands, and JFK's intern.

Slate's Culture Gabfest on Eminem, working with your hands, and JFK's intern.

Slate's Culture Gabfest on Eminem, working with your hands, and JFK's intern.

Slate's weekly roundtable.
May 27 2009 1:13 PM

The Culture Gabfest, the Boo-Effing-Hoo 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. 36 with Stephen Metcalf, Jody Rosen, and Dana Stevens by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

Get your 14-day free trial from our sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audiobook, here. (Audiobook of the week: Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler.)

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In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics discuss the return of rapper Eminem, whether working with your hands is a new obsession for cultural elites, and the forthcoming memoir by former Kennedy intern/lover Mimi Beardsley Alford.

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

Eminem's MySpace page, with songs and videos from his new album, Relapse.
Ann Powers' review of Relapse in the Los Angeles Times.
Robert Christgau defends Eminem's morality in a review of Relapse for NPR.
Jody Rosen's 2005 essay on Eminem's decline in The Nation.
Christgau's "The Slim Shady Essay" in the Believer.
Jodie Foster's cover of Eminem's "Lose Yourself" during a University of Pennsylvania commencement address.
Michael Agger's review of Shop Class as Soul Craft by Matthew B. Crawford in Slate.
Matthew B. Crawford's piece in the New York Times Magazine about running a motorcycle repair shop.
Motoko Rich's article in the New York Times about Mimi Beardsley Alford's book deal.
Jim Rutenberg and Motoko Rich's article about Dick Cheney's search for a book deal in the New York Times.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: the documentary The Rape of Europa
Jody's pick: George R. Stewart's Names on the Land
Stephen's picks: The Pernice Brothers' song (and Sherwin Williams commercial soundtrack) "The Weakest Shade of Blue" and the speech on the dedication of St. Gaudens monument by William James

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

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Posted on May 27 by Jacob Ganz at 1:12 p.m.

May, 20, 2009

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 35 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and June Thomas 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.

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Get your 14-day free trial from our sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audio book, here. (Audio book of the week: Maureen Dowd's Are Men Necessary?)

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 the end (and future) of the network TV season, the Maureen Dowd plagiarism scandal, and the idea of happiness as explored in a long-running Harvard study.

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

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Hulu.
Dawn C. Chmielewski and Meg James' Los Angeles Times piece on cable providers' Hulu anxiety.
News from the TV networks' upfronts: Fox, NBC, ABC.
Joshua Micah Marshall's original Talking Points Memo post.
Maureen Dowd's piece in the New York Times that originally included an unattributed passage from Marshall's post.
A TPM Cafe blog post uncovering the plagiarism.
Dowd admits her error to the NYTPicker blog.
Slate's Jack Shafer says Dowd deserves some credit for her response.
Joshua Wolf Shenk's piece on the Harvard Study of Adult Development in the Atlantic.
David Brooks' New York Times column about Shenk's article.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: the Czech cartoon Krtek, via YouTube.
June's picks: Titus, an adaptation of Shakespeare's play Titus Andronicus by the Washington Ensemble Theatre; plus the Seattle International Film Festival.
Stephen's picks: W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice's Letters From Icelandand the newly (and sadly) departed Australian band the Lucksmiths.

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

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Posted on May 20 by Jacob Ganz at 11 a.m.

May 13, 2009

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 34 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 weekly 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. (Audiobook of the week: Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, read by Michael Emerson.)

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 the new Star Trek movie directed by J.J. Abrams, Wanda Sykes' routine at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and the new line of upscale McCafé coffee drinks at McDonald's.

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

The official Web site for the new Star Trek movie.
Dana Stevens' review of Star Trek (plus "Spoiler Special" podcast).
Anthony Lane's review of Star Trek in TheNew Yorker.
Dave Itzkoff's profile of the guys behind the update in the New YorkTimes.
Star Trek's writers talk to MTV about plans for a sequel.
Video of Wanda Sykes' routine at the White House Correspondent's Dinner.
Video of President Obama speaking at the same event.
Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts from the WashingtonPost's "Reliable Source" chat about the Correspondents' Dinner.
Frank Rich's column in the New YorkTimes looking back at Colbert's 2006 Correspondents' Dinner routine.
An ad for McDonald's new McCafé coffee drinks.
Sean Gregory's article for Time magazine on McCafé.
The Wall Street Journal says (subscription required) that McDonald's reported sales increased in April.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: Double X, Slate's new sister site.
Julia's pick: The casting of Susan Sarandon and Patricia Clarkson in SNL's "Motherlover" sketch.
Stephen's picks: Erlend Øye's album Unrest and also the Slate Culture Gabfest. Now that we're weekly, recruit your friends to listen!

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

Posted on May 13 by Jacob Ganz at 11:14 a.m.

May 6, 2009

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 33 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 now-weekly 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 audiobook, here. (Audiobook of the week, recommended by listener Heather Hadlock: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, read by actor Tim Robbins.)

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 the use of so-called neuroenhancing drugs to aid study or work, the plight of the embattled-but-seemingly-safe-for-now newspaper the Boston Globe, and which upcoming summer movies they're most looking forward to (or looking forward to hating).

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

Margaret Talbot's article on neuroenhancing drugs in The New Yorker.
Joshua Foer's article in Slate about self-medicating with Adderall.
Chris Faraone gives Talbot's article a thumbs down on the Boston Phoenix's Web site.
The AP's Bob Salsberg writes about the Boston Globe's scramble to stay afloat.
Howard Kurtz chats with Washington Post readers about the Globe's situation.
Scott Patterson's blog post on WSJ.com about Warren Buffett's thoughts on the future of newspapers.
A list of trailers for upcoming summer movies at Yahoo.com.
Entertainment Weekly's online summer movie preview.
The summer movie pullout section by the film staff of the New York Times.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: Wire creator David Simon talks about the death of newspapers on Bill Moyers Journal.
Julia's picks: Slate's "Political Gabfest" and HBO's therapy series In Treatment.
Stephen's picks: Peter Robb's Midnight in Sicily and Last Places by Lawrence Millman.

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

Posted on May 6 by Jacob Ganz at 11:47 a.m.

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

Jody Rosen is critic at large for T: The New York Times Style Magazine.

Dana Stevens is Slate’s movie critic.