Prog Bots Into Darkness Edition
Slate's podcast about the Star Trek franchise, Daft Punk’s new album Random Access Memories, and Google Glass.
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On this week’s episode, our critics discuss the joyfully unkillable Star Trek franchise with Slate’s own Matthew Yglesias. They are then joined by music critic Jonah Weiner to review Random Access Memories, the much-hyped new album from the space-helmet-sporting French electronica duo Daft Punk. Lastly, the Gabfest crew takes a look at Google’s new smartphone for your face, Google Glass: Will it extend our human powers or finally debauch them for good?
Here are links to some of the things we discussed this week:
- Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek.
- The five Star Trek TV iterations: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise.
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
- Matt Yglesias’ Star Trek “Completist” piece, for Slate.
- Star Trek Into Darkness, Dana Stevens’ Slate review.
- Daft Punk’s Homework, Discovery, and Random Access Memories.
- Jonah Weiner’s interview with Daft Punk for Rolling Stone.
- Daft Punk’s 2007 “Alive” tour/album.
- Guitarist/production legend Nile Rodgers.
- Beck, another genre reclaimer who hit in the ’90s.
- Phantom of the Paradise, directed by Brian De Palma, starring Paul Williams.
- John Lanchester on Google Glass, for the London Review of Books.
- Farhad Manjoo on Google Glass, for Slate.
- Blogger Felix Salmon’s post on Google Glass and privacy norms.
Endorsements:
Dana: Scottish-born singer, songwriter, poet, and humorist Ivor Cutler.
June: Syfy’s dystopian, future-frontier-town based, alien-infused series Defiance.
Stephen: Poet Phillip Larkin’s poem concerning the sensation of foreignness, “The Importance of Elsewhere.”
Outro: “I’m Walking to a Farm” by Ivor Cutler
You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.
This podcast was produced by Julia Furlan. Our intern is Sam McDougle.
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