The Culture Gabfest “Silent T Party” Edition
Slate’s Culture Gabfest on Stephen Colbert’s move to The Late Show, Adam Begley’s Updike, and Futurism at the Guggenheim.
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On this week’s episode, the critics discuss Stephen Colbert’s impending move to The Late Show, where he will replace David Letterman. Can another middle-aged white male reinvent late night? Next, the gabbers welcome Adam Begley to discuss his new biography of John Updike, and why we have trouble accepting a well-adjusted artist. And finally, the gabbers take a fieldtrip to the Guggenheim to view Italian Futurism 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe. Curator Vivien Greene guides the critics up the Guggenheim’s iconic ramp, describing the thrills and perils of representing a movement as diverse and paradoxical as Italian Futurism.*
Links to some of the things we discussed this week follow:
- The Colbert Report
- A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!
- Colbert and John Legend sing seductively about nutmeg
- Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
- The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno, and the Network Battle for Late Night by Bill Carter
- The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy by Bill Carter
- Updike by Adam Begley
- Scott Stossel’s review of Updike in the Boston Globe
- Rabbit, Run
- Rabbit Redux
- Rabbit is Rich
- Rabbit at Rest
- The Complete Henry Bech
- Italian Futurism 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe at the Guggenheim
- Igor Stravinky’s “Feu d’artifice” (Fireworks)
Some of the Futurist art discussed is featured below:
Endorsements:
Jacob: The Library, a play directed by Stephen Soderbergh at the Public Theater, starring Chloë Grace Moretz.
Julia: “The Food Room,” Amy Schumer’s very funny video skewering Aaron Sorkin.
Steve: Robert Frost’s “Two Tramps in Mud Time,” a poem for an April day.
Outro: Colbert and John Legend singing seductively about nutmeg from A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!
You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.
This podcast was produced by Ann Heppermann. Our intern is Anna Shechtman.
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Correction, April 17, 2014: This post originally misspelled the first name of curator Vivien Greene.