The Culture Gabfest “Sadness as the Bread” Edition

Slate’s Culture Gabfest on HBO’s The Normal Heart, commencement speeches, and the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

By Dan Kois, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner

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On this week’s episode, the critics discuss The Normal Heart, an HBO film adaptation of Larry Kramer’s 1985 play about the AIDS epidemic in New York and how the gay community mobilized a response. Next, inspired by the spate of student protests of graduation speakers at elite colleges, the gabbers discuss commencement addresses, a literary form destined to make even the best writers banal. And finally, the critics tour the 9/11 Memorial Museum, which opened on May 21 in lower Manhattan. Is it too soon to create a history museum of this tragedy?

Links to some of the things we discussed this week follow:

Willa Paskin’s review of The Normal Heart on Slate
June Thomas and J. Bryan Lowder discuss the importance of The Normal Heart for a 21^st-century gay audience on Slate
The Normal Heart on HBO
Larry Kramer’s 1985 play, on which the HBO adaptation was based
The 2011 documentary We Were Here
The 2012 documentary How to Survive a Plague
Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play Angels in America
The 2003 HBO miniseries based on Kushner’s play
Nip/Tuck created by Ryan Murphy
American Horror Story co-created Ryan Murphy
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts
Free for All: Joe Papp, The Public, and the Great Theater Story Ever Told by Kenneth Turan and Joe Papp
Frank Rich’s 1985 New York Times review of The Normal Heart at the Public Theater
Mike Pesca talks to Cathy O’Neil about IMF head Christine Lagarde’s disinvitation from Smith’s commencement on Slate’s The Gist
Slate’s David Plotz and Hanna Rosin deliver the 2014 Ripon College commencement address
Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness, George Saunders’ 2013 speech to the graduates of Syracuse University
This is Water, David Foster Wallace’s speech to the 2005 graduates of Kenyon College
Sheryl Sandberg’s 2011 commencement address at Barnard College
The 9/11 Memorial Museum, which opened on May 21 in Lower Manhattan
Holland Carter’s New York Times review of the museum
Steve Kandell, whose sister died in the attacks, writes on BuzzFeed about his experience of the museum
United 93, directed by Paul Greengrass

Endorsements:

Dana: Penciltopia, a group that teaches kids to create stop-motion animation and Claymation.

Dan: “Bud,” an essay in The Common by Nalini Jones about her relationship with an anonymous folk singer, and the 1989 album Standing Eight by that singer Bill Morrissey.

Julia: Wild, Cheryl Strayed’s memoir of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.

Outro: Pomp and Circumstance March

You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.

This podcast was produced by Chris Wade. Our intern is Anna Shechtman.