The Culture Gabfest “Wearing Jeans to the Oscars” Edition

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 388 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner

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This week on Slate Plus, Julia and Dana make Steve talk about fashion at the Oscars.  

On this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest, the gabbers discuss the Oscars. How did Chris Rock fare as a host? Next up, the gabbers weigh in on a think piece feud about whether small talk is a social evil or a social lubricant. Should we all be striving to make “big talk”? Finally, we take a field trip to the Gagosian gallery to interview photographer Gregory Crewdson about his new body of work, Cathedral of the Pines.  

Here are the images we discussed:

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

• Best Picture winner, Spotlight
• Willa Paskin’s review of Chris Rock’s Oscars performance in Slate
• Chris Rock’s opening monologue from the 2016 Oscars
• Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power”
• Do the Right Thing
• Lady Gaga’s performance of “ ’Til It Happens to You”
• Brie Larson’s acceptance speech
• Sam Smith’s performance of “Writing’s on the Wall”
• Ruth Graham’s piece on Slate about the crowd’s reaction to Jenny Beavan’s Oscar win              
• Tim Boomer’s “The End of Small Talk” in the New York Times
• Ruth Graham’s “In Defense of Small Talk” in Slate
• The Wings of Desire
• The Wings of a Dove
• Gregory Crewdson’s Cathedral of the Pines
• “Rooms With a View,” the show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that inspired Crewdson’s work
• The movie It Follows
• The documentary about Crewdson’s work Brief Encounters
• The book Cathedral of the Pines, published by Aperture
• Gregory Crewdson’s Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts where you can see behind-the-scenes shots on his photo sets

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Endorsements:  

Dana: Following @PourMeCoffee on Twitter and the article “19 Amazing Caterpillar Transformations” on Babamail.com

Julia: The TV show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and the return of Better Call Saul

Steve: Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene

Outro: Pet Shop Boys “Requiem in Denim and Leopardskin”

You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.

This podcast was produced by Ann Heppermann. Our intern is Lindsey Albracht.

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