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This week on Slate Plus, the critics answer audience questions live from the Mount.
On this week’s live edition of the Slate Culture Gabfest, the critics talk about the 2006 movie, Idiocracy, which takes place in a world in which every feature of our civic life has been sold out to corporate interests. How relevant is the cult film in 2016? Next, to mark the occasion of visiting Edith Wharton’s estate, the Mount, the gabbers ask why people take pilgrimages to the homes of their most revered writers and artists. Finally, Jesse Barron’s essay “The Babysitters Club” argues that cutesy interfaces are talking to us like children. Why is technology trying to infantilize us?
Links to some of the things we discussed this week:
- Mike Judge’s Idiocracy and Beavis and Butthead
- Kate Bolick’s book, Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own
- Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, The Decoration of Houses
- Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner’s home, the Pollock-Krasner House & Study Center
- Ernest Hemingway’s Finca Vigía in Cuba
- Frida Kahlo’s La Casa Azul in Mexico City
- John Ruskin’s Brantwood in the Lake District, Cumbria
- Touchstones at the Mount with Kate Bolick
- Jesse Barron’s essay “The Babysitters Club” on reallifemag.com
- Seamless 404 message
The Culture Gabfest is brought to you by Rocket Mortgage from Quicken Loans. Rocket Mortgage brings the mortgage process into the 21st century with an easy online process. Check out Rocket Mortgage today at QuickenLoans.com/culture.
Endorsements:
Dana: Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd
Julia: Slate’s children’s book blog, Nightlight and William Steig’s Amos and Boris
Stephen: The Australian indie band the Apartments, the Robert Frost poem “The Witch of Coos,” and Six Depot in West Stockbridge
Outro: “You Became My Big House” by the Apartments
You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.
This podcast was produced by Ann Heppermann. Our intern is Lizzie Fison.
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