Slate's Culture Gabfest onM.I.A.'s beef with the New York Times, the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, and whether the Internet is making us dumber.

Slate's Culture Gabfest onM.I.A.'s beef with the New York Times, the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, and whether…

Slate's Culture Gabfest onM.I.A.'s beef with the New York Times, the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, and whether…

Slate's weekly roundtable.
June 2 2010 4:53 PM

The Culture Gabfest, "Truffle Fries" Edition

Listen to Slate's show about the week in culture.

1_123125_2187915_080423_cgf_header

The Culture Gabfest has moved! Find new episodes here.

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 89 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens and Julia Turner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

You can also download the program  here, or you can subscribe to the weekly Culture Gabfest podcast feed  via iTunes  or directly with our  RSS feed. Find the Culturefest Facebook page here. Leave us a note and see what other listeners have to say about the latest podcast.

Get your 14-day free trial from our sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audiobook,  here. (Audiobooks of the week: Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust, written by Nathanael West, narrated by L.J. Ganser and William Atherton.)

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner discuss the pop star M.I.A.'s beef with Lynn Hirschberg andthe New York Times, the new documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, and a Wired article that asks whether the Internet has uncivilized our brains.

Here are some links to the things we discussed this week:

Lynn Hirschberg's profile of the pop star M.I.A. in the New York Times Magazine.
M.I.A.'s video for "Born Free."
The rap song response to the NYT interview and audio excerpts from the interview on M.I.A.'s Web site.
The controversial Playboy interview with musician John Mayer.
A complete list of cities now showingExit Through the Gift Shop.
The trailer for Exit Through the Gift Shop.
The graffiti artist Banksy's Web site.
Nicholas Carr's article in Wired on what the Internet might be doing to your brain and Carr's blog.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: Matt Zoller Seitz's video tribute to Dennis Hopper, titled "The Middle Word in Life."
Julia's pick: The Dia:Beacon museum.
Steve's pick: The Scottish post-punk band Orange Juice.

Musical Outro: M.I.A.'s "Hombre"

You can e-mail us at  culturefest@slate.com.

Posted on June 2 by Jesse Baker at 4:53 p.m.

Stephen Metcalf is Slate’s critic at large. He is working on a book about the 1980s.

Dana Stevens is Slate’s movie critic.

Julia Turner, the former editor in chief of Slate, is a regular on Slate’s Culture Gabfest podcast.