Slate's weekly roundtable.

The Culture Gabfest, "We're Saving Our Own Lives" EditionListen to Slate's show about the week in culture.

By Stephen Metcalf, Jody Rosen, Dana Stevens, and Julia TurnerUpdated Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010, at 11:16 AM ET

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 74 with Stephen Metcalf, Jody Rosen, 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.

Get your 14-day free trial from our sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audiobook, here. (Audiobook of the week: The Painted Veil, written by W. Somerset Maugham and read by Kate Reading.)

Find the Culturefest Facebook page here. Leave us a note and see what other Culturefest listeners have to say about the latest podcast. Please help us with the Slate Podcast Pledge Drive—and give yourself a shot to win free movie tickets and a chance to endorse something you love on our show—by sending your Culturefest "conversion story" to .

RSS

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics Stephen Metcalf, Jody Rosen, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner discuss "We Are the World 25 for Haiti," singer-songwriter John Mayer's disturbingly frank interview in next month's Playboy, and the start of the 2010 Winter Games.

Here are some links to things discussed on this week's show:

The 1985 version of "We Are the World," recorded to benefit famine relief in Africa.
The 2010 version of "We Are the World," recorded to benefit earthquake victims in Haiti.
Other songs sung for a good cause: "Voices That Care" and "Do They Know It's Christmas?"
The New York Times' Jon Pareles on why, 25 years later, "We Are the World" is still a terrible song.
John Mayer's interview in Playboy.
Jody Rosen and Jonah Weiner's "Track of The Week" Brow Beat post on the John Mayer single "Who Says."
The official schedule for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: NBC's Winter Games e-mail alerts, so you can tune in for just the event you want.
Jody's pick: The works of French writer Georges Simenon and the Fresh Air interview with actor Jason Segel.
Julia's pick: Transit Maps of the World by Mark Ovenden.
Stephen's pick: The sinus-cleansing neti pot and director Judd Apatow's 2001 sitcom Undeclared.

You can e-mail us at .

Posted on Feb. 17 by Jesse Baker at 11 a.m.

Feb. 10, 2010

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 73 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, Seth Stevenson, 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.

Get your 14-day free trial from our sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audiobook, here. (Audiobook of the week: Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism, written by Temple Grandin and read by Deborah Marlowe, and Animals Make Us Human, written by Grandin and read by Andrea Gallow.)

Find the Culturefest Facebook page here. Leave us a note and see what other Culturefest listeners have to say about the latest podcast.

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, Seth Stevenson, and Julia Turner discuss this year's crop of Super Bowl ads, HBO's Temple Grandin biopic, and the New York Times story on a killer karaoke song by Frank Sinatra.

Seth Stevenson's column on this year's Super Bowl ads in Slate.
Google's Super Bowl ad about Parisian love.
The Dodge Charger and Dove Super Bowl ads.
HBO's official Web page for the biopic Temple Grandin.
Born on a Blue Day, the memoir by Daniel Tammet.
The Lancet retraction of the autism and vaccine study.
The New York Times story on karaoke killings in the Philippines.
Claude Francois singing "Comme d'Habitude," the French ancestor of "My Way".
The live storytelling podcast The Moth.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:
Dana's pick: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot.
Julia's pick: New York Magazine's Valentine's special Q&A with married actors Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman.
Stephen's pick: Don DeLillo's novel Great Jones Street.

You can e-mail us at .

Posted on Feb. 10 by Jesse Baker at 2:51 p.m.

Feb. 3, 2010

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 72 with Stephen Metcalf, Meghan O'Rourke, Troy Patterson, and Dana Stevens 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.

Get your 14-day free trial from our sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audiobook, here. (Audiobook of the week: The Adventures of Augie March, written by Saul Bellow and read by Tom Parker.)

Find the Culturefest Facebook page here. Leave us a note and see what other Culturefest listeners have to say about the latest podcast.

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics Stephen Metcalf, Meghan O'Rourke, Troy Patterson, and Dana Stevens discuss Oscar nominations, the state of grief in America, and the loss of author J.D. Salinger.

Here are links to some of the articles and other items mentioned in the show:

The complete list of nominees for the 82^ndOscars from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In the Loop's official site on the Independent Film Channel.
In the Loop on Amazon.com
Meghan O'Rourke's New Yorker article on the state of grief in the United States.
Meghan's series on grief and recovery in Slate.
Adam Gopnik's goodbye to J.D. Salinger in The New Yorker.
Slate's Troy Patterson takes on the two faces of J.D. Salinger and Stephen's tribute to the author, also in Slate.
The New York Times' dispatches from Cornish, N.H., on the real "Jerry" Salinger.
Dana Stevens on Hollywood Holdens.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Meghan's pick: A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis.
Troy's pick: Fleetwood Mac performing "Tusk" with the USC marching band.
Stephen's pick: Thomas Hardy's series of love poems written after the loss of his wife, Emma.

You can e-mail us at .

Posted on Feb. 3 by Jesse Baker at 11:15 a.m.

Jan. 27, 2010

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 71 with Stephen Metcalf, Mike Pesca, and Dana Stevens 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.

Get your 14-day free trial from our sponsor Audible.com, which includes a credit for one free audiobook, here. (Audiobook of the week: A Gate at the Stairs, written by Lorrie Moore and read by Mia Barron.)

Find the Culturefest Facebook page here. Leave us a note and see what other Culturefest listeners have to say about the latest podcast.

In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics Stephen Metcalf, Mike Pesca, and Dana Stevens discuss the new Charles Darwin biopic, Creation; Jon Stewart's take on Keith Olbermann; the death of Air America; and, finally, the announcement that the New York Times Web site will soon erect a pay wall.

Here are links to some of the articles and other items mentioned in the show.

The official Web page for director Jane Campion's Bright Star.
Reviews of the new biopic Creation on Rotten Tomatoes.
The February Vanity Fair article on the Creation Museum in Kentucky.
Jon Stewart's complete takedown of Keith Olbermann on The Daily Show.
Keith Olbermann's response to Jon Stewart on MSNBC.
The nuts and bolts of how the New York Times pay wall will work.
Felix Salmon attempts to explain the pay wall.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's picks: A re-endorsement of "A History of the World in Objects" on the BBC. And two Charles Darwin fan sites—Darwin Online and the Darwin Correspondence Project.
Mike's picks: The new PBS series Sound Tracks; listen to the Kazakhstan symphony composed by Borat's brother. And the podcast "The Sporkful."
Stephen's picks: Gjertrud Schnackenberg's poem "Darwin in 1881" from her collection The Lamplit Answer. And Rutgers philosophy and psychology professor Jerry Fodor's issues with Darwinism in the London Review of Books.

You can e-mail us at .

Posted on Jan. 27 by Jesse Baker at 10:48 a.m.

0 Comments

Add Yours

Or join the discussion
on the Fray

Stephen Metcalf is Slate's critic at large. He is working on a book about the 1980s. Jody Rosen is Slate's music critic. He can be reached at slatemusic@gmail.com. Dana Stevens is Slate's movie critic. Julia Turner is Slate's deputy editor. You can e-mail her at or follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/juliaturner.

Illustration by Robert Neubecker.