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Culture Gabfest - Happiest Scaffolding

Slate Daily Feed

Slate

News, Society & Culture, Business

3.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2020

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week Steve and Dana are joined by writer, poet, and co-host of the Thirst Aid Kit podcast, Nichole Perkins. First, the they weigh in on Happiest Season, the new holiday rom-com starring Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis. Then they chat with Culture Gabfest producer Cameron Drews about why he loves the HBO show How To with John Wilson. And finally, the hosts a talk about a big mistake made recently by the publisher Fireside Fiction, where a white voice-over artist put on a fake accent to read an audio essay written by a Black woman. The essay, written by Dr. Regina N. Bradley, is called Da Art of Speculatin’ .

In Slate Plus, the Steve, Dana, and Nichole discuss their pop culture blindspots.

Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Rachael Allen.

Outro Music: "What Do You Want From Me" by OTE

Slate Plus members get a bonus segment on the Culture Gabfest each episode, and access to exclusive shows like Dana Stevens’ classic movies podcast Flashback. Sign up now to listen and support our work.


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Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm Stephen Maccalf, and this is the Slate Culture Gapfest, happiest scaffolding edition.

0:14.5

It's Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020.

0:17.3

On today's show, Happiest Season stars Kristen Stewart and McKenzie Davis.

0:20.7

It's a standard

0:21.5

issue in some respects. Meet the parents' holiday rom-com with a very unstandard or somewhat

0:27.1

unstandard twist. The parents, your girlfriend, is meeting for the first time. Do Not Know You're

0:31.9

gay. And then how to do with John Wilson is a wonderful and strange what's it show on HBO. It's

0:37.3

part video diary, personal essay. It's part video diary,

0:38.5

personal essay. It's all genius as far as I can tell. We discussed with our producer, who turned

0:44.8

us onto it, Cameron Drews. And finally, the question of who speaks and who is silenced is arguably

0:50.4

the political question of our time. It's found a new and quite perverse twist. Who

0:55.5

voices whom in an audio book or audio essay? Joining me today is Nicole Perkin. She's a writer and

1:01.8

podcaster. She's co-host of Thirst Aid Kit and the Waves. And I have to say, when someone

1:06.1

is a poet, Nicole, you always, always, always pointed out. Your collection of poetry, Lilith

1:10.6

but Dark was published

1:11.7

in 2018. Welcome onto the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk about

1:17.8

all of the things that we're going to talk about today. Yeah, yeah, so am I. Let's begin with

1:23.1

Thursday's The State Kit. What's the status of the show? Okay, so Thursday Kit is retired as a weekly podcast, but we are open to come back as a live show or a virtual live show or to do one-off special kinds of interviews when the world opens back up.

1:40.3

But yeah, right now we're not doing any more weekly podcast, but, you know, we may pop up in, you know, in your theater the next time theaters are open for the world.

1:51.2

Superb. And of course, we're joined by Dana Stevens, Yin Yoga Maestra.

1:56.8

Namaste, Steve. Namaste, Dana. And you're also occasionally on this, your side hustle is your film critic for Slate.com.

2:06.4

That's right.

...

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