I'm Stephen Maccalf, and this is the Slate Culture Gap Fest Pongs of the Past edition.

It's Wednesday, December 23rd, 2020.

On today's show, Let Them All Talk is the latest from director of Steven Soderberg.

It stars Merrill Streep as a literary lioness crossing the ocean on the Queen Mary. It's on HBO Max,

and it co-stars Diane Weiss, Candice Bergen, and Lucas Hedges. And then it's that time of the year again.

It's Slate's TV Club. We discussed the year in the small screen viewing with the

fate of the medium in general, as always with Willa Paskin Slate's wonderful TV critic.

And finally, ah, the sweet smell of the winning grant proposal. European researchers are

getting paid millions to recreate the smells that have been lost to history. Joining me today is Dan

Coise. Dan, of course, is a slate writer and podcaster. He's the author of the book How to

Be a Family. The Year I dragged my kids around the world to find a new way to be together.

Dan, you found yet another new way to be together with your family, I imagined. The worst one yet. Yes.

But was it was writing the book in a weird way a kind of, you know, a dry run or a prep for

coronavirus? Oh yeah. I mean, it's been remarkable scene. Every other parent I know

experiencing what we experienced in 2017 when we travel around the world,

except for without any of the fun parts. But yeah, we felt slightly better prepared.

Yeah, I mean, a miniature version of that is moving upstate to the Hudson Valley.

But, uh, and yes. And, uh, of course, Dana Stevens is Slate's film criticate. Dana.

Hello, Steven. All right, Dana. I always expend all my fulsomeness on the guest, and then I turn to you and say, hey, Dana. But that just means you're my most beloved child, right? You're the one that I can give the shortest shrift to and know your resiliency will pull through. But anyway. Steve, it's the people you don't have to exchange a word with that you

truly love. We're cruelest to those we love because we know they'll forgive us. Yes, exactly. A theme of the first movie that we're going to discuss. But Dana, I do have a question for you, which is how's the movie club going? It's a busy time of year for you, I know. Thank you for asking. Well, actually, now that the movie club is posting, it's not going to be such a busy time of

year. But yeah, asking. Well, actually, now that the movie club is posting, it's not going to be

such a busy time of year. But yeah, as we record, I'm in the midst of the throes of writing it. It's a really fun week of the year, but definitely a super busy one. And it's busy in a particular way that, you know, when a movie comes up that I haven't seen, I'm trying to cram it in. So it's been lots of watching and writing, but it's a really good roundup of writers this year. And I hope people will go look at the movie club and maybe we can talk about it on here. Oh yeah. Let's definitely do it as a segment. Cool. All right. Shall we dig in, guys? You ready? Ready? Mm-hmm. And let them all talk now on HBO Max., Merrill Street plays the very successful author.

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