The following podcast contains explicit language.

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I'm Stephen Metcalf, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest, the Grody, Moldy Breath of Tourists Edition.

It's Wednesday, May 11, 2011.

On today's program, Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Paper Tigers, Asians in America with Nina Ristogi, Slate's own, I should say, Nina Rostogi, 25 years of the Beastie Boys with Jody Rosen. Joining me today are Slate's deputy editor, Julia Turner. That's you. I'll look at you. You are Julia Turner. I am Julia Turner. How are you feeling today, Julia? I'm feeling good. Do you have a wedding hangover? I have a little bit of a, of a, yeah, a glaze.

I just think it's slightly peculiar to still be wearing the dress, but whatever, it's up to you.

I'm going to just swish it into the microphone whenever I need to make an emphatic point.

Very havesha-esque, one might say. Dana, Stevens, to my right.

Hello.

Steven.

Dana, you've brought with you a pile, an unseemly pile of books about the cave paintings. And since I'm a terrible shirker of homework, I'm going to almost immediately defer to you on the subject.

I just came from the movie.

The German film director, Werner Herzog, has made a 3D film about the Chauvet caves.

What's distinctive about – most people know about the caves from Lescoe.

What's the difference between the Chauvet caves and the Lesco Caves?

There are a much more recent finding that go back much further.

Tell us about those.

Yeah, I guess Herzog probably chose to film in Chauvet because it's the earliest art you can possibly see. It's 32,000-year-old cave paintings. It's actually their ages in dispute. They might be even older than that, recent evidence. And Lesko is 18. And Lesko is, yeah, 18,000 years ago, I think, as opposed to 32. So one of the things that that speaks to that I find fascinating about this period,

I don't know if Herzog talks about it or not,

but is how long this form of art lasted,

...