The following podcast contains explicit language.

I'm Stephen Metcath, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest, Shit Tuskegee Airmen Say Edition.

It's Wednesday, January 25th, 2012.

Very quickly, do you know the great writers who were born on January 25th around the table.

Whitman? Certainly not.

There are three. There's Robert Burns, Virginia Wolf, and Stephen Metcalf.

Oh, holla.

It's the Stephen Metcalf birthday edition.

It is. On today's program, we're going to talk about the new George Lucas spank-rolled film Red Tales with Slate's Own, Brian Curtis, the powers of solitude and introversion. And finally, the shit X says about Y meme. Hopefully by the end of that segment, Julia, I'll have some idea of what the fuck that means. Well, first of all, is the shit X-A meme? There's no about why. Well, no, but it's mutated into... You're right. All right, fine. Maybe I'll have to explain this to you. Joining me today, our Slate's deputy editor, Julia Turner. Hello, Julia. Hi, Steve. And our film critic, Dana Stevens, hey. Hey. Hey. Dan, I can't wait to talk to you about Red Tales.

It's going to thrill me, tickle me to know, and to hear what you thought of it. But first, we're going to turn to Brian Curtis. Brian Curtis is, of course, the author of the wonderful middlebrow column for Slate, which is now being revived and returned to our virtual pages. and also an author for Grantland, which is, I understand it is what,

a sort of Bill Simmons slash ESPN slash Chuck Losterman slash Coulson Whitehead, literary sports

thing, Dave Eggers, you know, sports kind of mother brain.

I hate it already.

No, it sounds great.

I've actually, I've clicked through to stuff, maybe even your stuff on Grantland and always really enjoyed it.

Brian, your wonderful piece about profile of George Lucas appeared in the most recent New York Times Sunday magazine.

In it, you got to follow Lucas around.

But more interestingly, to my mind at least, is you began to ask and answer certain questions about Lucas, who when you think about it as a very unique cultural figure on our landscape, there's a great photo that accompanies the piece of a young George Lucas talking to a young.

Is his name Mark Hamilton?

Mark Hamill.

Mark Hamill, sorry.

And Lucas looks so not only young, but so byronic and slender and troubled and thoughtful.

...