The following podcast contains explicit language.

I'm Stephen McHaff, and this is the Slate Culture Gap Fest, Impenetrable Facade Edition.

It's Wednesday, December 11th, 2019.

On today show, Marriage Story is the latest from writer-director Noah Bound Back.

It stars Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson as a couple in the excruciating terminal phase of their union as it leads to divorce.

And then the original, original gangster, the O.OG, Simon Dunern himself joins us to talk about the fate of yet another great institution facing the axe and the age of the O.O.G. Simon Duner himself joins us to talk about the fate of yet another great institution

facing the axe and the age of the internet, the department store window. And finally,

the 2010s are almost over is the very concept of the decade going with them.

Joining me today is the deputy managing editor at the LA Times Julia Turner.

Hey, Julia.

Hello, very happy to be here.

And of course, Dana Stevens is the film critic of Slate.com, Dana.

Good day.

Good day.

Before we go any further, I have to say, in order to make this call-in show work,

we're going to need you to call in and ask us questions.

Ask us anything. All you people who've sent us these amazing emails now for the last couple of years,

lightly, gently by me, we get the most incredible mail. Just pick up the phone now and ask us a question.

Just dial 973-826-0-318, and you will be a part almost inevitably of our Christmas call-in show that number once again is 973-8-26-0-3-18 we would love to hear from you a couple times a year we've got the strut and the call-in show and live shows that that break up the total utter gray monotony that is doing the culture gap fest.

You're really selling this, Steve. I really, really love the call-in show. Yes, can I get a witness? Oh, yeah, the call-in show is great. The call-in show is the best. I think, I mean, I have to say I love it even more than the conundrum show, which is always one of my favorite political Gab Fest of the year, because you don't have to send us conundrums. It doesn't have to be, although it can be, something along the lines of, you know, would you rather battle a line in a water tank or a fish in a cage or whatever the things is to answer? But you can send us anything you like, a question about culture, about art, about politics, about clothes, about food.

It's just a chance for us to basically get into that holiday mode where you sip some toddy and chat.

Yeah, it's the best show of the year, and not just because it once made me talk about a book about a mouse architect and lose my mind entirely on air in one of my favorite moments of this podcast ever.

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