Hey, everyone. It's Rachel. I am here with my colleague Gilbert Cruz, the editor of the New York Times Book Review. Hey, Gilbert.

Hey, Rachel. Gilbert, you are also, we should point out, the culture editor here for many years.

That is true. And now you're here to talk about a new project that you're working on.

I am and I will. So starting today and going through the end of the year, every Sunday,

you're going to find me here talking with our colleagues who cover culture and lifestyle at the New York

Times about the fun stuff, movies and TV and books and food and art and so many other things.

I love that stuff. Do you love that? I love it too. We're calling it the Sunday special. And if you're subscribed to the daily, it will just appear in your feed. You don't have to press any buttons. I love that. I love the idea of not having to press a single button. Okay, great. So you are starting this project today. Tell us what you have planned.

Absolutely. So today I had a conversation with two very fun, very knowledgeable people here at the Times. One of our music critics, our internet reporter, we talked about music. We talked about a couple movies. We talked about, obviously, Taylor Swift. We talked about some internet memes.

It's just three of us

mixing up about things that we really

enjoyed over the past few months.

Well, that sounds fantastic. Let's hear it.

Welcome,

everybody, to the inaugural episode

of the Sunday special.

This week, I'm here with two wonderful guests, John Caramonica, sitting to my left music critic, host of the Popcast podcast.

John, thank you for being here.

Ajoy.

Also in the room, sitting right across from me, right over there is Madison Malone Kircher,

who covers internet culture for the New York Times.

This means, according to her, she spends way too much time on TikTok.

Madison, thank you for being here.

...