Slate Culture Feed

On this episode: Lucy, Zak, and Chris Duffy answer a question from the Slate Parenting Facebook group about what to do when dinner rolls around. This member of the group would be perfectly happy with toast or popcorn, but also wants to make sure their toddler grows up with a healthy relationship to food. We’ll share some low-effort, high-tastiness ideas for the weeknight dinner rush.

We’ll also try out a new segment called Just Checking In — where we’ll share what’s on our mind this week. Then, for Slate Plus listeners – we’re circling up on the Playground and talking to Chris about his new ebook, all about making and keeping platonic relationships.

If you’re not part of the Slate Plus community, we hope you’ll consider joining! Keep reading to learn how.

Lucy’s check-in: a euphemism for Espresso

Chris’ check-in: how do you have a platform but also respect your kids’ privacy?

Zak’s check-in: moving across the world (soon)

Join us on Facebook and email us at [email protected] to ask us new questions, tell us what you thought of today’s show, and give us ideas about what we should talk about in future episodes. You can also call our phone line: (646) 357-9318.

If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get to hang out with us on the Plus Playground every week for a whole additional grab-bag of content — and you’ll get an ad-free experience across the network. And you’ll also be supporting the work we do here on Care and Feeding. Sign up now at slate.com/careplus – or try it out on Apple Podcasts.

Podcast produced by Maura Currie.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Host June Thomas speaks with authors Rachel Dodes and Lauren Mechling about their new novel, The Memo and their collaborative writing process. The pandemic took its toll on everyone, but for Mechling and Dodes, it became a time to collaborate via a Google Doc. They spewed ideas and paragraphs onto the same page, editing each other’s output in real time until they formulated their surrealist, comedic tale of friendship and career ambitions. Both authors extoll the benefits of collaborating and being less precious with their own words. 

Later, hosts Isaac Butler and Ronald Young Jr. join June for a frank discussion of working with time limitations, ‘pitching without bitching,’ and an update about Working itself.

In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, Rachel and Lauren speak about their appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, and Lauren breaks down the similarities between The Memo and her last novel, How Could She.

Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to [email protected] or give us a call at (304) 933-9675.

Podcast production by Kevin Bendis and Cameron Drews.

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Candice Lim is joined by Slate writer Luke Winkie to break down the curiously indefinable “Zynternet.” Substack writer Max Read coined and defined the term as “a broad community of fratty, horndog, boorishly provocative” (mostly) men in their 20s and 30s who obsess over college sports, light domestic beers and Zyn nicotine pouches. On today’s episode, ICYMI asks who the “Zynternet” is performing for and whether its rise is a backlash against brat summer.

This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario and Candice Lim.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Summer in the City.” “I Feel the Earth Move.” “Bette Davis Eyes.” “Whoomp! There It Is.” “Get Lucky.” “Espresso.” What do these big summer hits all have in common? None of them was Billboard’s official Song of the Summer.

Wait…there’s an official Song of the Summer? Isn’t that something that just happens organically? Every year, it seems everybody has an opinion on this musical national pastime. But the Hot 100 often tells a different story. For every “Light My Fire,” “Bad Girls,” “Crazy in Love,” “California Gurls” or “Call Me Maybe”—a hot-weather hit that unites the charts and the punditry—there are confirmed summer smashes that no one would pick out of a lineup, from Zager and Evans to Iggy Azalea.

Join Chris Molanphy as he traces the tangled story of how America came to decide there should be one victorious summer hit to rule them all. And he counts down the best Songs of the Summer by decade. Is it getting “Hot in Herre,” or is it just us…?

Podcast production by Kevin Bendis.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Arionne Nettles (author of We Are the Culture: Black Chicago’s Influence on Everything) joins Prudie (Jenée Desmond-Harris) to answer letters from readers about how to keep composure when your soon-to-be sister-in-law shows up to your wedding in a thong, how to react when your husband’s comments oversexualize your teenage daughters’ friends, and ways to handle a sister-in-law whose unwanted body criticisms keep ruining family vacations.

Want more Dear Prudence? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock weekly bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/prudie-plus to get access wherever you listen.

This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, and Jenée Desmond-Harris, with help from Maura Currie and Anuli Ononye.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The weeks of Democratic hand-wringing ended suddenly on Sunday after President Joe Biden stepped out of the White House race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. Her young campaign has energized Democrats. But Harris has befuddled Republicans who don’t know how to attack her, and a media that doesn’t know how to define her. On today’s episode of A Word, Jason Johnson discusses Harris’s record and her prospects with political analyst Niambi Carter, a professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. 

Guest: Niambi Carter, political analyst and author of American While Black: African Americans, Immigration, and the Limits of Citizenship.

Podcast production by Kristie Taiwo-Makanjuola

Want more A Word? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/awordplus to get access wherever you listen.

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On this episode: Lucy and Zak are joined by special guest host Chris Duffy to talk about the power of a painting. Our listener has a piece of art hanging on her wall that features some nudity — and it recently startled a crew of kids over for a playdate. Should the painting be moved, or taken down? Or is our listener just becoming the fabled Cool Art House?

We’ll also debrief with a round of parenting Triumphs & Fails, and share an update about the parent who sparked the great shorts under skirts debate.

Join us on Facebook and email us at [email protected] to ask us new questions, tell us what you thought of today’s show, and give us ideas about what we should talk about in future episodes. You can also call our phone line: (646) 357-9318.

If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you’ll also be supporting the work we do here on Care and Feeding. Sign up now at slate.com/careplus to help support our work.

Podcast produced by Maura Currie.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's halfway through the year, and hosts June Thomas and Isaac Butler are putting themselves back under the microscope to see which of their New Year's resolutions they’ve stuck with and which they’ve let peter out. June still wants to work more sustainably, and Isaac comes clean about his lapsed French studies. They get into routines that have truly worked out and how to let go of the goals that were far too lofty. 

Do you have questions or advice of your own about the creative process? Reach out at (304) 933-9675 or email us at [email protected].  

Podcast production by Kevin Bendis and Cameron Drews.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Candice Lim is joined by Patrick Hosken to discuss the downfall and disappearance of MTV News. In May 2023, Paramount Global laid off 25 percent of its workforce, which included MTV News staffers like Hosken. A year later, Hosken had a new job at Rochester’s CITY Magazine when he clicked on his own MTV News articles and discovered they were gone because the website had been taken down. On today’s episode, Hosken describes the emotional journey of getting laid off, watching decades of music journalism disappear and how this was a lesson in internet preservation.

This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario and Candice Lim.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week’s show, the panel gets swept up by Twisters, and begins by discussing director Lee Isaac Chung’s standalone sequel starring Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones. (For the record, the original 1996 disaster flick, Twister, is a near-perfect, Gabfest-approved comfort watch). Sure, Chung’s reboot isn’t as weird as the original, and the modern-day renderings of completely plausible natural disasters are alarming, but Twisters did what it was supposed to do: deliver a good, generic summer movie where Glen Powell can be, well, Glen Powell. (Read Dana’s review! And Sam Adam’s take on the film’s approach to climate change.) Then, the three dissect Sorry Not Sorry, a documentary from the New York Times that examines Louis C.K.'s public fall from grace in 2017 and the comic’s recent comeback, but disappointingly offers little new insight. Finally, the trio tackles gambling and its increasing presence in modern life, inspired by an essay by Christine Emba for The Atlantic. “Suddenly, gambling seems to be everywhere,” Emba writes. “This sort of vice creep, a societal normalization of what used to be seen as unsavory habits—gambling, smoking marijuana, watching porn—is accelerated by people’s addiction to devices, in this case giving casual bettors the tools to become compulsive wagerers and easing the way for gambling to become a constant part of life.” 

In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, the panel discusses a recent New York Times interactive and dives deep into their relationships with the grocery store.

Email us at [email protected].

Endorsements:

Dana: Inspired by today’s gambling segment, Dana endorses Owning Mahowny, director Richard Kwietniowski 2003 film based on the true story of a Toronto bank employee (played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who embezzled more than $10 million to feed his gambling addiction. 

Julia: An open call! Please send Julia your recommendations for great children’s books that discuss the weather or the changing seasons to [email protected]. (And read Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson!)

Stephen: “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo,” a set of 118 woodblocks by 19th century Japanese landscape master Utagawa Hiroshige, which is currently on display at the Brooklyn Museum through August 4th. 

Podcast production by Jared Downing. Production assistance by Kat Hong. 

Hosts

Dana Stephens, Julia Turner, Stephen Metcalf

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.