The Culture Gabfest "Swarm of Humbugs" Edition

Listen to Slate's show about The King's Speech, Community, and the state of peer review.

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 117 with Daniel Engber, Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

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In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner discuss director Tom Hooper's film The King's Speech and the NBC sitcom Community. They're joined by Slate's Daniel Engber to discuss NASA's flawed arsenic-based life study and the state of peer review.

Here are some links to the things we discussed this week:

The official Web site for The King's Speech.
Barry Harbaugh's "History of Stuttering in the Movies" for Slate.
The Wikipedia page for Wallis Simpson.
Stephen Frears' film The Queen.

The official page for the NBC sitcom Community.
Community episodes "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas," "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design" and "Modern Warfare."
The television tradition of "bottle episodes."
The genre parodies of filmmaker Edgar Wright.
The 1990s sitcom The Larry Sanders Show.
Community creator Dan Harmon.
Carl Zimmer on NASA's study of arsenic-based life in Slate.
Slate's Daniel Engber on "the case against peer review."
The announcement of the "missing link" Darwinius fossil.
Evolutionary biologist Marc Hauser's scientific misconduct.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's picks: The History of the World in 100 Objects book and Bogs winter boots.
Julia's picks: This American Life's segment "Special Effects Story" from the episode "Recordings for Someone" and the New York Times Magazine's guide to making mozzarella.
Dan's pick: the New York Times' recipe for "no-knead bread."
Steve's picks: his J. Crew corduroy pants and Movietone's album Blossom Filled Streets.

Outro: "Autumn Sweater" by Yo La Tengo from I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One.

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This podcast was produced by Jesse Baker. Our intern is Forrest Wickman.

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