Afleveringen
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
Donald McNeil Jr., a 45-year New York Times veteran, comes on the pod to talk with Nancy and Sarah about ⊠so much. The prompt was the recent NYT story, âWe Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives.â As the paper of record tries to come correct on Covid, we wanted to hear from the science journalist, one of the first to tell Americans about this strange thing called the coronavirus. A self-declared âcranky old-schoolâ reporter, McNeil landed the story of his career in 2020 and became part of a team that won the Pulitzer. But by 2021, he was gone, amid scandal and speculation. He talks about the bizarre kerfuffle that led to his resignation, mean girl dynamics at the paper, being misled by scientists, and what we do and donât know about Covid-19âs origins.
As McNeil wrote in Wisdom of Plagues, "Covid coarsened us as a nation... The coarsening cracks our national skin. It makes us more vulnerable to infection."
Also discussed:
* Nancy tries not to fangirl. She fangirls anyway.
* âItâs a great newspaper but itâs a second-rate corporation, and its personnel stuff is particularly bad.â
* The walk McNeil took with James Bennet, a year after both getting booted from the Times, is a play weâd like to see
* âLooks like Don nailed it. Letâs not tell him.â (!!!!!!)
* NYT brass on their writing staff: âWidgets made here.â
* Young turks vs. cranky old-timers in union leadership
* The Daily Beast and Gawker do not cover themselves in glory
* "The Western focus on personal liberty above all can kill."
* The Mike Pesca of it all
* The hope that Covid might âunite us with a common enemyâ like WWII. Awww, what happened instead? We turned on each other.
* âEcstasy is a very good drug to get you talkingâ
* McNeil = not a fan of Jay Battacharya
* Thoughts on RFK!
Plus, McNeil explains what âhot-boxâ once meant, where he thinks H5-N1 is going, how cancel culture is like the French Revolution, and much more!
Does McNeil think Covid-19 was engineered in a virology lab or evolved in the wet market? Paid subscribers find out!
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
As we mark the fifth (yes, fifth!) anniversary of Covid, Nancy and Sarah look back at the mistakes, the time warp, the lessons. While some of these experiences are collective, some are quite specific, especially in blue states where enforced lockdowns and school closures stretched on longer. Was the misery of that time period a symptom of authoritarianism â or democracy?
Big topic of the day: Ruby Franke, the Mormon mom with a YouTube channel currently serving time in prison for child abuse. A new docu-series on Hulu, Devil in the Family, connects the dots on how she got there. Nancy and Sarah talk toxic fundamentalism, mind control, sexual shaming, child abuse (and how itâs culturally constructed), and the ethics of talking/blogging/profiting from your children. We also watched the Baldwinsâ new reality show, bless our hearts.
Also discussed:
* A crushing piece by a father on how COVID changed his young son
* Hitchhiking!
* The problems of safetyism
* Sarahâs secret petty side
* âSorry I didnât grow up in AppalachiaâŠâ
* JD Vance memes are fun for everyone!
* The ethics of writing/blogging about kids
* How Sarah disappointed Katie Herzog
* The vengeful figure of Jodi Hildebrant, therapist
* Visions of Glory, the controversial Mormon book
* We need to talk about Kevin
* Nancy teaches Sarah the meaning of âMay-Decemberâ romance
* That time Alec Baldwin screamed at his daughter Ireland
* Bad fathers can make good grandfathers
Plus, a new theory on the Manson murders, Steve Kornackiâs secret identity as a Lifetime movie scribe, Senator Bob Kerrey on grace, and more!
-
Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
Nancy and Sarah are joined by the Great Mike Pesca, one-time Jeopardy! contestant and host of news podcast The Gist, to talk about dudes and dude-related topics. They discuss menâs-only spaces and whether womenâs workout wear has become hyper-sexualized (and is that a bad thing?). They also break down Gavin Newsomâs podcast debut with his guest, conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk. Good idea? Dangerous idea? Itâs always a good time when Pesca visits the Smoke âEm pod.
Also discussed:
* In this house, we believe in peanut butter
* Booo, Daylight Savings Time
* A Pesca discourse on the copper content of pre- and post-1982 pennies
* Lady Gaga on Saturday Night Live
* High school Sarah had a crush on Mike Myers!
* What Lululemon did to women â and men
* Nancy does not like to see men without their shirts on!
* Curves is the Jenny Craig of gyms
* Why does a man buy a woman a steak?
* Sarah is the whore of Babylon Williamsburg
* Murder podcasts should not be snack food
* The RFK Salon story that had to be retracted
* Why do men dominate the podcast space?
* Theories on Chris Hayes
* Parker Poseyâs Lorazepam accent
* Sadness and horror over Gene Hackmanâs death
Plus, why Sarah said no to Megyn Kelly, the time Pesca thought Lady Gaga was a drag queen, a PSA to take care of your olds, and much more!
Itâs always an hour earlier when you become a paid subscriber.
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
âIt was a very bad night for American boobs,â Sarah observed of the 2025 Oscars, where a conspicuous fashion trend has gone mostly unnoticed. Nancy and Sarah are on record for believing boobs are magic, so why did so many gorgeous actresses hide their tractor beams under a bushel? Could it be a sign of fashionâs increasing androgyny⊠or Hollywoodâs increasing irrelevance? Then, Nancy goes on a multi-part rant about the Tate brothers coming back to the U.S., while Sarah ponders how those two became avatars of American manhood. Finally: Body language in the Trump-Vance-Zelenskyy showdown.
Also discussed:
* McDonaldâs serves the worldâs best Diet Coke
* Please donât tell Sarah you appreciate her
* 75% of Eagle Scouts are girls?
* âYour Dune 2 fan is not watching the Oscars.â
* âBoys just want the pretty girl in math class.â
* Is J.D. Vance being cast as the heavy?
* The end of reading?
* Don DeLillo was âa beautiful culmination of the 20th century.â
* Why Sarah shies away from talking politics
* Has news replaced our need to read tragedy?
Plus, Smoke gets a âDear Johnâ letter, the mystery of Gene Hackmanâs death, and much more!
PS: Spare a thought/prayer for Kat Timpf, recently diagnosed with cancer, whose boobs are rightly being used right now only (or mostly!) to feed her newborn son. Love you Kitty Kat, godspeed xx
Actual footage of Sarah watching Oscar dresses on the red carpet âŠ
Oscars fashion fun behind the paywall, only for paid subscribers âŠ
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
Eli Lake is not a historian but a âjournalist who loves history.â The former âRe-Education of Eli Lakeâ host and current Free Press contributor comes on Smoke for the second time to discuss his latest pop-history podcast, âWhy Weâre Obsessed with JFK Conspiracies.â As usual, Lake puts his own distinctive spin on a story that may have been told before, yes, but not this way.
First, though, Nancy and Sarah have to talk to Eli about Israel. Eli explains that what happened to the Bibas family has hardened his heart, but heâs trying not to let it radicalize him. We talk morals and ideologies, the horrors of war, and the necessities for civil society.
Also discussed:
* âA rabbit hole the country has never been able to climb out ofâ
* Eli teaches Sarah some Yiddish
* âIf Baruch Goldstein had been Palestinian, theyâd be naming schools after him.â
* Gaza-lago?
* On conspiracy susceptibility: âItâs either, âYouâre a moronâ or, âHow can you be so naive, kid?â And yet we want to believe âŠ
* Eli coins new and helpful word: Mono-cause
* JFK is the âoctopus conspiracyâ
* Even LBJ thought something weird was going on âŠ
* The unspeakable abuses exposed by the Church Committee
* We are a pro-Norman Mailer podcast!
* Nancy says something profound?
* Sarah quotes Timothee Chalamet award speech, nobody cares
* Editorâs note: Hal Ashby directed Harold and Maude
* Second editorâs note: Waylon Jennings sand Dukes of Hazzard theme song
* âWhat happened to normal movies?â
* The Emilia Perez kerfuffle is so 2020
Plus, Eli is such a good guest he brought his own outro (AND wrote Nancy a Sleater-Kinneyesque theme for her new interview series CHEFS TALK), Nancy and Sarah wrassle over what movie wins Best Picture, we imagine a woke Dukes of Hazzard, and much more!
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
You might know Meghan McCain from her stints at FOX, The View, SiriusFM, but surely you know her as the daughter of the late Arizona senator John McCain. âNepo baby!â McCain jokes during her podcast introduction, but McCain is much more than that. Sheâs a savvy media fixture who has very strong opinions about, well, everything. Nancy and Sarah like that in a gal! The three of them talk about politics, body image, #MeToo, and the vibe shift that has made conservatives cool for the first time in Meghanâs life.
Also discussed:
* âThe most radical thing Iâve ever done is not dieting.â
* Thoughts on Ozempic
* Megababe for chub rub
* âNobody was cooler than an Obama bro, and my dad tried to stop him.â
* Meghan on her dad: âHe carpied the diem.â
* âThe uptight, HR-department, school-marm dorks are the Democrats?â
* The anchoring sanity of The Fifth Column
* Aziz Ansari and Meghanâs #MeToo breaking point
* The cringe of working for Roger Ailes
* That time the New Yorker claimed Brett Kavanaugh was a gang rapist
* Friends we lost in the culture war âŠ
* Austin: a lost paradise?
* Some love for Mark Halperin
* Immigration and the lack of humanity
* The heartbreak of the Bibas family
* Meghan gives âTexas babe vibesâ
* LETâS GO TO THE RODEO
Plus, Meghan on what happened at Columbia (her alma mater), Nancy has a Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct moment, Sarah doesnât think sheâs a Bad Bitch, and much more!
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
âWould you have Elon Muskâs baby?â Sarah texted Nancy the other day, to which she responded, âFuck no.â Thus launches the latest Smoke âEm debate, in which our co-host who is without child confesses sheâd take some of that SpaceX sperm. Has she lost her mind, or is she merely responding to natureâs imperative? We discuss this, as well as Muskâs new babymama, Ashley St. Clair.
Then itâs on to a double-dip from New York Times Magazine: âWhy Gen X Women are Having the Best Sexâ and âHow I Learned That the Problem in My Marriage Was Me.â Is 20th-century licentiousness dead? Has therapy bled too far into the culture?
Also discussed:
* Diet Pepsi > Diet Coke
* âOn accidentâ vs. âby accidentâ?
* Sperm ice cubes at the 7-Eleven
* Milo Yiannopoulos has entered the chat
* Can you make yourself sexy or nah?
* Netchix and flill
* Nancy declares she does not like declarative sentences
* The saddest divorce book
* Why does Nancy get so annoyed when people talk about their sex lives?
* Sarahâs string of younger men
* Moynihanâs not kicking those bikini-clad girls out of bed
* Women have rage problems, too
* Announcement: CHEFS TALK!!!
* âThe thing about Led Zeppelin songs is, none of the names make sense.â
Plus, the speedball of intimacy, the obsession with being obsessed, Nancy gets a crush on Jimmy Page, and much more!
Correction: Listener Mavis wrote: âIn âIphigenia in Forest Hills,â she killed her childâs father, not her daughter!â Absolutely correct! Nancy regrets the error, and for more Janet Malcolm, see this weekâs hot boxes
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
Nancy and Sarah celebrate Valentineâs Day with a civil disagreement on how stupid the holiday actually is. Also: Sex trivia! The conversation ranges from how people can masturbate in an MRI to Super Bowl controversies and the greatness of Janet Malcolm. Also discussed:
* All New Yorkers go to Miami?
* Sarah explains women to Nancy
* Gifts are not meant to be manipulations
* Kanye and AI nonsense
* âSwat-stickerâ (!!!!!)
* Bill Gates on the upside of AI
* The low rattle of unhappiness
* Salmon sperm facials
* Tafv, we want your blood
* Something strange is afoot at the Kinsey Institute
* How often do people over 45 masturbate, and why is that number a lie?
* Orgasms in your sleep
* âHow are you masturbating in an MRI?â
* Taylor Swift booed
* Farewell to the penny!! You served us well.
* Great new Janet Malcolm story by Katie Roiphe
* People vs. the story: A journalism debate!
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
âReady to go ten rounds?â Nancy asked Sarah, when Sarah asked her to watch Emilia PĂ©rez, a Spanish-language musical for which there is no shortage of agitation on both the right and the left. Trans activists hate it, Ben Shapiro called it garbage, Mexican film goers are apparently asking for their money back. And yet, the movie got a whopping 13 Oscar nominations. What gives?
Nancy reluctantly watched Emilia PĂ©rez, and â was completely surprised. Her reaction was, in fact, very similar to Sarahâs. (Thatâs why Sarah wanted her to see it.) Is this wild, unconventional movie a triumph, a âglittering disaster,â a âtrans Mrs. Doubtfireâ? The answer is all of the above.
Also discussed:
* âHappy Monday!â
* Nancy fat-shames the poor widdle groundhog
* New coinage: âWestern Timeâ
* Sarahâs pre-flight soul inventory is arduous
* âThe denial of death shapes most peopleâs lives.â
* âHouse of Straussâ has the best theme music (and, ahem, the best guests)
* General Hospital, remembered
* We hate lecture films
* Why Emilia Perez makes sense as an opera
* Selena Gomez is like watching fourteen cupcakes shimmy around in a dress
* Johanne Sacreblue!
* The Pope version of Survivor
* Kieran Culkan is a bad-ass
Plus, Nancy writes a nice essay, Sarah is up for an award, what the hell is Groundhogâs Day, and much more!
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
Sarah and Nancy discuss the Atlantic story âThe Anti-Social Century,â about how much of modern life is being lived in isolation. They talk about eating alone, parasocial relationships, and why Sarah feels completely nailed by the data point that âthe typical female pet owner spends more time actively engaged with her pet than she spends in face-to-face contact with friends of her own species.â
Also discussed:
* Okay, weâll talk about that thing Elon did
* Is the blue/gold dress the metaphor of our times?
* Trump is the candidate Americans built brick-by-brick
* Who did Nancy write-in for president 2024? This guyâŠ
* Gotta agree with Sarahâs old roommate on the Kleenex thing
* Shark Tank love
* McLuhan: âEvery augmentation is an amputationâ
* Sarah finds listening to Jon Ronson is âdeeply edifyingâ
* Nancy is impressed â again! â with the concept âskin hungerâ
* Someone admits to watching Rock of Love
* Character.ai: Let us know if youâre using it!
* Late-breaking Oscar nominations
Plus, the generosity of David Lynchâs dreamscapes, âlet me sell you a solution to a problem you didnât know you had,â Sarah requests you send her postcards stating your favorite hm-hm-hm, and much more!
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
Reading Noah Rothmanâs new piece in Commentary, âA Clockwork Blue: How the Left Has Come to Excuse Away and Embrace Political Violence,â I felt as though he had written it just for me; this, because he called to account institutions and individuals who proclaim violence from the left justified, a trend I found maddening when I covered 150+ nights of violent street protests in Portland in 2020.
And about that: How long did Rothman think that violence would have been explained away had it been committed by the right?
"Hours," he said.
In a discussion that calls out violence on all sides, Rothman addresses the roots of political barbarism, how the power of crowds can lead well-adjusted people to commit orgies of violence, the juvenile cop-out of making avatars of people in order to justify brutality against them, and some especial opprobrium for the intellectual and spiritual poverty that makes a hero of Luigi Mangione, who, weeks after murdering UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, was given a round of applause by an SNL audience.
âThe point of this piece is a call for political consistency,â said Rothman. âOnly when we have consistency will we see a decline in political violence.â
Noah Rothman is a senior writer for National Review. He is the author of Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America (Regnery, 2019) and The Rise of the New Puritans: Fighting Back Against Progressivesâ War on Fun (HarperCollins, 2022). His work has been published in USA Today, the Washington Examiner, the New York Post, the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. Follow on Twitter/X at NoahCRothman
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
Nancy and Sarah dive into the messy New York magazine cover story on literary superstar Neil Gaiman, accused of sexual assault by multiple women. The story broke over the summer in a British podcast â which Nancy and Sarah listened to, and much preferred â and they zero in on the storyâs different presentations and ethical tangles. Itâs a tale of celebrity, status-seeking, boundarilessness, and cruelty. But is it criminal? Letâs discuss.
Also discussed:
* Joe Biden made a speech
* Bathtub as flytrap
* If I serve you a steak, and you write to tell me you loved it, then logically do I:
* Serve you another steak
* Assume you donât really like steak and only told me you did so we can keep hanging out
* Report me because I pressed the steak on you while knowing you hated steak
* What does logic have to do with it?
* To be clear: We are anti-vagina whipping
* Do women want sexual freedom, to be protected class â or both?
* Please donât trot out experts to support your insupportable point
* Nancy knee-jerks over journalism
* Is consent really black and white? And if so, why has it spawned five million think pieces and hours of podcasts like this?
* Jon Ronson puts Sarah to sleep but âin a loving way.â
* âIf my literary hero appeared to me when I was 22 when I happened to be hot and not a binge-drinking chubby lonely-heart watching Real World marathons while hungover on the futon âŠâ
Plus, Sarah hates the âcup of teaâ consent video, some love for fact-checkers, the 1-minute video thatâs made Nancy laugh 20 times, and much more!
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
Be warned, beloveds: Lots of sex talk here; hide the kiddies and the squeamish. Also! Due to some ghost in the machine, our last episode, âMeghan Daum on What We've Lost in the Los Angeles Wildfires,â may have included a paywall that we did not put there. It is free for all, and itâs fixed now.
No worries if you havenât seen âBabygirl,â the erotic drama wherein a tightly wound CEO with an Instagram-perfect life (Nicole Kidman) gets down and dirty with a much younger male intern (Harris Dickinson). Sarah and Nancy are discussing a lot more than just a movie: The nature of female desire, why domination fantasies are so taboo, and whether masochism is threaded into the female sexual experience. (Sweeping generalizations alert!)
Also discussed:
* Nancyâs name makes a comeback and she canât take it
* Consent does not line up with desire
* The thing about negging is âŠ
* Don Draper, feminist icon?
* All hail Showgirls, the best-worst movie ever
* Nancy likes to wrestle
* The orgasm gap
* Why does a man buy a woman a steak?
* Nancy Fridayâs My Secret Garden
* Define âhypergamyâ
Plus, Nancy picks an âobscure bookâ for her hotbox only to find it has 105,000 reviews on Amazon, a male companion robot that looks like Harry Dean Stanton, âFreedom for Scotland!â and much more
Are there heretofore unexperienced pleasures when you become a paid subscriber? One way to find out
We might be paywalling this episode, but weâre not monstersâŠ
-
Essayist and Unspeakable pod host Meghan Daum joins Nancy and Sarah to talk about the worst fires ever recorded in Southern California â what it was like to learn that her house in Altadena burned down, the blame game that both sides are playing, the surreal celebrity angle, and why you donât actually have to tweet.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com/subscribe -
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
âI am still waiting for my bathrobe, and until you give it to me, I am going to be forced to do this podcast in the nude,â Kat Rosenfield tells Nancy and Sarah, who really need to move on this gift they keep promising her for repeat appearances. Kat is here to discuss her recent Free Press column on Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, âa turducken of a storyâ about alleged misbehavior and creative control on the set of It Ends With Us. The starsâ dueling legal documents lit up social media over the holidays, but itâs ⊠confusing. Kat sees it less as a âhe said/she said," and more of a battle of PR narratives.
Also discussed:
* But who is Colleen Hoover?
* âI have a series of really hot takesâŠâ
* Justin Baldoni: sexy or nah?
* Nancy likes a dad bod
* Is asking someone what they weigh âfat-shamingâ?
* âI have been taken on a journey of eroticism and repulsion, and thatâs what I count on you forâŠâ
* Shades of Depp-Heard
* Megan Twohey strikes again
* âAstro-turfed pseudo-consensusâ; rolls right off the tongue
* How to pronounce âsimulacramâ?
* Reflexive outrage: what is it good for?
* Wait, thatâs not Markleâs kitchen?
* Ascribing a richness of interior life to people that they neither have nor deserve
Plus, dry cake, Nancyâs failing face, a movie trailer that gives all the cringes, and much more!
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
Nancy and Sarah share their highs and lows from the year that was. Which movie did Nancy love, and Sarah despise? (Hint: Itâs not the Bob Dylan movie.) Which book did Sarah love, even though Nancy finds the author âtweeâ? Plus, Sarah quizzes Nancy about momentous events in 2024, and Nancy mostly bombs, no cap.
Also discussed:
* âItâs always butter with youâ
* Was Joan Baez that hot?
* The movie that set both Sarah and Nancyâs nerves on edge
* What live televised event got a Taylor Swift bump?
* Who was that guy that bombed at the Golden Globes, again?
* Big love for Andy Mills
* No Problematic Coffee
* âAs a childless cat lady âŠâ
* Michael Moynihanâs Melania impersonation gets a run for its money
Plus, knee-jerk Nancy on the yearâs worst politician, Sarah panic-votes for macaroni and cheese, and more!
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
Itâs the end of 2024, and Sarah and Nancy wonder if two recent media phenomena represent a paradigm shift in two areas: porn and the collective consciousness. On one side: âIâm Lily Phillips, and today Iâm getting run through by a hundred guys.â On the other side: âThis groundbreaking series challenges everything we think we know about communication and the human mind, inviting viewers to step into a reality where the impossible is not only possible but happening every day.â
Yes, weâre talking about the YouTube documentary I Slept With 100 Men in One Day and the podcast The Telepathy Tapes, exploring the potentially telepathic abilities of nonverbal autists. What do these two things have in common? Join us to find out, in a conversation that veers from unexpected sex toys to Carl Jung. Also, Nancy cries about something other than journalism.
Also discussed:
* Nancy pens a viral tweet!
* The how-to-fold-a-fitted-sheet debate
* Wait, there are drones over LA, too?
* Sarah wants Nancy to start an OnlyPans page
* The orange street cone goes into WHAT, now?
* Lily Phillipsâ understatement of the year: âI donât know if Iâd recommend itâ
* The arrogance of thinking we know everything about science
* When Freud and Jung parted ways âŠ
* Babe Paleyâs husband
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
Nancy and Sarah discuss the very online experience of watching both the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the capture of the man named as his killer, Luigi Mangione. We discuss the memes, conspiracies, tasteless jokes, and crushes on the alleged shooter. Did the tragic incident offer a pressure-valve release to Americans frustrated by a limping healthcare system, or is it an inflection point for something more dangerous? And how should we feel when murder becomes entertainment?
Also discussed:
* The Daniel Penny verdict
* The floating-in-space feeling between election and inauguration
* Activism ainât what it used to be
* âWill you forgive me for loving to say his name?â
* Piers Morgan, the Jerry Springer of political shows
* âThe brain is a dangerous thingâ
* Bonnie & Clyde and glamorous crime
* âDesire knows no ethicsâ
* The detail that helps Luigi Mangioneâs capture in a McDonaldâs make sense
* Caitlin Flanagan, the master storyteller
* âWhat will survive of us is loveâ
* Did Sonny Liston take a dive?
Plus, Sarahâs brain makes âpopcornâ in the middle of the night, Nancy thinks CBD makes her sing better, Ben Dreyfuss talks with Taylor Lorenz (letâs listen), and more!
As the poet says, what will survive of us is love. As the podcasters say, we survive only if you become a paid subscriber
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
Smoke âEm welcomes favorite repeat guest and self-proclaimed âabsolute newspaper romanticâ Matt Welch. He talks with Nancy and Sarah about whether legacy papers can ever make a comeback and how they ignore local news at their own peril, plus whether civility might be on the upswing.
Also discussed:
* Pink hair donât care
* How the Los Angeles Times âchanged the physical landscape of the West.â
* Scott Jennings joins the editorial board at the LA Times. And?
* âLike perestroika, incivility starts in the homeâ
* Theyâre still counting votes in California!
* Is activism dead or just sleeping?
* âThrow any Russian in a skirt at Hegseth and heâs going to loosen his tieâ
* âA dark sky had fallen over Nantucket, Mass., on Saturday evening when President Biden left church alongside his family after his final Thanksgiving as president âŠâ
* Meghan McCain, flashpoint
* âMono-politics is bad for governanceâ
* Maybe people should disengage from politics and take up streaking and fart books?
* People who voted for Kamala, but were pulling for Trump?
* Nancy thinks âraw-doggingâ means âŠ
* Sarah interviews Ken Burns, American treasure
Also, a wretched New York Times âEthicistâ question, thoughts on why Biden pardoned his son, dick-shaped cookie cutters, and much more!
-
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com
Nancy and Sarah discuss two recent dust-ups between men and women: One is fraught and potentially career-damaging, the other is (arguably) romantic, but also potentially legacy-damaging. Trumpâs nominee to lead the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is facing scandal that stems from a 2017 encounter at a Republican womenâs convention, and the details are ⊠confusing? Donât really add up? Then we discuss the secret muse of Cormac McCarthy, 64-year-old Finnish lass Augusta Britt, who shares the story of her underage love affair (and lifelong connection) with McCarthy in a Vanity Fair story that was much-loved and much-trashed. Wanna guess where we fell?
Also discussed:
* Can anyone pronounce the last name Hegseth?
* The detail that brought the case together for Nancy
* Never name your bar âKnucklesâ
* What if he were in a blackout, and she wasnât âŠ
* Cock-clock, crotch-block, what?
* The two foods all men love
* âWe donât get enough Finnish chutzpahâ
* âWell baby, thatâs what I do. Iâm a writer.â
* Nancy just keeps vibrating
* Purple prose? Bring it
* The case of Joyce Maynard
* Sarah is really mad at Wicked
Plus, controversy over a writerâs hair, Nancyâs stuffing recipe, and more!
- Laat meer zien
