Episode 123: John Jeremiah Sullivan, Dick Cavett-iquette, and Wild Flag
John Jeremiah Sullivan/Harry Taylor
This week: Essayist John Jeremiah Sullivan takes a hard left turn…Talk show giant Dick Cavett spits out etiquette tips… We learn the meaning of “peplum”…Mega-producer Nile Rodgers gets revenge on Studio 54… The Edsel flops right into a cocktail glass… And Caldecott Award-winner Brian Selznick shares unforgettable picture books - for adults. Plus a playlist from indie-rock supergroup Wild Flag.
Icebreaker: Adam Felber Adam Felber, writer for Real Time with Bill Maher and occasional Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me panelist, name-drops at a bar.
Small Talk: Ivy Beleaguered Dwell Magazine Deputy Editor Aaron Britt shares what he’s going to be talking about at dinner parties this weekend: a new retro-fashion book that could spell the end of prep.
A History Lesson with Booze: Driven to Failure and “The Edsel” This week back in 1960, the last Edsel automobile rolled off Ford’s assembly line, marking the end of one of the worst blunders in automotive design. Learn why Edsel became a synonym for disaster, and then try not to wreck yourself with this stiff drink from Motor City.
The “Edsel,” as gassed up by Robert M. Nelson, entertainer and bartender at Cafe D’Mongo’s Speakeasy in Detroit, MI:
Combine in a highball glass:
- 1.5 oz gin (alter to taste)
- 1 oz. cream… or soy milk
- Top with Vernor’s Ginger Ale (the nation’s oldest soft drink, invented in Detroit in 1866)
If you really want to get into into the spirit - stir with a rusty transmission shaft or a dipstick. Drink it down and proudly fail.
Guest List: Brian Selznick Author/illustrator Brian Selznick has earned high praise (and a Caldecott Award) for his novels The Invention of Hugo Cabret and Wonderstruck (just out in October). His fantastical hybrids of image and text create an almost-cinematic effect. So it’s fitting Martin Scorcese took an interest; his Selznick film adaptation Hugo hits theaters next Wednesday. For the occasion, we asked Brian to list his favorite picture books…for grown-ups:
- Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art - by Scott McCloud
- The Arrival - by Shaun Tan
- Where the Wild Things Are - by Maurice Sendak
Etiquette: Dick Cavett Over the last four decades, actor, commentator and talk-show host Dick Cavett has interviewed basically every interesting person on Earth. He currently writes an Opinionator column for The New York Times, which gives his take on current affairs, alongside engaging snapshots of his life. Oh, and he was pals with Groucho Marx. For our etiquette segment, Dick talks about his most “notorious show,” inconvenient kids, and the Japanese term inspired by a sick President.
Eavesdropping: Nile Rodgers Nile Rodgers, member of the seminal disco band Chic and producer of some of the biggest hits in pop history (for nobodies like Madonna and David Bowie), shares a choice excerpt from his new memoir Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco, and Destiny. Somehow, he was once denied entrance to New York’s disco institution Studio 54. History ensued.
Chattering Class: Stylist Aya Kanai on Emerging Fashion Holiday party season is nearly upon us and we have no idea what to wear. Aya Kanai, a fashion stylist who works with Nylon Magazine and dresses celebrities such as Michelle Williams and Kristen Stewart, comes by to school us. We learn that tuxedos aren’t just for men, pajamas aren’t just for sleeping, and that a peplum is a piece of clothing — not a mythical creature.
Main Course: Best Resto-Restrooms This week, the food blog-empire Eater handed out their annual awards, honoring restaurants in each of the cities they cover. One new award category caught Rico’s eye: “Best Restaurant Bathroom.” He payed a visit to the L.A. winner - Hamburger Mary’s in West Hollywood - for a classy discussion of bathroom feng shui…set to “Dancing Queen.”
Guest of Honor: John Jeremiah Sullivan Remember when you were young and wanted to travel around and write first person essays about America, and then you realized you would never get paid to do that and besides you weren’t very good? Well, John Jeremiah Sullivan gets paid to do that and he’s very, very good. Pulphead, his new collection of essays, explores American culture in all its highs and lows, from Michael Jackson to prehistoric-cave explorers. Sullivan talks to Brendan about baroque counterpoint, his lefty tendencies and the “test tube babies of Whitman and Poe.”
Soundtrack: Wild Flag’s Janet Weiss On the heels of its much touted fall debut, grrl-power supergroup Wild Flag is crisscrossing the US and Europe on a hell-raising tour. Drummer Janet Weiss, who’s also played with Sleater-Kinney, Bright Eyes, and Stephen Malkmus, takes a break to recommend four killer songs for your next dinner party (or potluck).
Other Music in this week’s show:
The Sea & Cake - “The Argument”
Aphex Twin - “Boy/Girl Song”
Tipsy - “Liquordelic”
Bob Thomspon - “Starfire”
Los Straitjackets - “Car Hop”
The Police - “Driven To Tears”
The Minutemen - “History Lesson Part II”
Michaely Ezersk - “Asking Around”
Karen O and the Kids - “Rumpus Reprise”
Judy Caplan Ginsburgh - “Manners”
Chic - “I Want Your Love”
Chic - “Le Freak”
Modern Mothers - “Tuxxxedo”
Abba - “Dancing Queen”
My Brightest Diamond - “High Low Middle”
The Flamingos - “I Only Have Eyes For You”
Elyse - “Houses”
Sam Cooke - “Bring It On Home To Me”
Wild Flag - “Racehorse”
Love the music recommendations. I am compiling a never ending playlist for dinner parties and this is great. I like the random tracks you never would have heard of and I like the old favorites that you forget “Old Man”, “Bring it on Home to Me”.
Keep it going!
Although I appreciate Ms. Kanai’s whimsical approach to fashion journalism, I take issue with you advertising this episode as one that explains what a peplum is. For those of us who have studied fashion history, especially how that history reflects society, a peplum is not just a “tutu” that “makes you look pregnant” - it’s an integral part of a historic fashion statement.
The modern understanding of the peplum began as an extension of a Renaissance man’s doublet that flared out from the waist, making the waist look smaller, as was the “new” fashion. Not surprisingly, Queen Elizabeth I began to incorporate the man’s doublet with peplum into her dress styles as a subtle way of signaling to the world that she was a different kind of female monarch.
The style of extending the bodice of a blouse or jacket with a peplum has resurfaced many times in fashion, most notably in the forties, when women’s styles became increasing angular and the body lines exaggerated, and also in the ’80s, when the ruffled form of peplum became a big part of that decade’s general hideousness.
I enjoy your show very much. I especially enjoyed hearing from Dick Cavett this week. My mother, who grew up in the tiny town of Gibbon, Nebraska, is fond of telling us that when she was in elementary school, she played Roy Rogers and Dale Evans with Dick Cavett at recess. Apparently they were the two smallest kids in school, and were thus forced to play together. I’ve always wanted to meet Mr. Cavett so I could tell him that my mother still remembers him fondly.
Where can I find the Elise song houses?
Where are the pics of Mary’s loo?? :)
I was trying to find that one too. I figured out that it’s actually spelled Elyse and not Elise. Houses is from her 2004 S/T album.
11/22/11 12:32 PM
Hi Ben - Thanks for answering Dylan’s question! The song is off Elyse’s self-titled album, which originally dates to 1968. I’ll correct the spelling above. Thankfully there have been a few re-releases so you should be able to find without too much trouble.
All best, Jackson (asst producer)
If your show didn’t have such great guests I would stop listening, because you two are pretentious pricks!
When the bartender mentioned his female head bartender and gave her credit where it is likely due, you comment “she keeps you on a tight leash”? He had to courtesy laugh he was so uncomfortable! Is it just possible he respects her and her contribution?! Incredibly rude and smacks of a distaste for women in power…
And then when discussing cartoons, one of you mentions the only cartoons you have are back issues of the New Yorker. Which you are to busy to read. You just sound like a couple of stuck up jerks. I had to shut this one off.
Considering you have mediocre interview skills, (You don’t listen to your guests or do research. You step all over their jokes. Like to hear yourselves talk much?) you would be well served by not smelling your own farts so much and gaining a little humility.