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This episode will be available for free beginning May 31st.

Girl groups have long been underestimated—even by the producers and managers who created them.

For women listeners, girl groups narrated profound emotions and expressed personal freedom—even when the singers were not so free themselves. For male listeners, girl groups provided inspiration, and a way to express matters of the heart.

And for all listeners across rock and soul history, girl groups pushed music forward. In the ’60s, the Shirelles, Marvelettes, Ronettes and Shangri-Las kept rock afloat between Elvis Presley and the Beatles. In the ’70s and ’80s, girl groups from the Emotions to Exposé rebooted dance music. In the ’90s, En Vogue, TLC and Destiny’s Child fused hip-hop style with old-school soul—and the Spice Girls fired up a new generation through Girl Power.

Join Chris Molanphy as we shimmy and strut through decades of bops to give girl groups the respect they deserve. You’ll love them tomorrow, because friendship never ends.

Podcast production by Kevin Bendis.

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This episode will be available for free starting May 25th

In this week’s essay, John discusses Mothers’s Day, playing tennis with the Attorney General, medical scares, and more

Notebook Entries:
Notebook 19, page 16. April 2011
Is it possible, through applied thought, to become systematic in an approach to life? If you were to do that how would you proceed?

Notebook 16, page 6. July 26, 2005
“I’m here with a bunch of midshipmen and wondering what there is to do around here.” - Boy trying to hit on a girl working @ The Reef in Castine, ME.

Notebook 15, page 30. September 2004
Head problems:
Sunday 9/5 morning
Tuesday 9/7 evening
Wednesday 9/8 before lunch

Notebook 22, page 22. April 24, 2014
Question:
What did you want to be when you were a kid?
What do you want to be now?
Why the difference?

Notebook 9. 1995
“That’s just the ticket the doctor ordered”

Notebook 13. 2001
“Free as a clam”

Notebook 17, page 67. December 2006
The man sitting next to me has a face on the boil and garlic and old booze on his breath. When he sleeps, he sighs. For this leg of the flight I am wrapped in his breathy gumbo.

Notebook 15, page 7. April 2004
“In all these there are messages for those who use their reason.” - Quran quotation

Notebook 15, page 80. 2005
Would like to meet her.

Notebook 54. July 26, 2020
“Writing requires a reader. You can’t do it alone.” - John Cheever

Notebook 15, page 71. 2005
In the light of sobriety not sure what this means

Notebook 13. March 2001
Yesterday I played tennis with John Ashcroft the atty. general of the U.S.

Notebook 13, page 108. December 11, 2001
Anne just called. There is one little heartbeat beating in her today. Everything is okay for this hurdle. I must say, I was really worried.

Notebook 20, page 10. December 24, 2013
“Sometimes Dad says weird stuff, just ignore him” - Anne to kids about me

Notebook 15, page 84.
“Life goes on,” Hayawi says. “We are in the middle of a war [in Iraq] and we still smoke the water pipe.”

Notebook 45, page 24. April 16, 2019
Our savior lives by the manner in which we live.

Notebook 19, page 23. 2011
People on their mobile phones in England say goodbye a lot: “Cheers, alright then, speak to you soon, ta.” (That’s four ways of saying goodbye). Amelia tells the story of a man who thanked a ticket-taker by saying “Ta, magical, cheers.”

References:
Disaster on the Penobscot - John Henry Fay for Naval History Magazine
One Man’s Meat by E.B. White
The House at Allen Cove I E.B. White House Tour - New England Magazine
Little Plastic Castle - Ani Defranco
“Two Years of War: Taking Stock” - Anthony Shadid for the Washington Post

Podcast production by Cheyna Roth.
Email us at navelgazingpodcast@gmail.com

Allegations about Sean “Diddy” Combs had been circulating, but it wasn’t until surveillance footage of the mogul assaulting his then-partner Cassie began circulating on social media, that his response changed from defensive to apologetic. 

Guest: Sidney Madden, reporter for NPR Music and co-host of Louder Than a Riot.

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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme and Rob Gunther.
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On this week’s show, the hosts begin by reviewing Babes, Pamela Adlon’s (Better Things, Louie) directorial feature debut starring Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau. Through raunch-comedy and body horror, Babes explores childbirth and pregnancy through a refreshingly unromanticized lens, but does it succeed as a drama? Then, the three switch gears and turn to Interview With the Vampire, AMC’s Anne Rice adaptation that’s now in its second season. What a weird show! The series–starring Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac and Eric Bogosian as the titular cynical interviewer–brings the novel’s queer subtext to the surface, and is camp in every sense of the word. Finally, the trio is joined by Mikael Wood, the Los Angeles Times’ pop music critic to discuss Billie Eilish’s latest album, Hit Me Hard and Soft. (You can read Wood’s review here.) Produced with her brother Finneas, Hit Me Hard and Soft offers a new way of thinking about the 22-year-old, and features songs like “Birds of a Feather” and “Lunch,” a fun, lusty track about being into girls. 

In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, the panel answers a question from long-time listener, James: “What things that you love have you been introduced to by advertising?”

Email us at culturefest@slate.com. 

Endorsements:

Dana: This week’s endorsement comes with a brag: Dana’s daughter is going to Julliard! Through that, they discovered the wonderful documentary, Creating a Character: The Moni Yakim Legacy. 

Julia: Two clarifications and an extremely sumptuous sweater recommendation. First, the fashion Substacks mentioned on a previous episode were I Want to be Her!, Girls of a Certain Age, and Blackbird Spyplane. Second, a wool sweater from Dana Lee Brown. 

Stephen: The Time of the Last Persecution, an album by the English singer-songwriter Bill Fay, released in 1971. 

Podcast production by Jessamine Molli. Production assistance by Kat Hong.
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A fat suit is a custom-made costume with one goal: to make an actor appear fat without them actually having to be fat. It’s typically a unitard filled with mattress foam and other wiggly, jiggly bits—but it’s also so much more than that, an embodiment of all our cultural hang-ups about fatness. In today’s episode we’re going to consider the fat suit from all angles: how it’s made, how it’s changed, and why it continues to exist.
You’ll hear from Dawn Dininger, Royce Best, Amy Farrell, Hazel Cills, Mia Mask, and Matthew Mungle.
This episode was written and produced by Katie Shepherd. It was edited by Willa Paskin. Decoder Ring is also produced by Evan Chung and Max Freedman. Derek John is Executive Producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. We had mixing help from Kevin Bendis.
Special thank you to: Mike Marino, Jacqui Lucey, Gina Tonic, Kate Young, Barbara Miller and The Museum of the Moving Image.
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Candice Lim is joined by Yowei Shaw (former co-host of NPR’s Invisibilia) to discuss her new podcast Proxy, which takes listeners through the psychological aftermath of a layoff, starting with Shaw’s own layoff from NPR. In March 2023, the public radio institution laid off approximately 10 percent of its staff, resulting in the cancellation of four podcasts, including Invisibilia. Shaw, along with her team, was working on an upcoming season of the podcast when they were suddenly without jobs. More than a year later, Shaw is back with Proxy, which investigates layoff culture and asks questions like “Is there a good way to lay off employees?” and “Why did my HR representative smile when they laid me off?”
This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim and Rachelle Hampton.
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