LISTENING SANS HEADPHONES

At 7pm on Monday night New York's Housing Works bookstore in SoHo was warm and smelling like muffins. A crowd had showed up for Slate magazine's Live Culture Gabfest, an offshoot of the website's weekly podcast with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens and Julia Turner. It was the first live version of the popular podcast, and an experiment, sort of, to see if the format would work in real life. A long line outside of Housing Works (and the muffin smell) were both good signs.

The night's three topics—the Robin Hood film, Sam Lipsyte's novel "The Ask" (reviewed in The Economist here), and privacy issues on Facebook—came along with a drinking game that encouraged audience members to drain their beers at specific cues. Then, for about an hour, the two Slate critics and deputy editor onstage had a lively conversation, answered questions, and cracked jokes. On the subject of Robin Hood, they bemoaned Russell Crowe's miscasting and compared the new version to the 1938 film featuring Errol Flynn. "Put those two movies next to each other and they are polar opposites in every way—the colour, the music, the casting," commented Slate film critic Dana Stevens. "I actually think that [the new version] is an anti-Robin Hood." Moving on to the topic of Lipsyte's novel, Stephen Metcalf wondered whether it was a small book or a book about triviality "whose ambitions are quite large," and the three argued over the differences between angry satire and bemused satire. The night was adjourned after questions. It was fun. But what was it, really—a performance? A chance to sit in on a candid conversation? Neither, exactly. So what does a live podcast entail?

It's hard to say, since podcasts have both a low and a high bar. Most of us listen to podcasts while we do other things—wash dishes, drive, fold laundry—and consequently grant it only about 60% of our attention, meaning that it only has to be 60% captivating, which is entirely plausible. Yet of thousands of possible podcasts vie to be our chore-accompanying soundtracks. The three voices of the Slate Culture Gabfest are smart, curious and good at riffing, and their charisma is personal as well as intellectual. These things make for a good listen. Ultimately the live version was not so much a remix as a way to assemble listeners into a goofy, real-life fan base. And why not? It's a gratifying thing when a whole bunch of people—a line's worth!—venture out to watch a few people talk about books and films. There are far worse things to do on a Monday night.

~ MOLLY YOUNG

Picture credit: hiddedevries (via Flickr)