New Times,
New Thinking.

15 February 2016updated 20 Apr 2016 10:51am

SRSLY #31: Pablo at War

We discuss Kanye West’s bizarre album launch/fashion show, Reggie Yates’s Men’s Rights Activism documentary, and Ali Smith’s Public Library and Other Stories.

By Caroline Crampton

This is SRSLY, the pop culture podcast from the New Statesman. Here, you can find links to all the things we talk about in the show as well as a bit more detail about who we are and where else you can find us online. Listen to our new episode now:

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SRSLY is hosted by Caroline Crampton and Anna Leszkiewicz, the NS’s web editor and editorial assistant. We’re on Twitter as @c_crampton and @annaleszkie, where between us we post a heady mixture of Serious Journalism, excellent gifs and regularly ask questions J K Rowling needs to answer.

If you’d like to talk to us about the podcast or make a suggestion for something we should read or cover, you can email srslypod[at]gmail.com.

You can also find us on Twitter @srslypod, or send us your thoughts on tumblr here. If you like the podcast, we’d love you to leave a review on iTunes – this helps other people come across it.

The Links

(2:05) On Kanye West 

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If you’ve really been living under a rock, here’s Kanye’s Twitter feed. Beware all ye who enter here!!!!!!!

Stream the now-released album on Tidal. (You can get a free trial.)

Pitchfork’s excellent review.

Anna’s piece about resentfully trekking over to Hackney to watch the album launch.

 

(11:50) On Men at War

Our colleague Barbara’s excellent piece on Roosh V.

 

(25:10) On Ali Smith

The collection’s first story, which features this quote we mentioned:

In Shakespeare, the word stone can also mean a mirror. The word pebble has, in its time, also meant a lens made of rock crystal and a sizeable amount of gunpowder. The word mundane comes from mundus, the Latin word for the world. At one time the word cheer seems to have meant the human face. The word last is a very versatile word. Among other more unexpected things – like the piece of metal shaped like a foot which a cobbler uses to make shoes – it can mean both finality and continuance, it can mean the last time and something a lot more lasting than that.

To conclude once held the meaning to enclose. To tell has at different times meant the following: to express in words, to narrate, to explain, to calculate, to count, to order, to give away secrets, to say goodbye. To live in clover means to live luxuriously, in abundance.

The Guardian review Caroline mentioned.

If you’d like to cry with joy at all the beauty and humanity on this strange little planet, try reading Smith’s love letter to John Berger.

 

Your questions:

We love reading out your emails. If you have thoughts you want to share on anything we’ve discussed, or questions you want to ask us, please email us on srslypod[at]gmail.com, or @ us on Twitter @srslypod, or get in touch via tumblr here. We also have Facebook now.

Our theme music is “Guatemala – Panama March” (by Heftone Banjo Orchestra), licensed under Creative Commons. 

See you next week!

PS If you missed #30, check it out here.

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