RICHMOND, Va. — The audience was booing Ira Glass.
It was the opening session of Resonate, a podcast festival founded three years ago by Chioke I’Anson at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for Contemporary Art. Audio documentarian Eleanor McDowall played a clip of the social media show Subway Takes, where Glass argues that “every podcast is better at 2.0 speed” because “your brain can take it in, you totally can get the information, and you can listen to more podcasts.” I’Anson grabbed the mic back after McDowall’s presentation and quipped: “Our lord and savior losing his damn mind.”
The relationship between uncle and nephew is riven with questions of the human psyche. What does the nephew see when he looks at the uncle? The brother he never had, or another father to struggle against? What lessons must the uncle pass down to the nephew, and must he destr...
Nikola Jokic had another one of those what the hell is happening right now performances Wednesday night, against the unbelievably depressing Los Angeles Clippers, posting 55 points on 23 shots, plus 12 rebounds and six assists. Because there is never just one way to gawk at ...
Welcome back to The Not-So-Great Defector Bake Off, where Kelsey and Chris attempt to complete the technical challenges from the newest season of The Great British Bake Off in their own home kitchens, with the same time parameters as the professional-grade bakers competing on the show.
Stefan Fatsis went 17 years between books, but you wouldn't say that he was taking it easy. He was on NPR and co-hosted Slate's Hang Up and Listen podcast for many years, and was writing big feature stories on a fairly regular cadence, but there was no new book until Unabridged, his excellent new history of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, American lexicography, and his experience while embedded with the dictionary's staff of lexicographers, came out last month. That it took nearly a month to get him on the podcast is a reflection of how busily he has been out there spreading the good word since that publication date. But we got him:
Drew Magary’s Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs every Thursday at Defector during the NFL season. Got something you wanna contribute? Email the Roo. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it.
By now you know that the only thing that The New York Times does well in 2025 is games. Using both Wordle—which the company bought from indie game designer Josh Wardle in 2022—and their popular daily crossword puzzle as twin anchors, the Times has built a Games app that has boosted the company’s revenues to record levels. The Times’ process for developing games is as thoughtful and deliberate as its reporting is not. So when the NYT Games team launches a new puzzle, I can usually count on it to be a worthy addition to their portfolio.
Once every week or two, I swim molasses-slow laps at the YMCA. I’ve been on something of a fitness journey this year, testing out different forms of exercise to see what sticks—what feels the least torturous and humiliating as a fat person. Swimming appeals more than most ac...
After a brief foray into creatures big, flashy, and famous, we must return to form and focus on the spineless, creepy, and crawling. Today we're shining a spotlight on one of the most loathèd creepy-crawlers of all—the humble spider. You may fear them, what with their eight ...
It is that time of year when college basketball programs fatten themselves up on inferior competition, which makes for a lot of games that can be safely ignored. But wait, before you skim over the box score from Notre Dame's 85–58 victory over Akron on Wednesday night, take a look at what Hannah Hidalgo did.
Are you ready to receive information that could potentially cause psychic damage? Hidalgo finished the game with 44 points, nine rebounds, and 16 steals. Sixteen steals! Against Division-I college basketball players! In just 28 minutes of floor time!
“I know you want there to be a master plan,” the kidnapping victim says to her captor. In Bugonia, the latest movie by Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone plays girlboss biotech CEO Michelle Fuller, and Jesse Plemons is Teddy Gatz, who works at a fulfillment center for Michelle’s A...
Democrats in the House Oversight Committee released on Wednesday a new batch of emails from Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased sex criminal who was notoriously in contact with all sorts of powerful people. By now it is well known that Donald Trump was connected to Epstein in many...
Regardless of whether they authored the most disastrous trade of the century, or considered Jrue Holiday and Nikola Jokic to be equal talents, a general manager getting fired 11 games into the season is pretty shocking. Sure, some coaches get the ax extremely early in the se...
Harry and I did not know that Nico Harrison was about to be fired when we invited famed blogger Ock Sportello back on Nothing But Respect this week, but the timing worked out perfectly, as our planned Brooklyn Nets vivisection (yes that is a threat) dovetailed with the Nico ...
The San Jose Sharks have been beneath your notice for years. As this formerly stalwart franchise has missed the playoffs in six straight seasons, they've existed as a total non-competitive nothing that makes every aspect of the game as easy as possible for their opponents. W...
Some NBA games are starting at 11:00 p.m. ET. This is a new development coinciding with the league striking a new broadcast deal with NBC, which aired Tuesday night's Nuggets–Kings game on the Peacock streaming app. I'm an adaptable person who generally accepts change cheerfully, but trying to watch last night's game made me feel like several media executives were spitting directly into my face.
I know NBA games never start at the advertised time, but it was still annoying to turn on the broadcast a few minutes before 11:00 p.m. and see a big "Countdown To Tipoff" graphic on the screen with 20 minutes on it. That's fine. I can read a book for a little bit.
We’re back, baby! And we’re kicking off our ninth season of Normal Gossip by gabbing it up with Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai!
In this episode, Rachelle and Malala dig into such questions as whether it’s a good idea to let your college roommate plan a “dirt cheap” trip to Europe for you, whether hitchhiking is an important life experience, and whether comparing hand sizes always means you want to bone.
Welcome back to Make It Nice, Defector's best interior design advice column. Today we have drill-less art hanging, an extremely deep closet, and a room with too many jobs.
America may have invented match fixing back in the first decades of the twentieth century, and we may be bringing it back in this one with new gambling scandals in basketball and baseball, but at some level it is hard to escape the sense that we’re resting on ...
In the winter of 1977, Sports Illustrated reporter Ray Kennedy ventured into the Riverside Table Tennis club at 96th and Broadway. It was a dingy joint with leaky pipes, below street level, beneath a supermarket, inhabited by characters with names like Freddie the Fence, Bet...
Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SF GATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking about Trump in the booth, floaters, tape nerd, woke travel plans, and more.
Guillermo del Toro has devoted much of his career to sanctifying monsters. In his first feature film, Cronos, an aging antique dealer stumbles into eternal life, becoming a vampire who, rather than being dangerous or terrifying, is filled with pathos and understanding. For P...
Somewhere there's a judge in Louisiana who isn't hooked into a political machine and can't be bought by one—maybe. And that is the judge, should he or she actually exist, who should hear Brian Kelly's lawsuit against his former employers at LSU. To be clear, everyone else sh...
The Dallas Mavericks fired team president Nico Harrison today, a development that was leaked to multiple reporters and then confirmed in an open letter from Mavericks owner Patrick Dumont. This came together very quickly. The team is 3–8 after Monday's home loss to the Milwa...
Buying a ticket to an Edmonton Oilers game does not in itself guarantee you'll see Connor McDavid do something so spectacular you'll remember it for the rest of your life. From my personal experience, it's more likely that he'll semi-quietly rack up a couple of assists. Neve...
The Miami Heat and the Cleveland Cavaliers played one of the best games of this young NBA season on Monday night. You might have missed it while watching one of the other "one of the best games of this young NBA season" that happened during a bonkers night in the league (Wemby! Desmond Bane! The Pistons! Uh, Grayson Allen!), but it's true. The Cavs started out hot in the first quarter before the Heat walloped them in the second, and then the Cavs roared back in the fourth, thanks in part to four straight Sam Merrill three-pointers in the quarter, to force overtime.
For decades, paleontologists have been terrorized by the notion of a teenage Tyrannosaurus rex. Starting in the 1940s, excavations unearthed skulls belonging to what appeared to be smaller and more slender tyrannosaurs. But the scientists were sharply divided on what these s...
In 1974, John Cassavetes released A Woman Under the Influence, starring Gena Rowlands as a mother going through a mental breakdown. I can't imagine that people at the time were ready for such an unflinching look at psychological collapse, particularly from a woman who is exp...
In the final hours before the Nov. 1 UFC bout between featherweights Isaac Dulgarian and Yadier Del Valle, the betting odds on Dulgarian, the favorite, abruptly dropped from -250, meaning a bettor would have to bet $250 to make $100 on a wager that Dulgarian would win, to ar...
After dominating a field of her most dangerous peers, and claiming $5.2 million—the largest purse in the history of pro tennis, men's or women's—Elena Rybakina held up the champ's trophy at the WTA Finals. It was the first time she had won that title.
Rybakina barely qualif...
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — During the break between the first and second quarters, the Sacramento Kings interrupted one anti-competitive spectacle with another. Six babies lined up to race, only to hear the starting gun and refuse to crawl, wriggle, or even squirm, opting ins...
