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On this episode: Lucy Lopez, Elizabeth Newcamp, and Zak Rosen are joined by a very special guest: Zak’s mom! Jo Strausz Rosen shares her motherhood journey and what it was like raising Zak and his sister. She also dispenses some invaluable wisdom about the importance of family, creativity, and friendship along the way.
Podcast production by Cheyna Roth and Rosemary Belson.
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Donald Trump is spending his second term trying to cement his legacy, but he still hasn’t zeroed in on what that should be: Is it his name on monuments? A ballroom decorated in his specific style? Owning Greenland or whatever?

Credit where credit is due, though, he’s already made a mark on the political discourse that will have the staying power of a jagged scar.

Guest: Michael Scherer, staff writer at The Atlantic.

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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
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This week, Julia Turner and Dana Stevens are joined by Slate’s own Rebecca Onion to discuss The Devil Wears Prada 2, BEEF season 2, and the NYT’s best living songwriters package with Slate’s music critic Carl Wilson.

Twenty years on, we return to the world of The Devil Wears Prada. In the sequel, Andy, Anne Hathaway’s character, must save Runway Magazine from the forces of capital, who are selling the Vogue-analogue for parts, as Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly struggles to hang on to her own power. The movie has a lot to say about the state of journalism and media with plot lines seemingly ripped from the gossip pages, but does it all come together in the edit? We discuss.

Then, the second season of A24’s anthology series BEEF stars Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan as a volatile millennial couple who enter into a feud with a younger couple, played by Cailee Spaeny and Charles Melton. Set at a rich Californian golf resort and its environs, the show satirizes class and generational resentments as the characters scramble to claim the scraps of their betters at the expense of everyone else. The characters are mostly unlikeable, and the premise might be a little less original than the first season, but given BEEF’s stacked cast and pedigree, does the show sizzle?

Finally we’re joined by Carl Wilson, Slate’s music critic and author of the newsletter “Crritic!” to discuss the New York Times package: The 30 Greatest Living Songwriters. Carl submitted a ballot for the list, and the polished version isn’t too far from his submission. He gets into his picks and discusses what the list is saying about the field of songwriting and the idea of a songwriter as it’s been expanded to include non-traditional instrumentation and digital composition. But like all lists it has sparked debate about the inclusions (Carole King, Stevie Wonder) the exclusions (Randy Newman, Liz Phair, David Byrne) and whether Taylor Swift’s inclusion was solely to get an interview. Together with Carl, we try and make sense of the list and talk about our favorites.

As promised, here is Carl’s full ballot (The asterisks indicate people who Carl voted for but who have since died):

Willie Nelson
Smokey Robinson
Bobby Braddock
*Brian Wilson
Bob Dylan
Carole King
Randy Newman
Dolly Parton
Stevie Wonder
*Sly Stone
The Flatlanders (Butch Hancock/Jimmie Dale Gilmore/*Joe Ely)
Tom Waits & Kathleen Brennan
Nile Rodgers
David Byrne
Mark Eitzel
Chuck D & the Bomb Squad
Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis
Stephin Merritt
Liz Phair
John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats)
Missy Elliott & Timbaland
The Love Junkies (Hillary Lindsey/Lori McKenna/Liz Rose)
Outkast (Big Boi/Andre 3000)
Josh Osborne/Brandy Clark/Shane McAnally
Phoebe Bridgers

Endorsements:

Julia: The SNL sketch featuring Teana Taylor, Grandpa At The Wedding.

Rebecca: The new Lord Of The Flies adaptation on Netflix.

Dana: The article in Vogue: Meryl Streep and Anna Wintour on Power, Fashion, and Acting the Part by Chloe Malle.

Email us your thoughts at [email protected].

Podcast production by Benjamin Frisch. Production assistance by Daniel Hirsch.

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Even with all that Democrats having going for them—mid-term elections typically favoring the out-of-power party, Trump’s sinking approval rates, even rising gas prices—it will be an uphill battle to wrest the Senate from GOP control.

Guest: Jonathan Martin, POLITICO politics bureau chief and host of “On the Road” a podcast about the 2026 midterms.

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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
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We are lucky to get fantastic questions from our listeners here at Decoder Ring, and in this episode, we’re going to open up our mailbag to answer three of them. What are the origins of an eerie horror film string motif? Why do companies insist on telling callers to “listen closely” to menu options that could not possibly have changed? And when did we start using the indispensable eye roll?
In this episode, you’ll hear from historical musicologist Frank Hentschel, as well as Eli Spindel, artistic director of the String Orchestra of Brooklyn. We also speak with writer Nick Greene, Holdcom CEO Andrew Begnoché, and linguist Dr. Rebecca Clift.
This episode was produced by Katie Shepherd and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Decoder Ring is also produced by Max Freedman. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.
Special thanks to Nicole Holliday, and to Leilehua Lanzilotti, whose website Shaken Not Stuttered is a fantastic resource about extended techniques for strings.
If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at [email protected] or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.
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