Happy To Be Here

We get you ready for the weekend with movies, books and everyone’s favorite thing: a new way to categorize life experiences. Trust us!

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What is The Matrix? Why, it’s a film that the matrix would make about the matrix, of course!

Welcome back to Nerdette Recaps with Peter Sagal! It’s the podcast where we rewatch movies and dissect them like the intense nerds we are. This time around, it’s all about the films of 1999.

And today, we’re breaking down The Matrix, a seminal film from the Wachowski siblings starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss.

Listen as Peter, Tricia and Greta break it down, and then join us next week for another iconic movie, The Blair Witch Project ... just in time for Halloween.

And don’t forget, we want to hear from you! Join the party and send us a voice recording about any of the movies we’re featuring. Just record yourself on your phone and send the audio file to [email protected].

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The millennial generation came into adulthood during an American recession, an era of crushing student loan debt and the rise of temporary workers and independent contractors. Add a global pandemic to that precariousness and you’ve got a perfect recipe for burnout.

Today, Greta talks with author Anne Helen Petersen about Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation. It's our October pick for the Nerdette Book Club. And even if you aren't a millennial or haven't read the book, we want to hear from you. Tell us about your burnout feels! Record yourself on your phone and email the audio to [email protected] and you may hear yourself in our longer panel discussion later this month.

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Quick! Name six iconic movies that hit theaters in the year 1999.

Nothing?! Ok. We'll do it for you:

And the craziest thing is? That's not even the half of it!

In honor of that crazy year in movies, Nerdette Recaps with Peter Sagal is back again, featuring recaps and analysis of the six films listed above (as well as updates on whatever Peter was doing 21 years ago). 

Take a listen to the trailer, and make sure to join Tricia, Greta and Peter for their first recap on Wednesday, Oct. 21! 

And don’t forget, we want to hear from you! Join the party and send us a voice recording about any of the movies we’re featuring. Just record yourself on your smartphone and send the audio file to [email protected]. We record early on Mondays, so send them in on Fridays if you can!



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You didn’t already know?

Nerdette talked with two brand new MacArthur Fellows — also known as MacArthur “geniuses” — about the important work they’re doing and what it’s like to get that phone call.

Mary L. Gray is an anthropologist and a media scholar honored for her work investigating how “labor, identity, and human rights are transformed by the digital economy.”

And Damien Fair is a cognitive neuroscientist honored for his research on the developing human brain.

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What a wild week! And to celebrate the return of another weekend, we assembled a bunch of fun people to take a look back … in a merry, pop culture kind of way, not a CAPS LOCK newsy way.

To talk about the big week for movies, we called up Eliana Dockterman, who writes about movies, pop culture and feminism for Time. Then, to break down the gloriousness that is Fat Bear Week, we talked with Mike Fitz, the resident naturalist at explore.org. And for all the rest, we hung out with two of our favorite people: WBEZ education reporter Susie An and Vocalo radio host Jill Hopkins. Join us!

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The seasons are changing but the novel coronavirus is still with us. And that’s left us with a lot of questions about how to safely socialize with friends and family when the weather makes small outdoor gatherings less viable.

So we called up Dr. Emily Landon, an epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist at the University of Chicago. (She also gave Nerdette listeners some therapeutic advice about the pandemic back in June.)

And now that autumn is upon us, Landon explains how we might approach the upcoming holiday season (including Halloween!) and the great indoors. 

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Either Peter really hates the 1991 film Hook or he’s suffering from some serious Peter Pan envy … or maybe both!

Welcome to a special bonus episode of Nerdette Recaps with Peter Sagal! his week it’s all about Steven Spielberg’s Peter Pan sequel, starring Dustin Hoffman as the titular captain, Robin Williams as an adult Peter Pan and Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell. Listen as Peter explains why he thinks Hook is Spielberg’s worst film, hear Tricia defend it to the death and see Greta play arbiter.

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You know Gillian Flynn as the genre-redefining writer behind Gone Girl, both the 2012 novel and the 2014 movie adaptation starring Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck. Since the success of Gone Girl, Flynn has written only for the screen, including the 2018 movie Widows and the HBO series Sharp Objects. Out now on Amazon Prime, Utopia is Flynn’s latest work, based on a 2013 BBC show of the same name.

Greta talks with Flynn about Utopia, Gone Girl and what’s next.

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Welcome to the Nerdette Book Club! Each month, we read a book and chat about it with a rotating group of panelists. This month’s pick is Maaza Mengiste’s historical novel The Shadow King.

It’s based on the true story of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in the mid-1930s. Against Italian Prime Minister Benito Musolinni’s technologically-advanced army, the citizens of feudal Ethiopia didn’t seem to have a chance. But they eventually overcame— and they had the help of a number of forgotten female fighters.

Listen along as Nerdette host Greta Johnsen discusses the book with Lydia Levy, founder of the African literature review website Omusana. She also has a doctorate in African Studies from Howard University.

And then get ready for next month’s pick: Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen.

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