Nerdette: Separating Fantasy From Reality
Happy To Be Here
Greta Johnsen
4.6 • 924 Ratings
🗓️ 8 September 2017
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It might seem increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction these days, but Studio 360 host and author Kurt Andersen says the dilemma is old — and one that’s exacerbated by unique characteristics of America. Oh, and cosplay and the Internet. Andersen sat down with Nerdette to discuss his new book, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History. He's also obsessed with maps, so we put him on the phone with geographical expert Anne Knowles, who told us all to get lost — in the literal sense.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still |
| 0:06.1 | watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you, |
| 0:12.7 | soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making, |
| 0:18.0 | Stories Without End from WBEZ Chicago. |
| 0:25.7 | Join me as I share how the genre began, their social impact, and why these stories endure. |
| 0:28.3 | Listen wherever you get your podcast. |
| 0:35.1 | From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerdette. |
| 0:36.2 | I'm Tricia Bobita. |
| 0:37.4 | And I am Greta Johnson, and this week's guest is |
| 0:38.7 | Kurt Anderson. He hosts a radio show called Studio 360, and he is an author. His new book is called |
| 0:44.0 | Fantasyland, How America Went Haywire, a 500-year history. Which is extra fun, because when you |
| 0:50.0 | write it out like this, Tricia, there are two colons in there. Fantasyland, colon, how America |
| 0:54.9 | went haywire, colon, 500 year history, colon. Wait, now there's one. Period. Period. Period. |
| 1:00.8 | I like that you put an extra win in at the end. It's like when you're spelling banana out loud. It just |
| 1:05.5 | gets out of hand. Will you spell banana out loud? B-A-N-A-N-A? |
| 1:11.5 | N-A-N-A. |
| 1:12.5 | I hear you. |
| 1:14.3 | B-A-N-A-N-A-N-A-A-A-A-B-A-B-A-B. |
| 1:17.4 | But here's the thing. |
| 1:18.9 | Kurt's book is all about the things that we as Americans, as fiercely independent Americans, |
| 1:24.2 | sometimes insist on believing, even if there isn't empirical, factual evidence to back us up. |
| 1:29.9 | I have things that I believe that are probably not true. |
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