I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still

watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you,

soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making,

Stories Without End from WBEZ Chicago.

Join me as I share how the genre began, their social impact, and why these stories endure.

Listen wherever you get your podcast.

From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerdette. I'm Greta Johnson. We did it. We made it to another weekend. Coming up, an art critic shines light on the women who painted self-portraits against all odds over the course of Western art history. They weren't allowed to paint naked models. They weren't allowed to go to art school. So, you know, if they had a mirror and a palette, they could, you know, use themselves as a subject. Plus, author and TV writer Zoe Wittall tells us about her new book, The Spectacular, and a whole lot more. Like, I just sort of only came out because

a girl kissed me once and I was like, oh, that's interesting. You know, like I never would have come up with it on my own. But first, it's our panel on the week that was. With us this week, we have Omar Holman and

William Evans. They're the minds behind Black Nerd Problems, a delightfully nerdy pop culture website.

There's a podcast, too, and they just wrote a collection of essays called Black Nerd Problems.

Omar, William, welcome.

Hello. Thanks for having us.

Thanks for coming on. So this week, Captain Kirk finally went to literal space at age 90.

I'm so filled with emotion about what just happened. I just, it's extraordinary.

The almighty Dr. Fauci decreed that kids can trick or treat. And enjoy it. And the highly

anticipated third season of Succession premieres this weekend on HBO. Well fucking beast them.

We'll go full fucking beast. But we're not going to talk about any of those things. I actually

think we should start this week with the extremely

scintillating topic of inflation. This week we found out consumer prices in September. We're on

average 5.4% higher than September of last year. That is the highest rate since 2008. The Social

Security Administration announced it's trying to take the edge off with a higher payout next year for cost of living adjustments. Turns out a lot of economists are saying this is partly because of supply chain issues, which is a phrase we've been hearing more and more. But I don't know, like, how much are you managing to give a shit about this, given everything else that's going on in the world, you know?

I literally, maybe two weeks ago, I finally broke down, quote unquote, because I was going to

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