From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerdette. I'm Greta Johnson. We did it. We made it to another

weekend. Coming up, Victoria Schwab, stop spied. Tell us about her latest book, The

Fragile, Threads of Power, and her relentless campaign to trick literary book lovers in

reading a fantasy. We just like should do what we can to dismantle the concept of fantasy

as like dudes with broad swords and dragons. But first, it's our chance to sit back and

relax for a week that was with two excellent humans. With us this week, we have Ismail

Perez, who writes the advice column for the Chicago Sun Times. It's called Someone in

Chicago. Ismail, hello. Hey. Also here is the host of WBEZ's Making Podcast and the

host of On the Block, Powered by Block Club Chicago and WCIU, Brandon Pope, Brandon

Pope. Hello. What's good family? How y'all feeling? All right, how are you? I'm great.

I'm great. You know, it's a little dreary out, but hey, we, we live with it. We got the

vitamin details here to make it work. Exactly. Okay. So before we jump in, I want to put

both of you on the spot. Is either of you going to go see the Taylor Swift movie? Ismail,

are you a, a swifty? I am a swifty. I just, I'm also an introvert and I've seen the

crowds. So maybe I'll wait for it to die down a bit if that happens. And I will go,

like when it's more private. I respect that very much. Brandon, what about you? I think

you'd be surprised. I kind of am a swifty, but a newer swifty. Like I, I think should

be making some bops for sure. It's you got some slappers. Sure. Um, so what I go, probably

not to the theater because I just feel like it's not my scene. Um, but once it's on streaming,

absolutely. I'll buckle in. I'll have my, my little outfit on and sing all the songs.

So the 10 minute versions all that. It is pretty funny. I, we have a friend who is part

of the Chicago International Film Festival this year. So he's been going to a lot of screenings.

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