A pickup truck on a major road in northern Brazil they slowed down the vehicle before opening fire 2 men who were in a motorbike died 2 others were injured the victims are from the ethnic group a few years ago they decided to set up unarmed patrol group the guardians of the forest to protect their land from illegal loggers many of their members have been killed since the group was created rescuers in South Africa have recovered the bodies of 3 miners who were trapped several kilometers underground following a rock fall on Friday a 4th person at the Tarlac gold mine is still missing in their last contact with imagines it seems the miners sent there were running out of oxygen b.b.c. News. Therefore it is in Somalia trying to assess the damage caused by a tropical storm cycle own power on brought wind and rain to parts of the northern coast and Saturday cutting all communications with one town our Africa correspondent on sawing has been monitoring the situation from neighboring Kenya strong winds and heavy rain hits the coast of North and Somalia for hours nothing was hard from the epicenter of the storm the old town of. Authorities believe there have been some casualties there only beginning to see the extent of destruction. As it came ashore power was expected to weaken into a deep depression residents of the similar tournaments region of point land where advice to avoid low lying areas and the rough sea the rains are focused to continue into tomorrow and move inland toward southeastern Ethiopia police the motor have summoned Keith Cambray the prime minister's former chief of staff for further questioning about the murder of the investigative journalist that's Nick ironical it Syria police is said to be pressing Mr Embury about a government job given to Melvin Touma a taxi driver who says he acted as a middleman in the murder Mr Cambray denies any wrongdoing President Trump has suggested that he still hopes to reach a deal on the denuclearization of North Korea despite a statement by Pyongyang's ambassador to the u.n. Saying that the issue was off the table 3 summits between the 2 men have yielded no progress the British have a weight boxer under the Joshua has regained the time till he lost in a stunning upset in New York 6 months ago in a rematch in Saudi Arabia he won a unanimous points victory over the man who beat him in June the Mexican American Andy Ruiz Jr b.b.c. News. It's to the best of our knowledge I-Man strange champs there are people who love movies and then there are people who really really really love movies and. I met my wife when we were working together at Pointe cinema in Madison Wisconsin Education This is Mark wreckers he's married to Laurie kept part of the theater that Laurie work that I was sent there to cover for an evening I wasn't a manager at the theater yet so you had to come over here and babysit the staff. And we fight over it all the silly little things that you're supposed to do at point that you guys to do Eastgate there's like little things they did differently but they seemed really important back that point was better. We spent the whole night talking about movies that we loved. And I found your number on Facebook and I called you do you want to go out some time you're like yeah sure. The 1st movie we saw to gether was started at this point and those are 50 neither of us can remember much about it it's but. I don't know if you're both really nervous or what the deal was better about me of like like a Princess Bride Shakespeare play or something I know we have it I'm doing right now it seems important. When we got engaged it kind of occurred to us we've been hanging out in movie theaters for so long it's almost like a movie like oh even a theater now we get married in a line and. The Orpheum Theater is a historic movie out movie palace in Madison and by this point they were not showing movies anymore. One of the things that they were doing to keep the place afloat was booking weddings we didn't really have to do anything to the Orpheum to make it look beautiful said Ari beautiful curtains and paintings on the ceiling we actually puts our band and want to be opera boxes which they love to see a new leaders a sign out front as in all of our pictures like the balcony that's where we actually got married and that's where a ceremony took place and not only has been gentlemen making their state debut it might have been in my opinion that we're being Peter makers and boring and Mark. Mark is our digital producer and yes he and Laurie did get married in an old movie theater. Problemas it's not a movie theater. And that's a familiar story pretty much everywhere you look movie theaters and performance spaces are in trouble box office attendance is down but you know it's up at home movie streaming. So what happens when everyone stays home and the movie palaces of the multiplexes go dark and what are we losing. When the web is not a place is it. Matlab or us has been traveling the country taking photographs of historic movie palaces like the are from big ornate beautiful places with Grand Marquis isn't chandelier isn't gilded walls that some cities have found creative ways to reuse these spaces but in others they're just empty ruins. Matt sees them all as lost treasure. When I was growing up I was always attracted to movies that showed like dystopian futures or books about Pompei your supposed lost city of Atlantis the Titanic just ruins in general and that is sort of what this is to me. The theaters that I photograph their modern ruins. Was their gateway theater like the 1st old abandoned theater you saw that you just couldn't stop thinking about there would be the Lowe's King's theater in Brooklyn New York I've been photographing abandoned asylums for a number of years and I was looking for something that was sort of the opposite some somewhere where people want to have fun I ended up discovering the Los King's theater and I couldn't stop thinking about it and I went and photographed and I was immediately hooked and yesterday I actually photographed my 99th closed theater to those spaces still feel happy to you I do they feel sad because I look at the photographs in your book and they look so sad they do because once you start on the surface you go in and you see how the law potato the buildings have become but there's always things to find whether it's old to get stubs candy wrappers from the sixty's old movie posters you know you find people just posting online talking about my grandfather used to take me this theater and it's a wonderful memory that I haven't I'll have for the rest of my life and I get contacted by those people too I get e-mails from people saying you know I've walked by this building for 10 years and my grandmother told me she used to go here with my grandfather. And I've always heard stories about it but I've never seen the inside so thank you so I want to see wind through the eyes of a photographer like I want to see what you're looking at and what you're thinking about and to take us to the Paramount in Newark Ok 1st thing I do when I get to the theater I take. And I just take in what details are left in the theater what hasn't fallen What do I want to capture so. Usually with the Batman villain to face. So when I 1st photographed it if you're still looking at the stage the right side was all intact but the left side had all fallen I think the box seats were you could see the openings of them and a little bit of plaster work around it but for the most part it was it was all on the ground is it dangerous Oh yeah yeah you know what I've been doing this for quite some time so I I know where not to step like the stage is usually very rotted most most of the theatres I've been in there's either a dry hole in the stage or it feels like you're stepping on a sponge you know a lot of these spaces have been repurposed multiple times over 1st for stage shows and musicals and then came the Advil and then silent film and then the talkies and then you know more recently live music and comedy does repeated reinvention like that take a toll on the space or do you think it in riches it I think it is definitely in riches the space like a theater became a church. Too in New York City that I can name the former Lowe's 175th Street Theater is now the United Palace and they're actually starting to flip around and they still have church services but they're doing concerts they're having special movie events so they're sort of turning it back into a community space beyond it being just a church and there's also the Lowe's Valencia which is now the Tiber Nachle of prayer for all people in Jamaica Queens. And that one really funny to me because they there were statues above the persone March of Greek gods and goddesses and they were all naked so they couldn't have that in a church so they took them down and had someone add robes to them put them about oh and wings so there are angels now. What's the most interesting reuse of a movie palace that you've seen. Is probably the Michigan theater in Detroit the theater after it closes a movie theater became a performing arts center and when that closed it was around when Detroit was starting to get pretty bad and it's attached to an office building and the people who worked in the building were having problems people were breaking their cars stealing their cars and basically they were concerned about that and they told the owners you need to provide us with a parking garage so they were going to demolish the theater and build a parking garage but when they sent out structural engineers they found out that if they demolished the feeder it would weaken the structural integrity of the office building so what they did is turned the theater into a parking garage. That got it and built a parking garage into it but they kept the ceiling and the top of the proceeding in March and the top of the lobby and if you go into that and you park your car and turn around it looks like they basically took a cross section of the theater and just left it so you turn around you can see the top of the balcony can see the projection room but you can also see all the the guts of the theater basically are just on display. I just don't even know what to think about that that sort of seems so perfect right like we demolished or abandoned these gorgeous public spaces and you know instead we became car culture all of us in our little atomized cars our own little interior lives there seems so fitting it was very weird someone bought a building couple years ago and said he was going to return it to its former glory but I haven't seen any evidence of that happening. Oh thank you so much for showing us some of these places they're beautiful You're welcome that's my whole goal on this mistress'. Document the spaces before they're gone. On. The road to. Matlab Rose is an architecture photographer based out of New York and you can see his photos at theaters all over the country in his book after the final curtain we also put a few of them up on our website. To know more of the in. The room. So in the context of music and stuff I think it's really just about the people who want to be engaged in creativity are in charge of the means of production and the execution of their art. That's Matt convoy in 2007 he founded the crammed of indie music spaces New York's death by audio this was a do it yourself d.i.y. Space where musicians not only practiced and performed they also live together death by audio sparks the now famous New York indie scene of the 2000 that them came gentrification and surprisingly it was Vice Media. They hip New York website that came in and killed my audio. So instead of going to a traditional big music venue that's very nice and very proper and all sweet but it's owned by Live Nation you know it's. Maybe younger people or creative people who are like I really want to do this for myself and I want to do it as an art project and I want to do it because I love it not because I want to get read shore or make money I think that's really what d.i.y. Is about and that's why it kind of doesn't really have much to do with a particular genre of music right like you know you could do this with electronic music or jazz or rock or whatever. 2007 was the 1st time I played it like it was a real shit fall but it kept getting better and better and the sound got better and there were a lot on the bathroom doors and then that was so in the bathroom and you couldn't even believe it was you keep improving it and it's because it comes from a place of love. When we 1st kind of rented that space that we turned into a music venue it was like it was kind of really like a bleak storage room almost there just darken had like a really crappy drop ceiling it seemed like the place for like a secretary to the just waste away in obscurity or something. But you know I think we were also young and creative or whatever and the kind of people who look at that now like well what are the possibilities here like in the end we could totally we could fit a stage in here we could make you know he put a show on. It's just this this fairy comfortable very friendly democratic space and it's so rare these days that it just seems like home think it's nice to go somewhere and feel comfortable it's always been a good time and I feel fortunate to have said it's been my job I mean getting me yet. It was for the most part really inspiring in fun I mean for someone like me I think unlike a lot of our roommates who just want to be creative and want to be around creative people there's a kind of like a visceral energy the can tap into when maybe you're having a bad day but your you know roommate is like super inspired and then that inspires you or maybe you go down the hall and sees a band that you've never heard of and they're amazing then you go in your room and you read a song. It's interesting to think that when I 1st started coming to shows here I was just discovering all of this stuff that now basically defines my life. So when I came to be a it was everyone was just there for the music like they knew that there was something special that was going to happen that night. The short version is that Vice Media decided they wanted to kick us out of our place. You know I talked to even my like partner in running the venue for the majority of the time you know we would talk about what we thought might happen and. You know it seemed pretty likely that someone was going to bulldoze our building and put condos in there and we felt like that would be pretty fitting. It was like it's like hints of betrayal the fact that it was Vice and I think that just got worse the worse they treated us . Yeah I mean it was it was weird it definitely felt like one of those things like as just like a completely unnecessary conflict and hostility and like dismissal it's like when. You know you're like a guy on top of a castle like picking out some person on the ground and saying back I want to spit on that guy right there. You know when we started this it's not like we were experts we need just figured it out you know and I think that that's part of you know it's part of like make it your own whatever if it doesn't you know it doesn't have to do with music started d.i.y. Dance studio you know like what is missing in your cultural life that you want to have happen. But I'm kind of sad you know. It's Ok to realize like this this space it's been such a big part of my life and all of our lives it's not going to be here but it's Ok And we're going to fit in we're just going to go and expand into you spaces figure out new things so let's let's find a home like this is been a home for us for many years we played our 1st show here in July of 2007. Founded death by Audi he made a documentary about it called. Good night. If you want to see it go to our website at www dot. Places for granted until they disappear when my favorite books. My heart. To community that matter to you tell us about it on our Facebook page or join the conversation there about whether anyone still go to the movies. If you think. It's banned. From Wisconsin Public Radio. Are. The An m m m m m m m m m m a cliche at this point but punk rock absolutely 100 percent same. Music journalist just skulk. I was a bad kid because I had been treated badly you know and I got into drugs away early so finding punk was like walking into a show and being like oh my God there's a place where I can make art out of my game and there are other people who are doing it too. Just the aging people move and watching people have that kind of emotional catharsis both on stage and off it helped me get clean and helped me get on chew up where I was just obsessed with music and writing about music making music and providing spaces to make music and be a part of this world just obsessive Lee channeled all of my her and him into being creative. It absolutely saved. Her and I think it's that for so many of us like it's a crucial day because like that's true is that when did people need a place to meet. Others. But what happens when that place doesn't exist what if you're like a teenager stuck in some small town in Idaho and there's not a music venue in sight plus your parents hate your music. Just Skolnick says Thank God for band camp the website where bands can sell their music and connect with fans all over the world just writes for band camp daily articles like 9 essential net labels from. Mexico's electronic underground and 10 bands setting Iceland's black battle scene up plays. Charles Monroe Kane reads all that stuff because he loves finding new music he's on every platform there is Spotify Pandora Sound Cloud so much family mix cloud and lately he told us he's feeling a little overwhelmed but you had this great thread on Twitter about how you deal with new music overload but when you do this thing you reconnected with an album you listen to when you were young it's actually something that I do probably once a week I wanted to sort of reconnect with the the real joy that I had and discovering music so a record that I really loved when I was a kid was Kate Bush the red shoes you really cool kid man well I was going to Bob Seger just wasn't cool my parents were I started going to puncture when I was really young because my parents took me outside going when I was less than 1900 I was 11 years old when I started going to punk shows when I was young man I listen to her like Bon Jovi and kiss and and I didn't and then I moved to Europe when I get to Europe I went to a rave and I was at this rave listening to repetitive grungy repetitive nasty fall on techno and I was like oh my god I didn't even know it was happy thought maybe something was broken at 1st great and I fell in love with it it like changed my life I think if I would have heard that music on a record player or on the radio or some friends in Amsterdam I wouldn't gotten the same effect out of it I had to be there right Kodaly totally So when these venues there are you know venues are shutting down left and right where are the people going are they just going to band camp are they quitting I mean where is that energy going you know I've talked to a lot of younger musicians who kind of grew up on the Internet in a way that I didn't like you said you and I really grew up you know having. The live music experience to be our gateway into underground music but I look at Facebook groups all the time where kids are swapping and camp links you can be a kid in your bedroom in some incredibly remote town where there isn't a scene and there isn't any connection to anybody and you can hear music there inspired by and talk to people that you're inspired by I talked to one musician who went on tour with somebody that she'd never met before but they were like mutual appreciators of each other's music and probably tour together in my house my son listens to Pandora because it's I don't make a mistake I was 12 and it's got more friendly stuff on there are you have the swear words peeped out my daughter like Spotify my wife listens to Apple music I listen to sound cloud a mix cloud I have lots of friends of band camp pages it's overwhelming there's so much music out there if I want to mix up my listening how do I mean what how do I begin give me some advice where to go with that that's honestly really what the daily is there for providing a space for people who are interested in discovery so we've done lists on things like Latin American prog and emo in China. And it's about finding those connections and a person from inside that scene who can tell you about how vital it is and all of the interesting music that's happening within it in a way that will help you make sense of it from outside you and I know that the concert experience can be some of the great experiences of your life yet the experience you're out we're dealing with right now is a very virtual one totally would you want the scene to be only on line would that be desirous it's it's hard it's hard my personal anecdote there is that I have been working on trying to open a nonprofit above ground allegiance venue in Chicago for the past. 4 for almost 5 years now we are very well. And I asked him we had a horrible horrible time finding a place more I want to happen there are particular laws here there are tax laws and they allow commercial buildings to be written off if they stand vacant so if the value of a property in rent is less than the value that it would be written off or yeah a commercial real estate company will let it stand empty and so there's tons and tons and tons of empty spaces that won't rent out that's all you really need right now not just always just it's near the physical space yet you really there are so many artists out there is there so there's an endless world of creativity if you look at that world of people and being kept that is huge and getting here by the day you provide a physical space for people and they will come how do you know how can we help young people pull this off because they're going to help with the fire codes because fire codes are not Moroccan ever sexy but they're going to see a little bit of help I know a lot about. Them doing all this stuff yeah I mean yeah like if you've got nonprofit experience if you've got just the guide to setting up a 5 a one c 3 if kids in your area are trying to set up a nonprofit arts base if you can help kids through paperwork the proper licensing the proper you know all of that stuff and also fair housing gentrification all of these things are totally connected so our job is just to stick around come out to show support younger bands and stick around for them like Don't just check out and like I have kids I don't you know care health anymore I can see though I could smash if I was 19 right now listening to you. As a fan not a musician I would be like Screw it I'm going to go online that's where I'm enjoying my music I'm not going to try to do the physical space is there a place where d.i.y. Can be done there yeah absolutely there's certainly a place for a day out. I can be done it's not quite the same experience and it doesn't feel the same to me because I'm old but. I think it provides that same nurturing and that same sense of wonder and expression for a lot of younger kids and I think that's huge I don't think that online spaces can be discounted when you're making music and this is been the case in every band that I've ever been and that's me speaking in a different language a hard language it comes out of a really good place in me that I can always speak from when I am talking normally that can be an incredible thing to connect to and that's what I connected to at that very 1st punk show and the thing that has kept me carried through music is just that it's an incredible tool for communication and connection even when you're not right there with somebody going to Doesn't matter if it's a physical space doesn't matter if it's not online space you know her life was still saved by rock'n'roll right yeah exactly. Just Skolnick talking with Charles one row came just as a music journalist and the managing editor of Bandcamp daily. Once upon a time seeing art meant a visit to the mat or the Louve walking reverentially through hushed galleries were security guards lurk in the corners. Not anymore because Art has escaped it's out in the world now on sidewalks in abandoned buildings in the sky even underwater and Hans all recall prist loves it which is significant because he's one of the most influential art curators in the world so few things to know about it is from Switzerland he knows everyone and he has an unbelievable amount of energy the New Yorker calls him the curator who never sleeps plasticity of also. He talks really fast. It's very fascinating you. Expect And so I thought. My own apartment which is my own kitchen. So. I. Visited my flat and they realized that because I never cook sort of the kitchen was also full of books and so they made a. Kitchen from all these books. And make it into a real kitchen and so it became. The same time. He. Made out of marble. And then didn't you have a film under the sink Exactly. The sink that was actually . From the kitchen. It was really using the a prominent exhibition 3 months and. I would say faulty. And it became a. Few people who saw it. Many people thought they had seen it so it became a kind of an oral history in some way. I mean basically. About curation. But I mean the fact that curating being used in a great variety of context. And resonance I think between the idea of cure a. And the contemporary idea of the creative side of the idea of sort of floating freely through devout making of choices. When did you 1st realize you wanted to be a curator deviled say it sounded as a teenager I always think that I somehow was Bonnie Mae 68 in the jury and I was born a 2nd time in May 85. In the studio. To speak officially and. To devise some for media's fascination in the studio became very much a you reckon moment. I arrived there I was 17 years old and had seen their exhibition and was so excited about it that I you know wanted to kind of see to them back in the studio never kind enough to show me around and spend an afternoon with me. You were in your late teens early twenty's and it sounds like you would just kind of go knocking on the doors of of these famous artists and amazingly they would talk to you. Yeah it was very it was a very vulnerable moment because it was like my call during the way because I always had read the good they on the right those of previous entries had gone on days gone to a do Italy and would spend 7 months sometimes several years just learning and I wanted to kind of lawn and Lon and look and look. And so I just buy my train you know travel all over Europe and I didn't really have money from the time so I would always sleep on a night trains and get to the next city and then meet opposition on one of these Night Train Chinese. I met at a good old boy at the end he said it's very very difficult for me to always be invited to say things out as I might have to do exhibitions that are my to do things on. But he said there are so many other things that as an obvious he wanted to do but he's never really invited to do and so he said he gave me this very important piece of advisor he said that he read. Thinks as a curator I should somehow ask out this route they really wanted to do about it and realize projects about a project which cannot happen within the framework of society within the existing institutions and then think what could I do to actually make those projects happen and that was probably the single handedly the most the problem devise anybody had ever given me because I was since I would ask the obvious I mean always you know what is your dream what is your concrete to topia and then you know I would again and again try to make these projects happen to somehow produce reality. I think what he saw in part in this is but we can do to get Also for example you know the out of the we get out this and sole inventors to actually start to think about what could be the solo album playing and I mean we've got such huge problems and issues and questions to be addressed in the 21st century that we have to pool all these competence is that something that you need artists for to help build a solar airplane is absolutely this idea of actually you know doing it I think doing something someone as and doing something false is maybe what he said but I think it's very difficult to answer it generally I think it's always create situations you know move were. You right the one of your childhood heroes was the early 20th century impresario circuit dog live who founded the ballet roosts and worked with all kinds of major artists like Stravinsky Caso and Cocteau Why did you find it so inspiring. Yeah I think I was 1st of all of course very inspired by at this and then as a moment I realized that in a way if I wanted to understand the forces which affected me I needed to somehow honestly and what's happening in science what's happening in music what's happening in literature and I thought to do exactly the same what I had done in visual arts with these auto ad films I would go and visit academics in the studio I would go to scientists to visit their lab a. Good to meet composers that Assad think I mean vote really mean actually to cure rate not only are for the cure rate in a mall in the disciplinary way and it's really then I somehow all of a sudden came across the argument I was probably about any my early twenty's and realize that he in a similar way to me had actually started out to be a curator of painting to be a curator of a visual arts exhibition but then I had this idea of of bringing all the art forms together and for this reason founded in 1009 the valley loose that's for me was a huge shock recently thinking maybe one could do such a thing for our time maybe I could cure it opera maybe exhibitions mobilize not only bitch about this but as a composer I was also architects and that is something you know I've tried to do ever since in lots of different situations. Hans Olrik Obrist is a curator at the Serpentine Gallery in London he talked with Steve Paulson. Coming up wrap your head around this I went to the woods because I wish to live deliberately. To Front only the essential facts of life and not when I came to die discover that I had not lived. Henry David Thoreau as Walden Pond that he again it's to the best of our knowledge from Wisconsin Public Radio and p.r. Acts. I . Henry David Thoreau as Walden has inspired a whole lot of readers to get outdoors contemplate nature smell the pine tar now it's a video game now seriously Tracy Fullerton made it she told Steve Paulson a video game is a great way to get to know good old Henry David I hope that you actually begin to have an emotional connection to him as a person a lot of times when we're taught about great writers were sort of taught that they were these sort of stodgy people you know but through the young man when he went out to the woods and he had experienced some very deep tragedies and those are some things that we let the player explore and come to an understanding that he's a philosopher he's a naturalist He's also a person. Really really. If you start down right by his the your frame of his cabin on July 4th 1905 when he went down to the woods to began and you can get right to work and finish that cabin if you like. You can start hoeing his bean field or you can you know take a wider path maybe and just go for a walk in the woods. But as you start to discover the world what you're really seeking is balance. And there are things that you have to do. You've got to find food you've got to have shelter and you have to pound those nails into build the cabin. You do you have to do those things or you'll become very weak but you never die in the game we concede is that he lived very close to town very close to friends and that had he collapsed they would have found him and so if you collapse in the game you know you actually wake up by a fire you hear a friend or you're Ok with you help you you know. You find out why good for you these are friendly woods that the runway what if it is that so there are tradeoffs I mean there you can spend a lot of time out in the woods sustaining yourself or you know foraging for your thoughts or food or were. Or you can also go hang out with your intellectual friends like Ralph Waldo Emerson or Bronson Alcott. Who from right here have. Assisted my family in acquiring a house near Congress and there we are now right here living like philosophers which is to say with little but happily. Your strictly a run through out. As with all mentor mentee relationships invention there's a tension there between doing as your mentor wants you to doing and breaking off in your own which they had historically and and that plays out in the games while. Fascinating Of course there is a huge irony also in all of this I mean thorough valued being close to nature he famously wrote and wildness is the preservation of the world he believed in in self-reliance basically using his own hands to survive and here you are creating a game where the entire experience of nature and survival all happens in the digital world I think that that's true and yet I think you could say the same thing about a book I mean a book itself is is not nature it's a piece of media about nature you know the interesting thing about the row is that he probably wouldn't been a game player but he had a very strong engineering mind and he would be interested in how the game was made and the level of detail that we put into building simulation which we built on his own surveys with accurate animal sounds and all of the animals and plants change over the course of the year. All based on his descriptions and I sort of detailed coding of his text so I think you would have been. You know very interested in the underlying architecture of the game to be honest. It's so interesting because I mean you could've created a lot of this world I mean this multimedia world of the journals of throw and audio recordings of letters by Ralph Waldo Emerson and other people but you would necessarily have to turn into a game by game of finding it what changes I think that what changes here is the sense that it's your experiment so we put you down in the woods in the Rose shoes so to speak but you make the choices and a lot of times players want to push against what they perceive as the expectations of a game. So they don't want to just stay down in the woods they want to go to the town and they start earning money and they want to buy a nice clothes and all those things are possible in this game you can actually live a life contrary to to that that the row would have chosen himself. How long did it actually take to make this game and took 10 years so 10 years yeah you have to understand the team is a labor of love so it's not that we want to work full time on this for 10 years we all did it in addition to our other jobs but 10 years from the day that I went out and bought the team all copies of the book and we basically sat down and started reading it together to the day that we launched it get anything changed in your own life as you immersed yourself in throws philosophy and I didn't make you think about anything differently now while I'm in. Miss is perhaps too much information but as I was developing this game I actually I had breast cancer are discovered I had breast cancer and I had to go through a really intensive period of my life and and that was followed by some other intensive losses and what happened for me was I was most interested in the philosophy in the beginning and as we continued researching and understanding you know the book I began to see the threads of how his own losses in his own life were actually there under the surface of what is he is a particular stoic writer but you can actually see those threads under the writing Who do you see playing this game well that's a great question because the most unusual people write to me and say well I've never thought of playing a video game but I want to play this one and that makes me really happy I can't predict who those people are going to be but the letters that we've gotten are from people that they're not gamers they've never even been attracted to playing a game and yet they saw this somewhere and they said that is the game for me right and they're so grateful and interested and these are people that have been completely ignored by the game industry I think what I would call them is lifelong learners and this game has found them do you see this what you've done here with this game of Walden as a template for how you can create other kinds of spaces like this for other classic works of literature or philosophy I don't know if I'd see it as a temple because I think each one have to be addressed on its own but I'm very interested in possibly you know taking on new pieces of literature or history it's a fascination of mine this notion that we could build spaces that viscerally bring to life some of the literature the history that seems a bit stodgy to us now but then. And you dig into it really is very interesting and not at all stodgy So if you were to tackle another book what would it be. So I always joke and I say U.S.C.'s and James Joyce is. Wow. I always joke I was joking that if you're going to say you know. Well you least you didn't pick Finnegans Wake so exactly. Yeah I mean I don't know that's that would be a huge challenge so and right now I'm a little bit tired from 10 years. On a game about a pond so we'll see I'm actually searching for the perfect next step right now. As the founding director sees game innovation lab and he's the lead developer of Walden a game she was talking to Steve Paulson I want to try to out for yourself there's a link to where you can play it on our website that's at t.t. Book dot org. So that's one game here's another. Look and welcome to the preview episode of the food show I'm your host Will Smith our very 1st guest for our very 1st show this one is a t.v. Show but with a difference it's in virtual reality. This game is called the foo shout and it's hosted by Will Smith his guests are video game designers and if you can imagine this the interviews take place inside video games so what is it like when everyone the guests the audience the host are all wearing v.r. Headsets What's it like to be in that virtual space we weren't really sure how long it took people to adjust to to the avatars because we're not looking at each other we're looking at video game stylized representations of each other Thank you guys for coming by it is an awesome I want to live here you know they move like people and they look like people but you know there's no facial tracking it looks like it looks like a cartoon or a video game character and I wasn't sure how long it would take taken Shaun to adjust to talking to avatars so you know for the 1st 5 or 6 minutes they were just kind of looking around like this is this is really weird I don't want to go back to my normal reality where things. Don't just show up in my you know shown on everything that's my normal route so I like this is my is my brain Ok with this I'm not sure it's only in this and not freaking out until you touch the back of my head and my animal brain went where are you what is it and then we got to a point where they were wherever he was comfortable 5 or 10 minutes and and we just started having a conversation like like you and I are right now I'm just trying to think what it would be like if you feel like you've met somebody in virtual reality in virtual space but never in real space and then I don't know say you ran into them in an airport well so so that you know it's funny this is these are all things that happen during my lead developer my team's Virtual I live in San Francisco and it doesn't make sense to set up offices Yorks things are so expensive these days but my lead engineer is in New Mexico and I met him after working with him for almost a year for the 1st time at a conference last year and like I knew his body language already because that comes across through the avatars when we're when we're in the studio when we do our stand up meetings every week in the studio so you know I knew how he moves I knew how tall he was I knew kind of how he looks around how to move his head how he moves his shoulders even though it was the. And we've met in person you know I've read about virtual reality before this is the 1st time I experienced it and the whole space was so amazing to me that well I confess I should have just been listening to you but I was wandering around it because you can move I'm pulling every book out on the shelf I tried to pour myself a mug of Scotch because this involved got shot in a desk I tried to walk out on to the balcony to look at the mountains and the sunset maybe that's not so great to make such a wonderful space that your audience gets completely distracted I mean one of the things that we found is that there's 2 things One is that when you take away people's What are most people's 2 favorite senses right their sight their hearing and you're taking over those senses entirely you have to give them something that is incredibly engaging it's a completely different kind of content than say if you're making a t.v. Show that you expect people to sit on the couch and watch their i Phone or making a podcast or a radio show the 5 people listen to while they're driving home from work so so we wanted to make something that was super super engaging and had lots of interactivity and lots of things for people to explore so when you tell me you got lost exploring the environment weren't really paying attention the conversation I'm totally Ok with that I think that's great it was a little like what I imagine the experience of being a ghost would be like because I'm there in the room and I'm watching you guys but you never acknowledge my presence I'm so invisible that it 1 point one of you walked right through me. It was a really unsettling experience. I don't do people get used to that people definitely get used to it it's something that we're going to work around we didn't realize you know everybody my team is spends a lot of time playing video games so they were kind of used to the weird rules of video games where people sometimes move through your body and things like that the fly on the wall perspective is a really interesting metaphor for what we do though because it's unlike you know if you're watching Charlie Rose You feel like you're at home sitting in your living room because that's what's surrounding you I have always wanted to sit at the 3rd seat where the cameras on Charlie Rose and kind of have to have the conversation I'm looking left I'm looking right I'm looking left I'm looking right while Charlie and his guest are talking to each other so that was we were excited that that kind of came through in. I guess I'm curious thinking about for instance how Netflix changed whether people wanted to go out or stay in to see a movie is factual reality going to replace physical experience why bother going out to a concert or a show or really anything when you can just put on a headset and explore the world I think that what we're going to see v.r.c. Lot into is you know it's just another one of those things that's competing for your entertainment time would I rather sit on the couch and watch Netflix reruns of an eighty's t.v. Show or would I rather put on a virtual reality headset and try something new I'm going to pick v.a.r. Every time but that's you know that's who I am and I think that some people will head towards virtual reality experiences and some people will try v.r. Shooting games and some people will try v.r. Interactive theater experiences and some people will load up the thing that lets them sit on top of Mt Everest or go to the Sistine Chapel you know I think it's more options for everyone but I don't see the ready player one nightmare dystopia where we're all you know slotted into our hovels and used to use the technology to escape the drudgery of our everyday lives well to me the most interesting part of the experience actually was what happened. And when I took the headset off because you know how it feels to see a movie in the theater and you get really absorbed and then when the lights go back up there's this feeling of being disoriented Well it was like that but worse because for a few minutes that virtual reality actually seemed real or than actual reality and also possibly better like I was a little disappointed to come back to the real world do you get that feeling to it kind of fades after you use the headset more so you lose that that kind of real or than real mind altering sense after the 1st few dozen times but that's out on so enjoy it while. Will Smith is the founder of food v.r. And the host of the food show and if you want to know more Stay tuned to our podcast feed for a very special virtual reality pod cast. That's it for this hour to the best of our knowledge comes to you from Madison Wisconsin and the studios of Wisconsin Public Radio Mark records produced this hour with help from Doug Gordon and Charles Will Cain Joe Hart is our sound designer and technical director Steve Paulson is our executive producer and I Man strange chaps until next time. This is Jefferson Public Radio I'm Abby craft each stage a p.r. Strives to bring you programs that are worth both your time and your support our programs cover a diverse range of topics keeping you informed and inspired and connected to our community in a wider world as we count our blessings this season we're grateful for the generous support of a regional community that deeply values our work and provides the resources that power our public service mission as you consider making year end tax deductible contributions to organizations that reflect your personal values and your desire to build a better community we hope you'll put j p r on your giving last it's easy to do it i.j. P.r. Dot org or by phone at 888-552-6191 this is the news and information service of southern Oregon University's Jefferson Public Radio 12 30 am k s j k talent at 9 30 am k e g I Grants Pass also heard in the road Valley 102.3 f.m. News of the region the nation and the world. Have taken stock and I've looked at this from every angle the field of Democrats running for president got slightly smaller This week we talk about what comma Harris is x. It tells us about the primary she's sort of symbolic of this intangible strengths that black women in particular have been talking about pushing institutions to empower and interest black women particularly also on the show sit down with Democratic congressman Roger Krishnamoorthy a member of the House Intel Committee to talk peach meant that we were blocked from getting virtually any documents from the State Department from the Defense Department from the Office of Management and Budget testimony from the main witnesses plus how Democratic contenders for president will tackle inequality has become a leading issue going into 2020 recently their approaches to the question of college affordability is up for scrutiny it's politics with Amy Walter on the take away right after these. B.b.c. News with Sue Montgomery the Saudi Air Force officer who shot dead 3 people at a neighbor Base in Florida is reported to have played videos of mass shootings at a dinner before the killings u.s. Media say the information came from an unnamed American official Lieutenant Mohammad Saeed Madani was undergoing aviation training at the facility in Pensacola the u.s. Defense secretary Mark Casper said he wasn't yet classifying the shootings as an act of terrorism but promised to reassess security arrangements anybody that comes to United States to train is or should be vetted by the department State the Department of Homeland Security and ultimately us so we need to relook at that but again I think we need to do is is make sure we understand the what's and why's and how's of this and not jump to any conclusions before that happens President Trump has thanked Iran for what he called very fair negotiations with the u.s. Which led to a rare exchange of prisoners between the 2 countries Mr Trump said the swap would prove that they could make deals together Iran released an American Ph d. Student who'd been jailed for spying which he denied in return the u.s. Freed in a rainy and scientists Masoud silly money he told journalists why he believed he'd been wrongfully detained initially because we showed that the Americans rancor and spite for us is because of our scientific abilities they are afraid of our knowledge therefore we have to empower ourselves in sciences as much as we can in spite of our enemies the International Monetary Fund has reached a provisional deal to support Ukraine with a 5 and a half $1000000000.00 loan the i.m.f. Said President Vladimir Selenski government had made impressive progress in the past few months in advancing reform to Brazilian Indigenous man had been killed in an attack in the northern state of modern young in protest members of their community. Have blocked the road where the incident took place he is our America's editor lair not a Russia survivor said the gunmen approached the indigenous group in a white pickup truck on a major road in northern Brazil they slowed down the vehicle before opening fire.