been unrequited. i think today there are 2000 churches in turkey that have been expropriated, they should be restored. >> rose: we continue this evening with vijay iyer. sitting in for me is gayle king. >> for the listener who can be a part of this. that's what music is creating a bond or link with others. that's what it does with me. >> rose: we conclude with alan and arlene alda, telling it the way it was. sitting in for me is me. >> a wonderful thing. >> i love what mary higgins clark said. the bronx, people don't get it. there are three people in the world that has the in front of their name. the vatican, the hague and the bronx. >> rose: geoffrey robertson vijay iyer, alan and arlene alda when we continue.g÷ >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by: >> rose: additional funding provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> good evening, i'm ethan bronner. managing editor at bloomberg news. i'm fill in for charlie rose who is in assignment. joining me is geoffrey robertson, a british barrister settled landmark crises in human rights as well as media law. part of the legal team representing art mean yeah. it is dedenying that as an automon rule. this marks the centennial. robertson is the author of the book an inconvenient genocide whozqmh nowqw remembers the armians. i'm pleased to?& have him. the topic, i want to divide it into two parts. one is what happened and the other is how we talk about it and why it matters. so why don't we start with what happened. >> sure. 1915 april 2 4, istanbul authorities, constan noal it was called then rounded up the armenian intellectuals for community leaders, took them off and killed them and that was the beginning of the genocide which took over half the add the armenian race. more than half the people were rounded up. the men were generally shot if they were over 12. the women, children and old men were put on 400, 500 mile marches across the desert. the places we only know now because they're occupied by isis. and they died. they died of typhus, they died of disintree. they were attacked they were raped. the women were taken off very often as converts and their property was expropriated. they were forced to march, and then the abandoned property laws because they weren't coming back. this was genocide as we now know it. >> okay. it was a determine that didn't exist until the 1930's. >> it didn't. it was invented byzñygñ a brilliant polish jewish lawyer. he was obsessed with what happened to the armenians. the massacres. >> he was a pole issuem[ -- polish jew in the 1930's. >> there was something called operation nemesis, who was thehitler, the ottoman hitler was shot in berlin and put on trial. the assassin acquitted after they heard the horror he had gone through watching his family killed, watching his mother being raped and so forth. and the evidence came from the lutheran missionaries, it came from german generals horrified of what the ottoman turks were doing. and he said this is wrong. this is just as the armenians saw it nemesis but this is no way for the world to go. we need a law that can overleap the national sovereignty boundaries and say no matter how much you are ordered by your government to kill, particular race or a particular religion q/"vthat will eventually put you on trial. >> rose: if a nation killed its own, there was no legal framework to try. >> not until neuremberg. neuremberg was the beginning of international criminal law. the british, when they won in 1918, took 68 of the main perpetrators to malta to put them on trial and realized they couldn't try them because there was this sovereignty idea that no prince or head of state can be held liable for killing his own people. >> we have this irony to apply to this event and the whole debate is whether this term applies to this event. >> that's right. and we had a genocide convention in 1948, and rafael limpkin the author of it was inspired as i say by the armenian genocide. but now turkey is neutral ject of the genocide. >> the fact that these countries like switzerland it's illegal to deny genocide of armenians or the holocaust. let's start with the turk's view. why are they so horrified by this term. >> thej$ g-word sends shivers down state spines because it's against international law. there's a possibility of compensation. if you commit genocide. ronald reagan ratified the genocide convention. let's remember america doesn't ratify many international laws. beyond this one, america was a bit nervous in rwanda, remember how america and britain lied in the security council to presend it wasn't genocide when it was because they say they have to do something about it. so turkey has come up with this idea that it was military necessity to deport all the armenians. >> it was in the middle of a war it was complicated. people died but it was the the same thing- >> it was military necessity to get rid of a possible fifth column. but you know deporting women and children and old men across the desert as they die isn't most necessary for any military. if you've got anyone who is a possible traitor, you can intern them, you can detain them and prosecute them but that's not what they were doing. >> standards have changed. in other words because we live in post holocaust world today we have much greater sensitivity toward what happened not that under any circumstances by anyone's description what happened was okay but the question was whether it wasññ so unusual compared with today. >> i think limpkin's genesis was to identify racial and religious passion as particularly igniting. the armenian genocide is important to study there was a turkification campaign. there are all sorts of nationalism. there were the changing of christian names to muslim names and so forth. this is a pattern we see occurring in bangladesh, in guatemala, rwanda, the gypsies. i could go on indonesia in the 60's, the killing of the chinese. >> in the armenian case the fact they were christian, do you think that's -- >> a lotoö of them were killed. young turkish government had attained imam who got they got to pronounce on christians and they realized they had to reach to germans ten germans were their allies. >> okay. so this happened. now what does it mean for the turks to acknowledge and others when we say compensation could occur. who makes that decision. >>ei it's possibly a legal decision. >> where. >> in europe, european court of human rights has already ordered turkey to compensate those expatriates that they throw out of modern cyprus, 50 years ago which were living memory. president obama a couple years ago had tea with a genocide survivor who was 103, the world's most famous armenian who of course was kim kardashian. it's still for children, for grandchildren. these people live it. and you know, i'm an australian actually and they were the reason we were on the beaches and my great uncle was shot by a turkish sniper. i don't remember him much because he volunteered to fight. the turkish sniper was lawfully depending his own position but it's different with victims of an international crime. that's why i think this is not a strategy as genocide deniers call it. it was a crime. the crime of genocide as we now call it. then it was called a crime against humanity. and because they are victims of crime and it's been unrequited, i think today there are 2000 churches in turkey that had been exappropriated and they should be%< restored. >> on the one hand we have the turks of course and they're the ones being accused having done this and they're saying no that's not what happened. that's an issue you need to deal with. but there's a geo political issue, the united states government the british government have not in fact been willing to insist this is what happened because of their relationship with turkey. >> turkey is more important. president obama when he went campaigning he said i'm a lawyer and i know it was genocide and i'm going to say it was when i'm president.p he doesn't ever use the g-word he uses [indiscernible] which no one understands which is armenian for the great catastrophe. britain which was most active denouncing these, when turkey was important they started to say the evidence was not unequivocally which was a crafted deceitful phrase. i did a freedom of information act search and i found the memorandum explaining to the ministers where this formula had to be used. and it actually said turkey is neuroalgic. the position is unethical but the strategic commercial realities means there's no other options. we need turkey and nato needs turkey with their bases and spy bases are being used. >> can you imagine a need great enough to say that well maybe this is not so important to use the g-word. >> well, i think that they are faced with a lot of problems with his deputeht with armenia. people don't understand where genocide means wiping out part of a race. that was genocide. you don't have to find an order. there was no order. what is fascinating is to look at the language used by the turks and the language used by adolph fikman. they were not relocating they were evacuating the jews but that was based on the language the ottomans used of the armenians. the laws of abandoned property. >> property wasn't abandoned. >> the same euphemisms the genocide euphemisms are very much the same. >> the next literature you write that this unquestionably was genocide and in fact there's a lot of reason to think that. the next question is why should it be against the law to deny it. we are not used to that in the united states. >> no, of course you're not. but you've never been occupied by the nazis. you never had part of your population extinguished. in europe, it's a different matter. the french, the belgiums were occupied. the germans and austrians were doing the occupying. that is why we have this peculiar european idea whercan be wrong and against the law for people to deny the existence of gas chambers and so forth. if you deny one genocide and that's against the law why not if you deny another genocide should that not be against the law. so it was a difficult case for when this crazy nationalist turk who loved challenging genocide denial laws goes throughout europe saying the armenian genocide is a lie to be convicted. and for us who are brought up more in the american tradition which is still alive in britain,where you draw the line is against the guy who shouts fire in a crowded theatre. so we argued as a basis for sort of a european that you should only prosecute genocide deniers where they do real harm. where there is, their intention is to vilify minority community. so that was the distinction. >> that's why you're taking this -- >> we are not taking the case, we are, our position on behalf of the armenian government was to simply set a standard. this is the standard and you apply it to the facts of this case one way or the other. but the reason we had intervened was that the first court decision was incredibly silly. it said well, there may not have been an armenian genocide because there were no gas chambers. it wasn't as well proven as the holocaust. but of course, there are photographs. there are laws, there's the deportation law, the abandoned property law. it is just as well. >> more about the turks also because there has been a kind of liberalizing attitude towards, attitudes toward minorities, the curred and the armenians. >> yes. >> he did sort of say something horrible has happenedhasn't apologized for it but he hadn't called it a genocide. >> what he has said and this confound every genocide denial. you say all right if it wasn't genocide it was a crime against humanity. and they've got no answer because undoubtedly it was and genocide is one genus of a crime against humanity. >> turkey does use that phrase. >> i think what will, and turkey's entry to the european union may depend on this, if he can bring himself at least to acknowledge that it was a crime against humanity to give back some of the churches and allow them to be used as christain churches. and maybe make some symbolic gesture.i suggested mount irak which is the great mystical mountain. it overshadows uraban which is the armenian capitol and that would be a gesture of -- >> you're not call for compensation yourself. >> i think there should be compensation for those who can trace their property which was expropriated. yes, if you can trace it and some can there's already been some action over insurance policies. and this would be -- >> tell me how active in trying to deny this. >> i think there's been billions on it. i think they'd hired -- before he was a lobbyist was a congressman who was actually quite vocal in saying it was an armenian genocide. now he's being paid to set up propaganda exercise to say that it wasn't. so as the centennial approaches on april 24th, there has been there's actually the government is holding a diversification event. they are trying to distract attention, the turkish government by having an international celebration or commemoration of galipoly and they're getting the australian prime minister the new zealand prime minister where it is sort of sacred even the young prince charles i think is going and the -- >> there are human rights groups that areze setting up some commemoration not just there but in istanbul i understand and they're not getting in the way are they? >> no. i think there are human rights groups very much focusing on the death of dink. and of course there are a lot of liberal turks and they're getting more courageous at dink funeral. >> there are things to do to affect attitudes inside turkey. >> i think it's a matter for the turkish leadership to start explaining. of course you go back to the school textbooks and to what kids are taught. at the moment they're taught all the arguments for refuting genocide. they are giving prizes for writing essays that explains genocide. that's got to stop ask there's got to be an element of truth telling. even atatark described this was a shameful act and i think that kind of information has to be allowed into turkish textbooks. >> geoffrey robertson thank you very much. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. vijay iyer is here.he's a jazz pianist and composer and a professor at harvard. he released break stuff. the guardian calls it this a pentacleqmultitasking in the words of charlie rose, this is what charlie would say if he was here tonight. i am pleased to have vijay iyer at the table. i called wynton marsalis about you. >> is that so. >> yes, i did. do you know what wynton, he said oh my god i'm talking to him tomorrow. what can you tell me about him. he's very smart, i love him i respect him. he makes great music and i look forward to playing with him one day. >> yes. >> that's what he said. >> yes, we've had a couple opportunities that were thwarted by external circumstances. >> he said this cat this cat can really play. can really play. >> that's very nice. coming from him that's very high praise. >> let's get your back story for those who aren't informed. you started playing the violin at the age of three and you took violin lessons for 15 years, is that true. >> well, it took me that long to quit. >> no. but there's something about the violin you liked and after 15 years you quit and went to the piano. >> i don't know when that happened. my sister started on piano at the time i started the violin. she was older. we had this spinet a banged up piano in the house. as a child my first impulse was to bang on it, you know. >> playing by ear means you never had any lessons, right. you just sort of picked it up and were able to play it is that what that mean. >> it took a long time. probably through the process of studying violin and the way you teach a three year old initially is by ear. that's how it should be because that's what music is, it's a sound we make with our bodies. in the west we think of it as mediated by sheet music or something like that but it's still fundamentally something we do you know. and the connection with the ear is the most important one for a musician to have. so i started learning by ear onaqviolin as part of the training in the suzuki method, it's called. because of that it gave me a perspective of house to put melodies together on the piano i started picking things out. through trial and error very slowly and organically almost accidentally things started to come together. it was never really anything official for me growing up until when i was in high school i started playing keyboards in a rock band. >> keyboards in a rock band. >> boy -- by then i could play sort of rock piano. >> what drew you from the piano to the violin. i know you said you were doing them both but at some point the pianowhat was it. >> when i started, basically when i was in high school we had a pretty good music program in my high school in rochester new york. so our school had a very good music program, still does. and this is an era where a lot of public schools were having their music and arts approach defunded and that kind thing. it was nice to be a place where that was still valued. they let me into the jazz ensemble even though i didn't know anything about it. i was improvising on the piano. that's basically what i had always done. i had never not improvised on the piano. so the director said well you can get around the instrument but you don't really know the idiom, you don't know the language is music so here's a phone number of this local jazz pianist, his name was andy cal breeze. so that guy sat me down and gave me three lessons on very basic things about how that music is put together. >> then i heard thelonious monk was big for you. >> yes. so then andy loaned me some records. i noticed one of the recurring composition credits on this record was a red garland record, one was herbie hancock keith jarrett. and people were playing records by some guy name thelonious monk. i started chasing down. we had a nice local library that had a lot of music. i guess followed my nose and started checking thing out in detail. when all roads led to thelonious monk listening to his music it was just so full of mystery to me. it doesn't sound like anybody else. even those who claimed him as an influence or playing his music they didn't sound like him playing his music. the way he would play wasn't the way that we were, that i thought you were supposed to play. i mean there was so much space and danger in it you know. >> most people think of theloniousxdeeply rooted in the blues and rooted in the black experience and rooted in the church. and yet wynton says you have this unique ability to be able to take that music and then make it your own, translate into your own. i think the word he used was pathways. there are pathways you use to take the bridge from here to there with the eastern and hip hop and you infuse a lot of stuff into your music. >> well part of the my point of entry wasn't from listening to records it was being nurtured by elders in the community, particularly in the african american community. you are supposed to be yourself you know. so you learn from what's come before from the masters and you study them very carefully but not like being like them you are like them by being yourself because that's how this music came to be. >> how do you describe your music or your sound. >> i will start with we can do a whole show just from that. he had a very personal relationship to the piano. you could hear him kind of interacting with it. you could hear his body on the instrument. you could hear the hands in action. you could hear him exploring and responding to what the instrument does. you could hear him pushingxse instrument beyond what it can do. and that sort of exploratory mentality with the instrument rang true for me partly because that's how i started playing by just banging on it and making it shake making it resonate. little by little finding things that vibrated on the instrument and also internally. >> how does it make you feel internally. i'm only fascinated by musicians who clearly and i've seen you play who clearly, like they're in a zone where you really everything else just sort of disappears because you are so in the zone of what you're doing. >> what we're doing is listening. that's what the zone is, you try to listen to everything and everybody in the room. know is just yourself and not just the people on stage. you really try to listen to everybody and contact with them. so it's about making that link, at some level it's a social act. it's about empathy, it's about communication. so that's the real priority for me. if i look like, i play with my eyes closed, it's true, it's not because i'm ignoring everybody it's because i'm trying to hear everybody. >> when you say hear everybody,z i'm thinking that guy is in the zone. in the macarthur genius grant -- >> i try to -- >> it's given to as you know individuals who have shown extraordinary originality in a marked capacity for self direction and you're one of those people. i thought wow. how are you notified, do you get a phone call, where are you did you even think this was going to happen to you. >> yes. they called me out of the blue. i didn't think it was going to happen. >> where were you. >> i was standing at the sink in my house opening a can of salmon. >> opening a can of salmon okay. >> this is really romantic. >> but you say hello. >> yes. i was like yes. first i noticed it was a chicago number and i was thinking who did i know in chicago who would call me right now. i had a couple ideas but that wasn't one of them. in the past i had been in correspondent with them on behalf of others. this isn't a secret they reach out to people and say what do you think of this guyor woman, is he deserving. how would you assess it. >> what does the voice on the other end say. you're standing with your salmon. >> they say are you sitting down. i said no. it was cecilia conrad and i knew of her. she's pretty well known as the helm of the organization. i guess as soon as i knew it was her and her affiliation, wait, this, they don't usually call when they want something from me. so i sat down and, yes. >> this is huge. it comes with an award of $625,000 which they say you can spend any way you like. >> yes, it's true. >> isr9ñi it impolite to say what you did with your $625. >> they pay you quarterly for five years. what it amounts to today is a middle class salary for five years. that's what it really is you know. the fact is especially for artists most artists are living in poverty or something like it, you know. just on the verge you know. when something like that drops on somebody from the arts community, it's a big deal. it's really kind of seismic. >> seismic is such a great word. >> that's how it felt to others too. i mean i've known many of my good friends have received the award and finally one of my mentors steve coleman received it last year, george lewis, jason moran miguel -- >> jason moran. i didn't realize it was handed out over time. >> yes. >> do you use it to live on? is that what you're doing? >> well i mean the odd, that was also at the same time i started working at harvard. the same exact time. the award began in january of 2014. that's when i started working at harvard too. so suddenly, yes, my whole life is different. >> your whole life is different in a really good way. let's talk about at harvard because you describe yourself as a reluctant educator. >> i guess i did say that. >> yes, you did say that. you said you were a reluctant educator. this is a new thing at harvard for you. it's a new position that they've never done really for anybody. >> yes it's pretty new. >> you're the first. >> it's a new endowed chair. because they are trying to raise the arts on campus. the president. >> yes, i know her. >> this is part of her initiative and part of what well her legacy as president is to really put that in the middle of everything put arts in the center of the canal puss and think about community and dialogue and arts and service. >> what are you hoping and i know we don't have a student here or i would/ ask them and since we don't have a student i'm going to ask you. what are you hoping your students get out of your class. what kind of teacher are you? what are you trying to deliver and want them to take away? >> i have different kinds of students but -- >> tell me about them. >> many are undergrads who don't necessarily know they're going to have a career in music or don't necessarily want to yet. but are very serious about it. most people don't go to harvard3m to major in music. it's not what they are groomed whole lives to succeed in. i can actually kind of relate because i was an undergraduate at yale and i didn't know it was possible for me to be an artist in america. >> you got your degree in yale at mathematics and physic. >> yes, that was a long time ago what i might do as one path that was open to me. >> is there a connection between math and music. >> i mean i don't think of it as a clear connection but i've noticed that even among my students now.pxuj my under graduates especially, i mean there are a lot of different kinds like i said but there is a sort of cluster for whatever reason the young man in particular majoring in physics or applied math or something like that and are just super excellent. but then you know they haven't really reconciled it themselves and i was in that category as an undergraduate but i wasn't super excellent. i was sort of so owe. i was figuring it out. >> i can't imagine you were sow at anything. i'm not kidding, you're playing the violin at three by ear. the piano you're learning that by ear. you were never a so-so kid. >> being allowed to and e braced and i'm couraged to do that.,y$ when i was an undergraduate that wasn't apparent to me. i was a late bloomer. i didn't know i was going to be a musician until i was 23, a couple years out of college. i meantu% had been a musician my whole life but in terms -- >> you didn't know it was going to be your job. >> yes, or just my life, you know. so that's why i have that sent of i feel i can relate to those students who are in the same predicament who don't really know that it's available to them yet. part of what i do is ask them what if. what if you were going to be an artist, what would that mean for you. and part of what it means is to think about yourself in relation to others. not in the sense of status but in the sense of service, what are you really doing for others. >> you're helping them to discover. so many times in college you're really trying to fit out and a lot of us don't know what the hell we're doing in college. >> or wherever. >> or wherever. >> the way i do that is not by saying go for it, fly and be free but really have them rigorously exam the history of the music and not in the sort of stock way that jazz history is taught but actually like look at, try to understand why this music was made in the first place. who are these people, where are they coming from and what did they seek to accomplish for whom. >> i've been looking for you at twitter=t and you are tweeting yourself a lot about ferguson and i'm wondering why you would put yourself out that way. not surprise. how about unexpected. >> i mean to me this music that i'm involved in and my whole life basically has as an artist, i have a great death to the african american community. that's not just in terms of my heroes like thelonious monk from the most but also individuals in the present who mentored and nurtured and employed me, you know, and taught me, steve coleman, george lewis roscoe mitchell smith the list goes o this affects all of them the people who hated this music and continue to make it. to me if i'm going to be involved in this area of music better think about the people who identify -- made it too. it doesn't always seem obvious to others. i guess that's what's surprising to me is that it's not -- you see people in music who don't see those issue as connected. >> you see them as connected. >> i can't not e them that way. first of all being a person of color in the united states, it tends to be on your mind howóe difference works and how difference -- intertwines. an art form that comes from the african american community and a person who is here because of that community. i'm here because of black people, black nurturing, black love, that's what brought me here. >> i'm in favor of black love. >> indeed. that's why i try to shine a light of these things. if someone's going to click follow or like because i'm a musician because they heard something i did that they liked and resonated with them i want them to also hear what resonates with me. >> i would like to end on your music. and i would like to end on what you want people to get out of the music. so someone's listening to you right now and says do you know what i'm now going to go get it. i watched him i liked him. what do you want them to feel when they put it on. >> part of the act of putting music outer into the world is you're setting it free. >>ej you have no expectations. >> i can't force people to feel anything but what music does -- >> but what you're hoping they'll feel i get that. you can't force them but you put it out for a reason because you hope that they will get something, fill in the blank. >> i want them to feel cared for in the sense it's a form of address, i'm reaching out to the listener to say you can be a part of this. that's what music is. it's about creating a bond or a link with others and that's what it does for me. >> people who feel cared for i like it. congratulations. congratulations. continued success to you. >> thank you. thanks for having me and for listening. >> well you know, charlie isn't here. would you like to say something to charlie because he's working at his other job. >> well charlie, i'll see you next time. >> do you know what, vijay, there will be a next time. he will want to talk to you. thank you for coming. >> rose: arlene and alan alda are here. she's the photographer and author latest book is called just kids from the bronx telling it the way it was. a collection of personal memories from more than 60 bronx residents pastár and presented. president bill clinton called it a down to earth inspiring book press fulfilled. alan alda is an award wing actor known for mash, the wells wing and most recently one of my favorites the black list. he's become a visiting professor for alan alda center and university of science at the stony brook university. it's a pleasure to have you here. is this your idea. >> very much but it happened in tandem with going back to the building in which i grew up. had a imin a, the may plowr and i went back with a guy called mickey direct her ceo of j crew only i did not know mickey when he grew up in that building. i went back with him. anyway when we were talking, it touched me that i knew nothing about mickey's background. even though he grew up in the same building. and i realized at that point so many talented interesting people came from the belongs. i know their titles accomplishments. i knew nothing about their background. >> rose: some&u of names, al pacino. >> yes, lived in the south bronx. >> rose: regis philbin. >> yes, great personality. >> rose: mary higgins clark. >> i love from mary higgins clark said. the bronx. people just don't get it. there are three places in the world that have a the in front of their names. the vatican, the hague and the bronx. and then she goes on to say that all the talent that comes from the bronx and the booth owe of the bronx. >> rose: what happens you go back to mickey and you realize there are stories here. >> there are stories. they are interesting, they're very interesting stories some of them are very dark in terms of things that were not pleasants.p7÷ some of them very surprising. i was very surprised to here that my friend david yarnell who is a documentary filmmaker that david grew pot in the bronx park in the 1940's. now go figure. i didn't -- >> rose: his own pot. >> he was selling it. >> rose: he was a dealer. >> he went toi didn't know. >> rose: do you know -- >> this is in the cat skills, yes. there were a lot of surprising things that came up. and pacino was very clear, what it was like on the rooftopgs with his grandfather and the various the sounds of the different act sense of the jewish italian polish german accents he heard and he says he couldn't describe it as artfully he would like but it was like a eugene o'neill play. it was so beautifully said and very palpable. >> rose: so having assembled all these people did you interview them or how did you work this out. >> first i started with people i knew. i would go with a tape recorder and sometimes i talked to them on the phone when it was impossible to do in person interview. so i would tape record that phone conversation. and then i would transcribe it. you know it was a rambling conversation because i thought the way to loosen myself up and get good stories would be just to talk because we have things to share. so basically we talked tobacco. >> i think it required, i did most of the mail voices on the audio bullet. and even though i had read these stories before, when i spoke them aloud i realized how coherent these stories were, the way an actor would have a monologue on the stage. there was something going on in the surface all the time in the stories. i don't know how you did it. >> i don't know. these were great people. and the texture and the layers of meaning were really there to begin with. i would ask therm qutis that came up in the course of the conversation. >> rose: going up on the roof with the telescope. >> yes. neal was a kid. he was born in the 1950's. 1958 i think. and he was a kid. he described he was the only african american kid in his whole building. and he said what are the chances of anyone looking out their window in new york and seeing anyone on their roof autopsy across the way but he was up on the roof with a telescope. he was about 12. his father, his parents had given him telescope for acb dmé)áddayy present.happened the telescope and someone had called the police. >> rose: because there was something go up -- >> well he had a cord snaked from the telescope to a dentist's friend's apartment down below. well this other person who called the police must have seen this bazooka like thing on the roof. on knows, right? so the police came and he completely disarmed them by showing them the craters of the moon through the telescope when he was a kid and that worked out all right. >> rose: beyond writing the book listen to this. arlene alda graduates phi beta kappa from hunter college. received a fulbright scholarship. >> that make me very happy. >> rose: me too. realized her dream of becoming a professional clarinetist. wade it hard to give up the clarinet. >> i paced it out. you know i can't even remember palpably what it was like. my thought was well i could always play locally. at that point we're in national and there were a lot of professional musicians in new jersey and i was fortunate enough to play in little chamber group with them. we gave local concerts. this was great but by then i wasms already interested in photography. i think the practical side of me really took over. and the photography became my new obsession. basically i kind of phased out the clarinet little by little. i'm still lucky in that friend will ask me do you want to play some chamber music. >> rose: what are you doing for these scientists. >> about eight or nine years ago i helped start this center for communicating science at stony brook university. we put, we start with oddly enough improv cision. improv cision exercises in games and not to make them comedians and not to make them actors but to give them this opportunity to get used to connecting to another person in a vulnerable way, an open way. when they get habituated to that, they can turn to an audience and connect to an audience as though their co-players, they are not antagonistic. we taste writing after we taste the improv, it's easier to teach the writing because they're away who they aregfo writing for. >> rose: this would be good for doctors. >> we're getting tremendous interest for medical schools. we're"d teaching medical students in several places around the country. teaching all the incoming students and universities. there's a ten hour course for the stoney brook medical students. they really understand how important it is and so do scientists at large. do you know some of our best most enthusiastic players in this are senior scientists who are themselves already good communicators. they know how important it is and they want to get better and when they do get better. >> rose: wow, great. how did you get interested in science. >> rose: they want you to host this program. >> i was thrilled when they said we want you to host scientific american frontiers. i figured out they probably just wanted me to read a narration. i can talk to them on camera. that means that we'll be together all day long when we're setting up shot and i'll be able to pump them with questions and find out about their work because i was so curious bit. when i was a little kid i would do what i thought were experimentk2mother's face powder with toothpaste to see if they could get it to blow up. but we didn't. >> rose: you come with an acting family. >> my father was a well none acting. we traveled burlesque. my earlier years ware standing in the wings watching burlesque. >> rose: if you did not have all of that in your dna might you have been a scientist. >> i don't think so. i think i'm doing with exactly what i ought to be doing. i've learned an awful lot about communication. personally, you know, the training i had as an actor outside of watching from the wing was improvisation. i realized what it contributed to me not only as an actor but as a person. i was more able to relate to people. i'm very interested in helping scientists from the time i was on the show scientific american front tease getting them to be who they are and make clear what they're working on so that we can enjoy?i want to share that enjoyment with everybody else. so i think i'm in the right spot i don't think i should be a scientist. >> rose: you play a lot of bad guys. >> yes. i love it. in fact, don't cross me. >> rose: you went and played a role there. >> yes i loved that. in fact, they developed me i was the only guy that they all feared. they never told me why. i was the most feared person. my character was the most feared guy. and you never said why because they sort of make it up as they go along. i say what does this line mean and they say we'll find out next week. >> rose: the book is called just kids from the bronx telling it the way it was, an oral history, arlene alda. >> for more about this episode and previous visit us on pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org this is "nightly business report," with tyler mathisen and sue herera. wall street jumps. stocks take off as investors applaud the dollar taking a break from its fierce rally. oil slumps. crude hit the lowest level in six years. a top strategist says what happens next and what may happen after that. the federal reserve meets this week. will the central bank tweak its interest rate hikes. all that and more for march 16th. welcome. stocks got a jump on st. patrick's day today. the major indexes were all in the green, fueled by a weaker dollar and a better than 2% drop in oil prices. the pullback in the dollar was welcomed since the currency has