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Playlist: O'Dark 30 episode 101 (2-49)

Compiled By: KUT

Caption: PRX default Playlist image

KUT's O’Dark 30 misses Halloween but is still determined to bring you the very best from the world of independent radio production this week. Every Sunday at midnight on Austin's KUT 90.5 and also at 4pm on digital KUT2 we present 3 hours of a little bit of everything from the world of independent radio production.

Episode 101 (2-49) includes Zombie Squad...The Mikie Show #28, Manu...Donut Farmer...Clever Apes: Reimagining Robots...Lean and Hungry Presents: A Midsummer Night's Dream...Bonjour Chanson, Series 9, Episode 44...The Devil's Radar C1...The Truth About Dracula...Vietnamese Fishermen Search For the Monetary Value of a Lost Culture

Zombie Squad

From Adam Allington | 13:09

Elite Zombie Supression Task Force

Mediumzombie3_small Host: How many of you know what you would do if you were forced from your home in a hurry?with only what you could carry? Where would you go? What would you need to survive? What if the threat that pushed you out was a massive uprising of the un-dead? For the past five years a group based in St. Louis, Missouri has been preparing for just that?they call themselves Zombie Squad. A self-described "elite zombie suppression task force" they?re not only ready to defend your neighborhood from hordes of walking dead, they also spend much of their time raising awareness about the importance to disaster preparation. Producer Adam Allington brings us this profile.

The Mikie Show #28, Manu

From Michael Carroll | Part of the The Mikie Show series | 28:02

Join us as we speak with Manu Mallikarjun. A former derivatives trader who changed course and is making a documentary I hope we all get to enjoy. The film asks simply: what can we do to make a more peaceful world? We also get a visit from a guest or two. Ok, it’s two. Yes, the Hi Theres and another “person” stop by. There’s news from around the world and a sound quiz. There’s some abstract musical intentions implied all over the place and it’s even high in fiber!

Earth_small

Joins us as we speak with Manu Mallikarjun. A former derivatives trader who changed course and is making a documentary I hope we all get to enjoy.  The film asks simply: what can we do to make a more peaceful world? We also get a visit from a guest or two. Ok, it’s two. Yes, the Hi Theres and another “person” stop by. There’s news from around the world and a sound quiz. There’s some abstract musical intentions implied all over the place and it’s even high in fiber!

Clever Apes: Reimagining Robots

From WBEZ | Part of the WBEZ's Clever Apes series | 08:25

What if the next generation of robots looks less like a humanoid, and more like a slug?

Jaeger_small

From industry to pop culture to the military, we’ve long been captivated by robots. We tend to imagine them as our mechanical mirror images – reflections of our most efficient, coldest selves. But some modern robots look more like a sack of flour than a person.

In the latest installment of Clever Apes, we visit an accidental roboticist who’s reimagining the most basic concepts of robotics. He’s taken the same principle that makes a vacuum-packed bag of coffee hard and bricklike, and translated it into a robot that might one day pick up your toddler’s toys or collect intelligence from an enemy bunker.

The concept is called jamming, and it’s really simple. Suck the air out of a bag of granular material, and you reduce the room around each grain just enough that it can’t move past its neighbors. The whole thing seizes up, and behaves like a solid. Let out a little air, and it liquefies again. This works for ground coffee, ball bearings, molecules, even big objects like cars in a traffic jam.

Heinrich Jaeger 
at the University of Chicago recognized the power of that phenomenon. You can effectively change a material from solid to liquid and back again without having to melt or freeze it. And it’s dirt cheap: indeed, you could use actual dirt. This probably has a ton of applications no one has thought of, but one of them that’s now underway is a soft robot. Jaeger, along with the company iRobot and colleagues at the University of North Carolina and Cornell University, are developing prototypes of a squishy soccer ball that can move, change shape, and may soon be able to pick up almost anything. It’s a fundamental change in thinking about robots. Instead of using “smart” components (like little nanobots equipped with microprocessors), Jaeger is making a shapeshifting robot with dumb particles of sand or plastic beads. The smarts emerge when all those particles work together.

After dropping in on Jaeger’s lab (one of the more fun, freewheeling physics labs you’re likely to encounter), we pay a visit to the Chicago Area Robotics Club. There, robot enthusiasts are trying to harness robots’ inherent awesomeness to promote science and technology among young people. They’re also working on a curriculum for Boy Scouts looking to earn the new robotics merit badge, which was just introduced last spring.

 

Lean & Hungry Theater Presents: A Midsummer Night's Dream

From Lean & Hungry Theater | 57:49

A radio drama adaptation of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," set in the Prohibition Era, with live sound effects and some of the finest Shakespearean actors in Washington, DC. Modern-language narration provides recaps of the original text throughout the show.

A live-to-air broadcast of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was aired originally by Washington, DC's WAMU June, 2011.

Midsummer_small Lean & Hungry Theater, DC’s only radio drama company, and Washington DC’s NPR affiliate WAMU-88.5, present this special live-to-air broadcast of Shakespeare’s classic comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

 The one-hour production was broadcast live from the Woods-Brown Amphitheatre on the grounds of American University in June, 2011.

The cast of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” includes artists who have appeared with or taught at The Folger Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre, The Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, The Washington Shakespeare Company, Studio Theatre, and other local and national companies.

Set in the Prohibition Era, Lean & Hungry’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” recasts Shakespeare’s classic characters as gangsters and molls, with most of the action taking place in and around the Palace Hotel. The story of bewitched young lovers, vengeful gods and slapstick workers creates a world of magic and transformation – with a hilarious “play-within-a-play” climax.

“The story of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ is a staple of English and Theatre education, and part of the required reading list for many public schools,” explained Jessica Hansen, Lean & Hungry’s Artistic Director. “We welcome public radio’s listening families to join us for a mix of classic theatre and classic radio they can’t find anywhere else.”

“By placing our production in a more contemporary setting with modern-day sound effects, we’re offering an easy-to-understand perspective for today’s young audiences,” Hansen added. “Modern-language narration provides an ongoing recap of the original text throughout the show. It’s a great way to introduce new audiences to this wonderful play.”

Lean & Hungry Theater is the only company in the Washington, DC metropolitan area dedicated to adapting works of Shakespeare and other classic playwrights for radio broadcast.

The productions and recordings of Lean & Hungry Theater productions are endorsed by the Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind.

Bonjour Chanson, Series 9, Episode 44.

From Charles Spira | Part of the Bonjour Chanson Series 9 series | 27:04

From the famous rock song "Dare Josephine" by Alain Bashung to a song by the French film music composer Alex Beaupain, this episode of"Bonjour Chanson" brings a variety of French Popular Music and tells you about the artists and the songs.

Toulouse_small French Language Popular Music  celebrates the human experience and does so in a million exciting ways.  In this episode, Lise Chemla, a French artist who spent time in Detroit, professes her love for "evertything automobile" and the celebrated artist Juliette tells us what "elegant undies" are all about.  We hear a famous rock song from the 90's interpreted by Alain Bashung and we are introducted to Jean-Louis Aubert who was the creator of the French Rock Group "Telephone", but who struck out on his own in the eighties, and there is more.

The Truth About Dracula

From Hillary Frank | 05:44

Suzanne Muldowney explains why her interpretation of Dracula is the most authentic.

Dracula3_small You know the story of Dracula, a man who lived on human blood and seduced innocent girls, turning them into the undead. But before Bram Stoker's novel came out in 1897, Dracula had a different lore. Stoker got the name from a 15th-century count in Transylvania. He was known for impaling his enemies on spikes but he wasn't a vampire. Hillary Frank talks with a woman with Asperger's Syndrome who, for the last three decades, has spent every Halloween trying to set the record straight.

Vietnamese Fishermen Search for the Monetary Value of a Lost Culture

From Richard Ziglar | Part of the GulfWatch: Stories about the ongoing effects of the BP Oil Spill from KRVS series | 05:45

Kenneth Feinberg, the Boston attorney in charge of reviewing claims for the BP oil spill, says he expects to start paying interim and final claims later this month. But as Louisiana’s Vietnamese-American fishing community has learned, some losses are harder to quantify than others—especially when what’s at stake is a way of life. Barry Yeoman reports.

Ve_nguyen_small Kenneth Feinberg, the Boston attorney in charge of reviewing claims for the BP oil spill, says he expects to start paying interim and final claims later this month. But as Louisiana’s Vietnamese-American fishing community has learned, some losses are harder to quantify than others—especially when what’s at stake is a way of life. Barry Yeoman reports.