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Editor’s Note: The following essay contains adult language that may not be suitable for all audiences. MTV’s long running reality show,"The Real World,” returned to Seattle this past summer to film a new cast of twenty-somethings. Local artist Derek Edelman found his own reality turned upside down for a bit. He reads from his essay, which originally appeared in Lucky Peach magazine, about how a prank phone call got him into trouble with one of the cast members. MTV’s "Real World" is in Seattle for its 32nd season, much to the dismay of most of my friends. The new cast has been picked to live in the lively neighborhood of Capitol Hill, a few blocks from my apartment. Capitol Hill shares a similar story with many other great American neighborhoods: it was once a cool destination full of art galleries, queer folks, record stores, and cheap rents, and it has now been turned into a trendy-shiny-fancy social hub for young Amazon employees with expensive juice restaurants and gastropubs. It’s

Twitter is a place where trolls harass and gossip spreads like wildfire. Can it also be a place where a Gig Harbor salesman befriends a homeless hitchhiker? Shivering in freezing temperatures in a brittle Midwest winter, Bill Krayer was sticking his thumb out, trying in vain to get to Seattle. In between efforts to get a ride, he’d pull out his tiny phone and tweet details of his journey. One Twitter follower reached out to offer a lifeline. But could their friendship sustain in the real world?

Scott Colburn has basically spent his entire adult life working in the audio business. In the past he’s been a music producer for bands like Arcade Fire, Animal Collective and Mudhoney. He’s done the audio for films. His current job is a sound designer at Microsoft. Colburn is working on their virtual and augmented reality projects. His goal is to get the audio experience of virtual reality to sound just as real as the visual part of it, something that he was inspired to do after going to a local film festival. One example that Colburn gave was that of a crow on a wire. In real life, if you are walking down the street, and you see a crow on a power line in front of you, and the crow is chirping, you would be able to hear that the crow was in front of you. As you continued to walk towards the crow, and eventually find yourself underneath it, you would hear that the crow was right above you. And as you passed the crow, you would be able to hear that the crow was behind you. That is what

One of the best parts about playing video games is losing yourself inside whatever world they take place in. Maybe you’re a plumber tasked with saving a princess from a great sorcerer. Or you could be an agent with the British secret service trying to save the world from Spectre. But if you’re Dima Veryovka and Sean Vesce, the objective is a little different. The games they make are all about how you connect to the world around you. These two created the gaming company Colabee Studios which focuses on education and celebrating cultures we often don’t interact with. They refer to their products as “world culture games.” And if that doesn’t sound as sexy as playing as a secret agent, you might be surprised. Veryovka and Vesce have decades of combined experience in making what most would consider “traditional video games.” Just think of the ones where you’re holding a gun, or raiding tombs. They used to make those. And as you might assume, especially if you’ve ever tried prying a

Being treated for a severe burn is one of the most physically painful things a human can experience. Dead skin has to be scrubbed away. The skin has to be stretched so that as it heals, it doesn’t get tight. If this is not done, a patient can be maimed permanently. It’s during these treatments, or wound care sessions, that the pain is often the worst. This is what 64-year-old Kathleen Linsicum from Palmer, Alaska is going through. She’s a patient at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. She sustained burns over 20 percent of her body after a bonfire she was standing in front of at a party exploded. “We did so much cleaning and scraping on it that there were a couple of times I let out a couple of moans because, I’m not gonna kid you, it hurts like hell, big time. And when you come out from all of that, like the next day, I hurt just as bad as I did the day the fire took place,” said Linsicum from her hospital bed. Sometimes patients will undergo anesthesia to get them through wound

This week on Sound Effect, we bring you stories of virtual reality and what happens when real life meets technology like the internet, video games, and even television.

This week on Sound Effect, we bring you stories of virtual reality and what happens when real life meets technology like the internet, video games, and even television.

Editor’s Note: The following essay contains adult language that may not be suitable for all audiences. MTV’s long running reality show,"The Real World,” returned to Seattle this past summer to film a new cast of twenty-somethings. Local artist Derek Erdman found his own reality turned upside down for a bit. He reads from his essay, which originally appeared in Lucky Peach magazine, about how a prank phone call got him into trouble with one of the cast members. MTV’s "Real World" is in Seattle for its 32nd season, much to the dismay of most of my friends. The new cast has been picked to live in the lively neighborhood of Capitol Hill, a few blocks from my apartment. Capitol Hill shares a similar story with many other great American neighborhoods: it was once a cool destination full of art galleries, queer folks, record stores, and cheap rents, and it has now been turned into a trendy-shiny-fancy social hub for young Amazon employees with expensive juice restaurants and gastropubs. It’s

In a few weeks, voters in Pierce, King and Snohomish counties will make a decision about Regional Proposition 1, also known as Sound Transit 3. But in 2004, voters in eight Colorado counties approved their own rail expansion called FasTracks. Census data show that both the Seattle and Denver regions were among the top five fastest growing metro areas last year. Both areas have also largely focused on rail as a solution to congestion. In the fifth part of our series, Sound Transit 3: The $54 Billion Question, reporter Simone Alicea talks to Colorado Public Radio's Nathan Heffel about the FasTracks rollout and why the price tag in Denver was so much smaller. For more details about the Denver and Seattle transit expansions, see the chart below. Loading... var pymParent = new pym.Parent('graph', 'http://groovenotes.org/WebsiteAssets/Transit2016/Graph.html', {});

There is a small statue that greets people as they walk into what can be a very difficult place to visit. It’s the entrance to the Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine Unit of the Seattle Children’s Hospital. John Madden, who was a patient here a few years ago, says the 10 days he spent in the unit saved his life. He made the statue as a way of saying thank you to the nurses and doctors who treated him during a dark time in his life. “It’s kind of an abstract, swooping shape with some points on it,” says Madden. "To me, it represents that life doesn’t have one straight path. There’s a lot of soft curves and the scoops to it where things are gravy and everything’s good and then there’s the harsh points and the edges where stuff isn’t so great and you’re not happy where you’re at.” At the time he was admitted, Madden was going to Aviation High School, a school known for its academically-challenging program. Sophomore year, his grades, and his mental health, started to slide. “You know, I

This week on Sound Effect, we're brining you stories that explore that moment when you realize you are not a kid anymore. The Puberty Lady If you’re a parent in the Seattle area, chances are you’ve heard about the puberty classes that Julie Metzger created almost three decades ago. She shares the inspiration behind these popular classes and how to make awkward topics fun. The Obamacare Kid As a young boy, Marcelas Owens stood next to President Obama when the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. Today Marcelas identifies as a young woman. She talks about her journey as a trans teen. Growing Up In Prison At 13, Will Jimerson was the youngest person in Washington state to be sentenced as an adult. He explains what it was like to grow up in an adult prison. Silver Linings Chris Spengler's father was always a tough man. That is, until he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Spengler tells the story of how that diagnosis changed the relationship she had with her father for the better. Art

Even as adults, there are moments when we realize we are no longer kids. Oftentimes it hits us when the tables turn and we find ourselves looking after our aging parents.For Chris Spengler, it was when her father Henry was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Ushering him from doctors' appointments to group homes around Seattle, she was certainly not a kid anymore. At the same time, her father’s disease gave her a much needed sense of closure about her childhood in Brooklyn. Her father was a tough man who saw his family as there to serve his needs. However, as Henry became dependent on his daughter, his attitude shifted. In this piece, Chris tells the story of how Alzheimer's gave her the father she always wanted. She originally told this story for Fresh Ground Stories, a monthly story telling group in Seattle.

There is a small statue that greets people as they walk into what can be a very difficult place to visit. It’s the entrance to the Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine Unit of the Seattle Children’s Hospital. John Madden, who was a patient here a few years ago, says the 10 days he spent in the unit saved his life. He made the statue as a way of saying thank you to the nurses and doctors who treated him during a dark time in his life. “It’s kind of an abstract, swooping shape with some points on it,” says Madden. "To me, it represents that life doesn’t have one straight path. There’s a lot of soft curves and the scoops to it where things are gravy and everything’s good and then there’s the harsh points and the edges where stuff isn’t so great and you’re not happy where you’re at.” At the time he was admitted, Madden was going to Aviation High School, a school known for its academically-challenging program. Sophomore year, his grades, and his mental health, started to slide. “You know, I

On March 10, 1994, Will Jimerson was 13 years old. He was hanging out around 23rd and Cherry in Seattle's Central District at 1 o'clock in the morning with a group of other kids. By this point in his life, he had already had a few run-ins with the law, including assault with a deadly weapon and theft. On this particular early morning, Will says he found a gun in a jacket. There are different versions of what happened next. Jimerson says he pointed the gun into the crowd, pulled the trigger and heard a popping sound. He says he didn’t know that another young teen, 14-year-old Jamie Lynn Wilson, was dead, from two gunshots to her back, until the next day when word of the murder started to spread in the neighborhood. Witnesses linked Jimerson to the crime. He was tried as an adult. Will said he was innocent. Prosecutors built a case that portrayed Jimerson as a predator in the making — a cold-blooded killer who murdered Jamie Lyn Wilson as she pleaded for her life. The judge agreed and

Sometimes what we do as children traps us in time. The rest of the world will forever equate you with what you did when you were young, even as you grow beyond whatever it was that gave you that label in the first place. This is what happened to 17-year-old Marcelas Owens of Seattle. When Marcelas was 8 years old, his mother, Tiffany Owens, died from pulmonary hypertension. This is when your lungs have high blood pressure. People can live a long time with this condition if they get the right care. But when it’s not treated, it’s the heart that usually gives out. Tiffany started missing too much time at work. Eventually she was fired and lost her health insurance. In her final months, Tiffany was an activist for health care reform. Once she was gone, Marcelas continued his mother’s work. He became a poster child for the movement as President Obama pushed for the passage of The Affordable Care Act. This chubby faced, African-American boy with a short afro told his mother’s story to

If you’re a parent in the Seattle area, chances are you’ve been to, heard about, or will soon learn about the puberty classes that Julie Metzger created almost three decades ago. Metzger makes what is often a painful conversation actually kind of enjoyable. Strutting around the class with pads stuck to her shirt, she happily says out loud all of the awkward things kids and parents are thinking about puberty. Metzger came up with the idea for the class when she was getting a masters in nursing at the University of Washington. She was helping out on a study that asked adult women how they learned about puberty and where they got that information. What was “the talk” like for them? Metzger realized that the answers varied so much and that she wanted to create a space where that conversation about growing up could be safe and fun. Sound Effect's Jennifer Wing sat down with Metzger to talk about how she makes this class about the birds and the bees so much fun for tweens and parents alike.

This week on Sound Effect, we're brining you stories that explore that moment when you realize you are not a kid anymore. The Puberty Lady If you’re a parent in the Seattle area, chances are you’ve heard about the puberty classes that Julie Metzger created almost three decades ago. She shares the inspiration behind these popular classes and how to make awkward topics fun. The Obamacare Kid As a young boy, Marcelas Owens stood next to President Obama when the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. Today Marcelas identifies as a young woman. She talks about her journey as a trans teen. Growing Up In Prison At 13, Will Jimerson was the youngest person in Washington state to be sentenced as an adult. He explains what it was like to grow up in an adult prison. Silver Linings Chris Spengler's father was always a tough man. That is, until he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Spengler tells the story of how that diagnosis changed the relationship she had with her father for the better. Art

A warning that this interview deals with some very difficult subject matter: the exploitation of children. It is not suitable for children and some adults may find it difficult to hear. It's heroic to dedicate your life to chasing bad guys and putting them behind bars. However, that pursuit of criminal activity can come with a lot of traumatic experiences and deep psychological wounds.

The recent public conversations about gender identity and transgender people have tended to focus on bodies: biological sex versus gender identity, the clothes people wear, what bathrooms they use. But one issue that has gotten less attention is the intersection of gender and voice. Even as trans people work to look like the person they are inside, some find that they still sound like someone else.

David Liston finds people who don't want to be found; that's part of the job. Liston is principal at David Liston Investigations, a private investigation firm based in University Heights. But this case was different. Liston was looking for a man believed to be homeless in the Seattle area in order to give him a message: You stand to inherit millions of dollars.