Ep. 19 - Lou Harry - Board Game Sommelier, Journalist, and Playwright
Listen while you read
Youtube — — Spotify — — Apple Pods
Intro
One of my favorite things about this podcast is the process of discovery. I’m kind of in a lull for that right now. I have podcasts scheduled for a couple of months, so things are falling into place a little too easily. However, the process of discovering new and interesting people to talk to is deeply enjoyable.
Beyond this, too, is the process of discovering the individual. When I reached out to Lou Harry, I was under the assumption that this was just a guy who played board games. There’s nothing wrong with being just that, but more often than not, you find random people you talk to on the street or for this podcast become so much more. You peel back the layers of a person and find deep, specific interests and passions beyond what you see on an initial interaction. Lou Harry exemplifies this beyond almost any other.
He loves theater, journalism, and even reminiscing on the past in an artistic way. I enjoyed finding out about all of the things Lou enjoys and hearing his stories of how he personally works to create more of what he enjoys right here in Indianapolis.
Can be found here:
Links to listen
Links of references from the show
Production learnings
Story Time
Episode Summary
Episode Transcript
Put your email in here, and I’ll send you this blog every week with the episode release.
Important links and mentions
Two First Names Productions
Production learnings from the episode
I am actually fairly happy with the overall production of this episode. The audio is quite good, in my opinion, and there is overall very little microphone bleed, which has been a constant battle. Really happy with the sound.
Unfortunately, there is no video, which, frankly, I don’t blame myself for. I set up the camera to record, and it went for about 5 minutes, and then it just appeared to have stopped. I’m not sure what caused the recording to stop. I am happy to have the audio from this episode still. Still, it does stress me out a bit, as in the episodes after this, I will be moving to have all of my audio and video recorded together under one roof, which means that if there is a failure point, I will lose it all. I am keeping my handheld recorder as a backup; you can be sure of that.
The art of giving a platform.
No real thoughts to share today. I do want to share a potential idea I have had, and if you read this, I’d be interested in your thoughts. I still want to write, but I have been thinking about how to give my guests a further platform. I think it would be fun to ask them if they wanted to take up a little extra space on this page. They could share a few short paragraphs, a poem, a recording of their music or work. I think it would be fun to utilize the space here that I’ve created to share even more about the guests I’m having on.
Obviously, this is asking a substantial amount of them. It would also require a decent amount of organization on my part to receive whatever it is they want to share. But I think it would be an interesting way of continuing the work and allowing people to use this archive to express themselves more profoundly than they already do.
Let me know what you think, and please, as always, enjoy the episode with Mr. Lou Harry.
Episode Summary
In this episode of Third Space Indy, host Michael Zarick converses with Lou Harry, a multifaceted figure in the Indianapolis cultural scene. Lou Harry shares his journey from Wildwood, New Jersey to becoming a notable playwright, board game enthusiast, and journalist in Indianapolis. The discussion delves into the significance of art in fostering empathy and the communal impact of live theater and board games. Lou talks about his involvement with local institutions such as Indy Actors Playground, Sightlines Indy, and the Society of Professional Journalists. The episode highlights the thriving arts scene in Indianapolis and the importance of building community through shared experiences and creative endeavors.
00:00 The Importance of Art
00:55 Introduction to Third Space Indy
01:07 Meeting Lou Harry
02:40 Lou Harry's Background
04:38 Board Game Nights at The Garage
09:03 The Evolution of Board Games
28:11 Indy Reads Play Reading Series
33:56 The Jazz Trio and Chatterbox Partnership
34:46 Collaborations with Local Organizations
35:43 Introducing Sightlines Indy
36:50 The Society of Professional Journalists
39:04 The Importance of Art
42:55 Exploring Third Spaces
48:54 Indiana Stories and Personal Anecdotes
54:45 Opportunities and Accessibility in Indianapolis
59:16 Final Thoughts and Farewell
Episode Transcript
Lou Harry
===
[00:00:00] Michael Zarick: What is the importance of art?
[00:00:02] Lou Harry: To me, when I talk about playwriting and talk about, live theater and things like that, , the stuff that speaks to me the most is the, reminds me what it is to be a human being. Why am I not that chair? And sometimes that's, challenging and sometimes it's distancing a little bit, but most of the time it really just pulls me in.
But I think if you're exposed to the arts, you get used to being inside somebody else's head for a little while, or at least a part of it.
And that's gigantic steps toward empathy, which is something that's desperately needed right now. ~And they're fun, I've had experiences where I've, probably most of us have, have done this where you've watched a movie at home and it was okay, and then you saw maybe the same movie in a movie theater and you're laughing your ass off.~
~Yeah. And that's because you're around other people that, that moment in a full, you know, live theater production, knowing that you're seeing this show that's happening for the first and only time right now, um, there's a thrill to that. It reminds us what it is to be a human being. It it, it anchors you in the now, you know, but also as a, a rich sense of, of history.~
~You know, you could go as deep as you want. Into any of these art forms. You could just go to an art gallery and just have a reaction to something. Or you can go deeper and see where, what else that artist has done or what else has been done in that genre. Where does that style evolve from? It's an endless well of interesting stuff, but you can go in as deep as you want.~
~And it's the same thing with board games. And it's, you know, the same thing with in books. ~
[00:00:55] Michael Zarick: Hello, my name is Michael Zarick. This is Third Space Indy. In this podcast, we talk to community builders, leaders and organizers all over Indianapolis who are doing their best to make Indianapolis a better place.
Today I'm talking to Lou Harry.
[00:01:09] Lou Harry: That's what you're doing
[00:01:11] Michael Zarick: and, uh, the reason I reached out to you is because. Uh, very similar to two episodes ago where I talked to Tony Wiederhold. Okay. I received an email after my very first episode,
Uhhuh,
I Can, oh, Andra, I think is her name. She said, there's this guy who runs a board game night out of, um, The Garage down the street.
'cause we're on the rooftop of Industrious On Mass Avenue. Uh, and she said he'd be a great person to talk to. And I said, all So I just Okay. Tucked it away.
[00:01:39] Lou Harry: Well, to clarify, it's not in an actual garage. Okay. It's, I don't want you to The Garage Food hall over at, uh, Bottle Works. Yes. Um, I didn't want people to think, you know, was, well, you know, me and some old tires and, you know,
[00:01:53] Michael Zarick: I like to think that the audience lives in Indianapolis.
That is a, a valid thing to bring up. Maybe we'll never know. Someone doesn't know what the garage
[00:01:59] Lou Harry: is. Hello. To those in Belgium who are listening.
[00:02:02] Michael Zarick: I think there's like a, a German listener. Oh, very good. Randomly. Um, but anyways, Lou, hello. How are you doing? I'm doing
[00:02:09] Lou Harry: all right. I'm doing okay. I
[00:02:10] Michael Zarick: caught you at a really, in a really good mood.
[00:02:12] Lou Harry: Oh.
[00:02:12] Michael Zarick: Um,
[00:02:13] Lou Harry: I try to be when possible.
[00:02:14] Michael Zarick: But I emailed you two hours ago to try to schedule next week, and you said, talk to me in three hours. And here we are.
[00:02:20] Lou Harry: I said, we're here. Let on a road's do sun. Let's do it.
[00:02:23] Michael Zarick: Um, so can you tell me a little bit about yourself and tell me a little bit about board game nights and then tell me a little bit about the society.
[00:02:31] Lou Harry: Okay. You'll, you'll remind me if I miss any of those three things. Okay.
[00:02:36] Michael Zarick: Talk about whatever you feel in your heart. There we go.
[00:02:38] Lou Harry: In my heart. Um, hi. Um, I am originally from Wildwood, New Jersey. Have lived in Indianapolis since the mid nineties. Um, I've been, the full-time gig has usually been, uh, in city and regional publications, writing for various publications.
I was on staff at Indianapolis Monthly for years. Spent 10 years as arts and entertainment editor for the Indianapolis Business Journal, a position that I sort of created with them. Um, and parallel to that, I've been involved in the local theater world here. Uh, first writing about theater a lot in the last 10 years, uh, as playwright and director, and also running some unique programs that I hope we'll talk about a little later.
Um, the board game stuff kind of evolved out of the journalism. Uh, growing up in a small town in Jersey on this quiet island, ghost town in the winter, crazy honky tonk in the summer. There were always, uh, people living in the apartments next door or coming down for the summer and having those like backyard games of Monopoly and things like that.
Uh, gaming, tabletop gaming was a big thing. This is all pre-video games. Yeah. Um, and so as I, as most of you may know, uh, Indianapolis is home to GenCon, its largest convention every year. 75.
[00:03:53] Michael Zarick: I'm gonna ask if you're an attendee.
[00:03:54] Lou Harry: Oh. Got 75,000 people coming. I am one of them. Um, I've been going for years and every year, um, at least for the past 10 or 12 years, I've written the best games of Gen Con piece or a.
Sometimes the best non intimidating games of Gen Con Peace.
[00:04:09] Michael Zarick: There are some intimidating games.
[00:04:10] Lou Harry: There are some, you know, you get somebody who is sort of interested in the hobby, and then you see those games that'll take eight hours to play and let's play sight. Yeah. So, um, so I, I try to wa you know, warm people up into it, you know, not to be snobby, you know, if somebody plays Uno and Yahtzee more power to 'em, hey, but you might also like this game.
Yeah. So trying to, because I'm a big believer in people sitting around a table and doing stuff together. It's always been fun. Um, that has evolved into, um, I started doing some private parties for some people and for some, uh, companies. And then that evolved into being asked when, uh, Garage was getting rolling about three years ago.
They asked me if I would be interested in hosting a regular game night.
[00:04:56] Michael Zarick: Oh, you're somewhat, I didn't realize you were somewhat affiliated with them.
[00:04:59] Lou Harry: I am very loosely. No, I mean, I'm, I, it is a paid gig, but it's a gig that I love. Um, so every week, every Tuesday, six o'clock to nine o'clock, I wheel out a cart of about 70 games that folks can choose.
Um, some people bring their own to play. Some people wanna stay in their own sort of pod. You know, a parent comes with their kid every week and picks out a different game to play. Other people, people wanna be social, they wanna connect to other people. They're willing to say, Hey, do you wanna join us and play a game?
And I am kind of the game sommelier
I'll, I love that.
I love that. I'll teach games if people are interested in that. I'll step back and let people do their thing. If they just wanna grab Hues and Cues or code names and go off to a table and play. Um, and I keep a, you know, fleshing out the collection. Uh, there's one group that likes me to have a game set up for them whenever they show up and with a new game, give 'em a quick teach and set 'em loose.
I review board games sometimes for my own website. So I sort of have become immersed in. So, short answer, yes, I go to Gen Con.
[00:06:01] Michael Zarick: You, I'm so excited 'cause. I love board. I do not play them enough, but I love Okay. All
[00:06:06] Lou Harry: right. Tell me what the, some of the go-to games are. I love,
[00:06:08] Michael Zarick: yeah. This is, the issue is I have no go-to games.
Okay. I have a regular running d and d group. Okay. Uh, I've been playing that with that group since 2020. Mm-hmm. Online, right. We were not, we do not meet in person. We, we have an Australian, well, actually a New Zealander who lives in Australia, a Canadian. Okay. Two people in Arizona, one in Kentucky, and me.
[00:06:25] Lou Harry: Yeah.
[00:06:26] Michael Zarick: That is a worldwide Online has
[00:06:28] Lou Harry: made it a lot easier to find people to play with in some, you know, in some cases. But there are some terrific other locations around the city and around the region where people get together. There's a Monday night thing up at Fishers and Pin, uh, Pinheads up in Fishers.
That's a wonderful group of folks. Um, there's this, there's folks playing in game stores. There's more stuff popping up like this, but we wanted to create a, uh, a comfortable place for people to go. The other thing I like about doing this at The Garage is we get the people who are deliberately there, but we also get, people just happen to be wandering by.
That's, and they're like, Hey, cool. We can play a game while, you know, what do you got for, there's six of us. What's a fun party game?
[00:07:07] Michael Zarick: I have a question.
[00:07:08] Lou Harry: Good. The Garage. As a podcaster, that is a good thing to have.
[00:07:11] Michael Zarick: This is a, this is not about board games. This is, okay.
[00:07:14] Lou Harry: A
[00:07:14] Michael Zarick: purely random question. This happens after Garage, right?
Where the primarily primary, uh, thing of business is food. Yes. Does this become an issue when associated with board games?
[00:07:25] Lou Harry: It usually, I mean, you know, the rule of thumb when you have folks over for, uh, for board gaming, you know, you don't have Cheetos. You know what I mean?
[00:07:33] Michael Zarick: You're like, you're No saucy wings tonight.
Please. Careful,
[00:07:36] Lou Harry: careful. What you uh, what you, uh, dine on? No, in, in, uh, we're, we're in our third year of doing this at the garage. I've had one game casualty, and that was like a little missing piece from something I've had next to no damage. And you know, when they, when they, we started doing this, they initially weren't sure how they were gonna do it.
They thought they were gonna have to budget, you know, and buy certain games, but. Games have a life cycle and you know, that sort of thing. So I, you know, I've got like 800 games. I think I can keep things stocked. So it, it actually, that's wild. Helped them out a little bit by not having to, you know, have a library of 15 games or 20 games or something like that.
[00:08:14] Michael Zarick: I, I have more, I'm like, I'm passionate about board games despite not play. Like, uh, you,
[00:08:21] Lou Harry: you see the, you see why they, what's
[00:08:23] Michael Zarick: the, what's the game about? Uh, the birds. Wingspan. Wingspan. Yep. Wingspan. And then there's, um,
[00:08:27] Lou Harry: which now has worms span and there's a fish version now too.
[00:08:30] Michael Zarick: There's a game about, um, you play effectively, you have a DD type character, but it's like card game.
So you like play cards as powers and you're go on, uh,
[00:08:41] Lou Harry: Magic The Gathering, that kind of thing, or, uh, it's
[00:08:43] Michael Zarick: called like something Frost. Frost. Oh, frost.
[00:08:46] Lou Harry: Oh, Frost Haven. Yeah. There was Gloom Haven, which was by a local designer
[00:08:49] Michael Zarick: Oh, that's here.
[00:08:50] Lou Harry: Uh, yeah, pod he, uh, put that out on Kickstarter initially and had grown, I think is huge.
Mm-hmm.
[00:08:56] Michael Zarick: And then there's a, a race car game. That was really popular last year. I think
[00:09:00] Lou Harry: there's, there's been, and it's funny, I don't know any names. No, but it's cool to see the evolution of this because like 15 years ago, 20 years ago, whatever it was, first time to go in the GenCon, so much of it, or at least the stereotype was, it was all dungeon crawlers.
You know what I mean? It was all mages and elves and dwarfs and wizards and, you know, all the games that, there's still that piece of it. But there are so many games now that are about designing a neighborhood or, um, you know, like you said, or race, you know, car racing kind of games. There's a game out now that's, that's about a mascot race, you know, that like the, you know, the, yeah.
Um, so there's a wide variety of kinds of games now. It's, you know, it used to be, it was almost all did, you know, uh, like I said, dungeon crawlers, fantasy kind of thing, or, you know, shipping and trading in the Mediterranean kind of games. Yeah.
[00:09:51] Michael Zarick: Like, uh, Catan obviously the, yeah, that's the. Please farm your sheep and your, and your wheat.
[00:09:57] Lou Harry: But there's like those gateway games, you see more and more people and wider and more and more games showing up at like Target and Barnes and Noble and places like that, that you wouldn't have seen them before. But games like Ticket to Ride and Catan have sort of crossed over into the mainstream, you know, they're not as, uh, you know, it used to be, it was either, you know, there were the Monopolies, Scrabble, Sorry, and all those games in Clue on one side and then the Hobby Gamer stuff on the other.
Mm-hmm. But there's the gray area in between now, which is sort of interesting and exciting.
[00:10:28] Michael Zarick: Yeah. So what, what's the timeline of you sort of getting into, um, board games? How long ago?
[00:10:36] Lou Harry: When I was a kid, you know, backyard playing the neighbor, classic,
[00:10:39] Michael Zarick: classic basement or garage. Literal garage. Literal
[00:10:42] Lou Harry: gaming with the neighbors, you know, and all that.
And I've always enjoyed those and card games held onto
[00:10:46] Michael Zarick: that
[00:10:47] Lou Harry: and held onto a little bit of that. When I had kids, you know, board gaming, table gaming, card gaming was always part of the, the life. And moving to Indianapolis where GenCon was happening sort of solidified a lot of that. And then having markets where I could write about the stuff, and again, not my primary occupation.
Um, I was writing all kinds of other things as well,
[00:11:08] Michael Zarick: sort of auxiliary,
[00:11:09] Lou Harry: but it was an auxiliary thing. And to be able to turn that into something that not only is, it is a nice sideline and hobby. Um, but also I love teaching games and I like stepping back sometimes and looking over, you know, where eight tables of people are playing all different games.
[00:11:26] Michael Zarick: Yeah. What makes a good, um, Tuesday night Garage board game? Because you cannot go and play a, a Gloom Haven a Frost Haven.
[00:11:35] Lou Harry: That's a challenge. I mean, we've had people bring, um, uh, what's a clock tower game that's big now? Um, anyway, I'm the worst of names. Yeah. That was good. And we have, sometimes we have some people who, who will come and play a game for the duration, you know?
Yeah. Um, it has to fit within, I'd say a two hour. Range at the most because we have a three hour, some games
[00:11:54] Michael Zarick: take an hour to learn.
[00:11:56] Lou Harry: Exactly. We have a three hour window. The ideal is somebody at the table already knows the game. The worst, one of the worst things you could do to alienate people from the hobby is you bring, you know, three people over to play a game.
You, you know, there's four of you and you open the box and then start reading the rules. That's a fatal mistake. One of the benefits of this thing we have now, I dunno if you've heard of this thing called the internet. Um, one of the thing that's really helpful is that almost every game company now will produce a how to video, which you can watch a little QR code.
Yeah. You can punch the game, you know, punch the cardboard out, get the game, have an idea of how to play before you tell your friends, Hey, hey, join. So that's what I try to do there as well. I'll, I'll get in there early, set up a game for some people and talk 'em through initially how to play it, um, to give them an idea at least how to get going with it.
Um, I forget what your question was, but had to, what makes a good, what
[00:12:48] Michael Zarick: makes a good, like Tuesday night, Garage game, Tuesday night, The Garage,
[00:12:51] Lou Harry: um, not a thousand components. Mm-hmm. You don't want lots of little chips, you know, and, you know, a thousand little cubes and everything else like that to have to worry about.
Mm-hmm. Um, but people play games of different, of different, there's a game called, uh, World Wonders now that's out there, that's, you know, a fair amount of moving pieces, but I have played that people play it and had a good time with it. Um, but there's also people who will, who want something simpler. Uh, there's families with kids who want make sure I have, you know, they'll play, you know, Hey, That's My Fish.
Or they'll play one of those games, um, and have a good time with it. A big part of it is figuring out what the group is into. 'cause I, I always get people coming up and saying, what's a good game?
[00:13:31] Michael Zarick: That's the worst question.
[00:13:31] Lou Harry: Well, which is, and it's like, gimme, you know, it's like somebody said, what's a good movie?
You know? Well, tell me three movies that you liked, or I'll say, tell me what, what games you've enjoyed. Do you want something that's really competitive? Do you want That's,
[00:13:44] Michael Zarick: I always hate the question, what is your favorite X? Yeah.
[00:13:48] Lou Harry: What is your favorite
[00:13:48] Michael Zarick: movie?
[00:13:49] Lou Harry: Well, what is your favorite is different than what would I like?
[00:13:51] Michael Zarick: That's true too
[00:13:52] Lou Harry: because, you know, I could tell you some what some of my favorite movies are, or in my movie, the columns are right. For Midwest Film Journal. I transition from Best of the Year to most satisfying films of the year. Side note there. But, um, when it comes to games, you know, my wife will only play like trivia games or Word games.
Mm-hmm. Doesn't want to have strategy games where you have to think three turns at three. Where head I have a, a dear friend who only likes kind of abstract chess like games. Yeah. You know, get theme out of the way. And there's other people who like something that's more immersive, you know, um, there's people who like things like Dungeons and Dragons and you know, that kind of, um, more storytelling, more, um, not as much Roll the dice and move Yeah.
There's a lot of dice of course. Narrative type. Yeah. More narrative. Um, and there are other people who like screw your neighbor kind of games, which are, you know, uh, one where you,
[00:14:49] Michael Zarick: I was gonna, I was gonna say, I hate those types of games.
[00:14:51] Lou Harry: Yeah. Well, you know, they're, they're at the extreme. They sometimes folks in the, in the gaming, uh, called sort of multiplayer solitaire is the opposite of that one's where you're really not interacting with other people, but there's other games where you could really, you could do something to really harm the other person.
Yeah. And there's also co-op games. There's a lot of co-op games now that people don't realize where it's basically everyone against the game. Mm-hmm. And there's other like, party games where they're more of an activity than a game, you know what I mean? It doesn't really matter who ends up winning. It's more, let's laugh and see.
So what
[00:15:20] Michael Zarick: type of game do you, do you enjoy the games where you are being competitive? Or do you enjoy the games that are a little more casual and you can have a conversation? You can have,
[00:15:28] Lou Harry: it depends on the group. I mean, well, I'll talk about you though. Oh, me personally, if I am with a group of people who are into either side of the, I would never impose.
One kind of game. I have some friends who once a, you know, month, every month or so they have a little party and stuff like that. They're, we're used to playing like telestration and games like that. Uhhuh. I'm not gonna push Scythe on them, you know, or Dominion or one of those kind of games.
[00:15:49] Michael Zarick: Yes. The big heavy,
[00:15:50] Lou Harry: yeah.
Something that's a games little meatier that, you know, um, they wanna laugh and have fun and that's, that's cool. But other people, it's more fun. There's another group, I may be going to join them tonight, uh, that'll get like two games in, in a night of more, more strategic kind of games, more outthinking your opponent and trying to outthink the game.
[00:16:09] Michael Zarick: What's your, what's your go-to board game right now? If you had to sit down like snatch? You 300. How many?
[00:16:15] Lou Harry: I've got like 800 or something. Oh my God. Um, we all have
[00:16:19] Michael Zarick: our vices.
[00:16:20] Lou Harry: Well, and the thing is I do a, this is, um, I love the game stores here. There are some wonderful game stores, but the reality is there's also a lot of game trading that goes on.
Um, every quarter at the garage, we just did one last Tuesday, we have a board game swap meet. Oh. Where people can just bring games, they wanna trade and we swap 'em out. That's a wonderful idea. And it's been terrific. We had about 15 people swapping, uh, last Tuesday.
[00:16:43] Michael Zarick: Is there a level of, um, we'll get back to the question I asked just in just a second.
No, that's a level of like, quote unquote value. So like, you're not gonna trade Scythe for a monopoly.
[00:16:53] Lou Harry: Right, right. What I, what I did, and I picked this up from something I saw the game store, just to keep, to answer your question, no, you're not gonna do that. There is a relative value, but I also brought in some games deliberately to put on a no, uh, no negotiation table.
Just put 'em on the table. If you leave a game, take a game. Mm-hmm. And that way, you know, people who did bring a monopoly or bring in, you know, something that nobody particularly wanted there would at least be able to trade a little bit and get something going. Yeah. And then I try to find either community centers or other places that'll take, I have a box of games I'm looking for, uh, to decide who to donate those to.
Or we'll put 'em in Charity auctions, um, at the in conjunction, uh, convention, uh, and some other organizations in town that do things like that. We'll, we'll put some of the games every year in the charity auctions.
[00:17:40] Michael Zarick: Yeah.
[00:17:40] Lou Harry: So, yeah. I forget what the original question was. The
[00:17:43] Michael Zarick: OG question was, um, what is like right now in this moment?
Okay. What is your like go-to game?
[00:17:48] Lou Harry: Um, I love, uh, always liked dominion, uh, castles of Mad King Ludwig. I'm very into castles of Mad.
[00:17:55] Michael Zarick: I've not heard that. Which is
[00:17:56] Lou Harry: a wonderful, um, kind of you're building out. He was an actual guy, built a crazy castle. But this is when you're adding rooms to a castle, but you're also buying, um, like if US two are playing, you are first doing the arranging of how much things are gonna cost and then I'm getting the first buy, but I have to pay you.
So it's a little bit of money management. Yeah. And figuring out, well, he only has $4,000. I'm gonna make it so he can't buy this. And so there's some strategy in there, a little bit of luck involved based on what comes out. Uh, trying to get different combinations and you end up with this crazy castle. I'm enjoying that.
Uh, forest shuffle is another one I like a lot where you're, uh, you need to plant trees and then populate them with animals. Try to get certain combinations. You're putting plants underneath, you're putting birds above. You're playing animals on both sides. So
[00:18:44] Michael Zarick: I, I see two, um, themes here for you. You like cards?
I like cards. And you like, um, sort of building. Yeah, I like,
[00:18:53] Lou Harry: I like worker placement games. Yeah. I like the sort of tile building, you know, crafting a city kind of thing. Yeah. Um, but you're
[00:19:00] Michael Zarick: in probably the same realm as Yeah.
[00:19:02] Lou Harry: Well, so we gotta play one of these days
[00:19:04] Michael Zarick: I would, I I,
Tuesdays are really free for me, so I really should come through
[00:19:09] Lou Harry: what I'm, what I, what I resist.
And I know a lot of people love, a lot of people love social deduction games, which are the games where there's eight people playing. One of them is the killer, that kind of thing. I, I've never been particularly good at reading mysteries or watching mystery movies. They're trying to keep track of clues and all that.
And those games are kinda lost on me. You know, I'm just a random guess at the end. At,
[00:19:31] Michael Zarick: at Home, my brother used to work out of the Cards Against Humanity Office.
[00:19:36] Lou Harry: Okay.
[00:19:36] Michael Zarick: So at home I have a, an alpha, um, secret Hitler. Okay. It's like a box. It's just a white box. It's ridden in Sharpie on the top secret.
Secret Hitler on top.
[00:19:48] Lou Harry: Yeah. Those games, I'm, I'm kind of worthless on, on the social deduction ones. And there are a lot of really good ones. I mean, there, people don't realize the scale of these things. I mean, Jen Conone, I think the number I heard was something like 400 new games, 400
[00:20:02] Michael Zarick: new, like brand new has not been seen before.
[00:20:05] Lou Harry: Yeah.
[00:20:06] Michael Zarick: Most of them are probably decent to good.
[00:20:08] Lou Harry: Oh, some No, and some of them are terrible. That's, that's the cool thing. We had, um, the Tuesday before Gen Con. Every year we have, I invite game companies to come join us at Game Night Social. Last year we had, uh, just from, from people who signed in. Uh, for, we did door prizes and whatever, but we had nine game companies demoing their new games for free.
We had 275 people in the garage. You know, it was really cool. It was hard to find tables there. They're
[00:20:36] Michael Zarick: allowed to have that many people
[00:20:37] Lou Harry: there. Well, they were playing games outside. We had the regular game library plus all these companies demoing their games and, you know, it, it opened up Gen Con to people who Yes.
The people who came out it from out of town, who came in early had something to do, which was great.
[00:20:50] Michael Zarick: Yeah.
[00:20:51] Lou Harry: Um, but it also brought people who were so curious about Gen Con locals who never really go.
[00:20:55] Michael Zarick: I really needed to go. I what? Oh, I didn't plan ahead enough this year. Mm-hmm. Oh, and I had just gotten a new job.
I, I got laid off in January, so, okay. Sorry. I didn't have the money to go. I understand. My, my goal next year though is to get a press pass. There you go.
[00:21:08] Lou Harry: Go for it. Well, if you're,
[00:21:10] Michael Zarick: so when you go to GenCon, do you go as a attendee or are you a worker?
[00:21:13] Lou Harry: I go as press 'cause I'm review, I'm doing best games at GenCon columns.
I'm looking for stuff for the game library there. I don't do the. I don't like sign up for, you know, ticketed events. I'm basically going to almost every dealer in the dealer hall and having a conversation. A lot of it we set up in advance. Yeah. You know, setting up meetings and stuff like that. But I'm trying to play as many games as possible, uh, in those, uh, we say four days, but it ends up being Yeah.
You know, like seven days of, of gaming.
[00:21:43] Michael Zarick: Um, last year I wrote like a, I, I tried to do like an annual, like video game Like review thing, and I got in contact with this guy who is a game designer. Right. Um, Um, at one point on, on Blue Sky or something, And he was like, I was like, I thought I played a lot of games, demos and, and things like that.
I was sitting around I was over a hundred. Yeah. Just trying a lot of stuff. Mm-hmm. And this guy was like, I played 400 games this year. and I was like, how? And he goes, well, most of the time when I play 'em I'm spending five, 10 minutes. Right. Absorbing the decisions that someone did when they, when they made it.
Uh, and then moving on. and Taking notes and. whatever. Are you, when you go to GenCon and you try to play games like that, are you in that type of rush or are you playing a full cycle of
[00:22:27] Lou Harry: I usually play a full cycle, um, which is a little easier given that a lot of what I'm writing about are again, what I label those non-intimidating games.
Mm-hmm. So they are games that, you know, are 20 minutes or half an hour. There are a fair amount of those. Sometimes I am given sent review copies or give review copies and I'll spend a full, you know, if they're longer games, I'll spend a full time with them or I'll try them out with folks at the garage.
So, um, they're getting exposed to some new games there as well. So yeah, I try to, I give it a fair, a fair shake.
[00:22:58] Michael Zarick: Definitely. What does it mean to you to be able to provide, actually how, rephrase this a little bit. What is the importance of sitting down at a table with your friends or maybe strangers? And just like enjoying a game,
[00:23:15] Lou Harry: the importance of that is sitting down with friends or strangers at a table and enjoying a game.
Um, you pretty much said it. Yeah. Um, one, it's an opportunity to focus on something that doesn't matter ultimately. You know, it's, it's a,
and
and if you, if you approach it in the right way, if you find the game that, that you're comfortable with, um, learning a new set of rules, when it, when it comes to kids, it's getting them used to, okay, here's a rule set.
Think creatively within that, you know, um, even earlier than that, it's learning that a five on a dice means 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Um, when it comes to Monopoly and things like that, it teaches us that there are people out there who just wanna make you bankrupt. So there, you know, there's a little lessons like that hidden in there.
Um, but no, it's, it's social. It's finding ways to sort of negotiate. Rules. You know, when there's a question that comes up, it's being able to be a, a, a cool winner and a cool loser. Um, it's being able to laugh with people. One of the highlights there, early, this was in the first year, there were three different groups of people who playing separate games at the end of the night.
They all sort of finished up at the same time. I said, why don't y'all come over here for a second? And there's a ridiculous game called gimme that, where you're just, you're basically, it's about counting potatoes, okay? And there's only one pencil, and everyone has a sheet and there's a dice that gets rolled and you're trying to get the pencil from other people.
And when you roll a high five, you have to high five people and you have to do this on the table. And there's all kinds of stuff. But you get the pencil, you're counting sheep and it, I mean, counting potatoes and the, the sheets move. It's nonsense. It's complete and total nonsense. And these people, again, there were a couple people from Europe, there were a couple people from the west, there were a couple locals.
They were all just having a great time together. At the end of it, they wanted a picture taken together with them, with the potatoes. Um, that is, you know, that's what we want this world to be damnit. Um, true. That, you know, um, so a big part of it is, is that it's finding opportunities to, to connect with people in a way that opens and sometimes conversations come out of this.
I mean, I haven't gotten a story yet of a couple that's met there, you know, I don't have that story yet. Yeah. Um, now they have four kids and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, but it's a little longer. Right. It'll come around. But we do have regulars who were there almost from the beginning. Uh, a couple who, you know, were, um, boyfriend and girlfriend who I got invited to their wedding.
Oh, really? You know, and went a couple weeks ago. Wait, you said didn't? No, but they were involved and they didn't meet at my thing. I didn't wanna give you that full story. Um, but it's just opportunities for people to, to do stuff together. I'm always interested. I, one of the questions I ask people a lot of times is, you know, if you buy a game for 50 bucks, how many, how many times do you feel like you need to play it in order to feel like you've justified the cost?
And I've had people say, you know, five or six times, I've had people say 10 times, I've heard people say one time, 'cause if three of us went to a movie and bought popcorn, it's probably gonna cost that 50 bucks. And we don't say, well, I should get more movies out of this.
[00:26:26] Michael Zarick: Yeah.
[00:26:26] Lou Harry: You know, so sometimes it's, even that one experience with the game can be a good thing.
[00:26:30] Michael Zarick: There's a conversation about that within, I think board games and video games obviously walk hand in hand a lot of times. It's like, what is it, what is the value of a video game if I buy a game for $10? in The video game's only 30 minutes long. Right. Um, does that mean it's worth it? But I, I think about it in terms of like, I get a cup coffee, it costs me 10 bucks.
Right. And I drink that in five minutes.
[00:26:51] Lou Harry: And some people, you know, are very interested in replayability with games. You know, is it something where it's kind of one and done or you've got it after the, after you've played it two or three times, you sort of get it and okay, I'm done. But that could be enough.
[00:27:03] Michael Zarick: Yeah.
[00:27:03] Lou Harry: And there are other games where you keep learning more strategy. Oh wow. This nuance is in here and this is in here. And there's other, one of the other things that's. Big now is there are games that if a game becomes popular, there are expansions to it. There are. And sometimes the expansions add a really cool thing if you're kind of tired of the first, and sometimes it's like,
[00:27:22] Michael Zarick: eh, yeah,
[00:27:23] Lou Harry: why bother?
I'd rather, but actually
[00:27:24] Michael Zarick: Dominion. Dominion has like 30 expansions. Right, right.
[00:27:27] Lou Harry: I end up finally destroying my Dominion boxes. Just putting them all in know. File, file box.
[00:27:33] Michael Zarick: Yeah. Just like a magic set or something.
[00:27:34] Lou Harry: Yeah, something like that. Well, I'm not as, as obsessive as I am about keeping things neat and having them all perfect and whatever it's, I believe in, you know, making them playable.
But the people we talked about, um, you know, who might play 40 games a week and, you know, they tend to be people who, that is their number one hobby.
That is their hobby. That is the thing they do in their spare time. Um. I, I've probably played more board games than most people, but there are people who played, you know, to the 10th power more than I do because I get involved in other things as well. So, definitely.
[00:28:11] Michael Zarick: Um, you mentioned there was, you mentioned in your intro there was a, a thing you wanted to talk about in terms of stuff you're involved with.
Oh,
[00:28:18] Lou Harry: oh, you mentioned Indy reeds. Yes. I think that was it. Um, this, for God, how many years now? It has to like eight or nine years now. Uh, we started to jump putting on theater hat for a second.
[00:28:31] Michael Zarick: Sure.
[00:28:31] Lou Harry: Um, in the theater world, there are full play productions that happen out there. There also play readings.
Sometimes most of those that happen are about helping a playwright develop their work or get some feedback or maybe interest a director or whatever. We realized a local actor and I at the time, that there weren't any. There, there were very rarely an opportunity for an actor to choose what material they were going to do.
You're at the mercy of a casting director or an artistic director or producer or whoever. And so we created a play reading series where we, every month we pick a professional actor in town and just say, what's your bliss? What role would you love to do? It doesn't have to be something you'd be castable in.
[00:29:15] Michael Zarick: Yeah.
[00:29:16] Lou Harry: It could be the wrong age, it could be a different gender, it could be whatever.
[00:29:19] Michael Zarick: Yeah.
[00:29:19] Lou Harry: Whatever you want. It could be the play you've been burning to do since college. It could be whatever. The only step. And, uh, we said pick that play and let's read it. Um, you put together a cast. We, we read it at Indy Reads.
We bring people into the bookstore so people get a little idea of what Indy Reads is about. Um, they maybe donate books, maybe buy some books, but it's a free event with a play reading every week. We're now the second Wednesday of every month at Indy Reeds Bookstore at Fountain Square. Um, you get to hear terrific actors reading a play at their passion level.
We never announced what the play's gonna be. Yeah. That's the other thing. It's always a surprise. Do they practice or is it their, they're, it's up to them. Okay. Some rehearse it, some don't. Um, and we've done over a hundred play readings. That's dope. So if you are somebody who is interested at all in theater or just in entertainment, it's almost like watching the audience is interesting.
'cause sometimes I'm up there reading stage direction, you know, essential stage directions and it's, I, it, this was all before my time, but I feel like it's what it might've been like listening around the radio, you know, having stories told to you by terrific actors, but you putting it together in your mind.
Yeah. '
[00:30:27] Michael Zarick: cause they're not in costume. There's, they're not
[00:30:29] Lou Harry: in costume. There's no sets, there's no, um, none of that. They're right in front of you. And it's been, I I honestly will say some of the best theater experiences I've had, and I, I go to Broadway when possible. I see as much theater as I can here when I'm in another city, I go to see whatever the local regional theater is.
Um, some of the best theater experiences I've had have been at those readings. Um, and actors are hungry to do them. Because it's an opportunity for them to flex their muscles to try something different. Um, we've had, you know, all female versions of plays that were traditionally male. We've had people, you know, we've had, you know, actors in their twenties playing people in their eighties.
We've had, uh, a couple that were both actors that never really had a chance to work together, pick a two hand or play Yeah. To do together. Um, so that's been really exciting and that's something that it's community building in a different kind of way. Another theater project that I'm involved in, um, that's different than most, I mean, I love regular theater.
I love being able to go to a theater, sit down, get my program, watch a terrific play with set lighting, costume, and all that. But when another partner and I realized that. A lot of people because of the way the media market is, because you don't, you can't pick up Nouvo News Weekly anymore and see the listings of every concert and play that's going on.
[00:31:49] Michael Zarick: Yeah.
[00:31:49] Lou Harry: Uh, the Indianapolis Star no longer has for years, hasn't had listings or even reviews of what's happening. So even if you thought about maybe going to theater this weekend, you wouldn't know where to go, what to do. I have no clue. No clue. Exactly. Um, and even if you did find out, it might be like, well, is this more comedy?
Is this something that I would like? So with all that in mind, what we did was we thought there are organizations all over the city and, and groups that have a particular interest. Instead of asking them to come to a theater and take a chance on something, let's see what their interest is. Let's find a play that meets their interest and give them a reading or a full production on their turf.
So we partnered with different organizations. We, for instance, Indiana Landmarks, which has the Indiana Landmark Center building. There's a great play that was done at the Goodman Theater in Chicago, was done off Broadway with Peter Weller, you know, Robocop, um, as Frank Lloyd Wright, a play called Frank's Home.
Okay. We love that play. So we talked about the folks at Indiana Landmarks. We, we, you know, licensed the play, cast it with terrific actors because it was a reading, we could do it on, on a few rehearsals, so they were able to work for reasonable fee. We always pay our actors, but, you know, can't make a living in this town or very difficult.
But, so they were happy that they were paid for it and got a chance to do some meaty parts and we did a reading of it at the Indiana Landmark Center for an audience that was 80% architects and preservation people. And they loved it. Yeah. And we had a discussion afterwards about the issues in the play, but it wasn't like, here's an educational play.
It was, here's a play that could have been done in any professional theater in town. Um, one of the most recent projects we had was a full production of a play right across the street here is, they're right down the block into the Chatterbox Jazz Club. Mm-hmm. We've been wanting to do something there for a long time.
Yeah. There's a play called Sideman won the Tony Award for Best Play 25 years ago or some, you know, uh, whatever years ago, Edie Falco played it, it was in it on Broadway. Um, we rehearsed and did a full production off script, a full production of it in the Chatterbox Jazz Club. Yeah. The play, even when it was done in New York, even when it toured, it was never done with live musicians.
It's not a musical, but it's about the jazz world. And there was always recorded music in it. Mm-hmm. We got a live jazz trio. Yeah. Playing along with the show. I dunno if you've ever been in the Chatterbox. I have not. But it's on the list. It's on the list and it's, it's, you know, it's a shotgun of a place.
It's a narrow, it's not big, but we directed it for that location. Um, and we found, and we sold out two shows. They invited us back another time. We sold out two more, a couple months later. Um, wonderful partnership with David at the Chatterbox. We found out in, in talking to folks before, right before we started to play.
Half the people in that audience roughly were theater people who had never been in the Chatterbox or don't go to a jazz club. The other half were jazz heads who don't go to theater. Yes. That was like the ideal.
[00:34:45] Michael Zarick: Yes.
[00:34:46] Lou Harry: We've, we've done partnerships with the Indianapolis Symphony. We did one with Gallery 9 24 up there, A place.
We did a play in the art gallery. We did one with the Indiana History Center, a play about the Lincoln Douglas debates. Um, we're doing one this week, I'm not sure, or last week or two months ago, depending on when you're listening to this. But, um, next week in our time, uh, we're doing a play, um, uh, with the Indiana Land Trust Outdoors.
Uh, we're doing a play called Camping with Henry and Tom that is based on an actual camping trip that Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Warren Harding took together. And it's a play from about 20 years ago. Um, Alan Alder did a recording of it with Charles Durning at one point. Other folks have been in it. Um, and it's amazing how much it speaks to what's currently going on.
In politics right now. Sure. Um, and we're doing it for an audience of about 30 people outdoors.
[00:35:41] Michael Zarick: But you keep saying we by the way. Oh, okay. What is the name of the organization? Oh,
[00:35:44] Lou Harry: that's Sightlines Indy Sightlines Indy, and it's basically myself and, uh, another local, uh, artist here, um, John Thomas. Then we, we sort of throw everything under the banner of Two First Names Productions because of Lou Harry and John Thomas.
Um, but we do, we do that project, uh, we do a long form improv show called Going, Going, Gone, uh, which is set in an auction house that's very interactive with audience members. Yeah. We launched that at the Fringe Festival about 10 years ago and have done it periodically since then. We used to do it every month here.
Yeah. We just did it again at the festival. We do that for private parties and convention groups or whatever. So finding ways to, um, to connect to community in different ways is a big, a big thing for me. Definitely. Uh, you know, and having a full-time job on the side is, you know, necessary sometimes because in this market.
You know, breaking even is, is considered a win around here. Yes. And when it comes to the arts, unfortunately.
[00:36:40] Michael Zarick: Yeah. Um,
and then one, one last thing, I just want a quick blurb on it. 'cause you always mention it as your main job, right. But the society of
[00:36:51] Lou Harry: Society of Professional Journalists, um, a lot of people don't realize that National Office is here. Mm-hmm. Uh, SPJ does a lot of advocacy work on behalf of journalists. Um, as you know, we've been labeled the enemy of the people by certain people in Washington.
Mm-hmm. Um, there's a shrinkage. It's becoming more difficult for journalists to actually do their job, uh, which is essentially to seek out the truth and report it. Yeah. Um, we are big advocates for, um, we have the SPJ Code of Ethics. That's, uh, gospel for a lot of journalists around the country. Definitely.
My job is to edit, uh, Quill, which is SPJ's magazine and website. You can go to quill mag.com if you wanna check that out. Um, and then I also manage all of our national awards programs. So we have, uh, professional awards, our Sigma Delta Chi Awards, about 50 categories, uh, including three podcast categories, um, for journalists around the country and the world.
Um, and also for college students. We have our Mark of Excellence awards, which are, um, so I corral a couple hundred judges every year. Yeah. Uh, to go through a lot of stuff. And it is in a very challenging world right now for journalists and therefore for the public to get information. Um, it's empowering to see how much good work is actually done.
[00:38:06] Michael Zarick: Definitely. So, so that's, I'm sure the Wish TV stuff a couple weeks ago was very interesting for you. It's, we won't delve into it. There's an
[00:38:13] Lou Harry: endless parade of. Challenges, yes. Uh, for folks going into this, uh, into this profession locally and nationally.
[00:38:22] Michael Zarick: Did you know, oh, you said you never looked into me. So my wife works for Fox 59.
Oh, okay. She's a morning reporter. I
[00:38:28] Lou Harry: used to do a, so I hear it. Yeah. I used to do a morning report, um, on the arts when I was about 10 years I spent at the Indianapolis Business Journal. Uh, I had an every Thursday morning, uh, arts preview, uh, at Fox 59. Oh, really? So I always spent a lot of time in those, uh, in those offices, you know, in the halls.
It's always fun going in the hall and, you know, out from an interview comes famous Amos, or out comes, you know, uh, Margot Hemingway or you know, whoever, you know what I mean? It's a fun parade at those places. Mm-hmm.
[00:38:56] Michael Zarick: But, um, well, thank you for sharing. I, I was mostly just interested in, in what was going on there, but, um, I'm gonna ask you a really hard question.
[00:39:03] Lou Harry: Here we go.
[00:39:04] Michael Zarick: What is the importance of art? Because you are so, pa you've spoken so heavily about board games, which are an art. Stage acting, which is an art, and then journalism to an extent is an art of its own. Yeah.
[00:39:16] Lou Harry: Um,
to me, and I talk about, when I talk about playwriting and talk about, uh, uh, live theater and things like that, to me, the best work, the, the stuff that speaks to me the most is the, reminds me what it is to be a human being. Um, you know, why am I not that chair? You know? Um, and, and sometimes that's, um, challenging and sometimes it's distancing a little bit, but most of the time it really just pulls me in.
I want to, um, I think somebody who's raised in the arts, uh, and I, and I come from a pretty artless town, right? I made, had every opportunity, I mean, I took advantage of every opportunity to, I signed up for school clubs just so I could get on a field trip to New York, that kind of stuff. Um, but I think if you're exposed to the arts, you get used to being inside somebody else's head for a little while, or at least a part of it.
And that's gigantic steps toward empathy, which is something that's desperately needed right now. Um, and they're fun, you know. Um, I've had experiences where I've, you know, probably most of us have, have done this where you've watched a movie at home and it was okay, and then you saw maybe the same movie in a movie theater and you're laughing your ass off.
Yeah. And that's because you're around other people that, that moment in a full, you know, live theater production, knowing that you're seeing this show that's happening for the first and only time right now, um, there's a thrill to that. It reminds us what it is to be a human being. It it, it anchors you in the now, you know, but also as a, a rich sense of, of history.
You know, you could go as deep as you want. Into any of these art forms. You could just go to an art gallery and just have a reaction to something. Or you can go deeper and see where, what else that artist has done or what else has been done in that genre. Where does that style evolve from? It's an endless well of interesting stuff, but you can go in as deep as you want.
And it's the same thing with board games. And it's, you know, the same thing with in books. You know, you could be a completist of a certain, uh, writer or you can see who that influence. So I had a wonderful trip, uh, last year to Nashville in the, there's a, uh, African American musicians hall, uh, I dunno, hall of Fame Museum, whatever.
But there's a wonderful interactive piece there where you can pick any artist. Um, you pick, let's say you pick Jimi Hendrix, but when you click on him, yeah, you could download some songs right into your key, but you can also see who he influenced and who influenced him. And then you go to that person, you give a list and you find out who they influenced and who influenced them.
That interconnectivity of the arts is, is fascinating to me. They say
[00:42:09] Michael Zarick: there's no original ideas.
[00:42:10] Lou Harry: Yeah. There maybe there are, maybe there aren't remixes. But also, um, Stephen Sondheim in, in the musical Sunday in the park with George. It kind of concludes with, um, and I paraphrase it if I can remember it.
It's something like, uh, let it come from you. Then it will be new. And you realize as a, as a playwright, I realize this, that even if some ideas went into this strange Play-Doh fun factory of a brain we have, even if all our experiences go in there, comes out as something different, even if it shares similarities with, with other work.
Yeah. You know, so
[00:42:46] Michael Zarick: amazingly well put.
[00:42:47] Lou Harry: There we go.
[00:42:48] Michael Zarick: Uh, I have some set questions.
[00:42:52] Lou Harry: Oh, here we go.
[00:42:55] Michael Zarick: You said you know what a third space is. So, uh, re recurring question. What is a third space to you?
[00:43:06] Lou Harry: There are different definitions of it. I'm gonna give my personal one. Mm-hmm. My third space is not a physical one. It's when I am writing something and the characters have taken over. When I'm, when I feel like I don't know what's going to happen and characters are talking to each other, it, it sometimes takes a couple years in a piece to get to that point.
But I love when something happens that somehow came outta my fingertips that I wasn't expecting. Where it feels like, and I'm, I'm not a supernaturalist, I'm not into, you know, fate and this, and God's controlling, or some ghost or whatever. It's still me. Something's going on in brain. But when that happens, I feel like that, that to me, you know, may not fit the other definitions of third space.
But that's where I feel like, I mean, I, yeah. In that space. Um, I love that. Amazing. Yeah.
[00:44:04] Michael Zarick: Uh, I always am so impressed by my dungeon master the way he can step into the shoes of a character Uhhuh, because he doesn't know what we're gonna do. Most of the time. Right. So the way he reacts to what we do in character for whatever villain or ally we're dealing with, is like, it's, it's, it's mind blowing.
[00:44:21] Lou Harry: It's a form of improv. I mean, that's why I love working with improv performers here in Indy. Um, and there are a number of places where you can see good improv at Indy. When we do our going, going, gone show, it's always a cast of, uh, three or four improvises. Yeah. Doing and seeing what they're able to create in the moment, the reality they're able to create is, is pretty remarkable.
And that same thing with a good DD game. Um, that's what's happening. You know, you're suddenly in a world and you're making choices and you're, you're there and not there. Yeah. You know,
[00:44:51] Michael Zarick: I, people always, uh, people who are not into the DD when I tell them I play and they don't know what it is, right. I always just tell them it's a, it's a.
shared storytelling experience. Yes. That's, mm-hmm. Exactly. I mean that's all that it really is. out with people I like hanging out with.
[00:45:08] Lou Harry: Right. Stuff like
[00:45:08] Michael Zarick: that. So, next question,
[00:45:09] Lou Harry: Uhhuh
[00:45:10] Michael Zarick: very related. Okay. Um, and I'd like you to actually answer this more specifically 'cause you do know what the average third space is.
Um, what is a third space that has existed for you previously that no longer exists?
[00:45:32] Lou Harry: A number of my plays, I'm working the fifth one now, are set in the town. I grew up in Wildwood, New Jersey, and I haven't, I, you know, maybe every couple years I get back there to walk on the boardwalk to get some sand in my toes, to get the salt air a little bit. The town has evolved and changed Five mile Island, five miles by a.
But I, not every one of my plays is set there, but I go back there, uh, I get pulled back into there when I'm writing. And if that qual, does that qualify as a third space for me? Yeah. Um, I, I
[00:46:14] Michael Zarick: don't, I don't deal in, uh, gatekeeping. Gotcha, okay.
[00:46:17] Lou Harry: Okay. So, um, yeah, it's where my characters sometimes tend to grab, gravitate, either there or I have a vague sense of what I call the suburban Fort Wayne stories, and I've never been really to suburban Fort Wayne, but when I have sort of a middle America kind of play that's in a nondescript place,
[00:46:35] Michael Zarick: that's what you pictured.
I, I,
[00:46:37] Lou Harry: I say it's in suburban Fort Wayne. Um, the, uh, you know, when you're in a, not a significant city, but outside of, but not a major, major, you know. Um, but yeah, so, so that sort of Wildwood boardwalk in the fall. When most of the tourists are gone, but Sam's Pizza is still open.
[00:46:59] Michael Zarick: Amazing.
[00:46:59] Lou Harry: You know? Yeah. Um, that's the one connector through the, the five Wild Root plays, the four in the one four that have been produced and one that I'm writing now.
Uh, a, a local pizza place. Sam's Pizza's the only connecting thread it's mentioned in all of them. Uhhuh. Um, so yeah. Is
[00:47:16] Michael Zarick: the pizza any good?
[00:47:17] Lou Harry: Oh, yeah. It's terrific. How, it's terrific, but it's also kind of over romanticized, you know, I realize we tend to romanticize certain things in the same way. You know, Wawa has just moved into town here at a number of locations.
Yeah. The convenience. I love Wawa. Um, but I think we, you know, if somebody's from the East coast, they've romanticized it a little. This is a gas station. Much, no, it's, it's still better than that. Oh, come on. The gas station come. Oh, it's much better. The, the food's good. I'll take a, I'll take a cheese steak from there.
Over half the, you know, $15 cheese steaks at a restaurant. But we tend to romanticize the things we grew up with in the same way we romanticize the music that, you know. Oh, nobody makes movies like that. Or, you know, nobody's been as good as the original cast of Saturday Night Live or nobody, you know,
[00:47:58] Michael Zarick: we only remember the good stuff.
[00:47:59] Lou Harry: We remember the Yeah, we remember the greatest hits.
[00:48:01] Michael Zarick: Yes.
[00:48:02] Lou Harry: That's the thing, you know. Oh, this album isn't as good as his old stuff. Well, you're forgetting half the album, half the songs that were on his old stuff. Definitely Beatles acceptable.
[00:48:10] Michael Zarick: That's all good. Is that you're arguing or,
[00:48:12] Lou Harry: yeah, well most of it.
Yeah. Um, there aren't a whole lot of skip songs in there
[00:48:19] Michael Zarick: previous guests.
[00:48:20] Lou Harry: See now you've got the sound of riding a bicycle on the boardwalk in my head. You know, I'm going that sound. I'm going in my third space, so
[00:48:27] Michael Zarick: like shaky. Yeah. Yeah. I can't even, it sounds like train track almost. It's like a clacking. Yeah, it's really train track. Yeah. Anyway. No, that's beautiful.
Take me
[00:48:35] Lou Harry: back.
[00:48:36] Michael Zarick: Thank you for sharing.
[00:48:37] Lou Harry: Sure.
[00:48:38] Michael Zarick: Um, previous yes, on podcast, Uhhuh always ask a question on the next guest. Oh, very good preview.
Okay.
[00:48:43] Lou Harry: Okay.
[00:48:44] Michael Zarick: The Previous guests on the podcast were, um, Adam and Siren of Indy Type Shop. Okay. Down Garfield Park. Okay, so you actually get two questions. Oh, okay. Oh, from each one?
From
[00:48:53] Lou Harry: each, all right. Very nice.
[00:48:54] Michael Zarick: Um, what is an Indiana story?
[00:49:01] Lou Harry: I could tell you a specific, you know, I could tell you a specific Indiana stories, but what qualifies as an Indiana story? There's different ways of reading that question.
[00:49:09] Michael Zarick: It's however you like. I he was pretty open about it or pretty open with it intentionally. Okay. You could tell a story about Indiana.
[00:49:16] Lou Harry: Um,
[00:49:17] Michael Zarick: or
[00:49:18] Lou Harry: I will tell you my favorite book by an Indiana writer.
[00:49:23] Michael Zarick: What's that?
[00:49:23] Lou Harry: Does that qualify? Yeah, sure. It sort of answers the question, what's an Indiana story? I kinda wanna know
[00:49:27] Michael Zarick: a, a Lou Harry, Indiana story too, but Oh, okay. Tell, tell me the story.
[00:49:31] Lou Harry: Oh, uh, Walt Wangerin and Jr's book, uh, The Book of the Dun Cow and The Book of Sorrows was the follow up, uh, a sort of, um, if you think of like, like an animal farm kind of book, but with sort of religion instead of politics.
Amazing fa it won like natural book award back in like the seventies. Great. The first
[00:49:53] Michael Zarick: one, it'll be in the show notes,
[00:49:54] Lou Harry: but if people don't, if people don't know those two, you gotta read 'em both though. Uh, and they're, they're painful and beautiful and in their own sort of language. They sort of, but really readable.
And they're about animals on a farm. Uh, and sort of not to be confused with Animal Farm, not to be confused with Animal Farm and kind of an evil that's out there. And, um, there's loss in it and there's just beautiful writing and yeah. What do you call
[00:50:23] Michael Zarick: a trilogy of two?
[00:50:25] Lou Harry: Well,
the thing is there was a third book.
Oh, it was not
[00:50:28] Michael Zarick: very good. Trilogy minus one. Ditch The
[00:50:31] Lou Harry: Ditch The third book. Read the first two. Um, 'cause I think it was complete after two. Um, what's a Lou Harry's story?
[00:50:40] Michael Zarick: What's an Indiana
[00:50:41] Lou Harry: story? An Indiana story. Okay. Um, what you got for me? Oh, here we go. Um, we were. At Indianapolis monthly, years ago, um, one of the other writers was writing a piece about the, the movie theater business here in Indy.
Right. What chains we're in, what movie theaters, blah, blah, blah, how the distribution work, all that kind of stuff. It was gonna be the feature. Mm-hmm. And I volunteered to write the sidebars to the story. Those are like the, the other pieces, you know, the shorter pieces that get dropped in, they give you more entry points into a story.
They sort of stuff that doesn't fit in the main thing. And one of the things I decided to do was to test the theory. Um, you know, when you go into a movie theater and it says no outside food or beverage? Yeah. I wanted to test that theory. Sure. So back when Circle Center had its movie theater open, I went down, you know, on with a budget from the monthly, uh, um, and I took a big soda from the mall, clearly had marked an outside, you know, like a giant soda label on Yeah.
Like a giant, A Big Gulp Yeah, exactly. Like APAR was, whatever it was. I put it on the counter, ordered my popcorn, walked in with it. Nobody said anything. Second time I went in with a big bag of candy from outside the mall. Went to another movie. Like a big, yeah, nobody said anything. By the fourth time I went into the Circle Center movie there, by this time I'd almost run outta movies 'cause I did all these in like a 10 day stretch.
By this time it was like a John Claude Van Dam third tier, whatever. Sure. But I went in with a, because I could only carry it in a bed pan, a nine pound heavenly ham.
[00:52:15] Michael Zarick: I was gonna ask if you got to like steak or something
[00:52:17] Lou Harry: with a loaf of, with a large loaf of like a whole, you know, french bread and a nine pound open like the, you know, stuff with a wrap already pulled back.
Nobody said a word. That is one of my go-to Indiana stories that nobody cared. I know it doesn't say much about Indiana. It's not like I went corn shucking or anything like that. But it was one of crowning moments.
I
[00:52:42] Michael Zarick: wonder what I could do with the, Kan-Kan, I don't think they have the same sign I think
[00:52:46] Lou Harry: they would be a little tougher.
Oh, you think? I think they'd be a little tougher. And Alamo's. Alamo's probably a lot tougher too. I do. Uh, also in terms of social stuff, by the way, uh, first and third Sunday of the month, I host, uh, movie trivia at Alamo Draft House. That's right. We're having a good time with that.
[00:53:00] Michael Zarick: I forgot about that.
[00:53:01] Lou Harry: All original questions.
[00:53:02] Michael Zarick: Gimme a Oh, here's another, here's
[00:53:03] Lou Harry: another Indiana thing. Indiana thing, please. Um, we do a, uh, a fundraiser every year for a, a scholarship At Pike High School. I was very, in Indiana, I was able to meet and become friends with, close friends with three different Jeopardy champions. There are smart people for me, not, not all Jeopardy champions.
Anyone know? I'm sorry. People have been on Jeopardy. One of one of them was a Jeopardy champion, uh, Eric Berman, who used to be with, uh, WIBC. Great guy. Um, but yeah, three people have been on. So we were able to have like people play Jeopardy against three people who've been on Jeopardy. Now, if I were in Philly, I couldn't find three people who.
We're on jeopardy here. I can become friends with them. Yeah. You know, it's a, it's a, a town where things are possible. What's the other Indiana thing? The two programs I mentioned, Sightlines, Indy and, uh, Indy Actors Playground. Not only is the talent here to be able to do those things, but I could create them, you know, again, in, in partnership with folks.
But there's like no barriers. They're not big barriers to creating something if you're not concerned with actually making money. There are not big barriers to doing something creative. And there, and it's not, I'm not pretending it's just me. There are other people doing some really interesting, it's an amazing accessibility, you know, the fact that that, uh, BUTTER developed here, the art fair, the fact that, you know, all these things are happening, it's, it's pretty easy to make something happen again, much harder if you are struggling financially.
And I went through plenty of that in my past. Mm-hmm. Um. Uh, you know, certain things are easier if you're, you know, based on the color of your skin, based on how privilege works in this country, and that's a reality. Um, but things can be created here. And that's sort of my, my Indiana story, I guess, is right on being able to try to make stuff happen.
[00:54:51] Michael Zarick: Yeah. I love how accessible the artists are here. If I see something on Instagram or out in the Wild
and
I get the name of the artist. A lot of times I'll send 'em a message Instagram, say, I love your work. Yeah. And I get a response. So that's good.
[00:55:03] Lou Harry: That's very, very cool. Yeah. Should
[00:55:04] Michael Zarick: absolutely just reach, I mean, I think they love to hear it.
I don't, Did I cut you off from
[00:55:08] Lou Harry: another question?
[00:55:09] Michael Zarick: Oh, I was gonna Not really, I was gonna, I was gonna tell you to ask me a, a movie trivia question.
[00:55:14] Lou Harry: Oh boy. Um,
[00:55:16] Michael Zarick: I, I will, I want to test my knowledge.
[00:55:18] Lou Harry: I could fill out the whole list, but I didn't have, have 'em ready.
[00:55:21] Michael Zarick: Uh, that's okay. If you don't have one ready, we can move on. Uh Lou Harry, is anything else you wanna talk about? Pretty much done. You know,
[00:55:26] Lou Harry: I love talking about what's going on in the city. If, if, if you don't, um, I talked a lot about stuff that I'm involved in, but there's tons of other stuff.
If, you know, whenever possible it, it, as I said before, it's difficult sometimes to find out what's going on, but there is stuff going on. Absolutely. And it's worth getting out to have those experiences.
[00:55:46] Michael Zarick: Mm-hmm.
[00:55:46] Lou Harry: You
[00:55:46] Michael Zarick: You know,
there's an amazing level of opportunity here. Right. The most interesting question. I think a, a couple months ago when I was just getting started, I went to Reddit.
I was thinking about like advertising, which I haven't done on Reddit, but there was a, someone who's like on the Indiana subreddit, they were like, what do you do in Indianapolis? And I felt so enlightened in that moment. Because I was like, you can do anything. It's just, you just have to know what you want.
[00:56:13] Lou Harry: Even when, when I was, when I did my 10 years as arts editor at the IBJ. Mm-hmm. My job, part of my job was to get out and experience stuff. And I could tell you even when it was my job, there was more stuff to do than I had time to do. That's how I feel right now. So there are, there are opportunities out there just about any weekend, even any time during the week to get out and do something.
It's up to you to find out what fits into your life. A lot of it is free or low cost. Um, there are opportunities, you know, if you want to, you know, ask a theater about whether you can volunteer to usher, um, find out what, you know. There are tons of volunteer opportunities. The Heartland Film Festival has volunteers who screen movies all year long to decide what's gonna go in the festival and then has gatherings to, to discuss those.
Mm-hmm. Cool thing if you're into, you know, if you wanna see a lot of movies, there are, on the sports front, there are plenty of, uh, of leagues that you can get involved in. Anything, you know, from dodge ball to. You know,
[00:57:14] Michael Zarick: uh, what else do people play?
[00:57:15] Lou Harry: What else do people play? That's right. Um, pickleball, they're all playing pickle. All the kids today playing pickleball. Um,
[00:57:22] Michael Zarick: dodgeball and pickleball. The two most important sports. There's all
[00:57:24] Lou Harry: that stuff to do. People don't realize that if you're, if you're a resident of, I think it's just the county might be beyond, um, you can sign up for free for pacer bike share. Oh. You know, so when I'm, you know, if I have to get from one end of Mass Avenue to another boom, I pick out a bike, take a ride.
But otherwise you can cruise around. Definitely walk, you know, I was among those who weren't happy at all when the art museum went to, went from free to, uh, paid admission. I was pretty vocal about my concerns there. Uh, and with other matters that happened at the IMA. But the a hundred Acre Art and Nature Park is still free.
Take a walk around the reservoir.
[00:57:59] Michael Zarick: Yeah.
[00:58:00] Lou Harry: You know, um,
[00:58:00] Michael Zarick: a common, a common, uh, thing people mention on this podcast. Oh, do I, I, I like it up there. I love
[00:58:05] Lou Harry: it up there. Be able to take, you know, take a comfortable walk through. Um, Garfield Park. There are people who were, you know, live north of Market Street who've never been to Garfield Park.
You know,
[00:58:16] Michael Zarick: it's,
I especially on the weekend. It's actually mentioned from the last guest actually. Oh really? The farmer's market. It's just, yeah. Incredible.
[00:58:23] Lou Harry: And, and that's, it is easy for a body at rest to stay at rest, and I hear variations of this in plenty of other towns, but, you know, there are people on the south side of India who think that anything north of 86th Street is in, you know, Milwaukee.
You know, and there are people like, it's, and there are people on the north side who feel like anything south of, you know, south of Market Street is in Kentucky, and that's not the case. There are, you know, you could, it's not really a city of, um, of like shopping neighborhoods, but there are interesting places to hit in, you know, take a walk in Irvington someday,
you know,
[00:59:00] Michael Zarick: especially in October
[00:59:02] Lou Harry: there.
Oh,
[00:59:02] Michael Zarick: Because, oh, I've been told I haven't, I've only lived here since last October, so I haven't seen it. Oh boy. But I've heard. Yeah, Irvington is the Halloween town.
[00:59:10] Lou Harry: Irving.
It's Halloween Central. It's an
[00:59:13] Michael Zarick: so I'm excited.
Um, Lou Harry, thank you for joining me. Would you mind asking a question of the next third Space Indy guest?
[00:59:24] Lou Harry: Uh, hello. Next Third Space Indy guest. Tell me your third favorite thing about Indianapolis. Third favorite. Your third favorite thing. It's always hard. Not your favorite, not your next. I wanna know your third favorite thing.
[00:59:39] Michael Zarick: Excellent. Yeah. Thank you for asking Lou. Harry, thank you for me. Can you let the people know where they can find you?
I've heard that there's quite a few.
[00:59:48] Lou Harry: Um, I'm, I'm not the greatest at keeping track on social media, but you can look at louharry.com. That's an easy one. Mm-hmm. Um, and I try to update things there. You'll also find game reviews, theater reviews, uh, and some other stuff on that, that I kind of feed that site when I don't have another market, another place to.
To park it. Um, you can go to Facebook at Lou Harry, writer, et cetera. Um, I do have a separate Facebook page for people I've actually met, but, uh, for those I don't, I still welcome you to come in, check out Lou Harry, writer, et cetera. And those are probably the main ones. I could give you a dozen other places, but yeah, yeah.
Look up travel stories at Indianapolis Monthly. I do a lot of those. Midwest Film Journal for movie, uh, for movie pieces. Okay. I'll ask you your movie question.
[01:00:30] Michael Zarick: Yes.
[01:00:30] Lou Harry: Um, John Cazale probably had the greatest career of any actor ever. Unfortunately. He died young. He made four movies, all of them masterpieces. How many of them can you name?
[01:00:41] Michael Zarick: John Cazale? John
[01:00:42] Lou Harry: Cazale, CA. He's an actor. CALE? Yes. Can you name any of them?
[01:00:49] Michael Zarick: Well, you said four masterpieces.
[01:00:50] Lou Harry: He made four masterpieces all within like a four year period.
[01:00:53] Michael Zarick: Can you gimme a year
[01:00:55] Lou Harry: in the seventies?
[01:00:56] Michael Zarick: Oh, definitely not.
[01:00:57] Lou Harry: No,
[01:00:57] Michael Zarick: no. Gimme four
[01:00:58] Lou Harry: Godfather.
[01:00:59] Michael Zarick: I was gonna say Godfather Fredo
[01:01:00] Lou Harry: in the Godfather, godfather.
two.
The Conversation and Dog Day Afternoon.
[01:01:05] Michael Zarick: Okay. I was gonna say Godfather. No. When you mentioned, especially a guy with an Italian last name right now, I was like,
[01:01:11] Lou Harry: I mean, James Dean was kind of three for three, but Ali had four for four. Andy dated Mery Streeps. So if you
[01:01:18] Michael Zarick: ask that in the, in the trivia night, is that four separate points?
[01:01:22] Lou Harry: It depends. Sometimes I'll do that. I try the, we're getting off the rails. We've been mod No, it's cool. We've been modifying, there's, there's a philosophy behind trivia nights too. I'm a big believer in people. I want people to have a good time and I want people to be challenged Uhhuh. So my form, roughly formula, you don't have to tell this to people, but I'm telling you, um, if there's eight questions in a round, maybe, maybe two gimmes, maybe three guessable, three or four guessable, like I'm giving you a multiple choice So I'm giving you put these in order kind of thing.
Yeah. And then a couple that are more challenging.
[01:01:56] Michael Zarick: Okay. I think what, what level is that? That's the more challenging, or is that today
[01:01:59] Lou Harry: if it was name all four, it'd be more challenging. Okay. If it were one point each, it would be in that middle zone. But I'll do things like, uh, did a category, uh, last December.
Um, I gave a title and you had to tell me if it was or was not a Hallmark holiday film. That's pretty fun. So there's a kind of coin, you know, you can coin flip if you want Yeah,
[01:02:19] Michael Zarick: yeah. Um, he told you where to find 'em. also remember board games on Tuesdays. That's right. At the garage. Game
[01:02:27] Lou Harry: night.
Social at the garage. Six to nine o'clock every Tuesday. Second in fourth Thursday. Oh, no, no, that's wrong. That's, I'm sorry. Start that again. Every Thursday. No, not stop it, Lou. Every Tuesday. Every Tuesday. You got me all confused. At the garage. Every Tuesday at the garage of game night, social, first and third, Sunday of the month.
Movie trivia at Alamo Drafthouse,
[01:02:48] Michael Zarick: and then sometimes with
[01:02:50] Lou Harry: other stuff.
[01:02:50] Michael Zarick: What's the, what's the play thing?
[01:02:52] Lou Harry: Oh, um. Indy Actors playground every second Wednesday of the month,
[01:02:58] Michael Zarick: second Wednesday at Indy Reads
[01:02:59] Lou Harry: at Indy Reeds, and in Sightlines. Whenever we find a partnership, if you are part of an organization that might want to us to bring a sightlines play to you,
[01:03:08] Michael Zarick: that's what I wanted to hear.
[01:03:09] Lou Harry: Um, we will, let's talk. There's some cost involved 'cause we have to get the rights to the play, play, pay the actors and everything else. But you'd be surprised it have probably cheaper than if you brought in a band
[01:03:19] Michael Zarick: Absolutely. or position.
[01:03:20] Lou Harry: Yeah.
[01:03:20] Michael Zarick: Alright, I'm glad we got there and I'm glad you gave it a shout out to the last one because that one sounds sick.
I really want to go to one. Uh, thank you so much for listening to Third Space Indy. My name's Michael Zarick.
[01:03:31] Lou Harry: My name's Lou Harry.
[01:03:32] Michael Zarick: Your name is Lou Harry. You could find Third Indy. You could find Third Space Indy on Instagram at Third Space Indy. You can also go to thirdspaceindy.com, where I release a blog every Monday with the release of the episode.
It's pretty long. Gimme your email and I'll send it to you. Third Space Indy's. Intro music is done by. Local artist, Jennasen, thank you so much Jenison, for sharing your music with me and the people. Uh, this is the last Unsponsored episode of Third Space Indy. Next episode we'll have a sponsor. It's a light sponsor and it's someone I agree with, so that's what we like to hear.
That's
helpful.
Thank you Lou Harry, for coming on. Have a great rest of the day. See you in the next one.
[01:04:09] Lou Harry: My pleasure.