The Show for April 27, 2026: Revitalizing old canals, new Phoenix Symphony director and more

SRP is revitalizing old irrigation canals in south Phoenix. Could that help cool the hottest parts of town? Plus, meet the Phoenix Symphony’s new music director.

Transcript

LAUREN GILGER: Hi, I'm Lauren Gilger, co-host of "The Show," an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday, we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here's today's episode.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show here on KJZZ 91.5. I'm Mark Brodie.

LAUREN GILGER: And I'm Lauren Gilger. Coming up, an author argues we are losing our humanity by living in a digital world.

MARK BRODIE: And the Phoenix Symphony's new music director's vision for the orchestra. But first, legislative Republicans say they're ready to share their budget proposal publicly. That could happen later today, and that could mean two things. One, the plan could be on the governor's desk by the end of the week. And two, it could end the moratorium Gov. Hobbs implemented on lawmakers sending her bills. With me now to talk more about this, as he is every Monday during the legislative session, is Howie Fischer of Capitol Media Services. Good morning, Howie.

HOWARD FISCHER: Good morning. We're all out here praying for the end of the session, which should have ended according to their own schedule last week.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, that never happens, though. Come on. What do we know about what might be in this budget proposal?

HOWARD FISCHER: Well, what we mainly know is what's not in this budget proposal. For example, the governor balanced her $18.7 billion budget by a cap on income for families with vouchers. That's over $80 million. She had a tax on short-term rentals to pay for a program to provide some utility relief. She had a fee hike on certain kinds of sports betting. And she also was counting on sending back an extension of Prop 123 to voters. This is the one that creates about $300 million a year coming out of a state trust fund. It was approved in 2016, expired last year, and right now that $300 million is coming out of the general fund.

MARK BRODIE: Money for schools.

HOWARD FISCHER: None of that seems to be there.

MARK BRODIE: OK, so that stuff the governor wanted that won't be in there. Is it safe to assume there'll be stuff that is in there that the governor won't want?

HOWARD FISCHER: Well, this is hard to say because I think that they're looking at a quote-unquote "skinny budget." They're looking at something in the neighborhood of $17.8 billion, some $900 million less, which doesn't leave a lot of room for pork. I mean, even some of the Republican — and I use the term loosely — pork programs, for example, lane widenings and traffic signals and things like that, seem to have to be left on the table because you don't have the revenues. Now, the way they are balancing the budget are some across-the-board cuts for some agencies, somewhere in the neighborhood of 5%. You can save some money there. There is some money, some revenues coming in a little higher than they expected, although not as high as they were hoping for. They also are going to do fund sweeps, which is the legislative equivalent of "are there coins in this couch somewhere?" and they think that they can make something balance. Now, the tricky problem becomes certain things are going to have to be raised. K-12 education is formula-driven, so if you have more students plus inflation, you have to provide more state aid for them. You have a state prison system that's under a court order to fix the health care or end up with a federal receiver. I'm sure lawmakers are hoping to kick that can down the road. You also have the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System. While there are fewer people in there, the people who are left there have more acute conditions and so that's going to cost some more. So, you know, there's not a lot in there that I think the governor, you know, is going to say, "No, I don't want that." I think it kind of comes down to what new things that she wanted, what new programs that she wanted, are just not going to make it just because the money's not there unless you raise the revenues, which Republican lawmakers so far are unwilling to do.

MARK BRODIE: So Howie, what are folks at the Capitol saying in terms of whether this is — like, this is the budget, whether the governor might actually sign it, whether this is sort of a restarting point for negotiations? Like, where do we think they stand?

HOWARD FISCHER: Well, I don't see the governor signing this, assuming it reaches her by the end of the week. This isn't anything close to what she wants. But what it does do is restart negotiations. As you pointed out, they have been talking for a while and then she walked away in March and said, "You're not being serious, you're just telling me what you don't like about my plan." And when things didn't restart, about a week or so ago she said, "OK, we'll do it the hard way. Don't send me any bills because if you send me anything, anything at all, I will veto it." In fact, as they tried to test her and sent her three bills, and of course she vetoed them. They might have been veto bait in the first place. So this at least gets people talking again, number one. And number two, is it kind of eases up on the fact that we've got a bunch of bills that have just been sitting on the sidelines waiting for this moratorium to end and send them to her and, again, she'll sign some, she'll veto some. She has a veto ratio so far this year north of 40%, which if she's going at this rate, she's definitely going to beat her 174-bill veto record from last year.

MARK BRODIE: What are some of those bills, Howie? I know that you mentioned there's a bit of a pipeline, a logjam in that pipeline of bills that the Legislature has not been sending to the governor because they know that she'll veto it. It sounds like — and you've reported that — she's ready to end that moratorium. Like, what kinds of bills are we talking about that might be heading her way?

HOWARD FISCHER: Well, there are a lot of election bills, some of which are clearly not acceptable to her in terms of some additional ID and such. But for example, there's a measure that would propose some fraud requirements for ballots, like holographic foil or something like that, or what they call optically variable inks — you know, you see them sometimes on a check, you put your thumb on it and it changes color. You've got the whole issue of vaccines, where they want to say you cannot tell people that they can't go into a business or a government or can't be hired by a business or government if they're not vaccinated or perhaps if they're not wearing masks. You have the debate over Sharia law and religious law — probably veto bait in that one in the first place. But there are some things that the governor probably would support. For example, right now if you're a parent and you put your kids on TikTok and make a lot of money off of that, you can take it and, you know, buy a new Hummer or something like that. This says you have to put some of that money aside in a trust fund for the children. There are some other things that might pass muster. For example, the perennial fight over what flags homeowner associations can ban and what they can't. For example, your HOA can't say you cannot have a U.S. flag or a tribal flag or a state flag. They want to add to that Israeli flags. That's a harder one because there's a lot of politics involved, obviously, with that.

MARK BRODIE: All right, lots to keep our eye on as usual. HOWARD FISCHER with Capitol Media Services. Maybe happy budget week?

HOWARD FISCHER: Maybe, maybe, maybe, as my grandmother would say, “From your lips to God's ears.”

MARK BRODIE: The Trump administration has reclassified medical marijuana — moving it from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug.

That applies to marijuana that is either regulated under a state medical marijuana program or that is FDA approved. It does not apply to recreational marijuana.

Arizona voters approved medical marijuana in 2010. A decade later, voters approved the measure to allow for recreational marijuana.

Ann Torrez, executive director of the Arizona Dispensaries Association, joined The Show to talk about the potential impacts of the federal change.

MARK BRODIE: Ann, good morning.

ANN TORREZ: Good morning. Busy, busy time.

MARK BRODIE: It sure seems like that for you and your members. So what, like, how big of a deal is this? Or does this have the potential at least to be for your members?

ANN TORREZ: For the marijuana industry? This is a huge deal. This is a federal acknowledgment that marijuana is medicine. So if we just stand in that, that it's no longer considered in the same realm of heroin, it really opens up a ton of opportunities for the industry and for people who are interested in plant medicine.

It is a phenomenal and momentous time for marijuana across the country.

MARK BRODIE: Now, I know one of the issues that dispensaries have been struggling with for a long time is the issue of banking and whether or not they can essentially use banks and checks and credit cards and not have to do all their transactions in cash. How might this impact that?

ANN TORREZ: The rescheduling does not automatically impact banking. That'll still need to have some other oversight at the federal level. There is some state banking in Arizona for our program, which is very helpful. There is need for more banking, and I do think we'll see things unfold at the federal level to support this as well.

There's a lot of moving pieces to this. If you really think about what the rescheduling does, it touches so many different federal agencies that then will bleed through into the state programs. I would anticipate banking to be one that unfolds quickly but is not automatic with this rescheduling.

MARK BRODIE: OK, so what do you then, and maybe what to the dispensary owners are some of the biggest advantages or benefits of this change from a business perspective?

ANN TORREZ: First of all, the rescheduling for the medical marijuana program allows operators who participate in the medical program, which is most operators in the state of Arizona, to utilize standardized business deductions. Right now, their classification prohibits any of those deductions. And so the net effect of the medical marijuana is resources and tax outlay is 70 to 80 cents on the dollar.

So when that is changed, that it directly impacts how a business can reinvest in what they're doing, whether it be in research for better products and medicine for patients to, you know, perhaps looking at how to better support the employees in the system. Every dollar that comes back into the traditional marketplace because of this business change will really make a huge impact in the overall viability of medical marijuana in Arizona.

MARK BRODIE: I mean, I wonder though, if this might have had a bigger impact, you know, let's say seven or eight years ago, before recreational marijuana was legal here. Because we've seen that the numbers of residents here using, for example, medical marijuana cards has been declining since recreational marijuana is so readily available.

ANN TORREZ: That is correct. And it tends to be the case across the country. When an adult-use program launches, you'll see a depletion of the medical program. Arizona has maintained the medical program in a way that it's preserved the ability to grow it back out. So we think a lot of folks who used to have a medical marijuana card just stopped renewing it because they didn't necessarily see a full benefit of keeping their card.

This change, I would anticipate we'll see a lot of those folks going back into the medical program because there may be other opportunities still to be determined. But if you really think about marijuana as a medicine, will they have access to their traditional health insurance for coverage on this? Will doctors start looking at this as a medicine that they can talk about their patients with as opposed to only leaving it in the realm of like the naturopaths' conversation?

I think that you're going to see the medical programs here and across the country really skyrocket. So the answer to your question is yes, it would have been great to have this prior to adult use. But I do see that this will be a great benefit where we are right now.

MARK BRODIE: Well, I mean, it sounds like, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that right now the bigger benefit is to the dispensaries if customers are using a medical marijuana card. But that some of those changes that might come down the road might also increase benefits for medical marijuana cardholders to actually use those, as opposed to just getting it under the recreational adult use, correct?

ANN TORREZ: Correct. I think the more that we take the stigma off of marijuana across this country, the higher the likelihood is that people will want to try a plant-based medicine. So for even those who've never used marijuana, it might be something that they'd be more open to because it's not federally illegal anymore.

MARK BRODIE: When you talk about helping out with like, the tax burden for, you know, a typical dispensary in Arizona, how much money could we be talking about?

ANN TORREZ: That is a good question. I don't even want to guess.

MARK BRODIE: OK.

ANN TORREZ: But, but I think that you're going to just, you're, you're going to see a huge positive impact on their bottom line. The other part that's sort of unknown at this point is when that happens, everybody's books look better. So from an investment standpoint, we may see more influx of investment dollars coming in that are not so burdensome to the industry.

So right now, if I wanted to, you know, buy equipment, I can't get a traditional loan for that equipment, I might be taking high lending rates out in order to build out my business. Now, if now these loans can come in at a more reasonable rate, a more typical rate, you're going to see folks being able to invest more.

You're going to see traditional lenders perhaps come into the marketplace in a way that they haven't been able to.

MARK BRODIE: Interesting. All right, we'll have to leave it there. That is Ann Torrez, executive director of the Arizona Dispensaries Association. Thanks so much.

ANN TORREZ: Thank you. Have a great day.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning. It is The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I'm Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I'm Mark Brody. Coming up, the Phoenix Symphony is starting a new chapter this fall with a new lead conductor.

PAOLO BORTOLAMEOLLI: I am the first one that I acknowledge that I am nobody without an orchestra. I’m just like this disturbing guy with a stick, you know? I mean, so I owe everything to the musicians that are willing to play, you know, and I am trying to dance with them.

LAUREN GILGER: We'll hear from the Symphony's new music director.

But first, flood irrigation can really change the feel of a neighborhood here in the Valley of the Sun. If you've ever walked through an old Phoenix irrigated neighborhood in the summer, you can feel the difference. There are big old-growth trees, lots of shade, there's grass. It is easy to tell it's cooler. But there are a lot of underserved neighborhoods in South Phoenix and other parts of town where the old canals that deliver that irrigated water need to be repaired. Enter SRP's new program, the Community Irrigation Revitalization Initiative, or CIRI. Here, SRP is making investments in historically disadvantaged neighborhoods that have flood irrigation systems that are aging and in need of significant repair so water can flow, grass can grow, trees can develop deep roots, and it has the potential to really transform neighborhoods. They started with a pilot program in one South Phoenix neighborhood, but much more is planned. I spoke with Elvy Barton, SRP's senior manager of water and forest sustainability, more about it and the agricultural history of the Valley, where it all began.

ELVY BARTON: SRP was really founded in the late 1800s on the agricultural community, and as the Phoenix metropolitan area began to develop and change over time between the 1920s and the 1970s, a lot of these agricultural areas really urbanized. And along came with that was these neighborhood flood irrigation systems. So instead of flooding agricultural fields —

LAUREN GILGER: Your fields. Yeah.

ELVY BARTON: You were now irrigating people's front and back yards. And so it's really kind of a unique system.

LAUREN GILGER: It's very Phoenix. I didn't know that's where it came from. I love that. And there was a lot of farming in especially South Phoenix, but all over the Valley really. So that's a little of this, you know, Phoenix history of these. Talk about how it works today. Like, it's sort of an odd system. I'm not in one of these neighborhoods, but I'm near one of them and I have some friends who live on these irrigated lots. There's somebody who comes by, turns a very old-looking valve. Zanjeros, right?

ELVY BARTON: Yeah, absolutely. So Salt River Project, SRP, manages seven reservoirs and dams across three watersheds, and the water that comes from those reservoirs and dams then filters its way down a series of canals that snake their way through the Valley. And then the SRP delivers what we call to the high corner of a neighborhood. And then from there, this has really become the responsibility of the neighborhood to really manage and to maintain those private flood irrigation systems in the neighborhoods. And so you traditionally will see those canals winding their way through the Phoenix metropolitan area, but they also continue into the neighborhoods, which is really —

LAUREN GILGER: Under the streets usually, yeah.

ELVY BARTON: Yeah, sometimes they're piped, sometimes they're open ditches. And so there's a lot of opportunity to really make these systems more efficient and work better for these neighborhoods.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, and that's what you're doing with this project here and in specific parts of town. Like when I think of flood irrigated districts, I think of, you know, if you look at an overhead map of Phoenix and you see where all the greenery is, it's in those areas, and usually like along Central Avenue north of downtown, or you know, in those kind of older parts of central Phoenix where you — it might be cooler there. They're going to have big old-growth trees that you can't get in lots of other parts of the city. Are you looking at kind of making those quality-of-life improvements to some of these other areas?

ELVY BARTON: So you're really speaking to the wonderful benefits related to these flood irrigated neighborhoods, where you're allowing for water to — it's actually watering less frequently than you would in some of the areas that don't have flood irrigation. So we only deliver water once a month during the cooler months and twice a month during the hotter months. And what that does is it allows for water to, like, for two to three inches to soak over the land and then just really slowly seep in. And that creates an opportunity for larger and deeper root systems so that vegetation can be more resilient to heat and drought. But it also allows and supports larger vegetation and greener spaces for communities and for neighborhoods. And so it talks about to getting to cooler temperatures, reducing urban heat island effect, and creating drought resiliency for vegetation, which is really going to be key and really very much important for the Phoenix metropolitan area.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. And you answered one of the, I think, probably common criticisms of this right there, which is that they're using too much water, right? But this is not the case — it uses less.

ELVY BARTON: It actually does and it's actually a really efficient mechanism to use water because it's going to be staying on that landscape and being really soaking in, creating deeper root systems.

LAUREN GILGER: So let's talk about the impacts this could have in other parts of the city. Like we're at a moment when Phoenix is just getting hotter all the time because of climate change, urban heat island effect, all these kind of big forces, right? Is this something that you think could try to fight some of those things going into a hotter future?

ELVY BARTON: Absolutely. So right now we're really focused on a neighborhood in the South Phoenix neighborhood, but we really do see the need all across the SRP water service territory where there is a lot of aging infrastructure that could be updated, be more efficient, create water conservation benefits, and really enhance these green spaces, which is really going to help us in the long term keeping our neighborhoods and our population cooler.

LAUREN GILGER: So how much water do you think we can conserve here?

ELVY BARTON: It really will depend on each of the projects, but for example, the project that we're doing in South Phoenix, we've estimated that it's going to save almost 76 million gallons of water over the next five years. And so that's a really important thing not only for the community because that's a cost-saving measure for them, but it also is really important to SRP because we have a community water conservation goal to help conserve 5 billion gallons by 2035.

LAUREN GILGER: And I mean, that's going to be maybe a drop in the bucket, but more important nonetheless as we go forward looking at these Colorado River negotiations, looking at a drier future. I mean, I guess every little drop counts at some point.

ELVY BARTON: Absolutely. And the wonderful thing about making all these drops count is that they become exponential, so they build on top of each other. And I think that's really the beauty about conservation in kind of this environment.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. One thing that comes to mind here when you're talking about these greener neighborhoods, old growth, you know, grass and lawns for these irrigated lots, things like that — I mean, do some people argue that we just shouldn't do that at all? We should accept that we live in this desert city and, you know, xeriscape and do, you know, desert-growth trees, palo verdes, things that don't take very much water?

ELVY BARTON: Yeah, and we absolutely should be investing in desert-adapted landscapes as well, because that's going to be really important too. But the fact is is that trees and shade are actually going to reduce the temperatures, which actually reduces water demand, it reduces electricity demand, and it's more affordable for our customers. So if there's an opportunity to invest in shade and landscapes like that, it's really important for long-term resilience.

LAUREN GILGER: Ripple effect, no pun intended. OK. So what's next here? This is just a very first phase of a pilot program, right?

ELVY BARTON: Absolutely. We think that there is so much need across the landscape here in the SRP water service territory that we really want to expand this. We see needs with schools that have lost access to irrigation, community gardens. And so there's a lot of opportunities to work with a wide range of different types of partners in different types of neighborhoods that really could see the great benefits of long-term infrastructure and long-term resilience.

LAUREN GILGER: So maybe more to come. All right, we'll leave it there. Elvy Barton, senior manager of water and forest sustainability with SRP joining us. Elvy, thank you so much for coming in. Appreciate it.

ELVY BARTON: Thank you. I had a wonderful time.

MARK BRODIE: As deportations continue under the Trump administration, many longtime residents of the U.S. and of Arizona find themselves adjusting to a new life. For some people, that means learning to live in a faraway country. But for others, that new life is just on the other side of the border in Mexico. From the Fronteras Desk, KJZZ's Nina Kravinsky reports from Nogales, Sonora.

NINA KRAVINSKY: In the cafeteria of the Kino Border Initiative migrant shelter, Jose Angel Mireles describes his morning routine.

JOSE ANGEL MIRELES: (Translated from Spanish) The men in his dorm wake up at 6:30, drink coffee, have breakfast. Some go out to find work. Others take advantage of workshops or services at the shelter. All of his bunkmates, he says, have recently come from the United States. We're about three hours south of Phoenix, Mireles's home for the past 18 years. After being deported just a few weeks ago, the 48-year-old is trying to figure out what life will look like back in his native Mexico.

JOSE ANGEL MIRELES: (Translated from Spanish) I'm here fighting, facing each new day. Mireles says ICE detained him at a courthouse after he was served with a fine for driving a car with stolen plates, a car he says belonged to his boss. Despite no history of violent crime, he spent the next two months in the ICE detention center in Florence, Arizona. It was crowded and dirty, he says. Other detainees were sick, and he saw people sleep on the floor without blankets. Eventually, he and a van full of other deportees were shackled on both their wrists and ankles — ICE’s protocol for deportations — and taken to the border.

JOSE ANGEL MIRELES: (Translated from Spanish) They treated us like we were some animals. Their plan is to mentally exhaust us so we don't come back. Now Mireles is separated by nearly 200 miles and a border wall from his 11-year-old daughter in Phoenix.

JOSE ANGEL MIRELES: (Translated from Spanish) Honestly, I don't really like Nogales. But since it's close enough for my daughter to visit, I'm going to stay here. His daughter, Sophia Nicole, came to see him at the shelter just a few days before we talked.

JOSE ANGEL MIRELES: (Translated from Spanish) There were tears, but she's strong. The plan is for her mother to bring her to visit every two months. According to the Deportation Data Project, interior arrests, which can happen far from the border to longtime U.S. residents like Mireles, increased fivefold during the first year of President Trump’s second term.

ADAM ISACSON: The people coming back now are people who very often have spent many years in the United States. Even, you know, big portions of their lives in the United States. Adam Isacson is with the Washington Office on Latin America. Deportation numbers have dipped somewhat in the past few months as the Department of Homeland Security goes through a change in leadership. Its once high-profile presence in some U.S. cities like Minneapolis is also waning. They are really giving people with whistles and cellphone cameras a lot less to record lately. But Isacson says that doesn't necessarily mean immigration enforcement will continue to diminish. It means there's a pause, but it could be the kind of pause that leads to a much bigger acceleration and more capacity soon. More funding for ICE from Republicans' 2025 "One Big Beautiful Bill" will keep coming online, and Isacson says future increased immigration enforcement could take shape more subtly in the form of bureaucratic hurdles. This shift is moving toward a lot of small like "death by a thousand cuts" bureaucratic changes to try to get people to just self-deport. Back in Nogales, Sonora, Mireles is grieving his life in Phoenix, where he worked in construction.

JOSE ANGEL MIRELES: (Translated from Spanish) My life was beautiful. I worked, I earned money. I could help my family in Mexico and pay my expenses. In Nogales, the hard labor he can find, like pouring concrete, doesn't pay as much, even though life this close to the border is still much more expensive than in other parts of Mexico. There is one silver lining to being back in Mexico, Mireles says. He can go back to his home city of Torreon and visit his mom, who he hasn't seen in 18 years. The thought of seeing her softened the blow of being locked up for two months in ICE detention. When we talked, he was planning a trip to visit her. After, he plans to come back here to Nogales, a city that straddles the border to be close to his daughter. For now, his life is split in three: his family in Torreon, his daughter in Phoenix, and him, just over the border in Nogales, Sonora.

JOSE ANGEL MIRELES: (Translated from Spanish) It's like a life between places. That's a hard thing. Nina Kravinsky, KJZZ News, Nogales, Sonora.

LAUREN GILGER: If you spend a lot of time online, it can start to seem like we are all starring in our own TV shows, like we're all characters in some ironic drama. But that's hurting our ability to relate to one another IRL, as we say, in real life. That's according to our next guest, Megan Garber. In her new book, "Screen People," out this week, she argues we have entertained ourselves into a state of emergency. In fact, that's the subtitle of the book. And it starts right here in Arizona with a few escaped llamas back in 2015.

NEWS ANCHOR 1: All right, we have some breaking news to report. Now, we are reporting that there are some llamas loose in Sun City, Arizona. You can see two of them there.

NEWS ANCHOR 2: I would like to add one more "L" to that: "llamas loose" and a man with a lasso, yeah, trying to grab them.

NEWS ANCHOR 1: Yeah, because that's how you do it in Arizona, right?

LAUREN GILGER: I spoke with her more about the book, the dark side of the internet, and those llamas.

MEGAN GARBER: It to me was such a pivotal moment in cultural history of the internet. Really, it was so fun, it was so random. These two llamas having broken away from their handlers, you know, they — they felt almost epic. And they were just kind of causing chaos in the streets, and you could sort of see it from above because of course news helicopters covered it. You could see traffic kind of parting for them. It just had these absurd but also epic overtones that really fit what the internet I think is all about and what I loved especially about it was there was something so pure. There was something so delightful about it. The llamas themselves were never really in danger. There was, you know, the stakes were in the end so very low that it was just kind of this perfect meme, this perfect kind of collective experience. You didn't need any background information to follow it. It was just kind of purely what it was. And the memes were wonderful, the jokes were wonderful. It was such a moment of people coming together on the internet to just be delighted and to have fun.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, yeah. And that feels very nostalgic now, a decade later, right? Because the internet does not feel like that kind of place anymore, which is sort of your premise here, right?

MEGAN GARBER: It really doesn't. And I — I don't love the premise in the sense that I came to it very slowly and a little bit regretfully because I was one of the people who, when the internet was new, I was a young reporter covering it and everything felt so full of possibility. I felt myself so optimistic about it, you know, "this is a town square, this is democratization, this is people having their voice." And in a lot of ways, some of that has happened. But a lot of the negative stuff has happened too, and that's what the book focuses on. And I think, you know, just like even the words people use to describe the internet, you know, "hellsite" and — we talk about our broken brains and doomscrolling and lol-sobbing and, you know, just even the language that we tend to default to when we talk about the internet is so kind of inherently negative at this point. So I think there's a general sense that something has gone awry. But I would also say it doesn't take away from the fact that the good stuff on the internet is still there. It's just perhaps we have to look a little bit harder than we used to to find it.

LAUREN GILGER: It doesn't — it doesn't capture all of our attention in the same way as it used to, I think. So — so let's talk about some of the — the downsides, the — the heavy parts of the internet today because it does feel like it's talked about in an incredibly negative way all the time, at the same time as we all spend an inordinate amount of time on it, right? Like, that's kind of a paradox here, it feels like, and maybe one it feels like we almost cannot escape.

MEGAN GARBER: Yes. I think, you know, speaking of language, so often we talk about our relationship with the internet in terms of addiction, right? You know, this thing that we sort of can't escape, that we're there even though on some level we don't want to be. And — and that was actually one of the animating ideas of the book because, you know, it is a little bit strange that there would be such a broad consensus that something is wrong, that this is a bad place in some kind of fundamental, basic way, and yet here we all are voluntarily in that place. Um, you know, and whether it's addiction, whether it's something else, you know, the fact remains, there we all are.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, there we all are. And so you talk about in the book the addiction part of it in a way in which we're all living in — in two realities, right? Like, we live in our real lives, but our real lives are also sort of pretended online. We're — you say we're both actors and audiences, producers and consumers, right? Like, how do you think that impacts us to think of our lives and ourselves as entertainment?

MEGAN GARBER: Uh, it — it impacts us so much. And I think what can happen when you get conditioned to see yourself as an actor, as a form of entertainment, as a spectator of other people who are providing their entertainment, I mean, what happens is things get dehumanized. That we — we have trouble sort of seeing each other as full people when we are mediated through the screens of the internet and, you know, again with language, we talk about for example main characters, main character energy, um, you know, people being canceled, people having plot arcs, um, people having brand identities, all these things. And I think the language is kind of a symptom of this — the fact that we don't quite know what we are on the internet. We don't quite know how to see each other and therefore how to treat each other. And I think that explains a lot of the — the cruelty that can happen and a lot of the — the kind of ironic distancing that can be so much a part of the internet discourse.

LAUREN GILGER: It's like our — our value system has been upended. So where does that hit home for people? Where does that end up going offline and affecting people's real lives and, you know, real humanity?

MEGAN GARBER: I think it becomes just harder and harder to interact actually as people IRL, in real life. You know, if people are characters rather than full people, if they are actors in a show and kind of there for our entertainment, it really does become harder and harder to have normal and like human, I would say, interactions. Um, it can be a little bit harder to even just have grace for mistakes. And I think over time what can happen is in-person interaction, even in the physical world, even when screens and the internet are not technically involved, that kind of interaction can feel vulnerable. It can feel like it is meant to be a performance and therefore perfect and therefore, you know, polished and therefore, a good show and everyone must live up to these expectations. And then when you don't, because of course you're not going to because real life is not a performance, um, it can feel like a disappointment.

LAUREN GILGER: So how do we get out of this, Megan? Is there an answer there? I know that this seems like a — an inescapable reality for us all, especially as we watch artificial intelligence sort of start to take over everything as well. Do — do you see a light at the end of this tunnel? Do you see a way that we can exist in these worlds and also be really human?

MEGAN GARBER: I do, actually. You know, in my research, one of the things that I kept finding and kept thinking about and being a little bit obsessed by, actually, was the idea of cynicism. The idea that like cynicism itself when it sets into people's mindsets and into a society as a collective, that itself can be so powerfully destructive. Um, so many scholars of propaganda talk about cynicism as kind of the core thing that goes wrong, um, when societies kind of break apart. And I think if we can fight cynicism, if we can fight this, you know, tendency for ironic distance, if we can fight the impulse to dismiss each other as characters in a show, to see each other's actions as performances, as performative as the — the language goes. I think if we can try to resist that as individuals, that is a really big starting place because that alone will keep us, um, a little bit inoculated from the forces of cynicism and that will then allow us to act as more of a collective and as more of a — yeah, as more of a powerful whole.

LAUREN GILGER: A powerful whole. I like that. A good place to end it. That is Megan Garber, staff writer for The Atlantic, author of the new book "Screen People: How We Entertained Ourselves into a State of Emergency." She also co-hosts the podcast "How to Know What's Real." Megan, thank you so much for coming on. Congratulations on the book.

MEGAN GARBER: Thank you so much.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning. It is The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I'm Mark Brodie.

LAUREN GILGER: And I'm Lauren Gilger.

As the Phoenix Symphony is starting a new chapter this fall with a new lead conductor. Paolo Bortolameolli will become the Symphony's 12th music director. He takes over for Tito Muñoz, who left in 2024 after a decade leading the orchestra. Bortolameolli has worked with the Phoenix Symphony before, as well as those in his native Chile and elsewhere. I spoke with him earlier and asked what appeals to him about this job.

PAOLO BORTOLAMEOLLI: That's a good question, but you know my honest answer is that I clicked with this orchestra from the very beginning. I felt at home two years ago when I came for the very first time and we did our first program together. Something happened in the very first rehearsal that felt correct and felt good. So when I came for the second time to open the season, obviously I knew that I was part of a search, obviously. But I never felt the pressure but actually just the enjoyment of reconnecting with this group of remarkable musicians and such warmth as a group.

LAUREN GILGER: How would you describe your artistic vision?

PAOLO BORTOLAMEOLLI: I am very, how to say, like interested in connecting with the audiences in a — engaging level. What does it mean? I am really enthusiastic about music, I'm really passionate about it, so I always want to kind of like connect through my own enthusiasm, you know what I mean? I — I think you can bring that enthusiasm of the joy of the music making. So one of my first goal always is — is trying to to get to the audience in that energetic level. Also try to make them feel that we are part of the same — the same experience, you know? This is a — this is a collective experience. Being — being in a concert hall, it's always drives me to the image that we are kind of like a big tribe sitting around a fire, you know? That music, performing art, it's like this fire that we are contemplating. And — I never like the idea that the people that are on stage is separated from the people that are in the audience, you know? We are just part of this making something together in the here, in the now. And the other thing that I — I really enjoy in — in my looking for a purpose of what we do is that I think we can impact lives from very little and in how we can cultivate new audiences by a very honest connection with their souls, with their minds, with their imagination.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so how do you try to, as a conductor, as a music director, try to get your level of enthusiasm to the audience? I mean, you mentioned you see the concert halls — everybody, you know, big tribe sitting around a fire. I would imagine one of your jobs is to make it so the tribe is bigger and there are more people sitting around that fire in the concert hall, right?

PAOLO BORTOLAMEOLLI: Yeah, we hope, we hope in every concert. I don't know, I don't try hard. I think it comes with me, you know? I — I really enjoy what I do so I — I think that enthusiasm kind of like projects itself. But at the same time, I — I always feel so lucky because I am the first one that I acknowledge that I am nobody without an orchestra. I’m just like this disturbing guy with a stick, you know? I mean, who is this guy? I am not producing any sound, so I owe everything to the musicians that are willing to play, you know, and I am trying to dance with them. That's the concept, you know? This is a dancing, this is a dancing between the musicians, you and well of course a composer through the music that is printed in a score.

MARK BRODIE: I'm curious about your programming philosophy in terms of, you know, playing the hits, playing the classics, getting, you know, contemporary composers on the program. How do you — how do you see that? How do you try to put your — put your season together?

PAOLO BORTOLAMEOLLI: Well, putting a season together is one of the most challenging aspects of — of an orchestra organization because there are so many factors. Now I feel so privileged to — to be part of such a great team. Obviously now that I — I have become officially the next music director, we are starting soon to work in the next season. And then is when you try to again to try to connect your thoughts about what you might think about what could be an arc, a narrative arc for a season, but at the same time other aspects of it, like what the audience wants, even obviously economic aspects, you know? We — we have to consider how much it cost one particular symphony or — or when do we want to have soloist, when do we want to participate with the choir. How can we also address the imagination of the musicians? Because musicians also has desires of particular repertoire, you know? And try to put it all together is very challenging. I am a big fan of the core repertoire, but also big fan of music that is less known, you know? Like for instance Latin American composers or new music. But at the same time, I understand that we have to read the taste of your community. So I think the answer is you will learn by trying, you know, like mixing things, trying to always keep the attention of the audience by at least one of the pieces that it's recognizable. But at the same time trying to bring something that it might, you know, entice them, or even if they — they don't know it, at the end they will love it even more, you know, because it was unexpected gift. And of course also for me it's very important to always keep in mind that music in general it's — it's an exercise that it depends on the performance. I mean, the music has to be played to exist. So from that point of view, it's equally important to have like a Beethoven 5 alive, but also, you know, premiering a piece from — from a composer that just wrote a symphony or — or a concerto.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so you alluded to, you know, understanding the tastes of the community and sort of engaging with the community. I'm curious, you know, you are not brand new to this community, but new to this community in the context in which you're now joining it. How do you go about trying to learn the tastes and sort of get yourself out there and — and engage with the community and find out what — what it is that people really want to hear?

PAOLO BORTOLAMEOLLI: That's a good question. Well, first of all, I obviously I will do my homework and I will go through the last, you know, many seasons to see what it has been programmed first. Also obviously I can tell from my two concerts what I think the audience is reacting to. When you put together from that — how you curate a program and you present it in a logical way and there is a narrative inside of it, people will follow you, will trust you, and will be engaged.

MARK BRODIE: All right, well, Paolo, thank you so much, congratulations on the new gig, and really appreciate your time.

PAOLO BORTOLAMEOLLI: Thank you so much.

MARK BRODIE: Paolo Bortolameolli is the new music director of the Phoenix Symphony.

LAUREN GILGER: He sounds just wonderful, Mark.

MARK BRODIE: He was a lot of fun to talk to. A lot of energy. Just want to hang out with him.

LAUREN GILGER: All right, that'll do it for today's edition of "The Show." Don't forget you can follow us on Instagram, we are @kjzztheshow, and you can sign up for our newsletter, it's called Radioheads, at theshow.kjzz.org.

MARK BRODIE: Indeed. For Lauren Gilger, I'm Mark BRODIE. Thank you so much for being along today. Hope you have a great rest of your day, hope to have you right back here tomorrow.

LAUREN GILGER: Thanks for listening to "The Show's" podcast. The Show is produced by Sativa Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankara, and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by John Hoban and our executive producer is Amy Silverman.