More about Steve Lopez and The Soloist

There are some things that Steve Lopez said to me about his book "The Soloist" that are just rattling around in my head - and I can't stop thinking about them. We talked about his book, sure, but also how meeting Nathaniel Ayers - a former Julliard student playing a 2-string violin on skid row in downtown L.A. - changed his life.

One of the profound things he said was that for Nathaniel, art and music were his therapeutic force - a way for him, a person struggling with mental illness, to find peace. Since Steve met Nathaniel and started writing columns about him and then the book, they have become close friends - friends who go to the Los Angeles Philharmonic together. The musicians in the orchestra have become friends of Nathaniel too....as Steve said about Nathaniel, "Music is his medicine, Disney Hall is his hospital and his friends in the orchestra are his doctors".

Do you have something that gives you peace? Art? Being outside? Being creative in some way?
Tune in for our conversation tonight - or check the archives.....See Steve Lopez's LA Times articles on Nathaniel here.

Hope

There is something universal about stories that lift you up; stories that give you hope - and stories about real people.

Steve Lopez is a columnist with the LA Times who has published a book based on the columns he wrote about a very unusual man he met on the street, playing a violin with only 2 strings.

From Penguin books at uspenguingroup.com:

When Steve Lopez saw Nathaniel Ayers playing his heart out on a two-string violin on Los Angeles’ skid row, he found it impossible to walk away. More than thirty years earlier, Ayers had been a promising classical bass student at Juilliard—ambitious, charming, and also one of the few African-Americans—until he gradually lost his ability to function, overcome by schizophrenia. When Lopez finds him, Ayers is homeless, paranoid, and deeply troubled, but glimmers of that brilliance are still there.

Over time, Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers form a bond, and Lopez imagines that he might be able to change Ayers’s life. Lopez collects donated violins, a cello, even a stand-up bass and a piano; he takes Ayers to Walt Disney Concert Hall and helps him move indoors. For each triumph, there is a crashing disappointment, yet neither man gives up. In the process of trying to save Ayers, Lopez finds that his own life is changing, and his sense of what one man can accomplish in the lives of others begins to expand in new ways.

Poignant and ultimately hopeful, The Soloist is a beautifully told story of friendship and the redeeming power of music.

I talk with Steve Lopez this week on Realgoodwords about his friendship with Nathaniel and how it has affected them both. If Steve hadn't stopped that day to see who was playing such intricate music, he wouldn't have made the connection he did. He wouldn't have done something to make a difference in someone's life.

What have you stopped your busy day for? What are you glad you took the time to take a second look at? Tune in Wed. May 14th for my conversation with Steve Lopez.