at our disposal

Last night I went to an event at the Plaza Library -- the author of the book-turned-movie The Soloist, Steve Lopez, was being interviewed by Angela Elam, who hosts the literary radio show New Letters on the Air. The show airs once a week, at 6am on Sunday mornings (aah...), and it features conversations with, and recordings of, famous, contemporary, and emerging authors and their writing.

Mr. Lopez was fantastic. He read from the book and shared about his history in journalism and the relationship he formed with Mr. Ayers, the musical prodigy, homeless man, and sufferer of paranoid schizophrenia depicted in the book and the movie. He shared information about mental illness and how common it is among homeless people, how it still has a harsher social stigma than other diseases, how Skid Row in LA is a place relatively undisturbed by charity but regularly disturbed by police arrests, where thousands of homeless people live in conditions that shock even the well-seasoned. And he talked about passion and potential and joy. It's hard to watch this video and not be transported and challenged by Nathaniel Ayers' love for music.

The two-hour interview was fantastic. And free.

I can't believe these kinds of experiences are at my fingertips pretty much all the time. I can't wait to go to more.