Chance encounters can change the world

An article published in today's edition of The Leaf-Chronicle:

Students listen to Steve Lopez, a Los Angeles Times columnist, as he speaks at Austin Peay State University Thursday night. Lopez wrote a book called The Soloist that was required reading for APSU's The Peay Read program / THE LEAF-CHRONICLE/ROBERT SMITH


Author Steve Lopez tells APSU, 'one person can make a difference'

By Karen Parr-Moody

The Dunn Center at Austin Peay State University was filled to the rafters with a crowd that included students wearing red T-shirts emblazoned with the words "The Soloist."

This sea of red was the class of 2015, which gathered Wednesday evening to hear Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez speak about his book, The Soloist. In it he chronicles his relationship with Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a formerly homeless, Juilliard-trained musician who has schizophrenia.

The speaking engagement was the culmination of The Peay Read, a program in which students of the introductory "First-Year Experience" class read a common book.

Prior to Lopez's keynote address, a group of 11 students joined him for a special dinner. Each had won a spot in an essay competition that included 1,200 entries. One winner, Nathan Borrero, said he was impressed that Lopez developed a friendship with a homeless man he met at random.

"That's not something you see every day," Borrero said. "Most people who pass a homeless person wouldn't give them a second thought."

In a variation on the theme, winner Destynee Horner said, "I was blown away by how he wasn't trying to gain anything for himself. He was truly concerned about Nathaniel's well-being."

Winner Lindsey Gudal focused on the transformative power of music in her essay.

"Music is the universal language, as corny as that sounds," she said. "I just think that's beautiful."

Samuel Cupp also wrote about music's healing.

"Music is ... the foundation of his soul," Cupp said of Ayers. "When (Ayers) loses everything else ... music keeps him sane."

When 7 p.m. arrived, Dixie Dennis introduced the award-winning students. Then university president Tim Hall took the stage, quoting Socrates from Plato's Apology: "The unexamined life is not worth living."

Hall then said, "I'm here to warn you that the examined life is a dangerous life ... dangerous, at least, if what you want to do is stay uncommitted and uninvolved and unattached."

The examined life is what pulls a person in to help another person, Hall explained, calling Lopez "an example of the perils and rewards of the examined life."

Lopez then took the stage.

"What a great T-shirt that is," he said of the red "The Soloist" shirts. "I got one actually a little earlier tonight and I'm gonna take that to a good friend of mine."

He was referencing "Mr. Ayers," which is how he went on to refer to the gifted musician throughout his speech.

"He loves wearing 'Soloist' T-shirts and hats," Lopez said.

Lopez also thanked the students who "made a commitment to this book" and complimented the winners of the essay contest, saying "I'm so flattered and honored and impressed by the work they did."

He then relayed his astonishment that it has now been seven years since he first met Ayers on a Los Angeles street, noting with incredulity the various places it has taken him, both literally and figuratively.

Early on in the hour-plus speech Lopez confessed: "I would love to be able to tell you that I did something out of the goodness of my heart, but I didn't."

He said that writing a newspaper column, which he has done for 35 years, "means you live in desperation," comparing the deadline pressure to that of owing a teacher an assignment. When Lopez first heard Ayers playing a 2-string violin, he thought it might make for a good column. He couldn't get the "compelling image of a guy playing his heart out on a violin" out of his head.

What followed was a one-man investigation into the squalid streets of Los Angeles' Skid Row, which at that time were "home" to thousands of homeless people, many mentally ill.

After Lopez published his first column about Ayers, sympathetic readers sent in six violins and two cellos for the former Juilliard prodigy. As he wrote more columns, his personal life became more intertwined with that of Ayers. Throughout his narration of the key events, Lopez sprinkled in inspirational invocations to the mostly student audience. He urged students to open their eyes to the many opportunities to be had.

"You don't know who might change your life forever," he said.

The speech led into a question and answer session, during which Lopez informed the audience that Ayers continues to live in a Los Angeles apartment, surrounded by musical instruments, rather than on the street.

One of the last things Lopez told the audience was "I get very tired of people congratulating me, because I have to remind them that this gentleman has done as much for me — more for me — than I have done for him. And I tell them that what this story tells us — and I'd like for you to keep this in minds, students — is that one person can make a difference ... there's grace in giving. It's a great privilege to (attend) a school like this. Think of giving something back. Each one of us has the power to make a difference in someone's life. Mr. Ayers has made a difference in mine."

Karen Parr-Moody, 245-0203
Features Reporter
karenparrmoody@theleafchronicle.com

Also see:

REVIEW: Wellspring of human beauty sprung in 'The Soloist'

11 APSU first-year students, middle college student named essay winners

Nathaniel Ayers plays the Foshay Learning Center

Steve Lopez on Nathaniel Anthony Ayers

Mr. Lopez Meets Mr. Ayers (60 Minutes Video, 2009)

L.A. Times columnist, author of ‘The Soloist’ to speak September 29th in APSU Dunn Center

An article posted today by Clarksville Online:

Clarksville, TN – In 2005, Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez [pictured] strikes an unlikely friendship with Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless musician with schizophrenia who slept each night on one of skid row’s most dangerous streets.

Lopez learned Ayers had been a promising violinist, and that he had left the prestigious music program at the Juilliard School because of his struggle with mental illness. The journalist chronicled Ayers’ struggle in several columns at the Los Angeles Times, inspiring readers to send instruments to Ayers through Lopez.

The friendship that Lopez formed with Ayers eventually helped the musician get off the street, settle into an apartment and find help for his schizophrenia.

This story since has inspired newspaper columns, a book titled The Soloist and a movie of the same name starring Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as Ayers.

Lopez will share his discovery of Ayers and how their relationship left a profound impact on the writer’s life at 7:00pm, Thursday, September 29th in the Dunn Center at Austin Peay State University. The talk is free and open to the public. A book signing will follow his talk.

Lopez joined the staff of the Los Angeles Times in May 2001 after four years at Time Inc., where he wrote for Time, Sports Illustrated, Life and Entertainment Weekly.

Prior to Time Inc., Lopez was a columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Jose Mercury News and the Oakland Tribune. His work has won numerous national journalism awards for column writing and magazine reporting. In addition to The Soloist, Lopez is the author of three novels.

Lopez’s book and September 29th appearance are part of a reading initiative at APSU called The Peay Read, designed to provide a unifying experience and contribute to the academic experiences for freshmen students. However, the reading program also offers opportunities for sophomore, junior and senior students.

A committee reviewed several books and chose The Soloist as The Peay Read’s common reading book, with homelessness as the theme. Committee members also have worked with other academic departments to plan activities culminating in Lopez’s keynote address, all supporting the current theme of homelessness. For instance, student organizations have been encouraged to plan and implement campus-wide, theme-based programs related to homelessness. In addition, piggy banks have been distributed to all APSU 1000 First-Year Experience classes to raise money for organizations that support Clarksville’s homelessness population.

Other examples of The Peay Read student activities and memorabilia include the following:

• T-shirts with “The Soloist” printed on them and given to freshmen students enrolled in the APSU 1000 First-Year Experience program, which is including the book in its classroom discussions.

• Bookmarks with book quotations, which will be used in student discussion groups focused on those quotations.

• Faculty-student class discussions, including how to help the homeless population and the issues that affect them.

• Student book reviews, with authors of the “best 10” essays invited to a dinner with Lopez.

• A showing of the movie The Soloist.

A mobile app detailing all events and activities associated with The Peay Read has been developed and can be downloaded via Apple’s iTunes.

For more details about this year’s book reading selection or The Peay Read, visit www.apsu.edu/Read/ or visit Peay Read on Facebook.

For more information about Lopez’s upcoming talk, contact Dr. Dixie Dennis, chair of The Peay Read committee at APSU, by telephone at 931.221.7415 or by email at dennisdi@apsu.edu.

Photo by Giles Mingasson

BOOK REVIEW: 'Soloist' examines human side of mental illness, friendships

Posted on December 18th by TheStarPress.com:

By Ivy Farguheson

If a friend or family member has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and you're at your wits end trying to figure out what to do for them, here's a suggestion. Read The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship and the Redemptive Power of Music by journalist Steve Lopez, and breathe.

Nathaniel Ayers is a homeless man Lopez sees playing the violin near his office at the Los Angeles Times. A regular columnist for the newspaper, he decides to talk to Ayers, in hopes of coming up with his latest column.

He then enters into the complex world of mental illness, homelessness and media responsibility, opening his eyes to his own narcissistic behaviors and the beauty of freedom and music.

Ayers suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, something readers and Lopez discover early on. Through continual conversations with him, Lopez discovers that he has an impressive musical knowledge and spent time in his 20s as a student at Julliard.

With each meeting, Lopez becomes more intrigued with the community services for the homeless in Los Angeles and the struggles of truly caring for someone with schizophrenia. He continues to write columns about what he discovers in his city, but begins to wonder if he is exploiting Ayers for his own celebrity.

The Soloist is an excellent book, not because of its subject matter or the author's writing style, but because of its raw honesty. Ayers is homeless and does not wish to take medication or stay in shelters. He prefers to stay on the street, playing his music, experiencing what he believes to be true freedom.

And Lopez is a middle-class professional with his own ideas about how life should be lived and what should be done to save those who need community services.

In this work, these two men show the power of friendship and its ability to change each of us in ways we are unaware of every day. Whether Ayers moves inside or begins to take his medication is not the point of this journey. Nor is the path Lopez takes to see how he is pushing his own ideas on someone with an illness unknown to him.

The message of living and learning from the world around us is the paramount lesson in this work. Similar to A Beautiful Mind, this work certainly opens readers' minds to those living with schizophrenia. But more importantly, it opens the hearts of those who judge others for various reasons.

The Soloist won't solve anyone's problems or answer those questioning the world of mental illness, but it will encourage readers to take a breath, slow down and love those who enter their lives.

From the street to Hollywood

Unlikely meeting between columnist, homeless musician results in movie

To read this entire article, written by Belinda Goldsmith and published in the May 13th edition of The Windsor Star, click here.

Also see:

Los Angeles Schizophrenia Story - Juilliard Musician Becomes Homeless