Word: drives
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...other concert, any other pianist, and Rimsky-Korsakov's interlude would have been cut from the playlist. But not tonight. Because Paravicini has a musical memory that's closer to hard drive than human: he can play virtually any tune, in any style, in any key, after hearing it just once, even if it was years ago. The 27-year-old pianist is blind and severely learning disabled; he can't tie his own shoelaces or butter a piece of bread. Yet his musical gifts appear almost unlimited. With rehearsals over, Paravicini and his longtime teacher Adam Ockelford go into...
...Nobody knows exactly how Paravicini does what he does. One theory is that his talent developed because of his limitations, not despite them. "People with learning disabilities like Derek's have a strong drive to systemize, to look for patterns," says Simon Baron-Cohen, professor of developmental psychopathology at Cambridge University. "Music is a system, the intervals between notes and the relationship between keys are quantitative. Even when you improvise you are, in a sense, following the rules. And because he's blind, a lot more of his brain may be allocated to auditory information...
...oblivious to anything beyond the joy of this moment. Rocking back and forth, a sideways smile on his face, he throws in a cascading scale here, a sneaky chord there, taking the tune as far out as he can before pulling it back. Maybe it's his drive to systemize that explains this enigmatic brilliance. Maybe it's his need to communicate that keeps him playing. Whatever the reasons, he's having way too much fun to stop...
...crater that once held a 20-ft.-tall statue of Abu Jaffar al-Mansour, the 8th century founder of Baghdad; it was pulverized by a homemade bomb in 2005. To keep their bearings, the troops have taken to identifying routes by the names of 1980s heavy-metal bands. We drive down Bon Jovi, where the barbershop used to be, and pass Skid Row, which had the best falafel in town. At the end of the block is Poison, which four years ago was Mansour's commercial hub, lined with restaurants, shops, a gym and even a liquor store. Now every...
...emergency rooms, waiting for space to open up for people needing psychiatric care. The New Orleans Police Department, stretched perilously thin since the storm, had 207 cases in the same period where cops waited up to three hours with patients picked up for mental health disorders, or had to drive miles to a suburban ER that could admit them. In many cases, police are bypassing hospitals altogether and taking detainees to jail - an often harrowing destination for the mentally ill, but a place where they can at least receive treatment for the immediate crisis. "That's the Dark Ages," Ebbert...