ARTS . Arts Picks

Dave Isay/StoryCorps

Tue., Dec. 4, 6:30 p.m., $15 (reservations required), National Constitution Center, 525 Arch St., 215-409-6600, constitutioncenter.org.


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Published: Nov 27, 2007

reading/airing

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Shortly after his father died, 11-year-old Homer Hill got a job herding cows. One day that fall, a farm hand who had earlier loaned the boy some Shakespeare asked Homer why he wasn't in school.

"Nobody came to get the cattle," Homer replied. The next day, there were people to get the cattle and Homer was in school.

"Dad always said that without the interest of this man, he would have been another lost little boy without an education in the prairie," Homer's daughter, Virginia Hill Fairbrother, tells her daughter in the new book Listening is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project (Penguin, $24.95).

Telling the stories of ordinary people is traditionally the job of journalists. But StoryCorps Project founder Dave Isay discovered the stories are even better when the questions come from someone who really cares. Hence the StoryCorps model of inviting people to come into one of their sound booths for a 40-minute chat with anyone they choose. (One of their mobile setups just finished a multiple-week residency on Independence Mall Nov. 28. For more information on StoryCorps, visit npr.org/storycorps.) The results air on National Public Radio's Morning Edition every Friday.

Now that StoryCorps has done all the heavy lifting, all that's left for this journalist to do is to tell you that Isay will be at the National Constitution Center Tuesday to play some interviews and talk about the book they inspired.

Tue., Dec. 4, 6:30 p.m., $15 (reservations required), National Constitution Center, 525 Arch St., 215-409-6600, constitutioncenter.org.