I saw a short preview for a recent 60 Minutes piece about Derek Paravicini, a blind, severely learning impaired, slightly autistic musical savant. But being 60 Minutes, it trashed up the piece to sell him as “The Human iPod” because of his ability to recall every piece of music he’s ever heard. (You can watch it with multiple commercial interruptions here.) So I did my own digging and found an amazing five-part documentary on YouTube about just how incredible his musical abilities are, especially when it comes to improvisation.
The documentary treats him much more like a human and captures his charming personality, while 60 Minutes kept reveling in the fact that he can’t count to 10, dress himself or perform many simple tasks we take for granted.
