Wow. This is radio soup, and there's something in here that's good for your soul. Actually, it's more like a goulash, a gumbo, a masala. And it's good for your chakras and chi too.

In association with USC's Masters of Professional Writing Program and aired by KPFK, Labalaba* Media produces a weekly radio theater series, "The Courtyard", where "the tenants, having just emigrated from various countries of the world, bring their cultural and religious beliefs/biases into the mix, which often times turn hilarious and other times dramatic."

In this episode, "Flu", the emergent illness of a young child provokes an unpredictable encounter between mother and mother-in-law, with an arc and authenticity so noticeably absent from that other LA broadcast medium, television. This is radio theatre of the mind, updated ? world words for an audience whose ears have broadened through world music. The role of the pediatrician, played by the real-life Los Angeles doctor Ola Olambiwonnu lends an enchanting verisimilitude

Think of Labalaba as a hitchhiker's guide to your very own orb. EP Debo Kotun is some kind of magician, letting you get to know some of your neighbors "in local universe" (as Bucky Fuller would say) with a unique, back-porch ease.

PDs, if Labalaba is too trippingly for your tongue, you might want to think of this series as A Planet Home Companion. Remember when the suits at NPR said nobody would want to listen to Minnesota? But given a little nurture...

Catch "Flu". Remember the old borsht belt shtick about chicken soup:

Will it help?

It couldn't hurt!

* The word means butterfly in Yoruba, spider in Indonesian, and chatterer in Jamaican.