In a message dated 18/06/2007 07:01:38 GMT Standard Time,  [log in to unmask]
writes:

Kbachn:

I hear you, I hear you!!  I'm probably the most  cynical, skeptical person on
the List and Maryse tells us it is not a true  story.  However, it  describes
what I have been trying to do -  play on one string.

For example, for over a year now I have been  protesting the war because I
can sit on my walker.  When I had my full  faculties I
didn't protest the Vietnam tragedy, either because I was too  busy or lacked
the courage or both.  Whether you agree with my  protesting the war or not
doesn't change the fact that I get back some my  power lost to PD when I do
it.  I get strength from doing what I can  still do, knowing that this will
not always  be so.

I agree  totally that a life with full faculties is what ALL people deserve
and  working to achieve that can be empowering.
But please, I don't intend or  want to tell anyone else how to feel or what
to do.

Rayilyn  Brown
Board Member AZNPF
Arizona Chapter National Parkinson's  Foundation
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----- Original Message -----
From:  "kbachn" <[log in to unmask]>
To:  <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 2:21  AM
Subject: Re: Making music with what you've got left


> Very  nice story Rayilynlee, amazing that he could improvise with just 3
>  strings
>
> This is an inspiration but to be honest, i'd rather  make the best out of
> life with full faculties :-) ........ and please  no angry replies back re
> my
> comments if i brought the readers  down from the recently inspired state,
> it's nice to be "inspired" but  then again one has to be a realist.
>
> ----- Original Message  -----
> From: "rayilynlee" <[log in to unmask]>
> To:  <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2007  8:26 PM
> Subject: Making music with what you've got  left
>
>
>> PERLMAN - playing on 3  strings
>>
>> On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the  violinist, came on stage to give a
>> concert at Avery Fisher Hall at  Lincoln Center in New York City. If you
>> have
>> ever been  to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no
>>  small
>> achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child,  and so he has
>> braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two  crutches. To see him
>> walk
>> across the stage one step at  a time, painfully and slowly, is an awesome
>> sight.
>> He  walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then  he
>> sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the  clasps on
>> his
>> legs, tucks one foot back and extends  the other foot forward. Then he
>> bends
>> down and picks  up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the
>>  conductor
>> and proceeds to play.
>>
>> By now,  the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he
>>  makes
>> his way across the stage to his chair. They remain  reverently silent
>> while
>> he undoes the clasps on his  legs. They wait until he is ready to play.
>>
>> But this  time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few
>>  bars,
>> one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it  snap - it went
>> off
>> like gunfire across the room. There  was no mistaking what that sound
>> meant.
>> There was no  mistaking what he had to do. We figured that he would have
>>  to
>> get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp  his way
>> off
>> stage - to either find another violin or  else find another string for
>> this
>> one. But he didn't.  Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then
>> signaled the  conductor to begin again.
>>
>> The orchestra began, and he  played from where he had left off. And he
>> played
>> with  such passion and such power and such purity as they had never  heard
>> before.
>>
>> Of course, anyone knows that  it is impossible to play a symphonic work
>> with
>> just  three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night  Itzhak
>> Perlman refused to know that.
>>
>> You  could see him modulating, changing, re-composing the piece in his
>>  head.
>> At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings  to get new
>> sounds
>> from the m that they had never made  before. When he finished, there was
>> an
>> awesome silence  in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was
>>  an
>> extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the  auditorium.
>> We
>> were all on our feet, screaming and  cheering, doing everything we could
>> to
>> show how much  we appreciated what he had done.
>>
>> He smiled, wiped the  sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us,
>> and
>>  then he said - not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone  -
>> "You
>> know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find  out how much music you
>> can
>> still make with what you  have left."
>>
>> What a powerful line that is. It has  stayed in my mind ever since I heard
>> it. And who knows? Perhaps  that is the definition of life - not just for
>> artists but for all  of us. Here is a man who has prepared all his life to
>> make music  on a violin of four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the
>>  middle
>> of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he  makes music
>> with
>> three strings, and the music he made  that night with just three strings
>> was
>> more beautiful,  more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever
>>  made
>> before, when he had four strings.
>>
>> So,  perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world  in
>> which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have,  and then,
>> when that is no longer possible, to make music with what  we have left.
>>
>> Rayilyn Brown
>> Board Member  AZNPF
>> Arizona Chapter National Parkinson's Foundation
>>  [log in to unmask]
>>
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A book on "urban legends" was published a few years ago - it's a  lovely
tribute to the power of wishful thinking.... my personal favourite is the  "real"
origin of the Loch Ness Monster  (a dead walrus dumped by a couple  of drunken
fishermen who'd found it in their nets.)






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