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Bernie, Thanks for the "playing on 3 strings" story. I've heard it before and was very moved by it, but no longer have the source. It is so relevant - what you "see" is what is left over. Thanks again, Ray ----- Original Message ----- From: Bernard Barber Ph.D. To: Raylyn Brown Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 9:21 AM Subject: FW: ITZHAK PERLMAN Ray, If you thing this would be helpful, feel free to pass it on to PIEN. I remember Itzhak when he was first starting his career; we took him to Disneyland in California, along with Stephen Kates, Cellist, (our adopted son) and a good friend of Itzhak's We all took turns pushing him around in his wheel chair. All the rides were not just the rides offered by Disney, but many were while he was being pushed. Talk about a thrill seeker he was it. He has demonstrated throughout his life, if there is will there is a way. Bernie You might wish to delete my note to you before sending. From: Vicki Kesselman Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 7:39 AM To: Bernard Barber,Ph.D. Subject: Fw: ITZHAK PERLMAN On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert 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 has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at the time, painfully and slowly is a sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, put his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extend the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up his 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 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 he had to do. People who were there that night thought to themselves: "We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off the stage -- to either find another violin or else find another string for this one. Or wait for someone to bring him another. 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, you know that. But that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulating, changing and recomposing the piece in his head. At one point it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them 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. Everyone was on their feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything they could to show how much they appreciated what he had done. He smiled, wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his bow to quiet the audience, not boastfully, but in a quiet 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. And who knows? Perhaps that is the way of life -- not just for an artist but for all of us. Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin with four strings, who all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn