Persons attempting to find a "text" in this [story] will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a "subtext" in it will be banished; persons attempting to explain, interpret, explicate, analyze, deconstruct, or otherwise "understand" it will be exiled to a desert island in the company only of other explainers.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR - Wendell Berry's introduction to Jayber Crow.
This article was posted to Jayber on 5 May 2005 by to the following categories: Family, Feature, Friends, Stories.
An audio version of this article is also available.
Last night, Esther had her spring violin recital at the McPhail Center For Music in Minneapolis.
The recital was for students of Mary West and the level of skill displayed was astonishing.
Kids from 3rd or 4th grade, on up through high-school seniors played things that didn't seem natural. I was very impressed, and it's been a long time since I've listened to music with that high of quality.
Esther did a wonderful job, although she said afterwards that she was nervous about the fact that she wasn't playing her own violin (it's getting repaired), and instead, was playing May West's.
Esther and her mother Sally are long-time family friends of ours. It was great to see them again.
"The Virgin"
The second part of this story is that yesterday, my Dad got a new camera. A Nikon D70 (digital SLR). The D70 came down in price a few days ago when Nikon released a few new digital models.
Dad was showing me the camera before the recital started, and I was checking out it's features, as any reasonable person would do.
A little later on, I gave the camera back to Dad and we chatted a little more.
As Dad was holding his new camera, it looked like he was nursing it like a baby in the cradle of his arm.
He said, as if almost in a different, removed, fantasy world, "This... is a virgin. I haven't even taken one picture with it yet... I'm waiting for just the right shot".
I cut him off rudely, and said, "Dad, I just took a picture with it a few minutes ago".
Immeditately and simultaneously, Dad cringed with pain, and Heidi and I started rolling in laughter. He was so excited about the fact that his baby was untouched and innocent. I had to waltz in and insensately stomp on his parade, violating all purity.
I'm such a monster.
BTW, the picture (000000000001) that broke virginity, is the dull one looking at the empty seats in the recital hall and the back of some couple's head.
I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. Dad was gloating over his unused camera, and Mark takes the first picture without anyone noticing.
Esther’s teacher is Mary West. I would guess the little violin players were like 2nd grade. They must have been born holding a violin. Phew!
Those little guys were definitely good. I’m glad we went.
Thanks for breaking in my NEW camera, Mark. It was fun having you and Mandy at the recital and you know that I enjoy sharing photography talk with you.