Tuesday, August 16, 2011

A Guest Post...

Hello, everyone! This is Kendal. I want to share a story with y'all that I read recently, but since I haven't blogged in a (long) while, I'll give a quick update on what I've been doing first.
In order to get my high school schoolwork wrapped up more quickly, during the months of June and July I only worked on Saturdays at The Chicken (that would be Chick-fil-A). I was able to accomplish a lot, and I will be finished with nearly all of my subjects this month, and I should finish everything in September. Hopefully I will be able to have a party sometime between September and the spring. :) I know most everyone wants to know what I'll do when I finish... I'll probably go into this in more detail in a later post, but the short version is that I'm hoping to do CLEP testing and such, and likely some online courses, although I haven't looked very deeply into anything yet. Mom and Dad have made one thing clear though- I'll be paying for whatever I end up doing. :) I went back to three days a week at work last week, so I'm fairly busy between that and school. We've also been frequenting the YMCA all summer.
So, onto the story. I read this in WORLD magazine not long ago, and I thought it was great. (It doesn't hurt that it has to do with music.) The story is most likely true, although no one really knows. Just to make sure that I get the credits in order, it was part of an article by Joel Belz. I'll quote directly from the article:
"In a major German city- maybe Berlin?- and very likely in the early 1930's, a prominent Jewish violinist was to perform at the local concert hall. But in anticipation of his performance, a music critic for the city's Nazi-dominated newspaper reminded everyone that this violinist wasn't as deserving of his reputation as some had suggested. 'When he finishes his performance,' the critic suggested, 'our applause will be less for his skill than for the Stradivarius instrument on which he plays. It's the excellence of the violin we'll be cheering, not the man playing it.' 
And so it was as the performance came to it's end. The applause was thunderous, but everyone- including the violinist- knew how ambiguous its meaning had become.
That's when the violinist walked over to a nearby chair, violently smashed the violin against the chair's back, and held up it's splintered remains for all to see.
Then he walked quietly to the edge of the stage, opened a case that no one had noticed, and took out the Stradivarius everyone thought, until then, he had been playing. The encore he played for his undeserving audience would never be forgotten."
Definitely one of my favorite stories. Speaking of stories, I'm still planning on doing "The Chronicles of the Chicken", I just haven't gotten around to it. [And I liked the story that I just shared better than my CFA tales :) ] Well, I've got to go; I hope all of you enjoy the rest of the week!
                                                                                                                            -Kendal