Gerald Elias's Blog, page 2

A Fish Tale

What better way of making the world a better place than offering a stranger a doughnut?

Yesterday I went fishing. Hadn’t had a rod and reel in my hand for ten years and it felt great. There’s a pier at the northern tip of West Seattle, about 3 miles from our house, that faces downtown Seattle, a world away.

I got to the pier at about 10 a.m. but the tide had already peaked, so it wasn’t an ideal time to fish. As I arrived, one man was leaving. He said that two salmon had been caught that morning. That got me excited. There were about a couple of Hispanic guys fishing, a couple Caucasians, and next to me, a Chinese man. I passed all of them and went to the far end of the pier because, not having cast for so many years, I didn’t want to accidentally hook someone in the face.

After about a half hour of uneventful fishing, I picked up my Thermos of coffee, at which point a guy a couple of guys down spoke to me for the first time. He said, “Help yourself to a doughnut.”

“Doughnut?” I asked.

He pointed to a cardboard box on one of the benches. “Yeah, we have a policy. Someone catches a fish, the next day they have to bring in a box of doughnuts for the community. You’re here, so you’re part of the community.”

Now, I don’t know if this guy was Republican or Democrat, but what difference did that make? What better way of making the world a better place than offering a stranger a doughnut?

We got to talking, which, considering that no one was catching fish, we had plenty of time for. Basically, we talked about fishing. Big surprise. It seems these guys show up to fish just about every day, rain or shine. I introduced myself. The Chinese man next to me said his name was Chin, and he pointed to his chin just to make sure I understood his accent.

“Live around here?” I asked my new friends.

They laughed. “We spend more time here on the dock than in our homes,” Chin said.

After a while, Chin started packing up his gear.

“Coming back tomorrow?” I asked.

“Later today, when the tide comes back in,” he said. “I’ve been here since five o’clock.”

One by one, each of the fishermen packed up and left. I kept practicing my casting for another half hour before following suit. I didn’t have a damn bite the whole morning, but it was one of the best fishing days I ever had.

(And I did help myself to a doughnut on my way off the dock.)

Walkin’ the Walk

An author who spends one, two, or ten years writing The Great American Novel reasonably wants people to read it. In other words, to buy it. What author doesn’t want to write a bestseller? It’s a worthy aspiration, and who would argue with it? But there is an elephant in the room here, and its name is Amazon.

I’ve always been supportive of local indie bookstores, by word and by deed. I’ve done dozens of book events from coast to coast. Yet, at the same time, my books are on sale on Amazon, indie bookstores’ main behemoth competitor. It has been a mildly uncomfortable balance for me, but one which I convinced myself was an inevitable arrangement to live with, because…well, because that’s just the way things are.

Until now. Last week I read an article in The New Yorker about Danny Caine, the owner of The Raven bookstore in Lawrence, Kansas. A few years ago, I did an event at Danny’s store shortly after the release of my mystery, Spring Break. It’s a small store, on a side street just off the main downtown drag, and it’s jammed with books, nostalgia, two cats, and positive vibes.

In the article, Danny makes a powerful case why America, and not just indie bookstores, would be much better off socially and, yes, economically, if we bought our books from them and not from Amazon. Henceforward, I am going to take his message to heart and will encourage all my readers to make their local independent bookstores their first choice for all their book purchases. The few extra cents it might cost you upfront are an investment in your community which will bring far greater dividends and will bring a much-needed and welcome smile to many more faces than you can imagine.

Amazon will survive very comfortably if they don’t sell many of my books. Thanks to Danny’s article, I realize I can survive very happily without Amazon.

Below is a list of bookstores where I’ve done events over the past years. At some of them it was standing room only. At others only two or three people showed up. But it really didn’t matter because it was human, person-to-person interaction. You talk to people—customers and store staff alike—you shake their hands, you share stories and experiences. You make friends. You can’t get any of that on the Internet. You can’t get that from Amazon.

Sadly, some of the bookstores below have been priced out of business. Please support those who are still willing and more than able to provide you with compassionate, community, informed service. Support them today!

Clues Unlimited, Tucson, AZ

Poisoned Pen, Scottsdale, AZ

Tattered Cover Books, Denver, CO

Haslam’s Bookstore, St. Petersburg, FL

Raven Book Store, Lawrence, KS

Rainy Day Books, Fairway, KS

Octavia Books, New Orleans, LA

Trident Booksellers, Boston, MA

The Bookloft, Great Barrington, MA

The Bookstore in Lenox, Lenox, MA

Shaker Mill Books, West Stockbridge, MA

Mystery Loves Company, Oxford MD

Aunt Agatha’s, Ann Arbor, MI

Square Books, Oxford, MS

Park Road Books, Charlotte, NC

McIntyre’s Books, Pittsboro, NC

Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, NC

Bookworks, Albuquerque, NM

The Mysterious Bookshop, New York, NY

Mystery Lovers, Oakmont, PA

Murder by the Book, Houston, TX

Back of Beyond Books, Moab, UT

The Queen Bee Giftery, Ogden, UT

Dolly’s Bookstore, Park City, UT

The King’s English Bookshop, Salt Lake City, UT

Weller Book Works, Salt Lake City, UT

Seasoned Books, Rochester, VT

Book Review: 1 Teaches 2 Learn

This new book on violin pedagogy, 1 Teaches 2 Learn, should be on the bookshelf of every violin teacher and anyone who is simply considering being a violin teacher. Let me correct that: It should be on the bookshelf of every teacher, regardless of their chosen subject, and while I’m at it, of every parent, too.

1 Teaches 2 Learn is in two parts. The first is Eloise Hellyer’s comprehensive investigation of what it takes to be an effective violin teacher, from big-vision principles, like what it means to be creative or how to communicate musical ideas, all the way down to nitty-gritty issues, like how to practice efficiently and how to deal with a practice-resistant child. Hellyer, herself an accomplished violin teacher, challenges the reader the same way she proposes to challenge students: by asking tough questions, making you think, forcing you to reevaluate previously held assumptions. Even with those notions with which one might disagree, she is doing what a first-rate teacher does: actively engaging you, creating a forum for constructive thought and intelligent response. In other words, making you listen.

In a nutshell, Hellyer makes the strong case that a violin teacher should not be teaching an instrument; a violin teacher should be teaching a student. On the surface that might seem to be a subtle, almost inconsequential distinction, but the more one makes one’s way through the book, the more profound the difference grows. The student-teacher relationship is paramount; it is a synergy in which outcomes, whether they’re positive or negative, affect both parties.

The second part of 1 Teaches 2 Learn is a compendium of interviews, mostly of world-class violinists like Gil Shaham, Shmuel Ashkenazi, Robert Mann, Gidon Kremer, and Salvatore Accardo, all of whom provide ample corroboration for many of Hellyer’s first part contentions. Hellyer, a persistent, perceptive interviewer, draws out a continuous stream of nuggets of wisdom from these giants of the violin world. There is a lot of valuable, behind-the-scenes insight told in stories that range from the humorous to the heartbreaking.

What one learns is that there is an almost limitless diversity of ways to play the violin and understand music, but there are certain universal common denominators: the vital importance of the first teacher, the critical role of the parents, the conscientious discipline necessary to master technique, and perhaps most of all, the almost desperate commitment to communicate a profound message to the listener that can be expressed in no other way than through music.

Either part of 1 Teaches 2 Learn would be an invaluable addition to violin pedagogy. Put together, it is a book that will resonate for generations to come. It is available from Shar Music.

Home Groan

If you’ve read any of my books, you may have noticed that from time to time I’ve infected the stories with humorous names of stores and restaurants. Part of the reason is to relieve the narrative tension; another part is that I just can’t help myself. For example, in Death and the Maiden there is a New York bar popular among musicians called the Circle of Fifths, or in Playing with Fire a coffee shop called the Cuppa Cabana, or in Spring Break a miniature golf center called Family Putts. It’s enough to make you groan, isn’t it? In a way, that’s what I’m hoping for.

Here’s a list I’ve been compiling over the years of more possibilities, some of which I think already might have used. I’d love to hear from you with your own contributions. They can’t be worse than some of these, and if nothing else, a little levity might take your mind off of all the worrisome issues of the day, if only for a moment.

Joint Compound, marijuana emporium

Counter Intelligence, kitchen design

Perfectly Franks, hotdog stand

Seattle Slaw, salad bar

Wholly Mackerel, fish store

One True Cod, fish store

All That Chive, herbs and spices

Herb’s Herbs, herbs and spices

Flush with Success, plumbing supply

Mousse Stash, dessert restaurant

Heal Your Sole, shoe repair

Creature of Habitat, exotic pets

Pet-a-Cure, vet

Flora’s Fauna, pet store

Wizard of Vase, florist

Tat for Tit, sleazy women’s tattoo parlor

Pair ’o Dice, low-class casino

Suede in a Breeze, speedy shoe repair

Your Biggest Fan, fan store

Urban Re-Noodle, downtown ramen shop

Llama Dolly, stuffed animals

Something’s Kosher, deli

Katz Got Your Tongue, deli

Bialy Stock, deli

Faro Way, traditional grains and cereals

Oat Cuisine, organic grains

Thyme for Dinner, herbs and spices

The Thrill Is Scone, Memphis bakery

Lower Crust, working-class bakery

Outside Influence, outdoor retailer

Organic Matters, gardening magazine

Keeping Currant, online food preservation magazine

Current Events, aquarium news

Sage Advice, newsletter of Western events

Please click to Follow me and you’ll receive all future blog posts automatically. Most of them will be worth reading. Also, please visit my Writing page so see what you can find at your local bookstores and online.

A Tragic Shooting Star

Who would you say was the greatest violinist of the 20th century? Heifetz? Oistrakh? Kreisler? Perlman?

How about Josef Hassid?

Who is Josef Hassid, you may ask, and with good reason. His professional career, at the age of 17, lasted all of 11 months. After that, he spent the remaining 10 years of his life institutionalized with mental illness, dying in 1950 at the age of 27 of complications from a lobotomy.

Hassid’s second cousin, Gerald Spear, has written an insightful fifty-page biography of Hassid. It is compelling, informative reading, exploring not only Hassid’s unique gift, but also all the possible factors contributing to his severe schizophrenia: the loss of his mother at a young age; a domineering father; the constant oppression of Jews throughout pre-World War II Europe; the sense of abandonment from the departure of his friends, teachers, and mentors; a love affair forbidden by parents of both parties; and not least, the stresses and pressures of being a child genius.

If you think I’m being over the top in suggesting Hassid was the greatest violinist, don’t just take it from me. Here’s a quote from Fritz Kreisler: “A fiddler like Menuhin is born every hundred years, one like Hassid every two hundred years.”

Still not convinced? Here are links to everything Hassid recorded–all 29 minutes–in his brilliant fleeting career. Shed a tear for the incandescent beauty that was, and that might have been.

Tchaikovsky, “Melody“

Kreisler, “Caprice Viennoise“

Elgar, “La Capricieuse“

Sarasate, “Zapateado“

Achron, “Hebrew Melody“

Massenet, “Meditation from Thaïs“

The Potato Leek Soup of Ellen Garnis

The other day, engaged in yet another make-work pandemic activity, I sorted through a formidable pile of a half-century’s worth of scribbled recipes. One in particular, for potato leek soup, caught my attention. (You’ll find the complete recipe at the end of this essay.) It was scrawled in pencil on a piece of scrap paper in distinctly old-fashioned European cursive. I recognized it immediately.

In 1983 my wife Cecily and I discovered Ellen Garnis at the culmination of a nanny search for our infant daughter, Kate, who is now a parent herself. At the time, we were renting the third floor of a house on a hill in Winchester, Massachusetts. Cecily was a general contractor rehabbing condos in Boston’s North End and I was a violinist with the Boston Symphony. On days that I had to rehearse in the morning and/or afternoon, we needed someone we could rely on to provide trustworthy childcare. Cecily had the brainstorm to interview some of the retired folks who were involved with various activities at the local Jenks Center for seniors. Our list of potential candidates included one Ellen Garnis, highly recommended by the center.

            We called Ellen and made an appointment for her to come to our house for an interview on a wintry morning at 8:00a.m. At 7:59 a senior Mary Poppins in calf-length gray skirt and button-down wool sweater marched up Vine Street, back ramrod straight, a furled umbrella her personal alpenstock. The doorbell rang at 8:00. We already liked Ellen. She introduced herself with a curious, musical, European accent. Gentle authority. “And now where is Katie?” she asked, looking around. Removing her shoes, she got down on the floor on her hands and knees and started playing with and talking to Kate. Cecily and I were forgotten by both Ellen and Kate. Ellen was hired.

            Little by little we got to know Ellen better. When she came to our house we made tea, or when time permitted we treated her to a Viennese pastry at Franz’s European bakery in the center of town. One of the first things we found out was the origin of her interesting accent. She was a native of Latvia but then, before coming to America, lived for some years in Australia.    

            Ellen was a true nature lover, and it wasn’t long before Cecily and I found ourselves trying to keep up with her while she held Kate’s hand, traipsing along one of the many trails in the Fels, the local wooded reservoir. A very knowledgeable amateur horticulturist, she was fond of telling us the Linnaean nomenclature of any wildflower that we passed. In winter, when trails were snow-covered, she regularly cross-country skied on her own for the exercise. This she continued to do well into her seventies.

            Ellen never cared about wealth. Although she had an attractive house in a nice part of Winchester, which is on the whole an affluent community, on our first visit to her home we saw that it was in need of some serious maintenance and repair. Her house was filled with stuff: used scraps of paper and cardboard on which she practiced her elegant calligraphy–she was regularly hired to create invitations for local shindigs, and helped get my sister interested in the craft–dusty knickknacks to remind her of an old adventure, some of which she would gift to Kate and later to her little brother Jacob, which they would receive with awe and delight; photographs of family and friends (and of course, Kate) in inexpensive frames or no frames; comfortable but well-worn furniture which could have benefitted from a little sprucing up. Nothing fancy. Fancy was not in Ellen’s vocabulary. Fancy was a waste of money. Ellen was a born forager, a born survivor, as were the neighborhood feral cats, like Pickles, who were attracted by the ever-present bowl of milk on her doorstep and who meandered through her home.

            Ellen’s reputation for integrity and for having a green thumb was locally renowned, and from spring through fall she routinely housesat and tended the gardens for wealthy clientele when they vacationed. That’s how she derived a little spending money and her summer exercise. The gardens inevitably bloomed more profusely by the time the owners returned.

            Ellen was also the community mushroom expert and consultant, but she never divulged the exact location of the most prized specimens for which she foraged in the Fels. Sometimes she sold her discoveries to a local market or restaurant. On other occasions Ellen would arrive on our doorstep, a brown paper bag in hand, and with great delight she would present us with some monstrous fungi that she had dug up. One of them she called Laetiporus sulphureus, chicken of the forest. “Sliced, sautéed with butter and a little salt,” she recommended. Maybe it was the one thing that didn’t actually taste like chicken, but it was better. We never considered the possibility of an accidental poisonous mushroom; Ellen would never allow anything bad to happen to us, especially to Kate.

            Ellen came from a highly educated and cultured background. She loved classical music, so occasionally I got her tickets to Boston Symphony Friday matinees since she couldn’t afford them, and she would be my passenger for the twenty-minute commute down I-93 from Winchester to Symphony Hall. For her, these escorted cultural outings were very prestigious affairs. Ellen never had a car of her own. She never learned to drive, fully content to walk or take the train. Always frugal, later compulsively so, she considered a car an unnecessary luxury.

After we moved from Winchester to Beverly, almost an hour away, it became impractical for Ellen to continue to be our nanny. We continued to visit her, though, and occasionally brought her home with us for a walk on the nearby beach with Kate and Jake. On one such occasion she brought us a house gift, one of her adopted cats, a calico named Fritzie. Like Ellen, he was independent and a little haughty—a survivor. He made himself at home immediately, and soon thereafter, to show his appreciation for our hospitality, Fritzie proudly carried a live writhing snake into our living room, depositing it at our feet. Like Ellen, Fritzie was a born naturalist.

            Ellen always bragged about her healthy life style—how she never had a cold in her life—chalking it up to her abstinence from alcohol and to her European folk remedies. She used to stick some vile black stuff up her nose whenever she felt a cold coming on and insisted I try it. “Sure,” I said. From then on I made certain not to exhibit any symptoms of illness in front of Ellen regardless of how miserable I felt. The black stuff may still be somewhere in my medicine cabinet.

            In addition to learning about her home cures, over the years we also learned about Ellen’s past. How, during World War II, her beloved native Latvia was squeezed by Nazis from the west and by Soviets from the east. How, in order to fool the invaders, she learned to speak fluent German and Russian, all along despising the people whose tongues she mimicked so well. There was a funny story she often told me—a little bit different each time, though maybe it’s my own memory that fails me—about how either the German or Russian ambassador had mistakenly concluded she was an intelligence agent because of her linguistic acumen. Her versions of the story became more grandiose and blurrier over time: In the last edition, she had fooled the entire Soviet Foreign Service.

            After the war and before Soviet control was consolidated, Ellen fled Latvia to Australia with her husband and two little boys, living in the muck of a Tasmanian refugee camp, surrounded by vermin and poisonous snakes. The boys caught ferrets and trained them to hunt. The family managed to survive there, but little more than that. They ultimately immigrated by ship to the U.S. I’m guessing it was in the 1950s. Her husband died of some illness in transit. I don’t remember what he did for a living—I vaguely recall he was a scientist or a doctor. She never talked much about him, but I sensed that was due to highly personal private thoughts, not negative ones.

            Ellen had spoken at greater length and bitterness about how the younger of her two sons had died. Enlisted in the U.S. military, according to Ellen he had been denied anti-depression medication and committed suicide. That story, too, seemed to change over time and my memory for details isn’t anything to write home about, either. But, as in all of her stories, Ellen was right and everyone else was wrong. The enemy. Maybe the “us versus them” attitude, growing in Ellen like cancer as she aged, was what eventually led to the estrangement between her and her remaining son, Martin. After Martin died from leukemia, the only kin Ellen had left were her daughter-in-law and little grandson.

            After we left Boston and moved to Salt Lake City in 1988, time and the hidden burdens of life caught up with Ellen. As her mind slowly began to wander in unfathomable directions, Ellen, who had always been frugal in the best sense, saving whatever could be reasonably reused, began to take delight scavenging loose change on the supermarket parking lot, to the point that the search for it became an obsession. She would show me, in the palm of her outstretched hand and with a look of triumph far out of proportion to her accomplishment, the eight or nine cents of treasure she had salvaged, deriding those so wasteful as to allow money to escape their pockets and end up in hers.

            Ellen became incapable of maintaining her house. It was sold and she moved into a low-income apartment from which she was eventually evicted, and transferred to the Winchester Rehabilitation and Nursing Center.

How does one calculate the value of a friendship? I asked myself that question as I watched Ellen in her nursing home bed, uncertain she was still among the living. It was Easter Sunday, 2000. My one free day on a business trip to Boston had given me an opportunity to see Ellen, and I had little doubt this would be our final visit. Earlier that winter, someone from the home had called me in Salt Lake City, politely informing me they didn’t expect Ellen to live more than a few days. Several months later, she still clung tenaciously to life. Ellen was like that. Though a few years earlier, on my previous visit to the Boston area, she had been able to manage on her own, age had finally overtaken her. Now, other than going through the motions of being fed, cleaned, and medicated, Ellen demonstrated virtually no signs of cognitive life.

            When I arrived at the nursing home, I asked the receptionist where to find Ellen. A little confusion at first—for some reason everyone there called her Ella. “Ella is in Room Fourteen, just down the hall to the left.” I knocked, waited a reasonable amount of time, and walked in. Ellen lay asleep in bed in fetal position, surrounded by quietly humming medical contraptions. Of slight build during the best of times, she had withered away inside her nightgown, making it seem tent-like. Blue veins formed a marbled network over her transparent ivory skin; her white hair, wispy and unkempt, was no longer done up in the familiar tight bun.

            I glanced around Room Fourteen. Institutional furniture. No photos, no knickknacks, no art, no books. Nothing personal. Nothing Ellen. Nothing one could be attached to except for the tubes surrounding her hospital bed. There was no one else in the room, and as Ellen was sleeping I rummaged around the closet for something that might have been carted from her former apartment that would provide some cheer and color. I unearthed a few old photos and a carton of threadbare clothes, but decided the latter should just as well remain in the closet. She wouldn’t be wearing them anytime soon. I sat in the wheelchair next to the bed and began a one-way conversation. I reminisced about that time we first met, about everything I knew of her past, and of how much she meant to our family. She didn’t seem to hear me, but there was no way to know for sure and this was my last chance before she departed this world. Any minute now?

            Ellen was still sleeping, and I had some time on my hands, so I went to a nearby Kmart to buy an inexpensive AM-FM-cassette-tape-CD boombox, some self-standing picture frames, and a cheery Easter bouquet from a nearby florist.

            When I returned, I arranged the flowers in a vase on the dresser so that when she awakened it would be directly in front of her. Wishful thinking perhaps, since she had become almost totally blind; maybe, I hoped, she was still able to discern bright colors. I placed a framed photo of her family on the windowsill next to the bed so that if she couldn’t see it at least she could hold it. I framed an old photo of my family I found in Ellen’s dresser, stuck in some recent wallet photos of Kate and Jake, and placed this makeshift triptych on the sill—a little bit closer than the other photos.

            Ellen hadn’t moved since I had arrived. Her fragility was striking, and I was wondering what might make such a life worth living when I noticed a tree, blooming with a profusion of pink flowers, outside the window of her antiseptic hospital room. There was some connection there that I needed to think about.

            Clearing off a night table of some medical gadgets and with some difficulty locating an electric outlet that wasn’t involved with Ellen’s lifeline, I plugged in the boombox. After setting the FM dial to the classical music station for later use, I inserted a CD of my own string quartet performing Mendelssohn and Dvořák with the volume on soft, not knowing if there were rules for playing music at the nursing home.

            A nurse walked in. Feeding time. She suggested I step outside so that when she roused Ellen she could break the news gently that there was a visitor for her. That way Ellen wouldn’t be alarmed. Not that the nurse expected Ellen, in her condition, could be alarmed by anything.

            “Ella, a friend is here to see you,” I heard from outside the room. I took my cue and reentered. The head of the bed had been raised to facilitate feeding. The nurse was holding a spoonful of what looked like baby food to Ellen’s mouth. Ellen’s teeth were in a glass next to the boombox. Was it my imagination or did Ellen have that old look of defiance toward the nurse that she conjured up every time she spoke with such scorn of Nazis or Communists? If, against all odds it was not my imagination, I supposed it was a good sign.

            Ellen sensed movement, diminished eyesight notwithstanding, and turned her head toward me. She became agitated, making indecipherable, mumbly, guttural, clicking sounds. Was she having a seizure? I looked anxiously at the nurse who, inexplicably, seemed quite pleased. She told me that this was the most responsive Ellen has been in months and it was her way of communicating. “Ella must really like you!” she said. I asked if it would help the conversation if Ella’s teeth were put back in. The nurse said that Ella had lost the ability to speak a year ago so it wouldn’t make a difference.

            I sat beside Ellen and gingerly held her hand, which lacked all its former strength. It might have been my imagination yet again but I got the sense that she felt embarrassed for me to see her so disheveled and undressed, as she pulled compulsively at her nightgown with her bird claw of a hand. She used to take great pains to look Old World prim and proper in her carefully mended clothes, never exposing any more skin than necessary. Just as Ellen always had had a tendency to shy away from physical contact, even in her best of days, I’ve felt her similar reticence at expressing deep emotions verbally, even in writing. I hoped this handholding, perhaps the only means of contact she could perceive, would more strongly transmit the depth of love that my entire family had for her, and would always have, than whatever words I could come up with.

            I began to talk to her as if we were having an ordinary chat. I told her about Kate and Jake—how grown up they’d become. Teenagers! Can you believe that? I reminded her about the time she half tongue-in-cheek sent me a dozen red roses, the cost of which for her must have seemed a fortune, after I took her to a particular Boston Symphony concert. “My date!” she had gloated. About the gold ruble coin she gave to Kate on her second birthday. “Yes, of course it’s real gold!” “Ellen, we couldn’t!” “It’s not for you. It’s for Katie.” About how she had despised Hans, our old landlord in Winchester, claiming–not without some justification–that he was lazy and a welfare chiseler. About how in Latvian her name, Garnis, means “crane,” that regal bird, which she had proudly explained to me on more than one occasion. Ellen continued to click and mumble gibberish and pull at her nightgown. I tried not to cry.

            Ellen appeared to be tiring. I decided to leave, reassuring her I’d visit again. I extricated her hand from mine—had she been trying to hold on?—and gave her as gentle a hug as possible. She was so frail, and her semi-upright position in bed made it so awkward to embrace her that I was afraid of falling on top of her. That image almost made me laugh. When I said goodbye I wondered whether her glazed eyes were moist from emotion or from medical condition. Halfway out the door I remembered what they always do in movies when someone loses the ability to speak—“squeeze my hand once if the answer is yes, twice if no”—and considered whether I should try that, but I decided not to go back.

            Ellen Garnis died on June 13, 2000. Since then, in the intervening twenty years, I’ve made new friends and lost old ones. How does one calculate the value of a friendship? Perhaps by the extent to which we try to keep its memory alive.

            Here is Ellen’s potato leek soup recipe. It’s delicious.

Louis Krasner Postscript

Since yesterday, when I posted a blog about an inspirational letter I received from Louis Krasner, the violinist who premiered the Berg Violin Concerto, I’ve received a slew of messages from people who had their own Krasner stories to tell–all them positive, a rarity among celebrity musicians.

In Krasner’s letter to me, he referenced a brochure that he kindly enclosed with the letter. Interest has been expressed about its contents. I’ll let the brochure speak for itself:

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A Letter Worth Keeping

Being stuck in your house for ten months presents some opportunities. I had put it off for years, decades in fact, but last weekend I retrieved cartons of old letters from the dark recesses of my basement and began sorting through them, throwing out ninety percent of them. There’s one in particular that caught my attention that’s definitely a keeper.

Let me backtrack. When I was a young teen, back in the mid-sixties, I attended the New York State Music Camp in Oneonta for several summers. Among my best friends there was Sandy Strenger, a left-handed violinist who went on to become a highly sought-after freelancer in New York City. One of those summers, the violin teacher the camp had hired was a small, old (at least from my perspective) Jewish man with a hint of a European accent. To be very honest, because it was so long ago, I don’t remember much of what he taught me, except that he seemed to know what he was talking about.

Fast forward to May, 1972. I was nineteen years old, just finishing my sophomore year at Oberlin College and in the process of transferring to Yale University to study with the renowned concertmaster of the Boston Symphony, Joseph Silverstein. I had expressed interest in learning what I believe is the greatest violin concerto of the twentieth century, the one composed by Alban Berg in 1935. Silverstein gave me the go-ahead, and in the process of doing my research to understand as much as I could about this twelve-tone masterpiece, I was shocked to learn that Berg had composed it at the express request of the violinist, Louis Krasner. It was Krasner’s championing of the concerto that established it as a staple of twentieth-century repertoire.

You guessed it. Louis Krasner was the little Jewish man who had been my violin teacher at the New York State Music Camp. I immediately tracked down his address–not such an easy task in pre-Internet days–and wrote him a letter, the standard means of communication in pre-email days. I asked him if he remembered me from Oneonta and whether he would impart some words of wisdom about the Berg Concerto.

I couldn’t have been more pleased and surprised when I promptly received a thoughtful and courteous response from Krasner on May 13, 1972:

Dear Mr. Elias:

I found your letter upon my return from Europe. I remember two young violinists from the Oneonta Music Camp. You must have been one of them–and not the left-handed one. Is that right?

It pleases me that you are studying the Berg Concerto but I cannot tell you much about it by letter. The enclosed folder may interest you. Just make sure that you correct the wrong notes printed in the solo part. Learn it well so that it becomes your own music. Do not play the notes–rather speak the content of the music.

Best wishes to you and my warmest regards to Richard Hoffman [a beloved piano teacher at Oberlin]. Please tell him that I wish we could meet sometime.

Sincerely Yours,

Louis Krasner

“Learn it so well that it becomes your music.” A mantra for students to remember, not only for Berg but for all music.

Years later, after I had joined the Boston Symphony, Krasner was on the faculties of the New England Conservatory and Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood. From time to time we did manage to say hello to each other, but sadly I was never able to pick his brain about the Berg. However, there is now a restored 1936 recording of Krasner performing the concerto on YouTube with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Anton Webern conducting. That’s all the lesson one really needs.

Krasner with Itzhak Perlman studying the Berg score for Perlman’s recording of the concerto with the Boston Symphony in 1978. (I was fortunate enough to be in the orchestra at the time.)

What to be thankful for in 2020–Really!

Before you go any further, listen to this music! I’ll bet anything you’ve never heard it before. (More info at the end of the newsletter–along with a special announcement–and you’ll understand why I’m confident of winning this bet.)

Well! We’re almost there! We’ve almost made it to the end of 2020. A year unlike any other, and I’m guessing most of us fervently hope that 2021 will bring a light at the end of more than one tunnel.

Yet, here we are. It’s November, with Thanksgiving upon us. It’s the holiday season when we express everything we’re grateful for. And as challenging as it may be to believe that in this year of pandemic and political turmoil there has been anything to commend it, let me suggest a few possibilities:

We’ve discovered just how much we love our families, how much we value our friendships, how much greater joy and excitement we look forward to being able to do simple things like go to a restaurant, visit friends in person, go on a vacation. Yes, even go to work! All those moments that we’ve always taken for granted, we’ll now relish more than ever.

In the meantime, if you’re like me and have basically been stuck inside your home for the past nine months, you might also be thankful for learning how to make a shrimp marinara sauce, bake New York-style bagels, or grow potatoes in a barrel. You might have had more time to catch up on reading, sign up for Zoom webinars, and listen to music and podcasts.

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(Yes, They’re My Very Own)

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Speaking of podcasts, I recently did one with acclaimed radio personality, Jordan Rich, for his On Mic series. Jordan is an amazing interviewer and I think you’ll find this podcast about music, literature, and life engaging and diverting.

But, if you’re still at a loss what to do next and you’ve totally run out of Netflix mystery series, let me share a few projects with you to keep you and your loved ones entertained throughout the holiday season or until we all get vaccinated, whichever comes first:

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A group of two dozen co-authors and I have donated more than $1,000 to the American Red Cross from our royalties of Getting Through: Tales of Corona and Community. It’s an anthology of short stories, poems, essays, and letters that were written and compiled back in April, when we optimistically presumed the pandemic would be over by now. Getting Through offers touching, often humorous, and occasionally dystopian views of life during this unprecedented period in history. We will continue to support the Red Cross for as long as sales continue.

If you’re a fan of political thrillers like I am, my novel, The Beethoven Sequence, was released in September. It’s about a mentally unstable political outsider who becomes president—go figure—and, he said with tongue in cheek, the book’s release just happened to coincide with the recent election. The Boston Musical Intelligencer described The Beethoven Sequence as an “absorbing, even riveting” tale that’s “uncannily plausible.” Let me know what you think.

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Here’s a fun Zoom event I did last month as part of the annual Utah Humanities Book Festival, hosted by Weller Book Works—one of Salt Lake City’s fine indie bookstores—and sponsored by Book Club. The general theme of the talk is “How to Write a Thriller,” and more specifically, how I applied those tools to the writing of The Beethoven Sequence.  (You can order The Beethoven Sequence online or from your favorite local bookstore.)

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!!! As a result of a successful collaboration on The Beethoven Sequence, I’m very, VERY, VERY pleased to announce a seven-book deal with my new publisher, Level Best Books , to bring back everyone’s favorite mystery-solving curmudgeon, Daniel Jacobus!! HURRAY!

Starting next spring, keep your eyes open for re-releases of updated versions of the first four books in the series, which have been out of print, and then for two totally NEW Jacobus mysteries, Cloudy with a Chance of Murder and Murder at the Royal Albert.

To top off the mystery hit parade, let’s tip our Stetsons to a new Western mystery hero, Jefferson Dance. He’ll make his debut in Cloudy with a Chance of Murder, collaborating with Daniel Jacobus on bringing a murderer to justice on Antelope Island, Utah, and then he’ll have a baffling murder to solve on his own in Roundtree Days.

Oops! Almost forgot. Here’s the skinny about that music! It’s the beginning of the Sonata in C Minor by the 18th century virtuoso violinist-composer, Pietro Castrucci, and the reason I’m certain I’ll win the bet is that it has never been recorded!

This spring, I will have the honor to make the first-ever complete recording in history of Castrucci’s Opus 1 Sonatas for Violin and Cembalo. I’ve been invited by the acclaimed record company, Centaur Records, to record these 12 sonatas, which are remarkable for their expressive breadth and technical fireworks.

[image error] Purported to be Castrucci
himself in this Hogarth print!

The only mystery here is that they haven’t become a staple of the repertoire! Maybe now they will be. Our GoFundMe campaign to raise funds to make the recording has been a huge success and I’m more than pleased to announce we have reached our funding goal! I invite you to check out this historic project.

Finally, I would love to hear from you! It feels great—therapeutic even—being able to share with you what I’ve been up to. Now, it’s your turn. Let’s hear what stories you have to tell! In the meantime, best wishes for a safe, healthy, and loving holiday season, and let’s keep those fingers crossed for 2021!

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Check Out My Podcast With Jordan Rich!

Click the button below to hear the podcast now!

On Mic Podcast

“Today’s guest is a double threat.  Meet Gerald Elias.  Jerry is not only a world renowned classical violinist who played for years with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  He’s also a talented novelist with a series of mysteries featuring crime solver and musical impresario Daniel Jacobus.  Jerry’s newest novel is entitled, The Beethoven Sequence, about a mentally unstable American president.”

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