Susan

“Precision and technique can be learned,” she told him. “That’s just practice. A lot of practice, but it’s still just practice. What we can’t teach is how to make a musician actually connect—emotionally connect—with the pieces he’s playing. To really care about the music, and let the music tell its story.”
― Brendan Slocumb, The Violin Conspiracy

“the Saint Jacques Hotel. Revolving doors led into a stark white lobby with an artificial fireplace that took up almost the entire length of one wall; on the other wall a concierge desk stretched forever. Janice asked the doorman where the business service center was and disappeared, heels clattering, down”
― Brendan Slocumb, The Violin Conspiracy

“The story that results is often a disheartening one. Though the various parts of rural America differ in important ways, as a whole, they are weighed down by their struggles: resource economies where powerful interests extracted wealth and left the people who toiled to remove it with little or nothing to show for their decades of labor; manufacturing jobs that fled overseas; inadequate healthcare and physical infrastructure; limited opportunities that push talented young people to leave; and much more. And all this exists within a landscape of political emptiness in which a lack of real competition leaves Democrats believing there’s no point in trying to win rural votes and Republicans knowing they can win those votes without even trying—and give the people who supply them nothing in return. We”
― Tom Schaller, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy

“They had to ring a bell to be buzzed in to the main showroom, where a faded violet couch sat against one wall, a beat-up coffee table covered with magazines in front of it. Instruments hung from everywhere, including the ceiling: violins, violas, and cellos shone with a gorgeous luster like nothing he’d ever seen. These were the instruments of princes and kings, the violins for the best violinists in the world. On the counter rested an old-fashioned cash register. No electronics, no card reader. Behind the counter, a staircase carpeted in red damask led up into darkness. On one side of the steps hung an”
― Brendan Slocumb, The Violin Conspiracy