NOTE: DCP author Ted Berland has shared with us a five-part series about his life as a writer. We hope you enjoy getting to know this prolific author who wrote The Diabetic Wine Lover’s Guide, published by Dudley Court Press in 2015.
Ted Berland’s father, Samuel Berland – magician
A few years ago, a friend of mine sent a postal card from London writing, “We saw David Bodanis {a childhood friend from West Rogers Park, in Chicago} today—he talked about how Ted Berland was his inspiration to become a science writer!”
How unexpected! Bodanis greatly exceeded my skills and small fame. He is an Oxford professor, futurist, speaker, business advisor, and writer of popular science books, notably E=mc2 .
It is wonderful that I somehow, unknowingly, influenced a youngster to follow my footsteps to this junction of art & science. It is also interesting that he never told me that directly.
It strikes me as another testimony to the loneliness of the writer.
My father, Samuel Berland, inspired me to be a writer.
Dad wrote and published about a dozen or so books. Not novels, not nonfiction. They were about magic.
He was neither warlock nor sorcerer.
He was a magician.
Although he falls under the classification of “stage magician,” he preferred performing close-up, as at a cabaret table. This he did aboard a cruise ship at sea, at The Magic Castle in Hollywood, and at all of our birthday parties.
Dad invented magic tricks, sold them, and taught them to apprentice wizards, personally and in his books. Often called The Magician’s Magician, he frequently published instructions for his latest tricks in magicians’ magazines. His name still reverberates among today’s magicians.
He died in Chicago in 1984.
Among the Lessons of Life that he taught me was “There are no miracles. There’s always a gimmick.” This sense of skepticism that he instilled in me tremendously enhanced my journalistic skills of research, reporting, and writing.
I needed to apply all of these skills to break through the medical haze of misinformation and superstition in which the subject of wine and diabetes is immersed. That’s why scientific research is so copiously referenced in my latest book, The Diabetic Wine Lover’s Guide.
More later
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