Thursday, August 09, 2007

Déjà vu

When my family and I were in Great Barrington, Massachusetts the other day, we decided to stop in Yellow House Books on Main Street. Although it opened in 1991, I don't recall ever being inside. I made my way to the music section, and was surprised to notice that the used books (the store is mainly used books as far as music books are concerned) on the shelf were almost all books I had on my bookshelf at home. There were even odd things there like Cyril Scott's Music: its Sacred Influence Throughout the Ages. Feeling a bit taken aback, I flipped through their surprisingly interesting collection of used music. There was a section of flute music. As I flipped through the collection I realized that I had, at one time, owned every single piece of music in there--and there must have been 60 pieces.

I picked up a pristine copy of the Bach D minor Violin Concerto for seven dollars (yes, the violin and viola sections were also filled with music in my library) and a pocket score of Mozart's 40th Symphony (always useful for teaching), along with a book of English Renaissance polyphonic music, and a book from the 1950s about guitar playing with a section that explains how to yodel (that was for my son and my husband).

I know that it is ridiculous to find any significance in this little "event," but since all the familiar music and all the familiar books were in one place, and I was one person having a used bookstore "experience," I felt as if I had found the discarded musical property of my "double."

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