THE ENCHANTED EAR
I don't remember learning a whole lot in kindergarten, but
the world of antique music boxes taught me a great deal, often
via wry and eccentric processes.
Music boxes taught me to recognize and heed the knock of
opportunity; they showed me how to overcome disabling and
limiting prejudices; they helped me take advantage of my
capabilities and respect my limitations. They brought
interesting people into my life: dishonest antique dealers
peddling hot music boxes, a crooked insurance adjuster trying to
capitalize on a "missing" music box, a hack repairman destroying
a fine old music box, a gullible collector insisting his music
box must have belonged to Abe Lincoln, even though it bore an
1880s patent date.
I subtitled this book, "Lured into the Music Box Cosmos."
My publisher added a second subtitle, "Mostly True Tales Told By
Larry Karp." Guess everyone's entitled to his or her opinion.
If you're a music box enthusiast, I think these stories will
bring you more than an occasional chuckle and gasp of
recognition. If you're not, you'll enjoy the stories anyway - no
nineteenth-century technobabble here to confuse you or put you
off. But be careful - you might just get hooked.
What Others Are Saying...
"I've been waiting a long time for someone to write this
book....A small volume brimful of the good stuff collectors eat,
sleep and breathe, that's part of their existence; anecdotal,
semi-autobiographical morsels served in an easy, free-flowing
manner that makes for svory, palatable and thoroughly digestible
reading...(Larry's) musical boxes take life; they speak to him in
the voice of their craftsmen-creators, transcending space and
time for all of us to hear if we but listen...The greatest
compliment paid an author might be to say, "I wish I had written
that!" (Olin Tillotson, long-time authority in cylinder music
boxes, MBSI News Bulletin, March/April, 1996.
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