Junk Shop Nirvana

Back on Friday 17 November, I was on another Amsterdam layover. I made a pilgrimage to a junkshop in the same neighborhood as the hotel. I'd heard great things about it. It was a place to go without worrying about spending excess cash and it was just something DIFFERENT to do. It was a five-minute walk to the two-story junk emporium. Of course, I was there for the music. I went digging through the used compact discs and came with a small treasure-pile. Mostly cd singles and a double-disc of Christmas music from the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra... I also bought this bizarre, absurdist-creepy figuring that will probably come to life and kill me in my sleep at some point...Almost bought my first pipe for one Euro. But it wasn't quite ME...(That'll make sense to the Frumpy Professor...) The whole bag o' swag cost under five euros...(About eight dollars) There was something very comforting about that junk shop. A nostagia-limbo of lost artifacts. Threre's a quiet Sunday afternoon atmosphere in such a place. All of these former possessions from other peoples' lives...Dusty old albums, kitsch bric-a-brac, books, absurdly-dated furniture sets from previous decades...No airs or graces in that safe little pocket of retro-reality... Underlying and emblifying this experience was my hearing a song I hadn't heard since I was in the single-digits. It missed my orbit all these years with all of the music-store-browsing I've done..."How Do You Do?", I believe it was called. (I'll have to check the Rhino 70's Pop-Culture Box Set...) Another gem was "PERSONALITY". A warm, cozy retro-bubble experience. I MUST be getting old... Today's dinette set is tomorrow's Salvation Army showroom centerpiece...GaP