It's a Small, Coincidental World, After All

An intense gentleman came to the desk looking for books on Paolo Soleri, an architect."Oh, sure!" I said.

"You've heard of him?" he said. He seemed surprised.

"I've been to Arcosanti, an experimental community he designed, in Arizona." I felt quite worldly.

"That's where I'm going, I'm going there!" he said. "I want to know if you have books about it."

"We do," I said. "We have a couple."

He left happy, and still intense. Two days later, the phone rang at the desk and I picked it up. It was another very intense man, who said, and I quote, "There's an experimental city somewhere in the desert in Arizona called..."

"Arcosanti!" We said at the same time.

"You've heard of it?" he asked.

"I've been there," I said, again feeling worldly, and now a little deja-vu-ey. It was definitely a different person, a completely different voice.

"Well, I want to know if it's been built. If it's a real functioning city."

"Well, I'm not sure what you mean by a 'real' city. I don't know what kind of municipal organization it has, if any. It's more like an educational institution. But I can look that up for you."

"But it exists? You've seen it?"

"Yes, it exists. You can even stay there overnight, if you book in advance."

"No, I just wanted to know if it really exists."

"Ah. Well then, yes...yes, it does. You can look online at a site I'll give you, or come in here and do that...or look at books."

"Okay, maybe I'll check that out."

Now those two instances by themselves is no big deal; it happens all the time that something gets mentioned on a TV program and there's a brief flurry of questions about it.

But then, the day after that, I sold a pair of concert tickets on line, and because there was a misprinted ticket, I had occasion to look up the name of the buyer, and noticed he was an architect, whose company's website mentions he studied and worked at... Arcosanti.

It's a small, coincidental world after all.