Crystal Ball Predicts Fire in Paseo Miramar

I have a one-room cottage and music studio on Paseo Miramar on the west end of the Palisades that I inherited from my parents in 1981 (our family moved to the Palisades in 1952 when I was 9). On Wednesday, March 12, the cottage caught fire. Here is what happened.

I was having new ultra-clear picture window glass installed to replace the tinted glass picture windows that my parents had put in when they built the cottage in 1970 that I felt diminished the magnificent overview of Los Liones canyon to the west.

At the foot of my 9-foot Bechstein concert grand piano near the sliding-glass door, I had a book stand.

The book stand was filled with my priceless collection of music books, with a huge, 8-inch crystal ball that I had bought at a rock shop in Quarzite, Ariz., sitting on the top of the stand.

To get the ball out of the way of the two workmen installing the new windows, I had placed the ball on the floor out of sight behind the back edge of the curtain. Unbeknownst to me, in the course of the job, one of the workmen chose to use the electric outlet behind the curtain for his power tools, an outlet that just happened to be blocked by the ball.

To gain access to the outlet, he moved the ball, as chance would have it, in front of the curtain where the sun’s rays could hit it. And that was to make all the difference.

At 4 o’clock the workmen left, and I spent a half hour in paradise admiring the enhanced view through the new glass, then left to walk the dogs on the beach.

One hour later I returned to find five fire trucks at my driveway. Apparently, while I was gone, the afternoon sun hit just the right angle. The rays focused through the crystal ball, as though through a huge magnifying glass and torched the 11-foot by 25-foot floor-to-ceiling curtain. In turn, that set fire to part of the wall, floor and music books, and in the process charred one whole side of my beloved Bechstein grand piano.

Thanks to our great fire department, alerted by a neighbor, the damage was not worse.

Ironically, one could say, instead of predicting fate, this particular crystal ball caused something fateful – and horrible – to happen.