French, Indian & Klingon

Art Nouveau tile

 

Well here’s some good news.

The earliest we are able to travel to France and England on our next buying trip is June.  Any stock we find won’t then arrive in Australia until August.  That won’t do.

So we’ve tried an experiment, and through a convoluted means we’ve been able to get some new stock from a couple of French dealers we often buy from and one vintage Indian specialist I’ve bought some great things from. 

It arrived in the country this week and we picked it up on Wednesday.  And yay, it’s great!

It’s not the same as going to Paris ourselves – of course!  And we haven’t got the more unusual things that I have to just stumble across in my travels.  But in terms of many of our “staples”, enamelware, dough troughs, watering cans, various excellent vintage kitchenware, it’s great. 

We haven’t offered a great deal of vintage and antique Indian pieces before (although we’ve kept a few for ourselves), but I’m extremely happy with the items we now have.

Vintage Indian tika boxes

It’s a gamble buying things without seeing them first, but we’ve been buying from these dealers for a long time, I provided photos of the types of things I wanted and some excellent things have arrived.

So this new stock will start being presented from this coming Sunday (15 Feb) at Peregian Beach Market.  It will be great to see you, if you can come.

Meanwhile, there has been a small change to our market-going routine.  We tried Yandina Market – everyone said we should, and we did. 

But here’s the thing - getting up at 3.30am just isn’t natural.  It isn’t.

French blue enamel kitchenware

So although it was a pleasant location, and although we made a profit, we didn’t make sufficient to warrant this kind of imposition.  From now on, at 3.30am on a Saturday morning we shall be snoring, like normal people.  We might start up again in the cooler weather, but we’ll see.

But at least Yandina laid on one last strange person before we left.

She was looking through our vintage French images, and suddenly yelled – yelled – OMG, I LOVE this picture! 

It’s nice when something resonates so strongly with you, isn’t it?  I said.  But I don’t just love this picture, she said, it’s speaking to me. 

That’s nice, I said, thinking she was speaking metaphorically.  You don’t understand, she said, it’s really speaking to me.  In a secret language.  I can hear everything it’s saying.  And then she stood there for a full minute, spouting quite guttural gibberish at me.  Relaying what the picture was saying in its secret language, apparently.

Nice vintage fishing gear

Wow, I said after she had spluttered to a stop, it’s quite a talkative picture, isn’t it?  And I would have thought it would speak to you in French.  Why’s that? she asked.  Because it’s a French picture, I said, so you’d think any secret talking from it straight into your brain would be in French.

But I don’t speak French, she said.  But you speak ….. whatever that was, I noted.  Yes, she said, it’s a secret language, which I understand.   

And then she left.  This amazing picture, which had her literally yelling and talking in tongues, didn’t go home with her.  She tried to get her husband to come and have a look, but he was having none of it and stood a little way along the path, refusing her entreaties to join her.  Can’t say that I blame him.

Later, I realised she had been speaking in Klingon.  She totally was.  Now I’m dead impressed.

Just in time for Easter, a cute bunny mould

You know when we had the shop we were visited by our fair share of people who experienced the world differently (yes, that’s a nice way of saying nutters), but I’m not sure what brings so many to the Markets.

So far not many have descended upon us at Peregian Beach Market, which is just as well because it’s our favourite market and we want to keep it that way.  But when you visit next Sunday, we shall have the following exchange:

You will yell:   Nuqneh!  Gastah nuq?  This is Klingon for Hi! What’s up?

I shall yell back:  Nuqjatlh?  Which is Klingon for Huh?, because you’re clearly a nutter who is yelling at me in Klingon. 

A Tale of Woe & Things More Weird Than Woe

The culprit.

We love our pets, right?  And we never feel like strangling them, right?

Actually, I didn’t feel murderous but I was quite upset at Mischka’s escapades this week.

For some years we have owned a beautiful old Carltonware bowl, in excellent condition.  My favourite piece of ceramic, and certainly the most expensive we’ve ever owned.  We bought it for a song, but old Carltonware has appreciated nicely over the years and now we would never dream of spending that much money on a bowl.

For safe-keeping, it has been lodged on the top shelf of a glass-fronted bookcase.  And there it has safely sat for the entire time we’ve owned it.

But this week the bookcase door was left momentarily open.  You know where this is going, don’t you?

Mischka immediately took the opportunity to inspect The Forbidden Zone.  She’s never been allowed inside the bookcase, and its lure was impossibly attractive.

She took a wild leap at the top shelf, which from a standing start would have been impressive for any cat let alone a klutz like her.  And, of course, she missed.  She scrabbled for purchase, pulling out a book, which in turn crashed into the bowl, which didn’t bounce well when it hit the ground.  A million pieces is not an exaggeration.  Not much, anyway.

And boy did she run.  A purple streak flew by on its way to the verandah, so fast that at first I had trouble identifying who it was.  But there is only one purple cat at our house.

The disaster.

Identifying the perpetrator was made easier by the fact that she immediately returned to the scene of the crime, to inspect the damage.

Apart from an extended wail of “Noooooooo!”, and perhaps one or two unseemly words, there was no yelling.  Certainly none directed at Mischka.

But she knew she had done wrong.

She spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on me and Doug in turn, putting her paws around our arms, necks, stomachs - anything she could reach - for an extended pussycat cuddle, with lots of head rubbing and head-on-an-angle endearing looks.

How can you resist pussycat cuddles and head-on-angle endearing looks?  You can’t.  Cats practice these looks in front of the bathroom mirror when no-one is looking, for exactly this eventuality.

How fortunate that I subsequently spoke to the very creative Vicki, who makes jewellery and has offered to rebirth at least some of the shards into something nice.  So we shall have a permanent reminder of Mischka the Klutz Kat’s Krime hanging around my neck or dangling from my ears.  Photos will be supplied in due course.

You still love me, don't you?

In other news, there I was sitting at my stand at the Yandina Country Market on Saturday.  It was the third time we’d taken a stand at this market, and we’ll do so for the rest of January and revisit our plans then. 

Anyway, there I was sitting at my stand, when a woman approached me and said Can I show you a picture of my toilet?  This isn’t a question I’m often asked.  Okay…., I said cautiously.

It turned out to not be as weird as I was expecting, because she had purchased a stained glass window from us some time ago, and installed it in the room that houses her toilet.  So, not weird at all.  Really nice, in fact.

But weird was on its way.

A bit later a chap started browsing through our selection of vintage French magazine covers and advertisements.  You sell French stuff but you’re not selling Charlie Hebdo – that’s really hypocritical of you, he declared.  If you sold Charlie Hebdo I would buy it, so you should sell it.

Calypso had plenty to say on the topic.

You may have noticed our sign, I said.  It says ‘Antiques, Vintage & Retro’.  Yes he had. 

So we only sell old things.  Charlie Hebdo isn’t a really old publication, and it also doesn’t have the type of art we want to sell, I said.

I think you will agree this was a perfectly reasonable and immensely polite response, given that I’d just been loudly called a hypocrite.

But no, he was having none of it.  Well I think it’s hypocritical for you to be selling French things but not Charlie Hebdo, he said.  As usual, my left eyebrow developed a life of its own.  Doug recognizes this as an early warning sign, but our guy was oblivious to the fact that the wrath of me was about to descend upon him. 

Had you even heard of Charlie Hebdo before yesterday?, I asked.  No he hadn’t.  Do you read French?, I asked?  No he doesn’t.  So you’re suggesting that as an antiques dealer I stock a brand new satirical magazine in a language you can’t even read?, I asked. 

What’s satirical? was his response.

Sensibly, the boys kept a low profile.

There a woman standing beside him also looking at the pictures and quietly listening to this exchange.  She couldn’t stop herself groaning loudly, and she turned to look at him, incredulously.  Then she turned to me and silently gave me an open-mouthed OMG-Who-Is-This-Idiot? look.  We shared a smile, and I turned back to my nemesis.

Satire is a type of witty sarcasm, I said.  In Charlie Hebdo’s case it satires French politics and culture – you’d never even heard of it before 24 hours ago, you can’t read French, you have no idea what satire is, and I seriously doubt you know the first thing about French politics and culture in any case.  But you reckon that as an antiques dealer I’m a hypocrite for not stocking a brand new magazine so you can tell all your friends how brave you are for buying it.  Am I right?   

And I said all of that in one big breath.

Well I still think you should sell it, he said as his parting shot, before he turned and marched out.  But not before the woman who had been standing next to him said loudly You’ve got to be kidding – who is that moron?  He pretended he couldn’t hear her, but he’d have to be deaf as well as stupid.

Does that sign say 'satire sold here'?

You meet all types when you’re an antiques dealer, I told her.  And he wants to make a brave political statement from the obscurity of Yandina market – where he’s not likely to run into too many al-Qaeda operatives buying their weekly fruit and vegies.   

We agreed he was an idiot and that women are superior in every way, just for good measure.

Other than the occasional Jihadist-defying customer, Yandina is a nice country market with friendly, laid-back visitors.  It sells a good selection of reasonably priced garden plants, fresh fruit and vegetables direct from the growers, and also has small group of artisanal food producers.  There is a fair quantity of trash and treasure stands that largely sell clothes, and a growing number of second hand and vintage stands.   

Among it all are a few little gems, and the Market management told me they would be very happy if I wrote some newspaper articles on a variety of the traders there, much as I do for the Peregian Beach Market.  Yandina Market gets little publicity, but hopefully I can help change that.

And on the journalism front, so far so good.  Since last November I’ve had eight articles published, the biggest of them a two page feature in the nationally circulated magazine Antiques & Collectables for Pleasure & Profit.  It’s the best antiques magazine in Australia, so I was chuffed to get a gig with them.

That magazine’s Editor has now invited me to write a series of articles for them, and the first will be published in the autumn edition (out in March).  Plus I have two articles going into the winter edition.  What a pity it’s only published quarterly, but they’ve scheduled me for every edition in 2015 and are already talking about 2016, so this has been a good boost to my confidence as a writer.  More on this as it happens.

Lots of vintage now at Peregian Market.  I'm writing an article on it.

The Benefits of Going Topless

The view from our new spot at Peregian.

Well here’s a new development.  Through some dark magic, involving no intervention by me, it suddenly appears that you are able to subscribe to the Blog again.  Yay for dark magic!  So if you want to subscribe you go right ahead, and hopefully future missives will just appear in your intray.  Fill in your email address in the 'Follow by Email' field on the right, and we’ll see what happens.

So, in the spirit of writing a little bit often, rather than nothing for ages and then hitting you with a great long missive, here is this week’s little bit:

It was back to the Peregian Beach Market last Sunday.  What a charming market that is.  And now we have been moved into our Forever Spot, which is on the main walkway to the beach, so we have sand under our feet and a nice ocean view.  And it turns out to be the pretty boy corner of the market in terms of the vendors, so again it’s a nice view.

Ab-Man working it with the girls.

 

 

 

One of the lads really works his charms with the ladies, and it’s depressingly effective.  After setting up his stand the first thing he does is take off his shirt, revealing what must be said are quite impressive abs.  And the girls come flocking.  When I say girls, I mean girls of all ages – even matronly types get all giggly and girly around him.  It’s revealing in more ways than one – the power of a good looking person to lay on the charm and in doing so generate sales. 

There is a coffee seller at the Caloundra Street Fair whose sales are directly impacted by what his trusty (and ample) assistant wears to work.  When she’s wearing a va-va-voom top, sales spike.  When she’s all demure, sales are about normal.  That’s sad people.  And when I say people, I mean men.  Eyes on the coffee cups boys, not the D cups.

Italian End-of-Day glass fish.

Still, I can’t be too holier-than-thou about this when I’ve been enjoying the view from my new spot at the Peregian Beach Market.  Not that I bought anything from Ab-Man.  Perhaps it’s because I’ve withstood the charms of countless flirtatious Frenchmen trying to sell me something that I have developed an immunity to Ab-Man’s efforts. 

He can flaunt his muscular, brown body, damn fine abs, charming, slightly roguish smile, and tousled surfer hair all he likes.  Really, all he likes.  But it will take more than that to part me from my cash.  Still, I encourage him to keep trying.

A selection of jewellery at Collective Haus.

The news this week is that we have put a jewellery cabinet in a nice little antiques shop in Yandina, on the Sunshine Coast.

It’s called Collective Haus, and it’s in an old church building.  It sells a bit of everything, but Suzy the owner has thing for vintage fashion and there are plenty of affordable and nice pieces.  So I figured that vintage French jewellery might be a nice complement to her stock.

Gus is sweet but not as cool as a Bengal.

We might put a bigger cabinet in Collective Haus in due course, but we’ll start with the jewellery and see how it goes.  I have a great collection from our last buying trip, and I only offer a few pieces at Peregian Beach Market, so this venue will allow me to offer a bigger selection.  

It’s a nice shop, with an adjoining coffee shop, and worth visiting.  Doesn’t have a shop cat but you will be greeted by Gus, the friendly little shop dog.  He’s sweet but not as cool as Caleb and Calypso – but then, who is?

In terms of the markets, we're at the Caloundra Street Fair this coming Sunday (14 December),  and then one more stand at Peregian on 21 December and that will be it before Christmas.  If you come to visit, we promise to not take off our shirts.

Kindly Keep Your Minions Under Control

Champagne ad, c1948, $38

Well yes, it’s been a while between blogs.  But lately I’ve been writing for newspapers and magazines, and I’m making some headway with that.  Though I must say, I have come to hate Sub-Editors.  Most Editors seem reasonable but their evil Minions, the Sub-Editors, like to change my pearls of wisdom just for the sake of change (I reckon).

Can you imagine changing a single word I write?  No, of course you can’t.  That’s why you’ll never be a Minion.

Some years ago, when I ran the Australian Consulate in the UK, every month I wrote a two-page spread in a British newspaper answering Letters to the Editor on immigration matters – general Australian policy and individual cases.  I got to be all Judge Judy with everyone who was plain silly or outright lying and it was quite cathartic.  That’s when I learned how much the English like a good spanking, even if only a literary spanking.

The deal I had with the British Editor was that he would fend off his Minions, and not a single word I wrote could be changed.  And seeing how he wanted me more than I wanted him, he agreed to my terms.  
 

Perfume ad, c1965, $20

But I’m finding that Australian Editors (and their Minions) are less indulgent of my rabbiting on.  So lucky I have youse guys, who indulge me at every turn.

As for Life In General, things have gone on as usual.  The November Collectorama antiques and collectors fair was hugely successful, so it’s good I wasn’t planning to write about it because I was too busy selling stuff.  And keeping hydrated with iced-water because it was hot, hot, hot. 

This time there was only one bloggable customer, who strode into my stand with a big t-shirt proclaiming “L’amour is the answer”. 

Ah, I said, let me guess that you’re a Francophile.  A wot? she said.  A person who likes all things French, I explained.  Why would you say that? she asked.  Because of your t-shirt, I said.  She looked at me blankly.  L’amour is the answer, I said.  She got more bovine by the second.  Love is the answer, I said, Your t-shirt says Love is the answer.  L’amour is French for “love”.

Really?  Is that what it says? she asked.  My daughter gave me this t-shirt and I never knew what it said.  Lucky it doesn’t say “get stuffed the lot of you” then, I laughed. 

Alcohol ad, c1953, $25

Fancy wearing a t-shirt saying something you don’t understand.  It makes me think of those numpties who believe they’re getting a profound Chinese proverb tattooed on their bicep, when it really says I Am A Numptie and they don’t know because they can’t read Mandarin.  I would love to meet someone who has “Loser” tattooed in Mandarin on an exposed bit of their body. 

There is a lady who frequents Eumundi who has “I love Nootsa” tattooed on the back of her neck.  She was blissfully unaware of the mistake until laughing friends pointed out that she should have written down what she wanted, rather than mispronounce “Noosa” to the tattooist.  The “t” has now been disguised with a little flower, but those of us who know the true story can’t help but chuckle every time we see her.

But I digress – and yes, if you were a Minion you would be champing at the bit to delete the previous two paragraphs.  But sucked in, cause you’re not.

So that was Collectorama for the year.  The next one isn’t until March 2015, so we shall continue at the Peregian Beach Market and Caloundra Street Fair on alternate Sunday mornings in the meantime.  We’re also thinking about a Saturday morning market at Yandina, and we’ll try that soon and see if we want to make it a regular outing.

Life at the Sunday morning markets has been so hot lately, and sales haven’t been significant for anyone.  We keep hearing about the boom in retail sales, but that isn’t what we’re living.  The antiques shop situated behind our Caloundra Street Fair stand opened seven months ago and has already asked us to buy them out, so they’re not feeling the love, either.  But we’re done with shops, unless they’re Pop Up shops.

Alcohol ad, c1953, $22

The hot weather has kept most of the Strange Ones away from the Markets, it seems, although we did have one at Caloundra recently.  

She was a much larger lady, heavily tattooed, wearing a hot pink singlet that was a little too tight, and with an unrestrained bosom she could have tucked into her belt.  She was looking at a French martini advertisement.  Do you enjoy the occasional aperitif? I asked. Wot? she said.

I pointed to the picture she was holding.  The Martini advertisement, I said, to indicate what I was talking about.  Wot? she said again.  And my mind went blank.  I literally didn’t know how to translate my sentence into Bogan. 

Finally I said Some French people like to have a pre-dinner drink, it’s called an aperitif.  I just like to drink, she said and shuffled off.  Nuff said.

Where are all our non-Bogan customers?  Turn up!  We’ll be at the Caloundra Street Fair again this coming Sunday, 30 November (being the 5^th Sunday of the month).  Christmas is coming, non-Bogan customers! 

 

 

25 Oct 1919, $56

PS.  Are you reading this, Veronica Moran?  If so, would you mind emailing me at ddpalmen@yahoo.com.au?   

I am writing a couple of articles for some travel magazines on the Clignancourt and Porte de Vanves Markets, and I would love to get some quotes from you about what you thought about Porte de Vanves and what you bought.

And that goes for any reader who has visited either of these Markets and would like to be quoted in a magazine article – I’d love to have a cyber chat with you, so please email.