Things that make you go Hmmm

Or to be more accurate, this week I’m commenting on things that make you go OMG, My Eyes! My Eyes!

There are clearly different customer demographics at the Markets and Fairs we attend.  At Caloundra we see more tattoos than we’ve ever seen in our lives.  And in spots that make you wince at just the thought of someone sticking a needle there, multiple times.  And they’re just the tatts we can see.

At Peregian we see a great deal of beachwear, some really quite skimpy, some downright see-through, and lots of good casual. 

At Nights on Ocean, in Maroochydore, we see a lot of dressed-up-for-clubbing, which at times doesn’t cover much more than the beachwear at Peregian.  Generally it’s black and involves very, very high heels (and not just on the gels).

At the World Festival in Maroochydore, and yes I’m pointing the finger at you again Caloundra, there was more inappropriately tight jersey than you can imagine.  I’m not one for mocking body shapes – Lord knows I have no high ground there.  But who doesn’t know that jersey clings to every single curve, and that really, really tight jersey gives you a Sara Lee effect (layer-upon-layer-upon-layer)?

Friends and Loved Ones of People Who Like to Wear Tight Jersey!  Listen to me!  Heed my cries!  Physically wrestle your tight jersey wearing friend (or loved one) to the ground the next time they attempt to step out the door wearing it.  Please, for all our sakes.

But there is even worse than seeing multiple muffin tops on the one person, or back cleavage that rivals anything out the front.  And that’s wearing no knickers while wearing extremely short and extremely loose light cotton shorts. 

When I’m sitting in my chair at a Market, and you are doing a little swirl in the middle of my stand, your nether regions are at eye level – did you know that?  Unfortunately, I know that.  Put some knickers on, swirly girls!

And on a par with that, if you are a person of a certain build – let’s say around size 26 – walking around the Caloundra Street Fair in an eensy-weensy blue bikini, with a catastrophic wardrobe malfunction imminent up top, and your pants inadvertently becoming a g-string even though that was never their intention, please, please think of others if not yourself before you step into the public domain.  There are some sights we don’t need emblazoned on our brains.  Even inappropriately tight jersey becomes downright elegant in comparison.

I know, I know, isn’t it nice that some people are so confident in their own skins that they can walk down a very crowded street, practically naked or at least sheathed in a thin fabric stretched so tight they might as well be naked.  Maybe it’s just a matter of perception and I need to adjust my point of view.  What some see as extraordinarily lumpy-bumpy obese, others might see as deliciously voluptuous. 

But upon reflection, no - I saw this stuff and I’m not being unreasonable in saying I don’t want to see it any more.  And before you squawk that I have no right to set myself up as the Fashion Police for the market-going public, look at that – I have.  Keep it nice is all I ask.  In the meantime, if I have to have these images in my brain the rest of you have to share.

On the upside, the World Festival was a resounding success, as was the night market the following Friday.  Even the Caloundra Street Fair has been okay and the Peregian Beach Market always chuffs along nicely.  All up, we’ve sold about 150 French vintage pictures in the last month, which I think is a record for us.

So now we’ve added Nights on Ocean at Maroochydore to our schedule.  It’s a busy little market, with a buzzing, friendly atmosphere.  It’s a pity it’s only on once a month, but it’s a nice addition to our list.  The next Night Market is on 12 June (I think).

Meanwhile, Collectorama is fast approaching, and we have a number of small furniture items we’ll be offering this time so I need to get to work on them.  That’s at the Nambour Showgrounds on Saturday, 30 May, opening at 7.30am.  Be sure to add it to your diary.  Last time there were queues waiting to get through the gates at opening time and we had a huge day, so fingers crossed for this time.  Remember to wear knickers!

With good style in mind, I’ve included a selection of Vogue covers from the 1920s and 30s as my pictures this time.  These are very recent additions to our catalogue of reproduction pictures, and they are very beautiful.  I have more, which you will see when you visit us at one of the Markets or Collectorama.  I think I might feature pictures on the blog and Facebook for the next little while, because I’ve had a bunch reproduced, and I’m very happy with the results.  You won’t see a Vogue girl wearing inappropriately tight jersey – at least not on the cover.

Writing, Antiquing & Publicizing Crazy Stuff

The 1st Secret Sources article is in this edition.

Don’t even talk to me about that bloody car.  No it’s still not done, and no we still don’t have it.  But there has been progress, of a sort, so I’m trying to chill.  Not very successfully trying to chill, but trying.

Meanwhile, the writing gig is continuing apace.  The latest Antiques & Collectables for Pleasure & Profit magazine has been published, with the first of my Secret Source articles.  The page designer made it look pretty, so I’m happy with the presentation.

Then I had an article idea on Krampus accepted by that magazine, which was great except for the bit where I had only thought of the title of the article and the first two sentences.  Now I have to come up with another 1800 words. 

Krampus, for those who don’t know, is the Christmas Demon.  He comes to those on the naughty list, and he either kidnaps and eats you, or kidnaps and beats you with chains (depending on who’s telling the story).  He’s big in parts of Europe, where Krampusnacht looks quite scary but fun.  He was softened a lot when he hit America, so he doesn’t eat children or whip them with chains, but instead leaves a big lump of coal in their Christmas stockings.

Krampusnacht in Austria

So anyway, that’s Krampus.  I expect we don’t have him in Australia because we don’t have any naughty children here.  My plan is to contrast him with Saint Nicholas, so we’ll see what I come up with, but so far you know as much as I do.

My article on humanity’s love/hate history with the cat was also accepted for publication, plus one I wrote about the legend of the mermaid.  So yay for that.  Plus the strange story of the social history of the Pineapple will be coming up at some point, and in the next edition I think they're going with something I wrote about Medieval to Victorian Medical Cures.

Then I had an article about driving on the Peripherique in Paris accepted by the RACQ magazine, The Road Ahead.  And on the basis of that article, I’ve now been invited to write a lead article for them (which I’m working on) about touring and shopping in the south of France.

The Paris Peripherique, viewed from space.

The Road Ahead is delivered for free to every RACQ member, and has a circulation of over one million every month.  That’s right up there with the big boys.  So if you’re an RACQ member you are Hereby Ordered to read this magazine.  I don’t know when my articles will be published, but soon I hope.

On the antiques front, we’ll be at the World Festival at Maroochydore this coming Easter Sunday (5 April).  We’ve dug out more of the French grain sacks that have been so much admired, so we’ll be offering them, plus a good range of Various Stuff.  The World Festival is only held once a year and is supposed to be great fun, with lots of different food and entertainment (and Various Stuff).  It runs from 10am to 9pm, so it will be a long day for us.  Let’s hope it’s worth the effort.

2014 winner.  Finished in less than 23 minutes.

The King of the Mountain Festival in Pomona is coming up in July, so I’m working on some local pre-publicity for that.  I’ll do some broader publicity closer to the time, if I can swing it, but so far I’ll have six articles in the local newspaper Cooroy Rag starting from 15 April.   

If any of you feel the entirely sensible and rational need to run at full pelt to the top of a whacking great mountain and back down again at break-neck speed, which is what you need to do to win this event, your prize will be a trip to New Zealand – so you can do it again in the event’s sister-race. 

Great prize, I told the organisers, what does the person who comes second get – two chances to do it again?  But apparently really fit (and entirely sensible and rational) people just love doing this sort of thing.  Who knew?  And yes, yes, I’ll delve into the Fitness Mindset as we go, but so far my publicity articles are more along the lines of “what possesses these people?”

Tamerlan, Napoleon's stallion, will get a mention

So okay, I’m off to work on my final draft of the south of France article, my Secret Source article on Helsinki has unexpectedly been bumped up the publishing schedule for the antiques magazine so that needs finalizing, to do some research on Krampus, and round-up some competitors in the King of the Mountain race to interview.  Lucky I enjoy writing, because once people agree to publish your work you suddenly have deadlines to meet.  How I hate deadlines.

But here's a request.  Now that what I have unofficially called my 'Critter Series' has been accepted as a concept by the antiques magazine, I need to write articles on various animals, real and mythical.  So far I have written on cats, mermaids, and Krampus is in the works.

My plan is produce something on horses (including Pegasus, unicorns, horses of the Apocalypse, Trojan Horse, etc) and then dragons.  So here's the question:  can any of you think of a good critter to write about - I'm talking in terms of its history with humans, the symbolism attached to it, anything produced regarding it that is now considered collectable, in short, anything interesting?  All ideas will be accepted and stored in my Ideas List - already long but additions always welcomed.  

You can't leave a comment on the Blog - for some reason that field no longer works - but you can email me at ddpalmen@yahoo.com.au.  I'd love to hear your ideas.

It's probably best to not kill the mechanic

A sweet little car, Porsche 356B

I know, ever since I’ve started writing for magazines and newspapers I’ve been slack as with the blog.  But things have been progressing nicely.

Except with the building of the house, where things haven’t been progressing at all.  We need to have the car’s engine finished so we can flog it, which will in turn finance the rest of the house (most of it). 

But we are still waiting for the wretched mechanic to finish work on the Porsche.  Even though he keeps assuring us there is only six weeks’ work left to do, that counts for nothing when he’s doing precisely no work at all. 

Antique textile woodblocks will be at Collectorama

It’s been over ten years – yes, you read correctly, TEN YEARS that we’ve been waiting.  And now he’s getting all indignant that we’re being unreasonably impatient in wanting it finished right now.

Do I want to throttle him?  Yes.  Yes I do.

But rather than kill the mechanic, we embarked on a hunt to find a new guy.  The challenge was to find someone with the skills and experience to work on a vintage Porsche 356B, because they have special engines that are nothing like those in modern cars. 

Vintage pictures will be at Collectorama

And yay, we have finally found someone.  Unfortunately the new guy, as with all other mechanics working on vintage Porsches in Australia, still has to deal with our current mechanic to get specialist parts.  So there’s no escaping him. 

But at least we can now be reasonably certain that the job will be finished before we die.  And the old mechanic can be reasonably certain that he won’t encounter me in my Ninja Assassin outfit any time soon.

And that means we can recommence building the rest of the house.  Yay!  And maybe even go on a small buying trip, but we’ll see.

Meanwhile, Collectorama at the Nambour Showground is upon us, this coming Saturday.  We’ve got heaps of new things to offer, so I’m feeling excited about putting on a good display with interesting pieces.

French, English, Australian & Indian pieces

We’ve taken a break from the Caloundra Street Fair until the end of March, when we’ll be back with a vengeance. 

But the Yandina Market has just announced that it now wants it’s stallholders to arrive at 4am, so that’s definitely out.  Really, 4am?  It’s not going to happen.  That edict might be cancelled, because the regular stallholders are unhappy vegemites about it, but we’ll find out soon.

Meanwhile, I’ve been enjoying writing a variety of feature articles for newspapers and magazines.  Last week I had half-page newspaper features published on Tuesday and Saturday, and this month I have a two page travel and shopping feature coming up in the magazine Antiques & Collectables for Pleasure & Profit, which is the first of a series they have commissioned.

I'll be in this a lot in 2015

The Antiques magazine has also commissioned another six two-page features from me so far this year, three as part of my travel series and three random subjects of my choice.   

I’ve also got a feature coming up with a travel magazine, I’ve pitched a few more so we’ll see what happens there, and today I was offered the role of media publicist for the King of the Mountain footrace.   

This race attracts international competitors and is ridiculously hard, and I think I can write something interesting about it.  I’m not sure if I’ll take on the publicity role yet, but probably I will. 

So yay, this writing gig is progressing nicely. 

But the big thing this week is the reprieve from Certain Death for the mechanic, and Collectorama on Saturday, 7 March.   

You know I have already written an article on this Fair (which is in the current edition of the Antiques magazine, pictured above), so it’s safe for you to visit without me taking notes and embarrassing photos.  If you can come by to say hello, you’ll be welcome.