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.

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.