Saturday Market #30 & 31: Aaaauuuughh!

I'm behind again!! They say that Halloween is a "thin time," referring to the space between this world and the next becoming very thin. Well, yeah. This world being Saturday Market and the next being Holiday Market... All you Marketeers out there know exactly what I'm talking about. For me, it's the time to run two full markets simultaneously, or so it seems. All the regular Market stuff has to happen, and all the ramping up to Holiday Market stuff has to happen too. Holiday Market poster (done!) and postcard (also done!!), and then all the ads and pr, plus reinventing the Holiday Market website for the season. The first still imperfect yet functional version is here at holidaymarket.org just uploaded fresh this afternoon.

Meanwhile, we have been beyond blessed by Mother Nature the past month, every Saturday, and every other day really, sunny and warm! They've started off foggy and chill, but by afternoon it's hard to be inside and paying attention to anything but the glory of the trees. What luck that I get to be outside for work one day a week! I have a feeling the sentiment will be different tomorrow, as the storm seems to be blowing in just in time for Market...

I'm off to investigate the purchase of some new Bog rain boots and locate my raincoat! See you there?

P.S. thanks to Shane Schaeffer for the perfect flying skeleton.

Saturday Market #29: October Light

There is no light like the light of an October afternoon when the sky is blue and the air has a bite to it in the shade. Somehow the highlights are brighter and the shade is deeper and the whole world is really really beautiful. So it was last Saturday. We had a chilly gray start to the day, and we were all having the "comparing the layers" conversation we always have, how many layers of what, and what we couldn't find this morning that we really wish we were wearing right then. But the clouds blew away during the noon hour and suddenly there were people everywhere. Homecoming this time meant a late Ducks game (yeah!) and lots of visitors wearing UCLA shirts and hats.

The afternoon was full of delicious light:


Making beeswax candles glow at Sue Theolass' booth,


giving this lovely lady some warmth to bask in at Ayala Talpai's,


catching Elizabeth Cable's fingertips during an absolutely heart-melting version of "Help the Poor" with Natty O's band,


and lighting up this afternoon chat amongst Marketeers Mary, Richard and Aretta.

Prospects for sun look less certain this coming Saturday, we shall welcome it if it shows up!

Saturday Market #28: Surrendering to the Season on a Slightly Soggy Saturday

There's a beautiful tree on the East Park Block that turns a most brilliant and beautiful shade of red right at the turn of the season. Folks that "live" right around it say you can watch the hue shift over the course of a single Saturday. It will be no surprise to you that I find this tree quite photogenic and completely irresistible when I have camera in hand. In fact, it has caused me to pick up my camera and capture what I can on many occasions.

Saturday was one of those days. It started out with torrents of rain just as folks were picking their spaces in the morning. The first rainy morning in the fall does scare off a few vendors, but those who didn't brave it were probably sad that they missed what turned out to be a gorgeous fall day - for the most part anyway. There was one intense half-an-inch-in-ten-minutes downpour right at 1:00. Other that that and the occasional drizzle, it was sweet and almost warm, filled with slanty gold sunlight and the crisp fresh smell of damp pavement and falling leaves. Ahhhh, you have to love a day like that!

Saturday Market #27: Youth Music Showcases are such a huge treat!

I know I've gone on about this before, and I'll keep going on about it because it's so heartening and inspiring to watch! Youth Music Showcases are truly delightful, and Beth Rose is doing a wonderful job of finding kids to play and coordinating the whole thing. This week we had several students of Scotty Perey, keyboardist extraordinaire of the Sugar Beets, followed by a group from Kutsinhira Marimba Center. Among the highlights for me:

August Kuhlman did a great rendition of a song about gnomes - maybe it was a Pink Floyd song? In the cape, feet swinging, plugging along through the occasional stumbling block of missed chords, so much fun!



And I loved Cora Bower's version of the Sugar Beets classic "Sad Eyes."



The Kustinhira group is called Mutswi Wambuya Youth Marimba Band, and is led by Bud Cohen and Nick Gusset. Somewhere during their set I realized that Bud and Nick were about the age of the kids they are teaching (or younger, probably) when I first saw them play on the Market stage with their parents in marimba bands. Wow, that makes me really happy, to see those who were musical kids now passing the music forward and making more musical kids.