Meet me in the Market, it's goin' down

 

I’m sure many share my detestation of malls… that claustrophobic suffocation you feel of being jostled in every which way, or the fact that my inner teenybopper forces me to stop by Victoria Secret each time to begrudgingly stare at seducti-fied mannequins while dabbing on $20 tester lip gloss.

Yet for all the mall-hatin’ I do up in herr’, for some reason I have this weird obsession with markets. Markets upon markets upon markets, I just can’t get enough.

Markets occupy the same despicable squander as malls; packed with obnoxious sellers (often the less censored kind) and bustling shoppers (often the less bathed kind), they simply provide another means of showcasing frivolous things, only with the Made in China labels scratched off.

But OMG do I LOVE markets.

Whether it’s a bottle cap from the 1960’s or a pair of wooden clogs two sizes too big, I have this compulsive need to buy everything in sight. A picture frame made of chewing gum wrappers? Want it. The license plate of a Portuguese outlaw? Gotta have it. Heck, if ten different fruit stands sell ‘pêches fraîches,‘ you bet your piper’s poodle I’ll try them all to find ‘le plus frais.’

Perhaps it’s the ability to bargain a 2€ seashell necklace down to 1€50, or that dirt stains and rust offer a vintage sparkle, but for me at least the appeal of the marketplace is how all kinds of people, young or old, rich or poor, skinny or American, can participate in the chaotic rush. It represents the pride and joy of the everyday man, an arena where all players, not just Shakira, can shake what their mama gave them (and too often do you see desperados hustling off their recently-passed mother’s jewels).  

       The market Sunday morning in Banyuls, France, resting on the Mediterranean sea just a nose hair from Spain. 

I love the way markets look. The tents proudly display their nation’s flag, and the fruit vendors stack up their melons and berries in such an artistic way that your eyes are sucker punched by the explosion of colors.

I love how markets smell. With honeys and ciders and meats so rich, even fermented cheese samples on which flies perform coitus are too tempting to resist.

I love the way markets feel. There’s just something about walking on cement with the summer breeze pushing you along which makes the fact that that old woman carried all those ukuleles onto that table so much more nostalgic.

But most of all, I love the marketplace for the stories. Not just the tales behind the knickknacks you buy, or how you stumbled upon them. But rather, I crave the luck of eavesdropping on a story exchange between locals who live for the market, who regularly brave these bartering mosh pits just to see familiar faces. Some gossip over a parking lot collision. Others reminisce about a past summer dance.  Then there’s that one guy who retells the same damn story over and over again that each week he finds it harder to find his listeners. But he keeps coming back every Sunday. They all do, because to them, the marketplace marks the hotspot where anybody who’s anybody wants to be: the local theater for an Amish community; the discotheque for virgin study abroad students; the KEG of Evanston*.

I had the privilege of tagging alongside my beau’s grandfather on one such extravaganza, and I’m not even embarrassed to admit he has twice as many friends as I do. Tuning in on the conversations he held nonstop, even just the way he carried himself, was inspiration any writer would die for.

Too bad I couldn’t understand a word of it.

P.S. As I begin to post pictures, please refrain from judging me on my poor photography skills and instead focus in on my typos and attempts to be punny =).

* In place of 1)Keg and 2)Evanston, insert your own 1)trashy bar and 2)college town