What I Did This Summer - A Personal Cacophony

As the sun sets slowly in the west, summer fades and I welcome fall

Head down, nose to the grind stone, make and sell as much as you can, while you can.  Ships in, sun shining, days warm, crowds crushing, children screeching, dogs in strollers, babies on leashes, thieves running, ocarinas whistling, duck tours quacking, fire engines wailing, buskers singing; playing saws; unidentified instruments; mumbled lyrics. Where's the 1st Starbucks? How far is it to the Space Needle?  How do I get to the aquarium?  SECURITY!  How much is this?  What is this?  How do you make this?  Can you take our picture?  Where do they throw the fish?  The weather is so much nicer here than what we expected.  Is that Mount St. Helen's? Mount Rainier? Is that the ocean?  Where is there an ATM; Bank; Drug Store; Real Store; Mall?  Do you take cards?  American Express?  Where's the guy that was here last week?  Will you be here tomorrow; next week; next month?  Is this market here every day?  What do you do when it rains?  You got a cigarette?  Light?  Do you have to set up and tear down every day?  Where's there a good place to eat? clam chowder; seafood?  Where's Cutter's; Ivars; The Crabpot?  Wanna buy some batteries cheap?  Police horse clip clops; drops a load or a river.  Obama is a fascist; nazi; socialist. God hates fags.  Jesus loves you.  Bride's white satin swishes through cigarette butts; old food; puke; spittle; snot.  Child drops a cookie, no three second rule here.  They're all handmade.  My name is ... I make these all myself.  Real Change! They're made out of deer antler.  What's with the pig?  We make your name for you right here right now.  My friend makes these.  Do you make a living doing this?  Where is the closest bathroom?  Where's Pike Place Market?  You are here.

Do you know...? Do you know..? Do you know...?

How much to go to the top?

Do you know the way to San Jose?  I've been away so long. I may go wrong and lose my way.

It could have been worse.  "I'm a soul man ! da da da da da" was an option for the day's song worm.  It popped into my head as the tall dark handsome-ish man with thick dreads down his back passed by on his way to the park this morning.  I couldn't get past the da da da da da so it quickly and quietly floated to hibernation mode in the back of my brain.

Do you know the way to San Jose? I'm going back to find some peace of mind in San Jose.

"Are you from here?"   - Please just ask your question. "Do you know where they have the goats?"   Sufficiently prepared for this new question,  I point them in the direction of the Pine Street Hillclimb.  The goats are being used in lieu of a lawn mower on the steep hill.  Seems a sensible use of goats.  My word of the day: ruminant.

LA is a great big freeway.  Put a hundred down and buy a car.  In a week maybe two they'll make you a star.

"Do you know of a good place to eat?"  I admire my daughters response to this ongoing question.  With a graceful wave of her hand she says politely but firmly "The restaurants are out in that area.  So many choices."   She's been working with us at shows and markets for 15 years and has grown in to a beautiful "no-nonsense" kind of woman.  I have always been someone of way too many words and responsibility for pointing people in the right direction based on their answer to my refining question "What kind of food are you looking for?"

Weeks turn into years how quick they pass.  And all the stars that never were they're parking cars and pumping gas.

There is a bench 10 feet from my booth.  People sit facing me but rarely see me.  It gives me an opportunity to watch and listen to fragments of lives as they unfold.  A favorite bench activity is for visitors to pull out treasures that they've purchased and share their finds with friends and family.  Today's "bench delite" was watching a young Chinese family putting brightly colored Pike Place Market aprons on their two little girls then posing them standing on the bench and taking their pictures.  Sweet and giggling, the girls accommodated by holding their poses long enough for both parents and grandparents to get their shots.

Do you know the way to San Jose?  They've got a lot of space, there'll be a place where I can stay.

My customers often ask if they can take a picture with me and the art work.  I ask them to send a copy to me.  I have an aversion to having my picture taken because, let's just say that, I have not found my "best side".  As I've never received any of these pictures I am thinking that they are all too hideous to share.

I was born and raised in San Jose.  I'm going back to find some peace of mind in San Jose.

"Do you know how much it costs to go up on to those viewing platforms?"  My brain zaps. - Excuse me?  "My friend has told me that those structures across the street in the park are viewing platforms and I'm wondering if you know how much it costs to go up and take a look at the view?".  - Oh... Well...those are totem poles and the scaffolding around them is so that the people can do renovation and clean up work on them.

The stories that people come up with never fail to surprise me.

"Do you know where they kill the fish?" - Just continue down into the market.  Sometimes it's not worth making a comment to help them make sense of what nonsense has just been asked.

Fame and fortune is a magnet.  It can pull you far away from home.  With a dream in your heart you're never alone.

"Do you know what this symbol is?" Pointing to one of our art tiles he continues - "I have this as a tattoo and just wanted to make sure that I got it right." -  Boy are you ever lucky that it's an aum.  Ancient Sanskrit syllable.  Basically a focal point for meditation.  My friends don't believe me when I tell them that I actually get this question a couple of times each season.

I'm a sooooul man. da da da da da.  I'm a soooooooul ma-an.  da da da da da, DA!

Uh oh.  He's back.

Finding my inner cigarette -

Meet my friend the carbiner fan.

We all have "go to" habits to de-stress, calm the fidgets, fight boredom and fatigue.  A market friend has been going through the trials of quitting smoking.  Stepping away from the booth and into the middle of the cobble stoned street to smoke is a standard move for many who work the market.  I suggested she find her "inner cigarette".

I've never smoked.  Food was my drug for years.  Now as a diabetic my eating "go to" choices have narrowed.  My glib "find your inner cigarette" was a sincere attempt to counteract her culprits of calm.

My techniques vary from day to day, hour to hour, depending on the flow of the market day.

I've taken up the study of the Thai Language.  "Why Thai?" you may ask.  Well, there are a few Thai families at the market and they have been patiently teaching me Thai sporadically for the last 6 years with minimal success.  It finally dawned on me that I have an incredible opportunity to learn a language of a country that I would like to visit someday and actually have native speakers around me to help hone my language skills.  So I have taken my simple "sawatdee ka" (hello) and have gone fully into "De chan kos beea song kuat ka" (I would like 2 bottles of beer).  Evidently the people that create the "Learn to Speak Thai" lessons think that this is a good way to start you on your way to fluency.  While waiting for customers I study my workbook, mumbling the words out loud.  I fit right in with the other lone "out loud" mumblers, speakers and shouters that walk through as I sit at my booth.

The market offers unlimited distractions while waiting for customers.  Tour leaders carry different colored umbrellas, pumping them up and down to gain the attention of the group then holding them primly upright like Mary Poppins leading a parade.  Pink Umbrella girl marches by with a large group speaking a language that I don't recognize.   She makes a sweeping motion with one arm like an American football player making a pass and points southward into the market.  I think that I can safely guess this is an attempt to convey "that is where they throw the fish".

Today was stunningly beautiful.  Seattle at it's best.  To the west across the water, the snow capped Olympic Mountain Range was clearly visible.  For most of the day the sky was a cerulean blue fading to powder blue at the horizon.  The sun held that lovely healing warmth that we long for all winter.  Early in the day the air had a cool tinge to it.  My routine for days such as this: under my umbrella sipping hot tea until I've got a slight chill on my skin - then pull my chair out from under my umbrella and bask in the sun like a lizard on a rock until all of my muscles have absorbed the warmth - then back under the umbrella again to cool down.  Repeat.  I refer to this as my "Market Spa".

A visitor has noticed the sign across the street and asks about the information booth.  The sign, looking like a Disneyland castoff, was installed last year on a confusing corner of 3 intersecting roads - Pike Place, Western and Virginia.  There are 4 arms to the sign.  1 points to "Pike Place Market" - Correct. The 2nd to "Sculpture Park" - Correct.  3rd "West Lake Station" - Correct.  4th - "Maps and Information".  Well it actually points to the park inhabited by the homeless and indigent.  Drug deals are rampant.  The tourists, I hope blind to everything but the view,  haven't asked about the non-existent information booth until now.

As for my "inner cigarette" - I keep occupied with my Thai Lessons and my "spa activity".  I absorb my surroundings, the people that inhabit this space around me, and notate them in my journal.  I asked a dear friend, a student of all things "chakra",  if she could teach me to breathe.  I practice her techniques.  One of which is to envision a sphere of light around your heart and to have that light extend around your entire body as a protective shield.

End of the day though I press speed dial #2 on my phone -  "Market Security".  - Hi, this is Kat Allen near the north end pergola.  "What can I do for you?"  - Can you send someone out here while I pack up?  There's a guy out here.  "What's he doing?"  - Lurking. 

Now if I did smoke, I would have just lit up and stepped back from the booth and attempted to look as if I didn't even care.  I'll have to work more on my breathing and envisioning the protective sphere of light. 

"Do any of these have anything to do with a frog?"

Ahhh.  And don't forget the 'monkeys' that we place
on the backs of our children.

 

I get a chance to speak to only a fraction of the 10 million visitors that stream past our booths at Pike Place Market each year.  We watch them as fishermen watch a river.  We put our bait out and hope that someone will bite and purchase one of our works of art.  With this mass of moving humanity it is rare to see or hear something new to respond to or point a finger at. I think that this will prove to be a banner year for "firsts" as I recently had two in one day.

We see many animals coming through.  Even what someone insisted was a large rat.  The tail was a dead give away.  You may ask,  "How can someone have an animal just sitting on their shoulder?"  We ask ourselves the same thing.  " Where does the pet poop and pee?" Also a valid question.

Regular animal sightings include a lovely gray parrot that will "meow" on command and play dead, flipping backwards and swinging off of his owners fingers.

A 'possum.  Gross.  I really dislike their beady little eyes, long pointy nose and there's that tail - long, skinny and naked.  ick.  It's best not to look past the 'possum to the guy carrying him on his shoulder.  I won't take time to describe him here. 

Then there is the homeless woman with the black bird tied into her jumble of hair so that he just stands on top of her head.  Last year she carried a beautiful little bantam rooster in her coat.  At times she would bring it out and put it on her shoulder.  She would stand not three feet away from me as tourists took pictures of her seemingly ignoring the fact that she was dressed completely in long black rags with bare blackened feet hardened with time and pavement and carried a large wooden staff.  "How cute" they would say and then attempt to ask her questions.  I think that it was for the best that they never received a response.  One day she took the rooster out of her coat and swung it over her head, threw it on the ground and stomped her foot on it's neck.  I believe that I may have screamed.  She calmly picked him up. Feathers fluttered and she popped him back into her coat. Oh, and did I mention that she floats by on a scooter? 

Back to my story - so - lots of animals on shoulders.  Dogs in strollers are also popular.  I once reached out to pet a chihuahua in a doggy-pack device hanging across the front of the owners body and was reminded immediately of the scene in Alien when said alien comes bursting out of the human's chest.  Have you noticed that it's the littlest ones that can be the meanest? Nasty little thing.  There is also the occasional shoulder or carry pack kitty.  But yesterday - well yesterday a family with 3 children walked by the booth and I noticed that they were each carrying a small cage with a handle.  A cage purse if you will.  In each cage was a hamster busily munching on hamster munchies or digging around in their hamster shavings.  The proud mom said that her son's hamster had been with the family for 7 years.  Ok then - that was a first.

The other was a "first hear" -  A woman strode right up to my booth, pointed at the work, and asked "Do any of these have anything to do with a frog?"  Cricket chirping silence. "uh. No."  She left the booth, I turned to my neighbor and asked "Did she just ask if any of these have anything to do with a frog?".  Neighbor nodded.  The woman popped back in front of my booth and overheard my question.  "Yes, that's what I asked."  She explained that she saw that I did symbols and simply wanted to know if I had anything that represented a frog.  I told her no, but in the 17 years that I've had this business I had never been asked that question before and how much I appreciated the diversion.

Who's on First?

This picture has nothing at all to do with this post. I just loved her very yellow hair.

Every artist on the line as well as all Market Security staff, busker and I'm sure anyone that looks like a Seattleite gets THE market question. Sometimes in a hushed reverent tone. "Where is the first Starbucks?"  The question is asked many times each and every day.  A visitor suggested once that I should put up a sign  directing people to the most holy coffee site.  "No", I said.  "I prefer it this way."

The way that it played out a few days ago was quite unique for me and went something like this:

"Where's the first Starbucks?" - Right over there. (pointing across the street).

"I'm meeting someone at the one on 1st Avenue" - Then go to the end of the market and you'll see it on the corner of 1st and Pike.

"Pike. Pike Place?" - No Pike Street.

"But is that the first one?" - No. The first one is across the street.

"Now I'm not sure if they wanted me to meet them at the first one or the one on 1st". - uh huh.

"You know, I'm really just looking for a good cup of coffee.  Where's that first one again?" - Well.  The first Starbucks is across the street and the good cup of coffee is at Local Color over on that corner.

 

Has Anybody Seen My Old Friend Abraham

 My office. The view from under my sunflower umbrella.

I think that most of us have a soundtrack that plays in the back of our minds as we go through our day.  While at the market I find that quite often the soundtrack is the noise and chaos of the market itself.   Setting up on the sidewalk puts me in close contact with the street.  Cars, trucks, ambulances, fire trucks, dogs whining and barking, babies crying,  homeless men hawking newspapers shouting out "Real Change to help the homeless".  You hear the firetrucks from at least 5 blocks away, the siren getting louder and louder then they start blowing the horn.  It makes your head hurt.  I've gotten so that I don't even lift my eyes to watch it as it careens through the intersection.  Never slowing, it races through with people jumping out of the way grabbing children, pets and parcels as they go flying in it's wake.

Or we have the dreaded SongWorm.  You know the one.  "Oh I wish I was an Oscar Mayer Wiener".  The Urban Dictionary cites Beyonce's "to the left, to the left, everything you own in a box to the left".  You get my drift.

So, while setting up my booth the other day and the song "Abraham, Martin and John" popped into my head I was pleasantly surprised.  Now it was just a matter of trying to remember all of the words.  Interruptions to my thoughts, well, they are ongoing.  I'm at the market to sell my art and make money.  But sometimes I just can't wait to get back to what I was thinking.  Like dreams that we're woken from and we can't wait to get back to hoping to pick up where we left off.

Has anybody here seen my old friend Abraham?  Can you tell me where he's gone?

"Where's Ivan's?" - you must mean Ivar's. "No. Ivan's.  It used to be up here next to Peet's Coffee". - sure.  Well, Ivar's is on the waterfront.  Peet's Coffee or Ivan's?  I dunno.

He freed a lot of people but it seems the good they die young.  You know, I just looked around and he's gone.

"Where are all of your Christian pieces?" - well, over here we have a Byzantine Orthodox design of the cross.  "I'm a Catholic. I know all there is about the cross." - alright then. We're selling this one for $25.  "Listen honey. I've been married for 50 years and I don't have room for anything more". - ok then.

Has anybody here seen my old friend John? Can you tell me where he's gone.  He freed a lot of people but the good they seem to die young.  I just looked around and he's gone.

"Is that your bike?" Referring to the snazzy Harley parked butt up against my booth display. - yup. That's my sweet ride. (not!)

Anybody here seen my old friend Martin? Can you tell me where he's gone.  He freed a lot of people but the good they seem to die young.  I just looked around and he's gone.

Husband "Geez these are beautiful!"  Wife "Where would you put it? If you get something you need to know where you're going to put it".  - come on man. you can do it.  They walk away down the sidewalk.  Girlfriends, wives, husbands, sisters - can all be such downers when it comes to making a sale.

Didn't you love the things they stood for?  Didn't they try to find some good for you and me? And we'll be free..

"I'll take 2 of your Hamsas.  Here's the cash" - I do so love the 'walk up and buyers'.

Someday soon and it's gonna be some day.....

Happy May Day ! It's here - Cruise ship season, naked bicyclists and more. Much more.

 This image is cropped to protect the innocent.
 

Times change and stay the same.  So does the market.  This years cruise ship season has begun.  Pike Place Market is waking up, the streets of Seattle are filling up and the hub bub is ramping up.  I want to start this season off with an updated view of the market - I'm setting the stage here for the adventures, stories and characters to come.

There is a major renovation of the market going on.  I wonder what the maintenance staff thinks of all this.  They've held this market together with bubble gum, spit and duck tape for years.  They are part of the "invisibles" that keep the market running.

Pike Place Market : A farmers/artists marketplace on Pike Place and 1st Ave. in downtown Seattle, Washington. Crammed with numerous fish markets (including the most famous where they actually throw the fish when you make a purchase), produce stands, fresh flowers, lunch counters, honey, nuts and then of course the nuts selling art (also referred to as daystallers or crafters) along with 9.5 million visitors who walk through each year. The market is also populated with it's own security force, buskers (those who sing, dance and play instruments on the sidewalk for money), homeless men and women, some of whom sell the "Real Change" newspaper. "REAL CHANGE to help the homeless!" they call out or whisper to passersby.  Lumbering delivery trucks, parades of naked bicyclists, Conan O'Brien, William Shatner and others both in and out of disguise.   

I saw one of our disguised regulars yesterday.  This year he has chosen an anime character look - wasn't he a super hero wrestler last year?  Young and old teenagers can be seen coming through the market with chartreuse hair spiked up 2 feet off of their heads, draped in black, head to toe tattoos, Herman Munster boots, 3 inch spiked collars and black lips.  If they're looking to get stared at - the market community barely gives them a glance.  We've seen the old crone dressed in rags, bare feet, a wooden staff with a live black bird tied into her ratted out hair floating by on a kick scooter.  I mean really?  Herman Munster boots? That has soooo been done.   Visitors to the market, especially those from the mid-west take furtive glances over their shoulders or just stand and stare with open mouths. "Did you see that?"  they whisper loudly to each other.  Seeking safety in their numbers, they move on, distracted once again by all that there is to see and hear.

CraftLine : Artists set up their sales space along a line of tables set on either side of a 3 block long building with a roof, but walls open to the weather on one side. Concrete floors, metal and concrete tables that hold the cold like a freezer. Each artist is given a 4 foot space on which to set up and sell their wares.  I look at us all in wonder.  We raise our families, pay our mortgages, put children through school, live our lives the best that we can - in a 4 foot space.  

We are a hardy bunch.  There are no other more resilient and creative people.  Our creativity is not only in the art that we make and sell - it is in the way that we create our "shops".  The amount of effort that we go through each day is the same with varying results.  Good sales days balance with the bad and somehow we hope that it will turn out "good enough".   We all know how to contract, to get smaller.  Looking to the produce vendors to put out their $1.00 bags of cabbage and peppers and carrots - we make it through the winter.

The roll call board at the north end of the building is a mass of energy in the morning as we get our space assignment for the day.  "What's going on here?" a visitor asks.  "Free cheese, Free Meth Clinic, Lottery Drawing..." We cram together.  We push and shove, trying to see the board as our names are called.  "Gregory!, Kinsey! Mounts!"  My name is coming up soon - I push forward "Callan! Allen!" That's me. I call out my spot, push my cart into position and set up for the day.  Hope to see you soon.

Harvey, Harvey, he's my man. With Harvey, Harvey, yes I can.

A little ditty that I would greet Harvey with as he stood in front of my table at the end of each market day waiting for payment for the work he did pushing my very heavy cart up from my locker in the morning and back down at night.  Well, I'm not sure that it actually made it back IN to my locker each night.  I would get reports of cart sightings in various places "down below".  The point being - I didn't have to worry.  Pack up. Go home. Harvey took it from there.

Harvey. Old and ageless.  Same soft brown pullover with little flecks of meals past and present.  Tooth challenged, he would often have a dribble that I would see splash onto the silk scarves used on my display.  I would just bundle them up and take them home to wash.

He had a conversation constantly going on in his head.  He would blurt out whatever part of the conversation he was in at the time he saw you and it was up to you to jump on board and go with it.  "Hey, you know ...

   this guy in Auburn...

   this guy used to own a restaurant..

   now, this guy had money.  I mean real big money..

Most days he just wanted conversation, contact, friendship.  Other days may have started in a more challenging way for him and by the time I arrived at the market he was spitting mad.

"Say, now.  I'm telling you. That's what I mean. You can't tell them a f*ing thing.  Those pot heads in that place can't make a f*ing hot chocolate. Not even a goddamn chocolate !"  He bends at the waist, puts his two hands on the handle of the cart and starts to push.

Start of the market day.  Harvey is swearing up a storm. "goddamn guy is spraying water on the street and got my shoes and socks wet.  I had to take off my socks". 

Despite this gruffness his voice would immediately soften, his eyes brighten as he chatted away with small children and dogs. 

For months I thought that he didn't know my name and then one day he shows up and says "Well Kathi.  How're ya doin'?"  He looked quite pleased with himself and I felt that I had been accepted into the club.

Last year Harvey suffered a terrible beating.  He had left some carts a little too long to push down below.  It was late and the rowdy crowd was out and about.  He is said to have mouthed off to one of them that had been giving him a bad time and ended up being beaten with a pipe.  The community was stunned.  No Harvey.  How's he doing?  Will he be alright?  He did come back.  Probably way too soon.  Blackened eyes and bruised face.  Limping more than usual.  Bound and determined he knew that he had a job to do.  He came back and got those carts taken care of.

This recent illness, this time in the hospital, this was different.  He seemed to know that he wouldn't be able to come back.  The nurses said that he was as gentle as a baby.  Never put up a fuss.  He was quiet.  Quiet?  Go figure.  I guess he had finished all of his conversations.

So - market friends gathered round him acting as surrogates for the entire community.  He passed peacefully on.

A Market Maintenance fellow overheard me telling a busker about Harvey's death.   I've seen this tall, thin man for years now.  I don't know his name.  But the conversation heard in passing stopped him in his tracks.  "Harvey? Harvey is dead?"  His eyes filled with tears.  He said that he had been visiting him in the hospital once a week since he was admitted.  I didn't know. 

People were heard to say that they thought the market would stop running without Harvey pushing the 40 some odd carts that he was responsible for.  But it didn't.  I push my own now.  It's good exercise for me.  Others have stepped into the void to take on the cart pushing responsibilities.  The market goes on.  A lesson perhaps in that anyone can be replaced.  But it's the character and personality that can never be.

Bye Harv.

Over a year has gone by...

Ok - so my intention was to actually write ongoing entries.  I'll blame the fact that nothing has shown up on this blog to my purchase of a journal from my friend Miranda.  Creating journals, belts, wallets and such out of recycled rubber tires,  Miranda is one of the ingenious young entrepreneurs, artists/craftspeople at Pike Place.  I began writing in the journal this past summer as I sat at my booth at the market fully intending to come home and blog.  I now have months of stories hand scrawled on the welcoming blank pages and I will miraculously transport them to this medium as time goes on, interjecting the past with the present.

To bring my story up to date - I continue to sell our art tiles at Pike Place Market.  This winter has been so much milder than last, but the market itself is going through a renovation and the chaos of porta-potties on the street, cranes looming over the buildings, brick and mortar tenants being displaced and the craft line being disrupted by giant wooden boxes forming alley ways for visitors to walk through has been challenge enough.

Big news of the week - a couple of our young 'marketeers' will be getting married.  Rumor has it that the ceremony will take place at the roll call board just before we choose our spots for the day.  Romantic ? No.  But so very Pike Place.  And so very marketeer.  No need to order flowers.  The aisle will already be in bloom with farm fresh tulips and assorted vegetables.