Matthew Simpson LIFESTYLE
Frankly flea markets have begun to bore me. The first one I ever went to was the mass of stalls which squatted outside the Market Theatre in the early 1980s when I was all of eight or nine years old. The place seemed to stretch for miles and was a treasure trove of wondrous junk. Possibly because my family had a fondness for cheap second- hand goods, I developed a taste for such places and became something of a flea market cowboy, particularly when I was at university and strapped for cash. Of course, flea markets are not new. They have been around in various shapes and forms since time immemorial. But in a world obsessed with shopping malls and supermarkets they do at least offer a chance for people to rent a cheap spot to sell whatever they’ve been making or whatever junk has been lying around their house. This has inevitably led to abuse and it is not unusual to find people selling cheap plastic toys and brand clothing at a number of markets these days. As a result, some markets have developed ways to keep the riff-raff out by selling themselves as “craft” markets and setting up in leafy surroundings like Kirstenbosch or Essenwood Park. Which leads me back to my original point – flea markets have become tedious. Just as some have allowed the insidious influence of rows and rows of cheap factory-produced tourist fare, so called craft markets have allowed themselves to be bogged down by uninteresting and repetitive pseudo-craft. Which is why the Holistic Market held once a month in Observatory is, for a market junkie like myself, a breath of fresh air. On the first Sunday of every month the Holistic Lifestyle Fair uses the Observatory community centre off Lower Main and Station roads to do its stuff. It has very little in common with other craft or flea markets. There aren’t many craft stands and the fair in no way caters for a commercial market. It hopes, instead, to offer “healthier alternatives for living” and this seems to mean more than just in terms of the merchandise. The general atmosphere of the place is calmer than other markets because it’s about more than just currency (although that’s not to say its presence isn’t encouraged). After a visit, one is supposed to have improved one’s life in some way.
What is mostly on offer is spiritual renewal and there are a number of holistic therapies, ranging from aura reading to shiatsu, to satiate this need. If that doesn’t suit your karma, then there’s a myriad remedies on sale, like Barley Green, energy crystals or New Age CDs offering peaceful melodious calm. But if you find your chakras are in a complete twirl over all these choices there’s always the bookseller whom I 100% recommend for her fine selection of literary hors d’oeuvres. As the song so aptly proclaimed, this is the dawning of the age of Aquarius – and who are we to argue? This is the age of holistic health, organic vegetables and gluten-free diets, where astrology is considered a reasonable form of therapy and a vegetable patch an essential addition to any garden.
Perhaps it is fitting then that the hub of all this New Age activity in Cape Town should be found in Observatory, a place notorious for its hey-shoo-wow culture as well as its well-kept herb gardens. All of these activities are held in large classrooms on the two floors of the main building. The corridors are lined with people selling general New Age merchandise such as crystals and posters of Native Americans and yet despite the lack of space that this often creates, the general rush of flea markets is absent. In the main hall you can find a similar array of physical treatments but also a whole range of no-longer-so- alternative supplements.