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Saturday's Street Fair crowd surged on Short Street toward the line of food vendors on Walnut. (photos by Lauren Heaton)
October sun brings fall Street Fair to life
- Published: October 11, 2010
Warm-weather seekers from the surrounding region surged into Yellow Springs for Saturday’s fall Street Fair. Kids went straight for the young fuzzy alpacas and the sand and henna art fundraiser for the Yellow Springs High School class of 2012, while others took an interest in hand-made jewelry, shea butter products and bonzai plantings. And everyone got a chance to hear some music and sample the barbeque, funnel cake, fried potato strings, and Current Cuisine’s glorious nachos.
Brian Walker and his son David watched the crowd from their perch on the Presbyterian Church wall, where they enjoyed a treat from the apple festival spread.
Zyna Bakari and Katie Triplett managed the sand art table for the YSHS class of 2012.
Egyptian Breeze belly dancer Jennifer Mollenhauer mesmerized the onlookers on the lawn across from Oten Gallery.
4 Responses to “October sun brings fall Street Fair to life”
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Fair enough, but does consumerism have to come at the expense of everything else? Most if not all of the villagers I’ve spoken to about this were equally as grossed out by this Street Fair–is there not a way to please everyone? What’s with the commerce/community binary, anyway? I probably started that–I could have used a better example but I was just trying to make a point.
Well hey, as long as it remains being only on 2 days of every year I guess I can live with it. 😉
But maybe that’s part of my growing concern… I see this village more and more turning toward tourism, and consumerism, in the every-day. How many of the shops downtown do locals actually shop at, that actually provide necessary goods and services? Don’t get me wrong–I love our shops, but when are enough “gift” and “import” shops enough, and when does that tell you that our village is not viable as a self-sustaining economic community? (If that’s what we want–which I personally do–and I think a lot of people want something at least closer to that.) I have to leave town to buy underwear, but I can sure buy a whole lot of trinkets I don’t need.
I prefer deep-fried Mars bars but they’re difficult to find ’round these parts.
well, street fair is run by the chamber of commerce, so commerce (i.e. consumerism) is a necessary part of street fair. but i don’t know that i think yellow springs is the place to be selling ripped-off copies of “cloudy with a chance of meatballs.” true story.
but i was highly disappointed that there were no deep fried twinkies. come on. people come to street fairs to buy the kind of food that kills you. but kills you deliciously.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Yvonne. I’ve only been coming to Street Fair since 2002 or 2003, but even in that time I’ve seen a lot of shift toward more booths of stuff for sale by non-locals and less events–which is the reason *I* would enjoy Street Fair. I don’t want to buy more junk I don’t need, but I do want to see women doing a silk aerial act in the middle of Xenia Ave. Now, the events seem to be limited to musical acts and belly-dancing, and are relegated nearly to the outskirts of the fair. Street Fair seems no longer about community but about consumerism.
I know how important the Street Fair is to most of the stores in town and many of our artisans, but I wish we would be a little more mindful of who we have as vendors with booths….tiedye t-shirts made and even TIEDYED in China? Bath Fitters? Come on, what happened to the Yellow Springs mellow flavor? We could notice it in our crowd at Dark Star…noisier, bickering, not the folks who came for the YS stuff of before…I miss those booths; it’s like any other carnival, not the old Y.S. one. No wonder most locals avoid it like the PLAGUE; I would if I didn’t have to work it!