Evanescent Market

A street market where no market is usually seen...

It is on the Banbury Road in Summertown, once an independent village, but now a suburb of Oxford. Normally, we see fairly mundane shops on this stretch of road, but today is different. Our photograph is of the market fish stall, which also has some paella ready. Looking at this stall from the other direction, you can now see the parade of regular shops, as well as the Christmas tree.

Yet another glimpse of the market is provided by this shot of the 'olive merchant'.

Why do I say 'evanescent' about the market? Well, one definition of the adjective is "soon passing out of sight, memory, or existence; quickly fading or disappearing", which certainly applies to the market. In that sense this market is ephemeral, literally "lasting only one day" (from Greek ephemeros). Such things are transitory, existing only briefly. But 'evanescent' means something else, as well, to a physical scientist: it denotes "a field or wave that extends into a region where it cannot propagate and whose amplitude therefore decreases with distance". Quite so! This market cannot propagate because of the boundary constraints of the road and the shops. (It helps to be a little crazy.)