En Buyuk, Turkiye!! ("Turkey, the Greatest!!")

It is a week since I arrived at Attaturk International Airport, bedraggled and road-begrimed, and managed to recover the (very big) mini-pool table (a wedding gift) I had checked as luggage by asking the first official-looking guy I saw, in Turkish: “Where is the big cardboard box?” Whenever I manage to use Turkish successfully, it feels like I have performed a magical incantation, putting a string of sounds together and making a dragon or lightning appear out of the air.

We are staying at my brother-in-law’s apartment, which has a mind-boggling view of the Bosphorous. From the balcony you can see a mile-wide swath of outrageously blue water with boats of all sorts, from giant Russian tankers to megayachts to tiny sailboats, drifting peacefully along at all hours of day and night. Across the channel, which is maybe half a mile wide, you see the low, rolling hills on the Asian side of Istanbul, covered with fuzzy, round trees that look like piñons from here, and the red, clay roofs of low, whitewashed apartment buildings.

Waking up in the morning and sitting on this balcony with tea or coffee, you feel like you are floating in golden, sparkly fairy-clouds of benevolence and peacefulness. Like the world wishes nothing for you but contentment and happiness forever.

My brother-in-law’s apartment is situated in the middle of a very unusual Istanbul neighborhood. Surrounding his small apartment building are dwellings of varying degrees of architectural soundness, made by squatters from Eastern Turkey who, because they have been here so long (30 or 40 years, in some cases) and constitute an important voting constituency for local politicians, have not only been allowed to remain, but have been provided by the State with telephone service, electricity and running water. Still, there is a strong “village” atmosphere here. Our immediate neighbors, for example, have a rooster that crows all day, calling and responding to another, faraway rooster. I have been trying to figure out what they are saying to each other—that is, what a rooster has to gain from contacting another rooster in this way. The best I can figure is that they are telling each other “stay out of my territory!” The neighbors are also collecting “dut” (white mulberries?) from trees in their yard with blanket-nets, and growing many fruits and vegetables.

My first or second night here, we met “Maryam,” a charming and confident eight-year-old neighbor girl, who came by to collect the rent for her mother (the landlady) and stayed to chat with us on the porch. She told us (in Turkish) that she is very curious about America and would love to visit it sometime, but that she has to go to Qu’aran school this Summer. I taught her a few words in English, which she continued repeating to herself over and over as she walked down the stairs toward home.

This morning there was a regatta on the Bosphorous—dozens of small sailboats gathering in preparation, it seemed for a race. I slept like the dead last night, because the last few days have been a Job-like whirlwind of visits with friends and family—the most surreal being last night’s—um—event. First of all let me say that Turkish culture is much less formal than American culture is about social plans. People just drop by. An intimate dinner can quickly turn into a massive potluck feast. Last night we were supposed to be having dinner with Demet’s cousin and his fiancée. We brought two bottles of wine, looking forward to a quiet evening of food and conversation, and to getting to know the fiancée a little better.

We entered their apartment and were greeted by eleven members of the fiancee’s family: mother, brother, uncle, and cousins. Chairs were arranged in the living room in a great circle as if for a community meeting or civic welcoming banquet. Tables were laid out and groaning under the weight of fifteen or twenty traditional and very elaborate Turkish entrees and desserts, all prepared by the fiancee’s mother.
The room was white, the lights bright and threatening. We sat in a circle, all thirteen of us, looking at each other. Somebody asked me in English about teaching—whether I like it, what I like about it. Two people discoursed, at length, in Turkish, about Modern versus Classical art. At one point I played and sang Pogues songs and “Stagger Lee” for everybody on a guitar, and the uncle played a classical Ottoman song. At eleven, everybody got up and left.

I still have no idea what it was all about—why all those people were there. D—says that it wasn’t because we were in town from America—that it was a surprise even to her cousin, who had also expected a quiet, intimate dinner. Something about how the uncle is in town, and is leaving for Ankara tomorrow and people wanted to give him a nice sendoff. I must have looked very stunned for the first hour or so after arriving, because the predominant thought in my brain was “Where am I? What is happening?” Like Bob Dylan’s Mr. Jones: “You know something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is…Do you, Mr. Jones?” No. Mr. Gots did not know what was happening. He just tried to smile and look harmless—an American appreciative of Turkish hospitality.

At the party I saw D-s cousin’s husband, who is a modern artist (of some international fame) and one of the more unique personalities I have ever encountered. I have met him twice before, at our engagement party in Turkey and at our wedding. He does not speak English and I do not speak Turkish, but somehow we always end up spending hours talking to each other. D- says that she does not understand what he is saying even in Turkish, so abstract and strange is his manner of speaking. In English, he says things like: “The box! Symbolic!” and then, when you ask what he means, repeats them, nodding. Yesterday he told me that he has it on authority from his friend in the Swedish Parliament that Bob Dylan is an International Spy. He wants to make films for a couple of my instrumental tracks and to publish a Turkish-themed comic I have invented but not yet written in his new online Zine (called “E-Benzine,” I think). According to D--, although he is frequently incomprehensible, he is incredibly confident and productive—constantly at work on film, painting, and installation projects, of which he has completed hundreds, if not thousands. His website (www.simulasyon.net) describes his work (in English) as follows:

“Simulation of my production was formed through creating inflation of installation in works which may be based as vanishing art. My works were built upon understanding to understand (commenting on meaning--Hermaneutics) in the present form.
Seek of art here involves a deep ‘reconstruction’ process in the context of forming relation between the inspected and inspecting devices and research purposes.
Interdisciplinary—intermethodical relationships were formed. It is based upon forming new perception systems by fastening the vanishing process of the art.”

Notwithstanding a few translation-related grammatical errors, this is, D—tells me, pretty much what it says in the Turkish version.

After a week’s worth of living, eating, visiting and struggling to understand Turkish, it is strange and wonderful to be writing in English again. If the past week has been any indication, it will be difficult to maintain any kind of regular schedule with this blog while I am in Turkey, but I will post as frequently as I am able, and record the highlights and the lowlights of the Summer’s experiences. Hadi gorusuruz…