full of stars

the underground cistern

beneath the sultanahmet (old istanbul) is an underground water cistern dating back to byzantine times. astrid and i went for a walk through it today in the afternoon when it was very hot. it is cool down there, a warm breeze on one side and a cool moist current of air moving through from the other.

everything echoes -- from somewhere they play music with strings and high trumpets whose reverberations that sketch out the vastness of the cavern. you hear droplets falling and hitting the surface of the water, spreading ripples into the red and yellow light that reflects from where coloured lights shine up the sides of the stone columns supporting the ceiling. the ceiling is four-way brick arches, swept-up triangles that meet in a point. footsteps reverberate and unintelligible syllables of a hundred conversations. there are carp in the water and smaller fish, and glittering coins.

in the very furthest corner, where you can see your breath fog in the cool absolute humidity, there are two enormous medusa's heads carved out of green stone, half submerged in water. beyond the wet floors the cavern recedes into darkness. this far back the fish are pale and blind.

<< don't want nothin' from nobody: ain't nothin' to take >>

it is early morning in world house hostel and they have fired up the reggae here. breakfast shortly. outside the open patio doors is the bustle of istanbul, the irregular paving stones, the scraggly cats, the orange- and blood orange-juice stands in the middle of the streets, the bosphorus-bound ships leeching oil and filthy smoke. i am first up among my dorm mates. on my table is a pinkish bottle of water because the tap water has a strange taste here, pinkish from low grade instant pomegrante drink mix they say can be served cold. the cars in the streets are noisy, even this early, and inside here they turn up the music overtop.

our hostel is at one end of istiklal caddesi which is a long street with a tramcar running up and down with a bell that clangs to get the peasants out of its way. many of the people here wear green, bright green. you see green t-shirts, green skirts, green belts, green canvas shoes. at the one end of istiklal is taksim square bus station with too few ins and outs for all the transit that needs to flow through. you can follow the tram tracks all the way to the other end where the road forks, one direction leading down to our hostel, one direction leading down to attatuk bridge that leads across to old istanbul, to the spice bazaar and the aquaducts and cisterns of the old city.

astrid and i share a dorm room with two girls from italy who each uniformly wear black, with black sandals and black handbags and dark shaded glasses. one of them has cleopatra bangs and cleopatra wrists and a cobra earring twisted through one ear, and silver jewelry in her mouth, lip and at the outside points of her collarbones. her hair is black and shiny under the streetlights like the evil eye i found made of opaque black glass and ringed with silver.

our dorm window looks straight into the loudspeaker of the minaret from a mosque next door. last night the prayer call was particularly beautiful, echoing and it seemed to have a kind of sparkle or flange effect on the cry, although i know that was the mood and the wistfulness.

as the day creeps in the traffic picks up and it has now started raining here. i am not sure what today holds. i am not sure what this week holds. this is alright.

tile patterns

in the museum of ottoman art, << bohemians (hanger-onners around the arts) >>

in the ottoman art museum there are recreations of 19th-century sitting rooms from istanbul, with ornamented furniture in the style of the french baroque, and mannequins with black string wigs, ladies seated in mandarin dresses with high collars and bone fasteners, and embroidered flowers that trace up the lines of sleeves. a small bed with cushions and black beadwork on a shiney grey bedspread. there are pink oil lamps painted with birds and lilies in the style that appeal to mehmet's father.

the house from bursa has bright blue carpets but otherwise subdued colours, dark browns and white and black. there are dark wood rafters from which hand strings of dried eggplants. a kneeling mannequin manipulates a copper coffee pot over a stove in the centre of the room, black metal, a podium that flares at the top and is full of jet black coal unburned. a tour guide pauses with his group and tells how when he was a child he had a stove such as that. "for coffee and chestnuts," he says, "excellent."

the museum itself feels like it is from an era past, with cement walls painted white, floors done in shiny red hexagonal brick, low doors with two steps leading down and through, and disused fireplaces.

astrid and i spent the afternoon walking separately through the museum obviously expressing interest in the different styles, philosophies, and esthetics of ottoman art represented here. i liked the geometric star patterns and the tile work. she liked the animal motifs and the birds. not for me, the birds, i said.

but here let me show a picture of a phoenix --



-- the bird that rose from its own ashes. this was on the fabulously ornate blade of a gold plated sword. the blade was gold except for the sharp edge that was made from steel, some kind of discolouring grey metal. there is gold calligraphy along the length of the blade. gold decorations woven and wrapped around, leaves around vines, buds, and the butt is made of marble. notice the pair of rubies to be the eyes of the bird and the snake.

astrid and i are often all talk. and through the museum we didn't even much talk. but we are learning.

<< bring me the passengers, i want them alive! >>

this morning in the world house hostel they are playing prince.

cool in the morning. breakfast coming soon. they say coffee is free with breakfast but WHERE IS THE COFFEE. i am displeased. darth vader saying "if this is a consular ship then where is the ambassador?" then he crushes the rebel scum's throat and gives a terrible order for the ship to be torn apart until the death star plans are found. i want some coffee.

welcome to istanbul -- watch yr back

at present sitting in the lobby of world house istanbul pleasantly sated on pilaf and looking at a fruit stand selling fresh fruit juices (including pineapple) through the open patio window where a couple sits playing backgammon, and fore to them a triplet of italian girls drinks turkish coffee and gesticulates under a wallboard portrait of a woman with red lips wearing a bathrobe against a brickwall background, washed out colours and her done-up-but-let-back-down black hair.

up the spiral staircase done in stone, going up to our eight-bed dorm, there is a map showing tourist attractions and someone has marked "sundance" on in pencil, near olympos. there is a sign in block lettering warning not to go with strangers to bars. the backgammon board smells like cigarette smoke and wood varnish.

istanbul has different kinds of businesses tucked into the nooks and crannies of the city. today we seemed to be wandering in the hardware store and machine parts district where little shops put floor models of huge industrial air compressors on out display in the already crowded sidewalks. there is a clothing district, the bazaar district, the leather district, the scuba district. our hostel is in the music shop district -- every other store has violins, ouds and tanburs on display.

evening now and it is cooling down.

very different than when i visited last. bustle in the streets, especially fruit vendors. fresh orange juice for a lira. sunny today and so hot that cats and dogs co-existed peacefully and sleepily in the limited shade. as well i am little bit able to get by in turkish. i know all the words on the vocabulary factoid card and then some, and i proffer them easily. people tell me my turkish is excellent. it is half bluff, but only half.

Act Three, Scene One : into istanbul

a night bus out of burhaniye, under a full moon, and in to istanbul by ferry at dawn. it will take me a bit to appreciate the texture of this sunrise.

tradeshow-edition tourists' map

i said i was waiting for the other shoe to drop and it is dropping.

my final day with mo.

this trip i have

given some and taken some

seen some and hidden some.

i say,

too much to see on one trip but

what is life? --

unfolding and folding a tourists' map

with thumbnail pictures of places i did not see.

a final bar of halvah from the corner store.

astrid sings upstairs.

my bags are packed

laundry is dried

and everything i brought to give to mo i've given.

i am going to

do better in montreal with what i have learned this trip.

i will be braver, stronger, purer

and i promise you, more concise.

that i am evolving

is second hardest lesson i ever have had to learn.

not sure what else to say now.

i still love you. still miss you. who _are you?

but please someday find me.

someday track me down.

teach me to give

a proper goodbye.

"so what would you like for breakfast? a rabbit? or a goat?"

from pammukale, astrid and i took an overnight bus back for one final night in burhaniye. breakfast now includes summer fruit jam and also the lovely thick spreadable cream that i afraid i won't be able to find back home. for dinner, rabbit.

loving my inner photographer (5) : aphrodisius

loving my inner photographer (4) : ruins atop pammukale

also recollect the smell of clover, hard to pin down at first, suddenly jumped into focus as the smell of home.

the calcite cliffs of pammukale

i did made it to see pammukale which i would have been sad to miss. i did not know what there was to see there except that mo said it was on my must see list and there is a tourbus company named for the attraction. the village of pammukale is about three hours from selcuk and astrid and i made the trip by bus, playing backgammon part of the way, being hot and sticky the other part.

the there are natural hotsprings in the mountains surrounding pammukale and the hard water runs down the hills and has turned entire faces of the cliffs white. there is a path leading up to the top of the cliffs, glassy but somehow not slippery. there are little ridges like pondripples in the mineral deposits that form down the path leading up the mountain and around the rock pools that have been built up to trap the water which is said to have the properties of healing. a guard at the bottom has you remove your shoes. you can hear the lukewarm water running down the cliffs, pooling and overflowing, as you pad up in bare feet.



camera-happiness and the view from behind of three girls spreading calcium paste on their thighs and shoulders (to exfoliate, sensual tactile delight) prompted a discussion about empathy and we went silent up the last half of the climb. when we got to the top, little white flowers. astrid played a conspicuous game of She Loves Me She Loves Me Not.

then holding out the flower with a single petal left attached she said, "make a wish."

i thought.

"what is it?"

"i can't tell you, otherwise it won't come true," i said.

"you can tell me," she said, "you can tell me anything."

(pause.)

"what did you wish for?"

"i wished for compassion," i said.

(pause.)

"well there," she said, "you have it --"

-- and i think she thinks that is all that it has to take, but to me that seems a bit of linguistic trickery. astrid kerr is good with words.

from here it was over to the ruins that cover the entire top of the mountain.

typefaces in stone

a feaste

very nice.

lunch under the storks

the ephesus museum was dry and we only toured the gladiator exhibit and its matter of fact statement that, "stadium and circus, in no other circumstances (other than sex) can emotions _soar to such heights." but what about chocolate?

marble sculptures of bulls wearing wreaths that made me think the old civilizations had as little sense of what to do with death as we do. reconstructed skeletons from a gladiator cemetary detailing injuries to elbow, jaw, wrist, and with diagrams showing with red arrows how each one died: one executed by a blade under the back of the skull, one sliced under the shoulder blade, one stuck with a four-point spear through the femur -- terrible way to die, and the walls of the exhibit painted red.

lunch in selcuk under the ruins of an old aquaduct atop which storks return every year to build their nests, big wide swaths of swoop and backbending knees, big black eyes and long beaks.

we followed the aquaduct up to the basilica of saint john, built in selcuk because saint john brought the virgin mary to ephesus after the death of christ. forgot my camera! made me realize i have fallen a little out of practice finding the exact truth of a scene, such as how the walls of the baptistry alone were intact, red brick and red mortar, and the domes of course fallen, but how the foundations and the columns allowed you to feel the math wrapping the cupola up over your head, or how the tourists kept interrupting the muscled black cat intently waiting by little burrows, not moving a muscle, eyes down, or how the walls were made of even mud bricks with a layer of irregular stones at shoulder height and how every now and one of the irregular stones would be a broken piece of sculpture, vines or leaves or fruits, as if they broke up imperfect sculpted pieces to use elsewhere in construction, or how swallows swooped through the standing colums of the basilica tracing through the air like a conductor's expressive left hand under the baton, or how random green and colour choked the cracked terracotta wine jugs, or how the snake plants were so big and meaty they had to be pruned with a scythe, or how astrid kerr drew me through the weeds to see a persimmon(?) tree using just her index finger and saying, "come."

then walking back down as a stork flew up the hill high overhead, nest branches in its mouth, back down to ephesus for pickup.

loving my inner photographer (3) : the church of the virgin mary

just removed from the main ruins at ephesus is the church of the virgin mary, where purple bell flowers grow out from the bricks in the walls and where a digger tried to sell us some fake antique coins. now that the ceiling is gone, rainwater collects in the baptismal font.