Holding Pattern

From the Beyoglu Noter's Office #9 circa 1980

Caravansarai’s lawyer dumped us a couple of months ago because we ask too many questions, thereby shattering a far too delicate Turkish male ego. I think what we were supposed to do is just throw money at the guy and trust that he would take care of everything. As it was, our questions didn’t provide adequate padding against rushed and hurried mistakes and shoddy registrations. So now we have a new lawyer, and we will let him take care of everything. Not because we trust him, but because we are just exhausted by the hilarity of trying to run a business in Turkey, and we need to concentrate on our projects (our show in Stockholm) and not on legal issues (work visa’s, evictions, rental contracts, etc.)
So our new lawyer is cute, and funny, and is preparing to make a niche for himself representing foreign performers and artists. First he has to get his English up to speed, and he is so determined that he decided as a side job he would become a translator for the ubiquitous Notary system here. Foreigners are required to have translators for every single notarized or official transaction in Turkey, even if our Turkish is better than the translator’s English. Which is almost always. Just last night, we were look for the notarized official translation copy of my passport and found it mistranslated. What sort of information is on a passport? Name, Date of Birth, Birthplace, Issuing municipality. . . . I know those words in Turkish. But apparently whoever translated my passport believes that the month of January (when I was born) is in June (which is how he translated it –Haziran). And for this I was forced to pay 100TL.
Visitors to Turkey often want to see the seat of the Ottoman Empire. They go to Topkapi Palace, and eat in restaurants which specialize in Ottoman Cuisine. But if you really want a slice of Ye Olde Ottoman Life, spend a little time in the Notary’s office. Despite the overbearing photos of Ataturk suspended over every Notary’s desk, the system is 100% pre-Republic Ottoman Turkey, right down to signs designating different functions, which still retain the Ottoman Turkish names. The one concession to modernity being that now they are written in Latin instead of Arabic script.
Off to meet with the lawyer now. I have a new client for him. My friend, Anton, is about to get deported back to Slovenia for having the nerve to actually try to work here. And so it goes. . .

Sanitorium

Last night I slept in the most perfect bed ever conceptualized. Mattress extra firm, but with some give, queen-sized, immaculately clean, and so straight it was likely evened with a level. Taut, heavenly thread-count, sanitary sheets. Pillows and duvet light, but with substantial enough feathers to keep me warm against the cold Viennese night.
I am in Vienna. In my own temporary apartment, arranged by a kindly host and mad genius. After the trauma of this past week, I can’t think of a better place to recuperate than quiet, clean, civilized, and uptight Austria. Fear of squandering my good fortune is probably why I didn’t sleep a wink despite all the comfort.

Fun Times

Maybe, if you read or watch the news, you have kept up with the IMF protests here in Istanbul. If you are like me, you wouldn’t really care until you stumbled blindly into them and spent the day gagging on tear gas and pepper spray.

What I do care about is that on early Tuesday morning, around 3am, myself and three new friends were attacked by gypsy crackheads about 100 meters from my flat, and then again on my doorstep.

Caravansarai was participating in the first Istanbul Artist Initiatives meeting, along with other groups from around Europe and Asia. At the meeting, I made new friends and acquaintances and after the meeting closed, we went to Beyoğlu for dinner and drinking. Some of us were having a more fantastic time than others. So when we got kicked out of the bar at 3am, three fake Swedes (immigrants living in Sweden) and I decided to continue our fantastic time at my flat, which was close by. Before heading out though, we had to stock up on provisions—including filling our bellies with kokoreç. The two Croatian girls, a Moldovan guy, and an Irish guy were with us at that point. Give me some time to come up with a punchline for that intro.

While they ate on the street, I bought a shiny yellow Beauty and The Beast balloon to tie to my wrist. Why there was a guy selling balloons on the street at three a.m. is baffling in retrospect. Why I bought one is easy—it reminded me of a recent conversation I had using balloons as a metaphor. But when it popped this time, it was literal. It was also a beacon to the drug addicts who hang out in that area, but in my drunken state, and surrounded by lots of people, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

After buying beer and raki, we walked down a shady underpass into my immediate neighborhood. I should say that my neighborhood (Tepebaşı) is safe. It is very traditional and mixed Turkish and Kurdish, with more and more foreigners living here. There is almost no tolerance for gypsies from the adjoining neighborhood and they are always immediately chased out. If this is because of racism I don’t know, but it keeps the area relatively safe.

I forgot one rule of safety though—Gypsies travel in packs. After we (me, Stina, Arni, and Christian) descended onto my street, one teenage guy came up to us trying to sell us his sweatshirt for 10 lira. There were 4 of us and 1 of him. We kept saying, “No. We don’t want it. Go away.” He would circle around and circle back. We would brush past him. Suddenly, three of his friends came from nowhere and cornered us about 100 meters from my flat. I was thinking, that because there is almost never a time when there aren’t some people hanging out in the street in front of my house, we could push towards my house and people would be there to chase them. I was wrong. We were there the one ½ hour time period when people sleep here.

But, I was walking faster, trying to come across a neighbor up ahead, when I heard shouts behind me and saw two of the kids take Arni, a huge Icelandic Viking onto one side of a parked car (the road can only fit one car at a time, so it was wedged against the side of a building) to isolate him from us and another two were going after Christian, who is smaller, but wily. I turned around to go help them (having already kicked one of the guys in the balls) when the car alarm went off. Also at that point everyone noticed that Arni’s arm was slashed and turned inside out. At the sight of blood, everyone kind of panicked. We grabbed Arni and tried to get him up to my flat, and the kids ran off. When we realized how extreme the injury was I starting yelling, “YARDIM ET!!!!! KOMŞULARIM!!!!!” over and over. Which is just, “HELP! MY NEIGHBORS!” And probably sounded retarded, but sufficiently panicked.

Then, our attackers returned, each holding a bottle of beer that they had taken from the bag we dropped. They charged us and threw the beers at us—hitting Christian in the head, but only glancing my shoulder. Stina and Arni were protected in the doorway. I was still yelling for help and finally my neighbors came out. And they were amazing. At that point Arni starting passing out from shock and blood loss (the artery was severed so it was spurting like a drinking fountain), so 5 guys had to lower him to the stoop. Meanwhile a pretty girl, who I have never seen before, told us in perfect English that someone had called 911 and a taxi. It was around then that I noticed I had a string tied around my wrist, and at the end of it dangled an exploded yellow balloon. When it popped, I couldn’t tell you.

My spoken Turkish isn’t so great. It’s even worse when I am drunk and in shock. But still, the others were depending on me to take care of things in the taxi and at the hospital. Over the next few hours three separate sets of cops came into our luxurious room at the German Hospital to ask us to recount the details. I ended up having to write it all down on paper because I was still too jumbled to talk coherently, but for some reason I could write full, grammatically correct sentences. Turns out that none of the police who came have jurisdiction over the area where the crime occurred, so the next day (which was really the same day) my friend Mehmet and I went to our local police department. I should mention that up until 2 days ago I haven’t been smoking but I have smoked all of those missed cigarettes in the past 40 hours. And that fact occurred to me as Mehmet and I got into the back of the police car to go to the hospital to make a report for Arni’s insurance. The cops offered us cigarettes, which we accepted. Apparently the smoking ban does not apply to policemen. No surprises there.

Some great things came out of this event. One is the realization that my neighbors have my back. Another is that not only are we alive—but mostly intact and in possession of our computers (we were all carrying Macs in our bags) and wallets. And most importantly, we now have material for our next collaboration in Caravansarai. When we finally have our building renovated, we will have a art/feast/celebration/performance in collaboration with the Swedes to honor this chance for 4 people to become better friends.

Reasons to go, reasons to stay

Here is a good reason to stay in Istanbul: yogurt.

Here is a reason to leave: Getting spat on while running over the Unkapani Bridge

Here is a reason to stay: Being invited to a Kurdish wedding.

Another reason to leave: Witnessing police brutality on the way home from Kurdish
wedding.

Another reason to stay: To somehow bring attention to the reasons to leave in the
chance that they could effect change.

The full stories of the past two days will have to wait until I’ve digested them enough to spit them back out.

The best thing

The best thing about my last blog post is that someone found it by typing “Colgate Scratch n’ Sniff Toothbrush” into a seach engine. Wonders never cease . . .

Products

While buying a building and starting a project space in Turkey can be exciting and interesting, it so far doesn’t pay the bills. For that I have a job reporting on household, health, beauty, auto, and pet supplies newly introduced to the Turkish market. A sample of this months reports includes such appalling items (which I have to purchase with an allowance,) as:

*Axe Bodyspray–Scent of Fine Leathers

*Sensodyne foaming toothpaste in an aerosol can

*Rexona roll-on deodorant for men in V8 scent ( think it’s the motor, not the juice)

*Kotex nighttime maxipads for Children (huh?)

*Surplus double sided tape for a bug screen.

* And the worst?–Colgate Scented Toothbrush with Scratch n’ Sniff package.

Why are people convinced that they need these things? Hundreds, thousands of people in this part of Turkey were not able to celebrate their recent holiday because of flooding and the homelessness resulting from it. And here I am, buying the most absurd products targeted at those same people. Icky.

Dutch Delegation

The Biennial festivities are finished and so am I. I’m completely exhausted and worn out from listening to long exposes on artist initiatives and long-winded explanations full of art world jargon concerning partnerships and project funding, networks and the like. On a good day I have a 15 minute tolerance capacity for that kind of conversation, but my good day was last Wednesday, and it’s gone downhill since then. Here are some words I can live without hearing for the rest of my life:

*Mobility
*Migration
*Initiative
*Transnational
*Collaboration
*Co-collaboration (well, ‘co’-anything)

That’s the short list. If I had any brain cells left I could think of more. Part of the problem was also the partying and socializing aspect of the Biennial. I’ve been to more openings in the last week than in the rest of my life put together. I saw one or two cool things, but nothing too striking. I spent most of the time doing what you do at openings—drinking wine (except I wasn’t drinking, so it was seltzer) and talking to cute boys. Or at least trying to. There were some real works of art among the Iranian contingent, if you know what I’m sayin’.

But, like every large event in any part of the world outside of the Netherlands (and excluding the U.S.) the place was crawling with the Dutch. That’s fine until they corner you at a meeting and try to make you justify your existence, even though you aren’t trying to prove anything to them. A Dutch contingent of artist initiatives wanted to meet other initiatives based in Istanbul so they could come and colonize it. So we went to the meeting, and while most of them were very nice and had interesting projects in their country, the first question a big, blond, ruddy-complexioned lady asked us was, “Why don’t you do this in your own country?” AS IF! As if the word “Dutch” wasn’t synonymous with imperialism. I wanted to shout, “Well, YOU ought to know!” They said they had looked at our website, but they obviously hadn’t read the part were we answered that very question. Julie politely described to them that we are doing Caravansarai here because this is her home and has been for a long time and I am just an opportunist. In any event, the girl sitting next to me was funny and in the end whispered, clandestinely, so the rest couldn’t hear, “I like what you are doing, when your building is ready, call me, I’d like to work with you.” She can be my token Dutch friend.

Resistanbul

There is an activist/anarchist group who is protesting the Istanbul Biennial. I think it is just a little warm-up to their protest of the next IMF meeting, which also takes place here next month. I agree with most of what they say, but unlike them, my world view isn’t so absolute or idealistic. The think I like most about them is their English moniker: Resistanbul
As a guest of the biennial, I have to say, though, that they are just jealous because they don’t get to stay out all night with hilarious and cute Iranian artist boys like we did last night. We also saw some of the worst paintings EVER! You take the good with the bad.

Waiting for Iftar

Turkey is still in the middle of Ramazan and tonight for Virtual Chef, we are hosting a broadcast of our Iftar meal. I have not converted. At least not to Islam–perhaps hedonism or bi-polar or senior citizen–but I’m not a born-again Muslim. However, Iftar is another excuse to eat and have friends over to eat with you, so we are doing it in our house over skype with our friends in the Netherlands. In the spirit of the evening, I got up at 4am (before dawn, when the obnoxious drummers come around to wake you up to eat) and drank some water and ate watermelon so that I wouldn’t get dehydrated. Then I went back to sleep until 9am or so. Then I went running to the yoga studio and did yoga and walked back uphill, sweating all the while, so that by the time I arrived home I had uncontrollable cottonmouth. Actually, it could have been controlled by the ingestion of a glass of water, but nothing is allowed to pass my lips going that way today. In another 4 hours I can have that glass of water.
By doing this fast, I have realized a couple of things about myself. One thing is that it is much easier for me to quit doing something than to start doing something. Secondly, hunger (but not thirst) is such a conditioned response. Of course I’ve gone much longer without eating than this before and knowing that I will not eat anything until later frees up time to do other, more productive things besides think about and prepare food. And lastly, I realize how spoiled I am to have access to clean, drinkable water without thinking about it when so many people on the planet don’t. Don’t worry, I haven’t converted to hippy-ism either.
Out of curiosity, I wanted to know why I was supposed to be fasting. Turns out it is the same old story–Mohammed fasted on his own for 3 days a month and then when the Quran was written, they decided to smoosh all 36 days of his fast into 30 days in a row during the month of Ramazan and 6 days in a row during the month of Shawwal. Why do people have to be so extreme?

Notions of Work

Now that Caravansarai owns a building, I have a small room in which to practice foot juggling, among other things. Technically it is our ‘office’, that we are using until our military checks go through and we can legally obtain the deed to the building. The government has to make sure we are not a threat to the hardware and hydraulic stores that line the streets in our new neighborhood. But the only danger we present is the fact that we will confuse the old Turkish men who work at these stores.

Our building currently has several businesses running out of it–all of them selling various plastic, rubber, or metal parts to things. There is also a ‘çayci’ (tea guy) who runs tea up and down to all merchants and guests. This guy also acted at the building’s super to the old owners. Even though I am part owner of the building now, this guy treats me like a weird curiosity that is renting an office in there. He is very nice, but it is probably because he is trying to secure his place as ‘the guy’ for the building. Still, he walks in without knocking, sits down and makes himself comfortable, interrogates all my visitors. On the first day I practiced, he sat there in a chair an stared and clapped and ooo-ed and ahhhh-ed until I told him I really had to practice. Then he went and rounded up the other tenants of the building and one-by-one brought them up to see me. There is nothing wrong with this–it is not common to see a foot juggler juggling in a tiny office space in the middle of a hardware neighborhood in Istanbul.
But after 30 minutes of this, he asked me, “Aren’t you tired? When are you going to stop?” I told him that some days I practice for 4 hours and that before, when I was learning, I practiced up to 10 hours a day! He thought I was lying.

Then the thought struck me that here is a case of cultural difference that will continue to baffle that generation (and maybe others) of Turkish people–hard work. Except for the metal sellers and rubber sellers in the building–NO ONE is working. If you are to peek into one of the other offices you will see a couple of dudes playing backgammon, drinking tea, and trying to quit smoking (it’s all the rage now in Istanbul.) But they don’t look busy.
Though people do work hard at their jobs, they seldom work toward things. So concepts such as how you learn to foot juggle are difficult to comprehend. Instead of laboring away to become good or accomplished at something, they rely on their networking talent and bullshitting abilities. These are treasured commodities in this culture, and ones which I am sorely lacking. So while I am slaving away trying to become ‘good’ at something, they are busying scheming ways to get in with their son-in-law’s brother’s wife’s father. We both think the other is weird.

Meanwhile, I lay on the floor in my office and people come in and out and ogle the freak and wonder aloud why I never get tired and I go home and write blogs about how the same people don’t understand that to excel at something you must work at it. Both of us are wrong.