Archive for 'La Dolce Vita'
Six months with the Istanbul Opera
Posted on 20. Aug, 2002 by admin.
2/17/2002 The Turkish Opera had its auditions on the 11th for new people to become a sozmesleli, or independent contractor. You toil away for the opera at low pay for a few years doing that, waiting for an opening as a lead singer, or cadreau – at which point, you’re on the gravy train, salaried, [...]
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A perfect day
Posted on 25. Jul, 2002 by admin.
Elif’s stepfather Cos won’t be able to get any vacation at all this summer, which means he’s going to try to call in sick occasionally. Two days ago he did just that, and we were summoned to go out and play with him and Dilek. I really wanted to stay home and write, but I [...]
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Cinema and theater
Posted on 21. Jul, 2002 by admin.
7/21/2002 Istanbul theaters are showing films from all over the world. Of course our Hollywood action exports do the biggest business, but they also have a larger tolerance for the offbeat. The Coen Brothers are big here – and a couple of years ago, the poster for The Big Lebowski just showed a foot with [...]
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The World Cup
Posted on 30. Jun, 2002 by admin.
6/14/2002 Turkey advanced to the second round of the World Cup for the first time in its history, and I found it out from the streets. Our gypsies – peddling flowers, oregano, carrying babies, dumpster-diving – were stoping cars and screaming their heads off. We walked down the block from our apartment to Baghdat Caddesi, [...]
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Elif’s concerts with the Adana Opera
Posted on 19. Jan, 2002 by admin.
1/15/2002 When we were living in New York, we recorded a CD of Elif singing opera songs by gay composers of the 19th-20th centuries. Somehow the CD made its way to some opera directors in Turkey, and a few weeks after September 11, 2001, we received a fax from one Tugrul Gogus asking Elif to [...]
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La Dolce Suadiye
Posted on 10. Jan, 2002 by admin.
1/10/02 The apartment-hunting went more quickly than I expected, with the calm voice of reason tempering my desire to cash in on Turkey’s economic crisis. $1200 a month gets you a penthouse view of the Bosphorus, and by “view” I mean an unobstructed view of the water through a full-length window the width of the [...]
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New Years with The Anatolian Predator
Posted on 05. Jan, 2002 by admin.
We went to Antalya (on the southern Mediterranean coast) to spend New Year’s with Elif’s father Kadri, whom my friend calls The Anatolian Predator. We took the Varan bus, which is more expensive than many other companies, but there’s a direct correlation in Turkey between being rich and staying alive. (Only Varan and Ulusoy guarantee [...]
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Bribing our way to our belongings
Posted on 15. Dec, 2001 by admin.
We spent days at the docks trying to claim our belongings that we shipped from America. Our first step was to go to the Mega Shipping office to get our Ordinals and pay them for forms. The office looked exactly like its counterpart in Secaucus, NJ – same Ataturk pictures, same cubicles, same women with [...]
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Folkloric dancing (with knives)
Posted on 12. Feb, 2000 by admin.
When we were making COUP last year, everyone was typing on typewriters with carbon paper – and now, I’m seeing computers everywhere. Elif’s mom acquired this computer through a trade with a client. It has no CD-ROM and no modem. I rearranged the keyboard for her by popping out the keys with a screwdriver to [...]
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The overzealous gynecologist
Posted on 02. Dec, 1998 by admin.
Last night, we went to a lawyer’s/judges banquet at an all-night Greek drinking pub. I worried about corruption issues, but again, Elif says it’s the clerks and not the judges who get free meals from the lawyers. The evening featured much celebration and belly-dancing. A top criminal judge was seven sails to the wind and [...]
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