Kept Light

On one of our outings, when we visited Narmanli Han, I heard an enchanting music coming behind a line of people watching something. I could see the head of a very tall man with his face painted white but could not make anything of it until I got reasonably close to peek through the crowd. It was a puppeteer manipulating his alter ego with an accompanying story. In a way it was mesmerizing, the man was talking, narrating a story in a deep voice over the music seemingly coming from a device attached to his waist. His black attire, a backdrop for the marionette, made him look larger than he probably was. His arms moved in carefully choreographed sequences carrying the marionette in different directions, or made him kneel. The totality of the experience was captivating, almost to a fault as I do not remember even one word the man said for fear of missing a move, or missing a note of the music. [Read more...]

Galatasaray is the heart of the old city district Pera, between the old Tunel (a very short and very old subway) and Taksim square. The main street, Istiklal Caddesi (avenue), is always busy and the side streets very colorful, albeit not always “pretty”. You will see the stairs of a building which used to be a very well kept office building, now in shambles; or trash bags thrown on an corner. Yet, the people are always spirited, often you can tell they have a certain “attitude”, not in a particularly bad way yet I can distincly see it in the faces of many. The two gray building facade pictures. They are the top two floors of a building that belong to the famous Turkish photographer, Ara Guler. On the ground level, there is a coffee house carrying his name “Ara”. The building and the cafe are in a narrow alley, for which the Turkish word is “ara”. You will also note that the color of the building is middle gray, Zone V, and the trim appeared to me as Zone II.

Take a look at the views from a small section of Pera.

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