MY CHOICE
Partly from memory, partly from life —- Gabriela & me in the mountains — Singing & drawing spectacular scenery while racketing along the high rocky roads on the edge of precipice after precipice —- “This is MY country! This is MY CHOICE!!” — “A wish they all could be California Girlz….” — Raw new jagged land of rocks & olive trees – Geologically new but to us humans unimaginably ancient — Happy in our dark red lipstick & shades we look miles down on a silver river —- 25 June ’00—— All these years later, knowing all I know, this drawing makes me happy.
SEA SIDE
26 June ’00 —Side is pronounced SEE day, and yes, a silly pun. In my memories of Side it’s always afternoon, with the sea the color of an oyster shell. You could walk out for a mile and never go in to your shoulders. Two months later on this exact spot I slid on the slippery cement, resulting in a permanent injury which changed my life even more.
REFLECTIONS & JETSKI
Mustafa as Father Christmas (in July) — All these years I had thought Jetskis noisome pests I had never been on one——
GOOD POSE
27 June ’00—— A nice moment.
NEW MOON RUINS
Apollo Dance Bar, Side — 27 June ’00——Wandering around and drawing in the night. I really loved that neon sign bravely piping in all that dark antiquity.
ROAD TO PAMUKKALE
28 June ’00 — Nomad family taken to Tourism — Woven goat-hair tent — Giant wooden pins — Sleeping Gabriela — Bus Companions — Beautiful old Turkish houses — Modern Turkish architecture stunning in its hideousness, surpassing even Southern California — Smorgasbord of trees — Yes! A field of sharp stones—-> —— This last was probably an old overgrown cemetery. I hope it wasn’t stumps—— Another fight with Nizam, so I called Gabriela. “You must come to Pamukkale,” she said.
GABRIELA IN PAMUKKALE
Old looted tombs — A million shades of white — Trickling water has combed & polished the chalk to an uncanny surface texture unlike anything else — Gabriela – “I love to feel the wind in my hair” — PAMUKKALE — Milky water swirling clouds of chalk around my feet – a trickling white warm glacier tinged in places with amber and pale turquoise under a milky white sky—— One of Turkey’s natural miracles. The old looted tombs of Roman Hierapolis are black and gold on the edge of this shining white mountain.
CARPET MAKERS
Ahmet Demirag — teacher — Hatica the star of our show… the artist —Remsiye—— After I drew his shop, his rugs, his wife & himself, Ahmet fed me cherries & gave me this ring.
CARD PLAYING COUPLE
Everybody was playing cards & laughing late in the hot night across from the water. They all knew who I was. These people have been married 20 years——
BIRD WITHOUT WINGS
Oh sure. Attempt to render a wooded island in the middle of a reservoir. At lunch. — Smiling lunch fish — Clay whistle sold to me by an old Gypsy man in Pamukkale – When filled with water it warbles like a bird——Years later when I read Lous Berniere’s heartbreaking masterpiece of Turkey, Birds Without Wings, I recognized my little terra-cotta whistle and marveled that I’d been able to find one.
MAMMA MIA
KRUNCH!! – Oops. “Mamma Mia!” — Police Prefect the night Nizam & I took out the jewelry store window with the jeep—— The rented jeep was unharmed and I paid $200 for the window. There was something about Side that made me feel bulletproof. The Germans loved it for its comparative lack of rules.
SMALL HOURS TATTOO
Simone getting a tattoo at 1:30 in the morning.
REVENGE
Oh moon of Alabama
We now must say goodbye
— Sick and chilled I drive us to the airport – Yilmaz & Nizam are very drunk – We are late for the plane to Istanbul —
My revenge on Nizam for staying out drinking until all hours when he knew we had a plane to catch… was watching him schlep all the luggage…
They held the plane for us…
—— I was exhausted. I got up early and drew all day, and then Nizam who got up at 4PM would not let me sleep. I needed my friends in Istanbul. He came too.
TRANQUIL FOUNTAIN
Zercan — Tranquil garden fountain in Turkistar Asi Ev — Waterfall in a really nice restaurant opposite the Hippodrome — Sande — Sultanahmet—— Back at peaceful Kybele, where Nizam could not stay as we were not married. At last I slept.