A traveler joined a Jewish and Turkish man talking over tea at the Bursa silk market in an exquisite stone Caravansary.
“I lost today,” said the Jewish man.
“What do you mean," said his friend. “You made 3,000,000 Lira.”
“Yes, but I lost one day.”
My sister set up a hair salon business in a tourist temple town. It fell through. Salons are a dime a dozen. Thousands of undereducated poor girls from distant provinces can’t/don’t read or dream. They cut. Do their nails. Digit phones.
Staring at mirrors is their fate.
Some moonlight as beer girls and hostesses. Where is Mr. ATM? Who’s going to save me they cry wearing gloss in the dead of night masking their eternal loss. Unspoken questions and starvation seek short-term financial solace.
My sister put me to work with a niece washing clothes. In reality I am a happy slave. I have my sister, food and a safe place to sleep. I make some money. An Australian girl gave me a scooter. I dress nice.
My sister started selling massage service. If I meet a good man which is rarer than verbal speech I let him touch me because I trust he’ll take care of me. Short term.
I need help.
Massage has no emotional connection. Touch and go. I have the power to say NO. I have a 5th degree black belt.
I’ve killed more men with silence than you can imagine.
I tell aggressive idiots they can get laid somewhere else. Go find a beer girl. Flash your cash honey.
I do all the washing, ironing and massages. I make small tips. My sister pockets the money. She sits around admiring herself in mirrors, playing with her daughter and talking rubbish on her cell.
I am a voiceless voice of quiet resignation.
It never occurred to Matt to buy indigenous cultural music while traveling.
Martha his girl friend considered it essential.
Music made her edgy and alive.
When she heard music she danced.
She returned to her primitive self.
She danced naked.
Ballet. Flamingo. Tango. Cha-cha. Lambada. Waltz.
He wrote naked verbs. They loved naked. Naked cherished syllable skin music.
They wrote, danced and lived like they were dead.
One day they would be.
They were free. It's the way to be.
Culture is what you are. Nature is what you can be.
People are nature's tools.
Children are parent’s tools.
Passing through Body Sat Quiet in Asia on a three week, “Look, don't think” holiday from frozen Europe they happened into an 8th century tourist town music repository. They smelled music before they saw it. Seeing music is an art form. Synesthesia. In music like life, the end of the composition is not the point.
A music boy handed Matt an orange book. Write your melodic request here. Matt opened the book. A Cambodian orphan popped out of blank pages: I am sorry. Goodbye and good luck to you and your family. These are our famous words. Big vocabulary. Tongues speak. Small life. Big chance. Yeah. Yeah.
Hunger Angel watched 24/7 in the big leagues.
Once upon a time in the long now there was a continent, a landmass floating on water. White people called it Asia on dusty maps. Deep inside Asia were vast lands, rivers and mountains.
Overtime, a historical bandit with a reputation for laughter, magic, fear, superstition, and insatiable appetites for diverse languages, customs and cultures lived in jungles and forests.
OTHER preferred living on distant and remote mountains.
Jingle, jangle, jungle. Using natural materials they created musical instruments, simple weapons, homes, fish traps, snares and looms. The women had babies, wove cloth and prepared food while the men fished, planted crops, domesticated animals. Children played and learned life lessons from nature with extended families.
One day a boat filled with white men sailed down the river to a village deep in the jungle. They wore shiny clothing, spoke a language the people could not understand and carried weapons that made a lot of noise and scared everyone. They pretended to be friendly by offering gifts. The leader of the village welcomed them. They had a party.
Every day more white people came down the river on boats named Destiny. They were on a quest for gold and slaves. Owning, using and discarding slaves had proven to be an essential part of their historical evolution on other continents.
Their mantra was: cheap labor, cheap raw materials, cheap goods, cheap markets and much profit.
White people said, we are civilized and you are savages. We have religion. It is called Wealth.
It is Greed.
We are on a mission from the great chief. We control fire. We control time. We control people. We control nature. We have machines. We take what we want.
The village gave them hospitality, shelter and friendship. The white men were greedy. They took control of the village, the people and the jungle.
Every day the white men marched their slaves deep into the jungle singing, We control Nature. We shall overcome.
They spread diseases. They planted fear. They planted envy and jealousy. They manipulated villages against villages. They divided people against people. Divide and conquer against each other. History taught them well.
They harvested wealth in the form of people, precious stones, rubber and every raw material of economic value. They were never satisfied. Their appetite grew and grew.
If we want to survive we must move to a new jungle forest far away, said the village shaman. This is the story they told people one night below stars singing with their light.
“In summation your honor,” said a defensive attorney from the Land of Smirking Tomatoes, “my client is innocent of all responsibility. We rest our case.”
“Your discovery evidence in Article 301 is weak and inconclusive,” said the Turkish judge hiding Graft behind his back. “Your motion for acquittal and adjudication is forthwith dead and denied.”
“May I change my plea your honor? May I resume my please bargaining and negotiating hardball tactics on behalf of free speech? May I speak without fear of insulting the state, dead hee-haw headless horsemen heroes, fundamentalism in the form of religious heroin addiction and so forth?”
“File a brief, size small with elasticity.”
"Turkey has imprisoned more journalists than Iran and China,” said Zeynep, a five-year old historian. “Free speech here is a theory."
“Do you need twenty-eight vanities of olives? Maybe a broom?" said a wage slave on his knees in Trabzon.
NYT article here.
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