Ninth week, November (Kasim) 10 - 15 - Rugs and Efes Blues Festival 20

For photos of the Efes Blues Festival, see: http://anatolianphotos.shutterfly.com/ To read the picture captions, click on "Slideshow." Or click on: "See all 22 pictures," then click and advance each picture.

I am shortening this week's post a bit. Monday November 16, begins a conference on Native Americans at Hacettepe, so, instead of beginning my blog on Tuesday, as I normally do, I will begin next week's blog on Monday instead. Besides, the week's activities of note nearly all happened on one day anyway--Saturday.

Rug Shopping Fifteen years ago, we purchased two Turkish rugs from a seller named Abdulkadir Ersoy. We refer to him as Kadir Bey, "Bey" being a term of respect for a man. His shop, where he sells hand-knotted rugs, kilims (small woven rugs), and some pottery, is called Best Koleksyon. Larry, with his remarkable memory, recognized the shop as we drove by on our epic bus ride to the Fulbright Orientation many weeks ago. In the meantime, our move to Bahcelievler put us within walking distance of the shop, albeit a long walk--about 50 minutes each way.

Kadir Bey, besides being a rug seller and chemist (he still teaches the occasional chemistry class at Middle East Technical University), also wrote several books about Turkish rugs, two of which we had purchased on our long ago visit. We found the shop with no trouble late Saturday morning and purchased two beautiful hand-knotted rugs, one of which is made from wool dyed with all vegetable dyes. Since the latter, a fairly large rug, was pretty expensive, we did not bring enough money with us. So next Saturday, we will join Kadir Bey and his family for lunch at the shop and pick up or arrange to have shipped our beautiful new larger rug. The smaller rug we've already paid for was light enough (sort of) to carry home with us in a large kilim bag given us by the remarkable Mr. Ersoy.

Our rug seller also discussed an annual tour he leads to nomadic tribes making many of the rugs he sells in his shop. Not only does his tour visit nomads, it also visits dye shops, knotting and weaving workshops, and some of the shepherds themselves. We requested that we be kept in mind for the next tour, which should happen sometime around Memorial Day.

The Efes Blues Festival 20 On Friday and Saturday night, the Bilkent Hotel hosted the 20th annual Efes Blues Festival. With Saturday night tickets in hand (purchased at a downtown bookstore that was remarkably easy to find, thank heavens), Larry and I joined two graduate students, and met up with many more, as well as some junior faculty members, for an evening of remarkable music, lots of noise, and plenty of Efes beer, on the East Campus of Bilkent University, our old haunt. I started to post a video clip to this post of one of the performers, Terry Evans. “Shake, rattle, and roll,” the content of the video, was not his best piece, but it is the only video I succeeded in capturing. However, while the video was loading, I remembered that doing so is probably illegal, so I canceled the upload. Oops. Sorry; looks like you'll just have to visit his web site (see below) to get a sense of his talent.

Arriving two hours before the beginning of the concert--in order to get a close parking spot--our student driver, Gozde, and her friend Kenan, spent time in the hotel pub, while Larry and I walked up to our former apartment complex on the Bilkent campus. Once again, my memory played tricks on me. I had completely forgotten how desolate the walk up that hill to the complex was. Walking up a partially lit (it was dark by then) crumbling sidewalk, along a heavily travelled road), to our left we saw unoccupied brushland, with a further spectacular view of nighttime Ankara. To our right was a forbidding fence surrounding the eastern part of the university. I do not remember that fence at all. Eventually we reached the apartment complex, after climbing a long steep hill. It is now fenced in as well, with a guard at the gate. (There was no fence around the apartments when we lived there). The buildings themselves are larger than both of us remembered--they each have about twelve apartments. What was particularly striking was the lovely landscaping, and cozy feel to the entire complex (after the desolate walk, that is). When we lived there, the buildings were less than a year old, and were surrounded mostly by mud. Plantings began fifteen years ago about one week before we left to come home to the U.S. Anna's kindergarten school, a mere 100 feet or so from our apartment, looked exactly the same as when she attended.

When we arrived back at the hotel, the crowds had begun to build, but we still had one hour before the beginning of the concert, so we joined our friends in the hotel bar and had a (very expensive) Efes beer. Once the concert began, Larry and I positioned ourselves in front of the stage. The venue was the large ballroom of the hotel; attending were thousands of mostly college students--all happily drinking Efes beer (I assume it was cheaper in the ballroom than in the pub) and cheering and dancing to the terrific music. Billed as a "blues" festival, there were three featured artists, each performing his/her separate set: Ray Shinnery (http://www.rayschinnery.net/html/about.php), Terry Evans (http://www.terryevansmusic.com/), and Shemekia Copeland (http://www.alligator.com/index.cfm?section=artists&artistid=41).

These American artists, who are not the "top tier" of blues performers, according to those in the know (not me--I don't know blues music much) were nonetheless terrific. They certainly knew how to play the crowd. Ray Shinnery, the first performer, was quiet at first, and had a terrific voice. As he progressed through his set, his songs and guitar increased in intensity. The crowd responded by singing along with "Ain't no sunshine since she's gone," with its repetitive, "I know, I know, I know, I know, etc." The end of his set erupted in exuberant cheers. Terry Evans, the second performer, reminded me somewhat of James Brown, but without the acrobatic moves. He, too, was terrific, and got a rousing reception by the more excitable crowd, who continued drinking the Efes constantly served by attendants adept at maneuvering through the gyrating and cheering crowd. By the time Shemekia Copeland began the evening's third set, we were all dancing and making lots of noise, with hands held high, clapping in rhythm. The excitement of the crowd somehow didn't fit into my concept of "The Blues," but who cares. (Later, people who know blues music better than I do said, "it wasn't REALLY blues music).

About halfway through the last set, as the crowd was having a rousing good time, our driver apologized profusely about having to leave early to avoid the after-concert rush. By then my feet were killing me anyway (we had already walked about 2 1/2 hours that day, and stood another 3 hours at the concert), so I was quite willing to leave early, even if the concert was still going strong. When I saw the number of cars parked along the roadway (seemed like thousands, but probably not), I was even happier to leave early. All this in one day!

The remaining days of this week were nearly uneventful, except for a second dinner party I hosted for Meldan and her brother, Ercan (Gulriz was ill and could not come). I served some of the same dishes as my previous dinner party, with the addition of pasta and my tomato sauce, and my version of the Turkish mercimek corbasi (red lentil soup), and a few other changes, cooked (again) over several days.

So now begins the big week in Larry's department. A two day conference entitled: Native American Voices: Languages of Survival, with all classes cancelled in the department and student attendance mandatory. But I’ll save that for the next week’s blog.