I thought Aphrodite was a goddess of love....

Well, things came to a head between the Indians and the Italians today.

One of the things that happens on these tours is that you go to a site (in this case, today it was Pamukkale, Hieropolis and Aphrodisias) and then you get driven to a "special presentation" where you are offered high quality goods at a reduced price.  I am not certain if this is true or not, but the stuff they are selling sure looks good.  I am also sure that the tour company probably has some sort of financial relationship with the places we are stopping.  You can see busloads of tourists going in and out of these places, led from their busses like some sort or poorly dressed multilingual marching band.

Keep in mind that we are near the Aegean Sea.  It is hot and close here.

After the ruins of Roman cities and the AMAZING travertine landscape (click the slideshow to see the pictures of the landscape) we were on the bus to a leather shop.  Turkey is known for its leather goods from lambskin and they really were lovely. They had a fashion show (music:  Remixes of "What a Feeling" and a few heavy bass Turkish pop songs) and the models were very professional stunningly beautiful.  Tall and olive skinned and very chiseled.  They really were lovely to watch.  I did notice that we were locked in the room for the fashion show and the only way out was to go through the store.

Also, keep in mind that I am traveling with people who have an advanced sense of entitlement.

In the shop and plied with the apple tea that is ubiquitous here, we got down to shopping.  I tried on some jackets and became convinced that I really need to do something about my weight starting now.  Nothing worse than a chubby guy in lambskin, Mother used to warn.  The Indian contingent was not buying the prices convinced that they could do better in Dehli.  The Italians were shopping like mad and having a lovely time.  The minute the Italians began buying the music in the store changed to Andrea Boccelli.  They really know how to please an audience.

In addition, keep in mind that these are people who will complain about a $2 bottle of water but will drop hundreds of Euros on a leather jacket.

We ended up waiting over a half an hour for the Italians to finish and that is when the two Indian men went mad.  They really got in Omer's face (the tour guide, not the driver) about it and started yelling at the Italians to get in the bus.  The Italians did there best "no speakeh anglaise" but everyone knows that they do so it was not playing in Bangalore at all.  Once a few of the Italian women sat down for coffee it was ON.  The older Indian gentlemen started yelling and saying "Why do they get to sit when me and my family are rushed back to a hot bus?"

The Canadian behind me on the bus took odds on the Italians.  I took the Indians because they looked scrappy.  I think they wanted it more.

I had a ball really.

One thing I was not ready for here was the staring.  It is not very common to see American Black people in parts of the country and people have no qualms about staring.  It is really discomforting.  I was sort of ready to disappear here, to fade into the scenery as it were but that is so not happening.  The Turks are kinds and lovely people, don't get me wrong.  The minute I tell them I  am from Boston their eyes light up and they get very excited.  The staring though, it really freaks me out.

Today at lunch I had to tell the little boy that there are a whole bunch of things that are happening in the world of the adults that do not involve or concern him and that when he was a little older, he would see that the world does not revolve around him.  I think this was news to him.  It was certainly a revelation to his family.

No one asked me why I am single today.

It's a small world...

The driver of our tour bus (Omer, not to be confused with Omer, our tour guide) is one of the most beautiful men I have ever seen.  I don't know what he is doing driving a bus of tourists around Turkey.  He should be a movie star. He smokes, like most Turks and I guess he doesn't want anyone to know. He is hiding his cigarette behind his back.

I want to go on record as saying I will never do another group tour like this again.  If one more person asks me why I haven't met the right girl I really may lose my mind.  It's not like home where I can just tell someone I'm a fag and be done with it.  These people exist on a very delicate surface called "travel," so nothing real is discussed.  The other day everyone was talking about the wonder of grandparents and the love of children.  I wanted to set myself on fire.  I kept praying that no one would ask me about my family.  I didn't think I wanted to be that guy who tells the truth at a cocktail party when everyone has agreed to lie to each other.  I hate being that guy.

Because children are the most important people in the world, my group has indulged the two children in our group.  They were playing a game on the bus (during our 7 hour drive from Ürgüp to Pamukkale) that spewed the song "It's a Small World" all over the bus.  There was no escaping it, so I put on my noise canceling Skullcandy headphones and listened to Branca Parlic and the Cowboy Junkies first album.  It matched the Turkish landscape perfectly and gave me a reprieve from the family hour on the bus.

Here are some questions that have come up:

Do you have grandchildren?

Are you married?  Why not?

Don't you agree with the church that Hillary Clinton would be a terrible President?

Why is your hair like that?

Were YOU a slave?

Did you hear the one about the Polish guy who wanted a burial at sea?

Really, you cannot make this shit up. I am traveling with 8 people from India (two older couples and a family of four) a couple from north of Toronto, a really delightful couple from Australia (she's a teacher, go figure) and two women who are traveling together; one from Santa Fe and the other Puerto Rico.  These are the people on the english speaking tour.  The rest of the bus is about 16 people from Italy.  We are in the back with our guide Omer, who has really been a love.  When the polish joke was told, he quickly stood up and talked about how men along the Black Sea area were thought to have little intelligence and were often mocked in jokes.  He said that the people along the Black Sea say that "We are so smart that we make up those jokes about ourselves."  He really did cool things down a bit.

The drive today was very long,   The country is beautiful.  The sights are truly breathtaking.  At a caravanserai, we stopped for a bite to eat.  The building was incredible and housed an open and covered market with a mosque on the inside.  Then we went to Konya to see the museum dedicated to the Mevlana, the founder of the Whirling Dervishes.  We know him in the west as the Sufic poet Rumi.  It was really an amazing place to visit.  No photos were allowed in the museum.  There is an enormous green cone over the center of the building under which is Rumi's tomb.  The calligraphic carvings are exquisite and the place was packed with people who were praying, not just sightseeing.  I was very captivated.  So much so in fact that the tour guide had to come and collect me when everyone was already on the bus.  Again, I hate being that guy.

Tomorrow is hiking in the travertines and looking at the natural rock basin carved by the springs at Pammukale, then Roman ruins at Afrodisias and then on to Ephesus.

The little girl asked me if I knew Hilary Duff today.

New Work...

I have been thinking a lot and drawing a lot this past few days.  The thing that has occupied me for a while has been this idea of ecstasy.  Bernini addresses it in his sculpture of St. Theresa, but I have been wondering about it in my own work.

At this stage of my life, I am barely a Christian.  I do have a long personal history as a Catholic so I do have access to ideas and models of trasformation, the miraculous and so forth.  I can call to mind many stories of the lives of the saints, for example.  But in my practice these have not been helpful in determining aesthetic frameworks for this project. 

I remember seeing a movie when I was a kid about the Rapture.  Essentially, this kid and his mom had a fight and she sent him to the store.  While he is there, the Rapture happens, when the faithful are taken bodily from the earth.  There is a terrifying, slow motion bottle of milk falling and smashing on the floor.  The holder had been "raptured" and there was only a pile of clothes where she had stood.  The kid rushes home and finds a pile of clothes in the kitchen where his mom used to be. Needless to say, this scared the shit out of me.  

I have been thinking a lot about that while in Savannah.  The possibility of being taken away in religious ecstasy.  Can that happen now?  What does it look like?  And really, since I am gay and an abomination in a cosmology that contains the Rapture, I know I will be "left behind." Who gets to go?  Who has to stay?  And since the sinners create the opportunities for the saints, is there a way that I am helping the faithful get to Heaven?  What sort of service can I provide for the faithful?  Similar to the service gay men provided to people of faith like Ted Haggard. (FYI if you see the movie Jesus Camp, there is a scene of Pastor Ted exhorting the children to hate gays.  It's edifying.)

As I keep making these drawings it is becoming clearer to me.