Memory Soup

I remember a story about porters on an African safari who balked and refused to continue after a few days of frenetic transport at their European client’s bidding.  They said their souls had to catch up with their bodies.  I can relate.

I’m in Istanbul, eating breakfast on the terrace overlooking the Bosphorus, and staring straight at the Blue Mosque up the hill.  A few clouds cutting the sun (so I can see the screen), tone the breeze from hot to balmy.  It is heaven.  I’m at the Sari Konak Oteli.in Sultanahmet.  We stayed here for 9 days in 2004.  It was delightful then, and has since added a new wing and spiffed itself into a lovely boutique hotel.. Seagulls’ raucous shrieking chatter dominates conversations on the gentrified rooftops of old Stambol, except when freight ships plodding up the strait bellow a bass blast of the horn.  If I’m still up here at about 9:30, the discourse will be added to by the adhan from the Blue Mosque.  At the 5 daily prayer times, competing (or orchestrated?) adhans reverberate off the water and hills of the city, as if in call and response to each other. I have not heard such a symphony in other Muslim cities.  Istanbul seems more polished than six years ago, probably a combination of Turkey’s strong economy, the sparkling weather, and the contrast with where I’ve been.  I will enjoy both the new metro and new contemporary art museum today.  I could live in Istanbul.  

The visit to Israel is hard to write about, partly because I was traveling with Jim and didn’t have solitude and space, but also because it is a tense and conflicted place.  Visiting Bethlehem and the West Bank was the most moving part of the trip, but I haven’t sorted out how to write about it yet.  From Akko, we took the 1 ½ hour train along the sea to Tel Aviv.  We stayed in Art + Hotel on Ben Yehuda at Bograshov in Center City. I’d found it on Trip Advisor..a small, wonderfully located hotel, that celebrates about 8 young artists of Tel Aviv.  Each floor features one of them, from the hallways to works inside the room.  The place is very hip and minimalist.  Text on the wall in the room says “sweet dreams”, “looking good” is etched into the bathroom mirror.  The rooms are small, but very functional and attractive.  A sumptuous breakfast and day’s end happy hour are laid out on the community table in the Library, whose shelves are loaded with art books.  It is an amusing place to stay, organized around engaging with each other -- a great lodging concept.

I find that traveling warps and conflates time and memory.  Tel Aviv was hot, but we walked a lot.  In a city of unique neighborhoods…a huge curving corniche of Mediterranean beach is just another one or six.  Neve Tsedek reminded us of Miraflores in Lima, various parts of the center city reminded us of Prenzlr'berg in Berlin, Greenwich Village in New York, and a Bauhaus vs Art Deco South Beach…  Jaffa was charming, and we caught its Saturday flea market -- which is impressive and popular with locals, but full of other peoples’ junk. I'd love to have access to it as a source of found materials for projects. Jaffa is an active artist community, and its public infrastructure -- plazas, sidewalks, etc. are beautifully done.  It didn’t have the ancient, everyday charm of old Akko -- too reconstructed, with many visitors and their busses, but it didn’t feel like a tourist trap. It's port was colorfully picturesque -- no luxury craft a la Larry Ellison, just old fishing and working boats. I had some robust conversations with artists manning their coop shops in the limestone structures climbing the hills from the water.

I had a 6:15am flight from Ben Gurion airport, so saw evidence of Tel Aviv’s 24/7 character when I walked outside at 3:15am.  I couldn’t believe how full the streets were!  It was Friday night Shabbat, and at 7pm, we’d roamed the area for a restaurant open for dinner-- about ¾ of all establishments were closed.  People were drifting home from the beach, the city was shutting down.  Jerusalem had been tomb-like on the Friday night we arrived (although we weren’t out at 3am), and I assumed Tel Aviv would be the same.  Who would have considered planning for a sobriety check and traffic jam on an airport run in the middle of the night?

I was delighted by the non-amplified nature of the beach.  Walking by 70 yards away, one could hear the slaps of paddle tennis from the water’s edge.  I appreciated, too, the plastic recycle cages - wire cubes the size of a minivan for the chucking of empty bottles.  On the surface, Tel Aviv has a fun young, lively, vibe, but I was disappointed by the brusque rudeness of the locals.  We took a short city bus ride to Jaffa, and the middle aged man behind us just pushed ahead of us to get off.  I reminded me of the old ladies in Manhattan -- I learned early to be wary of their elbows entering and leaving public transport and grocery stores.  I did not find the soul of Jerusalem or the West Bank in Tel Aviv.  Bicycles and electric scooters compete for sidewalk space -- strolling is not peaceful.  Jim called it a narcissistic place -  I saw it as a glorified shopping mall, mirroring the consumerist, self-absorbed ills of our US culture.

I was underwhelmed with the Tel Aviv Contemporary Art Museum. Visiting the art galleries in center city was enjoyable, although there was a lot of poor art -- we all make a lot of it in search of the good stuff, and some of my favorite pieces were from an exhibition of young New York artists.  Tel Aviv and I didn't get under each other's skin.  I would need to dig deeper to feel I knew it.

Arabian Nights

Jim is collecting spices to bring home.  Marina (our Bethlehem hostess) gave Jim some Palestinian spice blends for  meat and chicken.  Today we picked up some saffron, za’taar and sumac from the Turkish souq in old Akko.

We are staying at the Akkotel B&B, an exquisitely gracious small family hotel in a former Ottoman police station that has been lovingly restored with lavish attention to detail and using top quality materials.  Old Akko is picturesque, looking a lot like a movie set in Casablanca.  Rick and Ilsa would feel right at home on these romantic streets - especially at sunset on the sea.

While we are in northern Israel, not near the Palestinian areas, the city appears quite Muslim, many women are covered -- in the contemporary way of using the hijab as a colorful fashion accessory, and mosques prominently define the skyline.  Akko is also home to dark African-descended Israeli Arabs who were made citizens in 1948.

Tourists are prevalent during the day, but crawl onto huge white whales of buses and pull out of town in the afternoon.  Old Akko is a contemporary working city, not a tourist museum, although it is a UNESCO Heritage site, and restoration and archeological work continues.  It is very Arabic in feel, and its inhabitants live closely together in tight, twisting alleyways created by the stonework labyrinth of buildings behind the city walls. After dark, when it cools down,  the jumbled and narrow stone streets worn smooth become outdoor living rooms and playgrounds.  Everyone’s door is open, toddlers to teenagers are playing on the cobblestones.  We felt intrusive as we walked along,  like strangers inappropriately venturing into private inner sanctums. I kept my camera in my bag, but would have loved to capture the rich exotic details of domestic life for future paintings. Out on the sea quay, 8-10 year-olds climb the huge stones of the fortress walls, and parents supervise their wading offspring in the Mediterranean.  Acre (Akko) was a Crusader fortress in the 12th century.  Its city walls are so thick (6 feet or more) that Napoleon couldn’t conquer it.

There is a quality of life here that embraces the family, with neighbors engaging closely with each other.  I noticed a similar cultural character in Egypt last year…there is something about these Arab cities that is so deeply civilized.  First off, the cities are very young -- and while the young people all have cell phones, and young drivers love loud music, at the same time they are very family oriented…which seems to tone down the excesses of continuous entertainment and sensory stimulation, of individual exhibitionism,  of public consumption of substances, of general noise…that pervades the public areas of American cities -- from beach towns to ball parks.

Regarding cacophony, Jim and I have been noise magnets on this trip.   If you want to know where in the world there will be construction, just join us -- at EVERY stop there has been roadwork outside our window -- and they start early -- like 6am.  In this beautiful Akkohotel, the road was quiet yesterday when we arrived.  This morning a bulldozer began ripping up the cobblestones.  The newly laid  street of pavers seems nearly finished at 5:30 pm,  so the next person in our room will have a quiet stay.