Lovely in the silvery vertiginous-ness.
Jill
On 08/08/2012, at 9:09 AM, Stephen Vincent wrote:
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> (A snap newly refined from my journal en route in Turkey)
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> Monday, June 4, 2012
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> The
> intense presence of Istanbul as a vertiginous space – particularly so as we
> walk &/or take the “vehicular tram” down the steep hill from the Galata
> Tower to the Galata Bridge. The walk across the Golden Horn, the name for the
> extended body of water between the old town- the Faith District which is full
> of ancient churches and mosques – and the Galata neighborhood which was once
> the home of Christians, refugee Jews, other tribes and criminals. The Bridge's wide east side pedestrian walkway is crowded; young and old,
> fishing rods in hand, shoulder to shoulder, including a few women friends or
> family among them, hold their rods out or prop them on the side edge of the
> protective steel rail; occasionally they variously break to lean over the
> walkway to prepare their hooks with fresh bait. This constant visual presence
> of people fishing – as we discover - can strike one as almost a religious rite.
> The waiting at what is now the darkening edge of dusk, waiting, the pulling
> back on the poles in response to a nibble, the occasional catch of a fish,
> their singular silver bellied dark bodies dangling through the late light,
> lowered on to the sidewalk, then released into a white bucket. They may be
> sardines or small bass, I don’t know. Most fascinating is, pole in hand, the
> intense focus, and among some, the deep quiet of the waiting. A kind of
> secular prayer. It’s as if to get a nibble or to hook an actual fish
> is to confirm the existence, the vital living existence of one’s soul. Looking
> here at Istanbul’s citizens, stretched out across the bridge one might imagine
> that each was filled with an isolated interior darkness without a connection to
> anything. The loneliness that accompanies the quest to make contact with a
> fish, and the sense of desire that accompanies it, is practically palpable. Vertiginous.
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> Stephen Vincent
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