It’s 2009, and I’m in Turkey to research my novel Deep State. Standing behind is Melinda Snodgrass, and Patricia Rogers is behind the camera.
I’m in the smog-swathed capital of Ankara, the city known to the Hittites as Ankuwash, to the Romans as Ancyra, and to the Ottomans as Angora. Ankara is a modern, largely secular city, with more than 20 universities, but looming above is the acropolis topped by its citadel, mostly Byzantine and Turkish but with foundations that go back to the Phrygians.
Walking through the citadel’s gates really is like walking into another, older world. There’s an entire city inside the walls. Men smoke in doorways or play backgammon, old women in headscarves walk up the steep paths carrying enormous bundles of Angora wool on their backs, and kids kick footballs around. Even little girls wear headscarves, which I hadn’t seen anywhere else. Groups of teenage girls in headscarves and ankle-length overcoats giggle and snap selfies of each other. People seem poorer than elsewhere in the city.
The citadel plays a part in Deep State, as the place where Dagmar and Ismet, her love interest, first connect, when he takes her hand and leads her along the top of a connecting wall to a bastion.
A little nervous, I walked to the bastion myself, but no one held my hand.
So we’ve made the big move, and we’ve sacrificed the joys of country living for the excitement of the big city. As you can see. Excitement everywhere you look.
The move itself took 2 days, the first to pack everything, the second to transport it and unload the trucks. The movers finished at 9pm and I gave them each a nice tip.
There was enough room for all the furniture we cared to bring— lots of bookshelves— which surprised me. Perhaps the apartment is a tesseract.
It’s nearly two weeks since we moved, and to give you an idea of the state of our new digs, here’s a photo of my office/man cave/library. A corner of my office chair is peeping out from behind some boxes.
The sad fact is that I’ve unloaded dozens of boxes, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. A Berlin Wall of cardboard still marches through almost every room. The only room so far cleared of debris is the kitchen, which means I could cook something if I could only find some pots and dishes.
Part of the reason it’s taking so long is that we (mostly Kathy) have been dealing with our country house— all the stuff we didn’t bring with us needed to be shoveled out, the place had to be prettified for the hordes swarming in to make us offers, and ordinary upkeep had to be done. So we’re not free of the country yet.
We’re both exhausted and operating through brain fog dense enough to make it hard to see the floor beneath our feet. We could really use a couple weeks in the tropics.
Not 3.1415, but British broadcaster Jonathan Pie. Who here melts down in an epic live-mic rant that probably registers an approximate 6.5 on the Richter Scale.
We have finally got a moving date, so by the end of the month we’ll be in our new apartment in Albuquerque! Yes, after a 30-year rural idyll, we’re leaving our blissful, well-appointed country house for a place in the big city! What motivated all this? Well— it was time. After three decades we were […]
For those who haven’t seen it, here’s David Tennant’s exuberant opening for this year’s BAFTA awards. For those looking for a wee bit of relief from out country’s incessant drumbeat of madness and doom. (Maybe it’s not so doomy in Britain.) WARNING: Scottish accents.
Here we are back at the Grand Canyon. Center left, you can see a side canyon striking off to the distant north rim. This is near a place called Grandview, which was the site of the canyon’s only hotel from 1893. Pete Berry had arrived as a miner, but found lodging more profitable. He built […]
