It's one thing to know theoretically that things cost less outside Istanbul, but it hits home when the garçon asks for 35 kuruş per tea. Maybe time is slower to catch up with life in Çan, for he quoted the price as 350,000, years after the introduction of the new Turkish lira (YTL) and eight months after the reclassification of the YTL as plain old lira.And they don't believe in bulk discounts in that town, either, for the young man said two glasses of tea would cost 75. Like a rich Istanbullu, I handed him a lira coin and said keep the change, feeling I was still ahead of the game.
Our motel on Kadirgah Beach is much the same as it was when I first went there 20 years ago, same nice couple running it, same excellent food, same great beach and sea. We went for the full pension plan, which includes all meals, but one day I saw an old friend at a new restaurant and stopped to say hello.
The owner sat down with us and before long was boasting of his royalty-free music system. This struck me as odd in a country where pirated DVDs are as common as fleas on a mangy dog, but the restaurateur didn't care so much about the royalties as the mood influence. The system sellers told him that if his place gets too crowded he just has to slip in the lively bop CD and ding! people start eating faster. It's all classical music, but the organizers categorized some as jazz, some as bop, some as easy listening… all guaranteed to be non-offensive, actually pleasing to the ear… and free of those troublesome royalty payments to artists.
It impressed me, but I am not the only Istanbul resident to pass through that summer resort. The music also impressed the owner of the new Zengin Tower, a luxury high-rise residence. This man had decided he wanted to monetize his elevator service, so he sectioned off a part of the lift and installed a mini-market inside. Now those busy rich people can buy milk and bread on their way up or down the tower, as well as candy, pencils, pens, cell phone batteries, flash memory sticks, chewing gum -- but no cigarettes.
The residents liked the flying market, but the skyscraper owner felt something was missing from his elevator experience. In the contrary way of fate, the canned classical down in Assos inspired him to put live music in his lift, but it had to be royalty-free music. Thus he hired an out-of-work singer to sit next to the sales clerk and hum tunes for the beautiful people as they rode to their million-euro flats.
The same mood phenomenon that works in restaurants also works in retailing, so the hummer had to stick to the list of bouncy tunes… upbeat Vivaldi, snappy Rossini, manic Mozart. And the merchandise flew off the shelves. Some of the doormen even bought newspapers that people hadn't ordered.
Of course the building residents only had to listen to snatches of the tunes now and then, while the sales clerk had to listen to them all day, every day. He came to regard his humming cohort as a fool, a madman, a menace. Is it any wonder that this cable-borne emporium spooled off to the brink of murder?
It all came to tears when an 83-year-old woman from one of the mid-level floors boarded the elevator to find the clerk gripping the singer by the neck, strangling the last notes of Vivaldi's “Concerto for Mandolin in D.” The society matron thought fast and put a half-nelson on the clerk, suffocating him with her mink stole until his bony fingers loosened from the determined hummer's throat. But she went too far and the poor clerk died.
Now that poor real estate developer is paying thousands of lira for the old lady's defense against charges of manslaughter, and thousands more to the family of the dead clerk, all because he balked at paying music royalties to live artists.
