[THE OLD GROANER] Street theater of the absurd

Our kid only had the one disc. If I remember well we could see the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, the geyser at Yellowstone and other natural wonders of the great American continent, and at the same price as having your very approximate weight told, it was a sure bargain. I must, however, admit that it lost some of its wonder after a week or two. Of course other discs were not available, probably not in the whole of Turkey and certainly not on the frontier.

We were at the same restaurant a year later when we saw a chap walking along the street with a stethoscope round his neck and calling out “blood pressure! blood pressure!” With the amount of beer we had consumed we were certainly not going to pay for that service, but some folks did. It was many years later that I eventually destroyed a blood pressure machine with my 170 over 98, an electronic machine by that time.

Are not Turkish people ingenious? Well, perhaps not as inventive as some of the street performers of London or Paris, but still pretty smart and brazen with it.

In a different cafe, here comes a guy with a varnished wooden box that he is opening to show potential customers its neatly arranged rows of teeth for sale. Not complete sets of grinning false teeth, but rows of individual, single teeth, varying in color from Persil-white to sunflower yellow. No, I’m sorry we never did discover what a person was to do with them (shudder); neither did we discover whether they were false or real teeth (shudder).

Over the years we have bought a couple of telephones off street hawkers, a spinning wheel, an electric drill and a hair clipper machine. None lasted very long, but what the heck.

Another medicinal product frequently peddled around our town is some sort of waist corset. I don’t know if it’s an elasticized support thingy or a thermal one for rheumatic complaints. I just don’t trust the guys unless they have a stethoscope.

I mentioned the inventiveness of the European street guys. Perhaps the act that impressed me most, and I think it was in London, was “the human jukebox.” So the guy had taken a box that maybe had contained a refrigerator and was just about big enough for him to squeeze into, and with paints and felt-tipped pens he converted it into a jukebox. The jukebox, of course, had a slot for coins and a list of probably 20 well-known songs. The machine managed to somehow travel around the inner city and to call at those pubs and restaurants with outdoor tables; there our guy would wait at tables for the almost inevitable coin input and would then sing the chosen song for the punter. Not a bad singer, but by no means good. I have forgotten how the tunes were selected. Having told that yarn, let’s get back to Turkey.

No! Let’s stop off in Amsterdam. On the streets of that fair city I have heard jazz musicians who either are, or certainly could be, professional session men. Send them over here please.

Berlin? Well I haven’t spent a helluva lot of time there, but to summarize my impression I’d say that the natural and unintentional street theater there beats anything contrived in the two aforementioned cities. The same goes for Rome.

Turkey again. I told you about the “battle of the yo-yo’s” some time ago, but in that piece I didn’t go on to tell you about our one-time cucumber guy. Yes, he would schlep around town selling cucumber slices that lay in a tray of crunched up ice. He did good business and over time made enough money to invest in a set of lotto cards. These days, for a shilling, a punter may chose five or six numbers (tourists or locals) and stands a chance (about one in nine) of winning a pack of killer cigarettes. He has had about TL 500 off us over the years; he came to our wedding and stole a couple of bottles of rakı, and all for our winnings of, well, nothing. (And we don’t smoke, anyway.)

Frau is a very cruel frau, which is not uncommon in her native land. When street-selling guys bearing “artwork” come by, she always has them come to the table so that she may peruse their offerings. She does that with a dead straight face. Here is a picture of a waterfall with a couple of pink swans in the foreground. Çok romantik. Next is the inevitable portrait of our revered founder, but now surrounded by a supernatural aura. Next a beautiful lady who is dressed in a very extravagant pink ball gown and who has a tear running down her cheek as she reads (apparently) a letter from her soldier husband/boyfriend who is away serving his country.