Slowly-by-Slowly

Yellow sunflowers and hungarian peppers from Truro Ag Fair 2012

Sleeping with my faced smushed into the pillow as usual, I smelled the wafts of Çaykur yellow label tea before hearing the beginnings of the little chorus of dancing ladies’ morning chant. That chant, you see, is designed to slowly and gracefully wake me up. Today, however, it was not as slow and graceful as they intended it to be, and it sounded more like bleating goat begging.

It was, you see, time to walk the dog with M. and head over to the Truro Agricultural Fair – a once a year event where the best in flora and fauna produced on the Cape Tip are displayed with pride – before all groove to the sounds of Grateful-Dead-inspired bands of yore in the late summer sunshine. The puppets were particularly excited that day, you see, as there was rumor that the “Sultan of Chickens” was present at the fair that day – and was considered to be the best bet for “best in show” at the Ag fair. Even the Sultan of Nutcrackers was going to pay homage. Since the puppets caught sight of the Provincetown nutcracker puppet world, they haven’t been able to get enough. If you have no earthly idea what I am talking about, you can click here to catch up.

Before long, we were trotting along Commercial Street for our morning coffee treat before allowing our beloved pooch a jogging jaunt on the beach. In actuality, it is the puppets that love this part the most – this is the time of day when they alight from my shoulders (and purse, in the case of the little chorus dancing ladies), jump on the dog – and whip him into

Red-chocolatey hot peppers found by Mercan Bey, the puppet spice trader, at the Truro Ag Fair 2012

a joyous, running frenzy that propels them all the way down the beach to McMillan Pier. That pier, you see, is inhabited by some very special and rugged seagulls who roost underneath it. I mention that they are rugged, as they commute on a regular basis between Provincetown in the 21st century and the 14th century Ottoman court – through a time-traveling wormhole, tabi canım (which means “of course, dear”). Their job has become delivering messages to and from the Karagöz puppets of the Ottoman court to the Karagöz puppets in my mind.

Outermost Honey by Rebecca Matarazzi from Provincetown, MA

Not able to contain their excitement about the fair despite the receipt of notes from home, the puppets wound up their magic wand time machine and flew us into Truro before we could say “beach plum jelly.” For those of you from “away” from Cape Cod, that’s a local specialty.

As soon as we hit the fairgrounds, the puppets made a bee-line for the Sultan of Chickens to pay their due – but were not impressed with his clucking.  Soon enough, the puppets scattered like buckshot into the crowd – whizzing back and forth from the stands to my mind in order to suggest cooking a fusion American-Turkish this or baking a pure Turkish that with the lovely produce around us. Needless to say, we arrived home laden with lovely fresh goods. I’ll let the pictures tell the story for you!

Indian corn at the Truro Ag Fair 2012

Esma the hippie puppet never made it into the fairgrounds of the Truro Ag Fair – she fell in love with this little side garden on the way in – and decided to commune with the purple and pink blossoms until we made our way home…

Mercan Bey dared Karagoz to eat three of these peppers in a row without stopping – he’s still looking a bit dizzy a couple of hours later!

Safiye Rakkase, the vainglorious dancing girl puppet, loved these undulating asian eggplant – and began to do interpretive slide dances on this pile of them while Yehuda Rebbe and Hacivad Bey debated whether they would have more or less seeds than the standard American supermarket eggplant – less being preferable in order to make Ali Nazik…

Related articles

• On my writing about cross-cultural marriage (with the Karagöz puppets) (elizcameron.com)
• Humpback whales pay unexpected visit to boaters off Truro (boston.com)
• Future floods pose risk for Truro: expert (cbc.ca)