And on the 12th day of Christmas: Meet Hacivad, the inimitable and learned Sufi leader of the puppet troupe

Posted on December 23, 2011 by lizcameron

Here is Hacivad, in one storyline where he turns, partially, into a goat, much to the delight, I am sure of his love-hate compadre, Karagoz! (Thanks to the Asian Shadow Theatre Exhibition's Flikr Photostream for this image)

And here we are, on the 12th day before Christmas, so it is time to meet Hacivad Bey, the fearless and calm leader of the Karagöz puppets in day-to-day operations. In modern times, the puppets might refer to him as their Chief Operating Officer.

Always cool, calm and collected, Hacivad Bey is a devotee of the Mevlana Rumi and is fond of quoting Rumi’s poetry from memory. Rumi rolls with the punches, always takes a positive view on life (unless he is really, really pressed, in which case he is known to rumble on occasion, as nobody is perfect.  It is usually that Karagöz gets him worked up to this mental space).  The puppets all look to Hacivad Bey to be the voice of reason, the maker of consensus, the level-headed leader, and he does not disappoint.  You may recall that the puppets gave way to Hacivad Bey once confronted with the Sultan of Nutcrackers on Commercial Street in Provincetown – he was the natural leader one would gravitate to if a martian asking “take me to your leader” was met.

A delicious Çoban Salatası that Hacivad Bey "helped" to prepare by whispering in my ear as I chopped the sebze, peynir and squeezed the limon. (Image from my own collection)

True to his cool nature, Hacivad Bey likes nothing more than a cool-as-a-cucumber Çoban Salatası (cho-bahn sah-lah-tah-suh, shepherd’s salad made from white cheese, cukes, tomato and lemon juice, at least in our house that is how it is made), with extra chunks of garlic and pul biber (a.k.a. Aleppo pepper) for comfort’s sake.  He is a simple man in this way, appreciating the small things in life.

If we look at the traditional characterization of Hacivad Bey (sometimes his name, by the way, is spelled “Hacivat”) in comparison to Karagoz, Emin Senyer has a slightly different take on the character, saying “Hacivat is reflective character with a pointed turned-up beard. Each movement is well calculated and worked out before hand. Karagöz, on the contrary is impulsive and his character is shown by his speech and behaviour. Hacivat,s reasoning limits his actions. Even though while on the screen, he makes few gestures with hands, Karagöz is the more dynamic and energetic. Where Hacivat is always ready to accept the situation and maintain the status quo and establishment, Karagöz is always eager to try out new ideas and constantly misbehaves himself.”

Senyer goes on to say that: “Hacivat is always bound by the moral principles of the upper class and can easily adapt himself to these principles. He sometimes becomes instrumental in providing pleasure for the upper classes and is always worried that Karagöz’ tactlessness will spoil these pleasures. Karagöz, the traditional symbol of the -little man- , on the other hand, finds that his tactless behaviour generally upsets most intrigues. Hacivat also serves as a foil to each character, underlining their helplessness and distress. Most of these lesser characters depend upon the machination of Hacivat to provide either the needed money, job or house. He is loquacious, credulous and good natured. Usually Hacivat offers useful advice to others, aiding them in their schemes. Because of his knowledge of etiquette and language and his opportunism, he is a most desirable, like able character in the neighbourhood. He is not only the local headman but is looked upon as counsellor, especially by the neighbourhood spendthrift. When he partners Karagöz in various undertakings, he prefers merely to find the clients and share the profit. Conversely Karagöz is not respected. He is always insulted by the dandies, is a target for the anger of the opium addict a victim of the village idiot,s practical jokes and the threats of the neighbourhood drunkards.”

As I am sitting here, writing and reflecting on the traditional characterizations of Hacivad Bey, as compared to the reality in my head, the man himself is sitting and watching, in the lotus position at the front of my keyboard.

“Excuse me, m’lady,” he calls out, quietly but commandingly, “I think that you write too much about me – let my actions be me, me be my actions – but more importantly – let my character be described in the words of Rumi, although I am not perfect, it is what I aspire to.”

“Happy to hear, Hacivad Bey, how might the Mevlana characerize you?” I asked in a quiet voice, as others who don’t see puppets were around.

Standing as if to deliver a gift, Hacivad Bey broke into a serious but theatrical mode, saying “Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others’ faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear.”

And he did, and I did, and we remembered to always to do the best we could in this effort. And so ends the 12 days before Christmas and the introduction to the heavy-hitting major players in the Karagöz shadow puppet troupe that inhabits my head.

Tomorrow, we shall see what the puppet troupe is up to for Christmas eve…and I will have you know that it involves a lot of glitter.

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On the 11th day of Christmas: Meet Perihan, the fairy godmother

Posted on December 21, 2011 by lizcameron

The demure, kind and loving Perihan who knows how to work a room in a difficult moment, my fairy godmother puppet (thanks to the Asian Shadow Theatre Exhibition's Flikr Photostream for this image)

When we last left you, the Karagöz puppets were jumping up and down whilst engaging in a hot debate about religion.  Leave it to religion to stir things up.  Hacivad Bey and Yehuda Rebbe had just co-recited a quote from Rumi, which posited that all Gods are really one…it was a call to unity of sorts.  Celebi, the modern lover, however, came in spouting off about religion being the opiate of the masses, et alia. Karagöz  was whooping and hollering and arguing all sides as the consistent agent provocateur.  There was such a cacophony, that the voices of the puppets actually formed a fast, intrepid and almost demonic rhythm, to which Safiye Rakkase the vainglorious dancer began to dance (you can read more about her here). Zenne, the little lady as nervous as a bowl of quivering jelly, held her hands over her ears and willed the chaos to move on (you can re-meet her here).  Sitting next to her, Tiryaki the opium addict was stimulated enough by the noise of the argument that he remained awake instead of nodding off in an opium haze.  Meanwhile, Kenne shrieked in horror and disgust, wagging her finger at everyone for fighting about God.  Honor, she was sure, was in need of major maintenance at this moment.

All of a sudden, a cooling breeze wafted in from the window, causing all of the puppets to cease their argument and turn to the wind as if to feel sunshine on their cheeks, it was such a healing breeze…and as they did this, in walked Perihan Hanım (Mrs. Perihan, pronounced hah-num)…the fairy godmother of the puppets.  Although she looks unassuming and sweet at first glance, her head bowed down, a mask of Karagöz hanging down her back.  She tends to don the mask when she prefers not to be seen.  This is a quiet lady – but an iron butterfly or steel magnolia type – who only comes out when she is really needed, so we don’t see her much of the time.  A few of the puppets gasped at her, aware that they must have crossed a line in order to be graced with her presence.

In a slight alto but crackly voice, Perihan Hanım greeted the group…”Hello, my friends, I see that a debate ensues….I encourage you to listen to one another, perhaps one at a time, and perhaps to drink some mint tea as you go, in order to soothe the soul.”

Most of the puppets began to hang their heads in shame, secretly sneaking glances from the sides of their curvy eyes.

“What I should like to say,” Perihan Hanım continued, “is that a story should help you along at this juncture.”

“Please do tell, Perihan Hanım,” Zenne said, shaking her leg and twisting her hands together, “please do tell us your story.”

Drawing up her scarf around her, Perihan Hanım gained inches in size and girth – all of a sudden a force to be reckoned with.  “Well,” she began slowly, “well…………. maybe it once was, and maybe it wasn’t…….but a Persian, a Turk, an Arab and a Greek were traveling to a distant land when they began arguing over how to spend the single coin they possessed among themselves. All four craved food, but the Persian wanted to spend the coin on angur; the Turk, on üzüm; the Arab, on inab; and the Greek, on stafil. The argument became heated as each man insisted on having what he desired.”

Clearing her throat, she turned to take a sip of the rosewater lemonade offered to her by Kenne. “Why thank you, for this….yes….so…..a linguist passing by overheard their quarrel. “Give the coin to me,” he said. “I undertake to satisfy the desires of all of you.”  Taking the coin, the linguist went to a nearby shop and bought four small bunches of grapes. He then returned to the men and gave them each a bunch.”

Jumping at the very millisecond that her voice indicated punctuation, Karagöz cried out  “What do grapes have to do with religion?” at which point several of the puppets threw him off of the laptop and into the rubbish basket where he became stuck in between crumpled papers, unable to be heard due to the rubbish insulation around him.

Ignoring the slight scuffle, Perihan Hanım continued on.

“This is my angur!” cried the Persian.
“But this is what I call üzüm ,” replied the Turk.
“You have bought me my inab,” the Arab said.
“No! This in my language is stafil,” said the Greek.

Shifting suddenly to her side –Perihan Hanım pointed her hand towards the troupe, saying “All of a sudden, the men realized that what each of them had desired was in fact the same thing, only they did not know how to express themselves to each other….so perhaps you just need to acknowledge that you will all seek your own truth – that you all need to – and that it is fine to differ.  Please do not confuse this human’s head any more than it already is – ever since Provincetown you all have been a bit mouthy and frowsy around the edges.  I implore you to straighten up a bit – but at least have respectful fun while doing so.”

Before any of the puppets could respond, Perihan Hanım pulled a magic silvery driftwood wand from her scarf – and waved it around the room – after which circles Aegean magic swirl began – the swirl consisted of blue Aegean sea confetti, lavender thyme/kekik flowers and glitter sparkles of the sun began to float around the room until they circled the puppets faster and faster – until time stopped.

Turning to me, Perihan Hanım smiled and said “I have stopped time to say to you that I will always be here for you, your fairy godmother, and before you can even eke out the words to call for me, I will be here – but know that I am always here – I am always whispering in your mind to help you along and I want you to be happy and well. So, know that you are not alone.  And,” she paused, turning her head to the side as if for emphasis, “I am the only one who can freeze this mass of crazy puppets…even Hacivad Bey cannot do this.”

Before I could thank her, the Aegean magic swirl got in my eyes – and she was gone.  But not forgotten. It’s not every day that one finds out they have a fairy Godmother, even if she is in shadow puppet form…

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On the 10th day of Christmas: Meet Yehuda Rebbe, the Jewish wise man

Posted on December 21, 2011 by lizcameron

Yehuda Rebbe, image thanks to the Asian Shadow Theatre Exhibition's Flikr photostream

So, today we are meeting Yehuda Rebbe, the Jewish wise man.   This is a far cry on the spectrum from ridiculous to sublime if you consider that yesterday we met Safiye Rakkase, the vainglorious dancing girl.  She ignores Yehuda Rebbe when he comes around, and he respectfully steers clear of her.

Yehuda Rebbe is a learned and pious man who just happens to be of the Jewish faith.  While the traditional use of Jewish figures in Karagöz puppetry involved significant stereotypes, my brain does not buy into this.  In fact, Yehuda Rebbe is a wandering rebbe, who seeks truth much as the wandering dervishes did.  As of late he wanders in and out of the area of my mind, and in the general vicinity around it.  He carries a great big brass key, as he has become the guardian of the fountain of youth that all the puppets living in my head have drunk from.   I am not sure who appointed him as the Holder of the Key, but he must have been deemed to have his head squarely on his shoulders to receive such an honor and responsibility, I mean, can you imagine if Karagöz himself had that job?  Whew.

But, on a more serious note,   Yehuda Rebbe loves to read, loves to observe and loves to debate.  He has gotten himself up to speed on the modern day Israel-Palestine conflict, supported the Mavi Marmaris mission the first time, and has decried the oppression experienced by Palestinians.  He feels that the entire conflict is a losing battle, though, and that the post-colonialistic influence of the UK in setting up the 1963 agreement was a bad seed planted.  He says, however, that it goes on and on, round and round way back before that.  He gets very worked up about all this.

Yehuda Rebbe is also a big fan of the resurgence of Ladino music in Turkey, and speaks Ladino with a flourish.  Ladino is a language that is also called Judeo-Spanish.  As I understand it, it is both the spoken and written Hispanic language of Jewish people of Spanish origin (I guess meaning those that did not head to Latin America). This was not a language until after the expulsion of Jewish people from Spain in 1492.  So here is what I understand – when the Jews were expelled from Spain, the development of their (Castilian) Spanish was cut off from the rest of the Spanish-speaking world.  However, they kept on speaking the language in their own communities and over time, their own grammar and volcabulary were sort of stuck back in the 1400s and 1500s…Yehuda Rebbe will tell you all you wanted to know and more on this topic…

Mostly, though he seeks to besmirch the stereotypical image of himself, which is described here by Emin Senyer, the English-language web expert on Karagoz puppetry, as far as I can see:  “the haggling Jew is a familiar character and is either seen as a money lender, a second hand dealer or a peddler. He tries out many obscene puns on Karagöz and, using his ungrammatical, broken Turkish as an excuse, he maliciously changes Karagöz’s name to give it a bad meaning and a result, Karagöz becomes angry and wants to beat him. He is a malicious and vulgar type. He wears black salvar, a loose linen robe open in the front called cubbe, and a keveza, a black hat with a blue turban. There is a sack on his back. When Karagoz pretends to go at him, or even only to suggest that he intends to do so, the Jew begins to shout and scream as though he were actually being severally hurt. When Karagöz makes the motion of tickling him, even while till at a distance, the Jew begins to laugh. While he is complaining in a loud voice he nevertheless always finds time to revile Karagöz. He is a miser and haggler. Even after he agrees on a price, he complains that it is too high and he can not pay. He is also a coward and when all the other characters in the neighborhood decide to attack the drunkard, the Jew does not join them but runs away.”

Phew, what images.  In the characters of my mind, Yehuda Rebbe never runs away, but always stays to enjoy a debate, or a little sparring.  He also will not have one bit of interaction with currency, fearing a stereotyped image, he prefers to barter.  He often barters his own melodious voice reading the sacred stories and learnings of the Torah and Talmud for what he may need.  Turns out, Karagöz puppets occasionally need meals of olive oil (to keep their inner and outer workings supple, as they are made of cow and sheep hides, after all).

I have a sense that the puppets, including Yehuda Rebbe, may have known (YEARS ahead of me) that I would end up with M. and become in need of their Karagoz puppet services (well, they think that, and, um, I guess I do too).  I say this, because I have heard stirrings of Yehuda Rebbe (and of course the others, each in their own way) for years.  I think it was Yahuda Rebbe who encouraged me to take up my college friends’ offer to join them in living in our college’s Hillel House – since a crazy lawsuit required “de-segregation” of the house and the placement of at least three non-Jewish people in that house.  Well, that was me.  I learned how to cook in a kosher kitchen, how to deal with the aftermath of an aryan attack (for real, the meat was brought to the dairy parts of the kitchen, and human feces were spread everywhere before they tried to burn our house down) and a few basic blessings in Hebrew.  For a Unitarian (lefty intellectual wing of the Protestant world), this posed no problem, and it has opened my eyes in more ways than one.

I am sure, now that I write this, that Yehuda Rebbe was behind this, silently whispering in my ear all the way through the application process, interview and move-in day. Like Mercan Bey, the spice trader from the Arabian penninsula, Yehuda Rebbe is responsible for always encouraging me to open not only my eyes, ears and mind – but also my heart to people who do things differently than me.  Yehuda Rebbe is telling me that his special mission in my head is to focus especially on conducting damage control when M.’s heartfelt but truly ignorant in the dictionary-sense-of-the-word questions about religion rub people in the family the wrong way.  As I write this, Hacivad Bey has chosen to show himself now, as has Yehuda Rebbe.  We often see them together, talking into the wee hours of the night, much like Shams of Tabriz and the Mevlana himself.  They are standing here on top of the laptop screen, looking at one another, and silently, they quote in unison something that means a lot to them – from Rumi:

“Since the object of praise is one,
from this point of view,
all religions are but one religion.
Know that all praise belongs to the Light of God
and is only lent to created forms and beings.
Should people praise anyone but the One
who alone deserves to be praised?
But they go astray in useless fantasy.
The Light of God in relation to phenomena
is like light shining upon a wall—
the wall is but a focus for these splendors.”

Finishing these words, the two puppets nod their heads in agreement and bow with respect to one another – only to be interrupted by the modern-thinking Celebi.   Throwing himself in between, Celebi screams about religion being the opiate of the masses, and generally wreaks enough havoc for all the Karagöz puppets to run up onto the laptop wh430t21[035t0\1243@#$%F3P….WHEW!  They all started jumping on the keys there, sorry.  OK, we are in the middle of a full-blown argument on religion and spirituality now, I will have to get back to you another time – no    space                  to                                   type!

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