Author Kevin

Entries 403 Total Bio

 

 Contact

Fortune Telling Rabbits

May 30, ’17 9:20 PM

This is a nice little bite of Turkish life from a tourist in Istanbul. Especially nice for me to read because so often I hear Istanbulers talking about how much the city has changed. I can assure you that fortune telling rabbits are still here, 11 years after this was published.

FORTUNE-TELLING RABBITS: ISTANBULby Kevin Dolgin

“Tell the rabbit your name,” he said, which seemed only fair since I already knew theirs. Upon learning my name, Bonçuk wiggled his nose the way rabbits do and then chose among the dozens of folded-up pieces of paper in front of him. He drew one with his little teeth, and Sahan took it and handed it to me.

Comments Off on Fortune Telling Rabbits

Bullies, Bullies Everywhere

May 25, ’17 5:41 PM

Well it looks like Gianforte won the special election.

It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it… ― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

I’m no fan of Gianforte. He’s a religious extremist, a rich Californian and worst of all his first action REPRESENTING the state will be bringing Montana into the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Namely he won his seat a day after he attacked a journalist with his fists and not, you know, his words.

“At that point, Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him. Faith, Keith and I watched in disbelief as Gianforte then began punching the reporter. As Gianforte moved on top of Jacobs, he began yelling something to the effect of, “I’m sick and tired of this!” ― Fox News correspondent Alicia Acuna

Gianforte’ thuggish violence was a surprise to me. I would have figured he had more control over himself than that. As shocking as it is, the cynical side of me knows that there are a good number of people who will feel a sense of relief seeing a powerful man snap into righteous violence and clobber a little pipsqueak trying to taking advantage. It’s a part of our humanity to use force when reason fails.

Putting my political disagreement with Gianforte aside I think it’s important to look more into why using violence to win an argument is against my conscious even though in some cases my feelings are for it.

If there is a hard, high wall and an egg that breaks against it, no matter how right the wall or how wrong the egg, I will stand on the side of the egg. ― Murakami

This quote lodged itself in my brain when I first read it. It’s a paradoxical position to have because it’s so hard to root for the egg. Rooting for the underdog is a big part of American culture and the American Dream, but it’s as old as David and Goliath. But David is not an egg. David has an individual triumph over Goliath. That little stone he throws smashes through Goliath’s head, tearing him down once and for all. Whereas egg never triumphs when it goes against the wall because the egg is not an underdog. The egg will always lose. It’s the story of the powerful expressing itself on the powerless. My sister gave me a copy of 1984 when I was a freshman in high school. The last sentences are horrifying:

“Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.

Winning is a great feeling. Go Cubs! But it cannot be what drives us. I looked up the rest of that Murakami quote and was happy to see that there was more context. A way out. We may not avoid the violence of being punched in the face by a US Representative, tortured for peacefully protesting a violently corrupt government, smashed against a wall or having a boot smash our faces but there is a way out of the game.

“Why? Because each of us is an egg, a unique soul enclosed in a fragile egg. Each of us is confronting a high wall. The high wall is the system which forces us to do the things we would not ordinarily see fit to do as individuals . . . We are all human beings, individuals, fragile eggs. We have no hope against the wall: it’s too high, too dark, too cold. To fight the wall, we must join our souls together for warmth, strength. We must not let the system control us — create who we are. It is we who created the system.” ― Murakami

Can joining together for warmth and strength defeat the wall? No. Not in the way David beat Goliath that’s for sure, there will be no thrill of victory. No sigh of relief, no parades, no win. But we will be there at the foot of the wall together.

UPDATE:

A good article from the Atlantic on this race and the subject of violence: “This is not valor, it is the celebration of violence against those who cannot respond in kind.” — The Lessor Part of Valor

Comments Off on Bullies, Bullies Everywhere

Making A Mask

May 21, ’17 9:57 PM

I was lucky to be present for the final project performances of the fourth graduating class of students of the Fiziksel Tiyatro ve Komedi Okulu in Istanbul, Turkey. My masks are used for training at that school and it was my pleasure that three of the groups made mask performances.
What an honor! I had nothing to do with the creation of the performances, heck, I barely knew the performers. But there were the masks that I know so well embodied and onstage. A divorce, a dark and funny audition scene with some very well integrated circus skills and a sweet scene on the conflict between two neighbors, one old, one young. I loved it so much so that I’m ready to get cracking on another group of masks when I return home.

The Formless Hunch

Detail from The Subway, George Tooker (1950)

“the formless hunch – the basis of everything – that something is pregnant, something is possible, and all the work is to find the complete, convincing but temporary form that suits the moment”

-Peter Brook

 

I’ve been nurturing an unformed hunch about having a good crack at making more masks for a while. With the last few masks I made I started writing notes, reminders to myself to make things easier. Avoid making mistakes twice. That and notes on the masks that I’ve gotten to see up and playing, little things I’d have done differently mostly: awkward transitions, rough edges, weird colors. In time, I collected those notes into a little book and now into a website.

Tapping out all these notes has been clarifying for my process and I suppose has been forming more clearly that unformed hunch to get to making.

As I see it, the next steps are a lot more practical, buying clay, gathering material and setting up a studio. The necessary call of movement to making a mask. Here we go.

Comments Off on Making A Mask

What It Means To Be Home

Oct 21, ’16 9:51 PM

It’s been about six weeks since I’ve been home in Montana. It’s good to be home, in spite of the fact I’m far far away from my dear one. Being here I feel more grounded and solid than I have for a while but at the same time movement and action feels closer to me. I’m more capable of getting what I need.
Home - 1

I’m a substitute

I’ve been working in the East Helena public schools. Ilgaz and I worked out there last year with our special Galloping Hand after school program. This year I’m on staff in the after school program working three days a week. Two days as an arts instructor and one day as a STEM instructor for kindergartners. (STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering and math.) Apart from getting to brainstorm new projects every week for, as my sister calls them, little-year-olds I’ve been working as a substitute teacher.

The East Helena Public School system is remarkable. It’s three schools, pre-K to first grade at Eastgate, 2-6 at Radley, and the East Valley Middle School. It’s small enough that as a sub I’m a known quantity. I have gotten to know at least a few kids at every school and school staff are on-it and care about the kids. When I subbed for a few months in Helena schools last year I was always in a new school and so always felt a little lost. The best days subbing are days when I know the room.

I’m an office assistant

Apart from that work I’ve been making an effort to learn about the business my parents have run for the past 19 years. There’s a lot about the real estate business that I know already from having to wait around the office, poking around or from going on countless weekend house tours just for the fun of it, getting quizzed by my dad about this and that, working to ball park the value of a place.

Home - 2

I’m a home remodeler

Then there’s the work on my apartment. I’m trying to pull it together for Ilgaz’s arrival in December. So far checked off the list:
* Refinished wood floors
* New vinyl in the kitchen and bath
* Paint in the bathroom, bedrooms, doors and trim
* New pedestal sink ($20 ReStore)
* Refinished heater covers
* New chimney liner

That plus a hundred little details I distract myself with like scrubbing old door knobs of paint and fixing rattling windows and installing new light fixtures that match the era of the house that I’ve gotten for a song at the ReStore, a second hand shop for building materials.

I was thinking this morning about working on a house. It’s never really finished. The list of little things to be done, here and there is endless. That’s why people call them money pits. But my attitude is that, like a life, a house is never really finished until the day you move out.

I’m a candy man

Alongside all this I’ve got a new and goofy project. My dad and I went in on a cotton candy maker from the old Ton’s of Fun. A defunct batting cages, go carts, laser tag place in Helena.

That’s right. I’ve got a cotton candy maker. Just take a moment and let that sink in. I now have my own professional cotton candy machine and it’s glorious.

Home - 3

I remember lingering at the cotton candy stand at the carnival one year, standing on a wooden box, peering into the window at the blurred spinning head of a cotton candy machine, asking all kinds of questions to the severely bored and sugar armed young woman pouring pink sugar into the spinner. A beat. Then like magic cotton candy started to appear on the rim of the big bowl, the lady started to roll it around a paper cone.

“How does that work?”
“It melts it.”
“Is it hot when it comes out?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can I touch it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Look, just buy some if you want it.”

Well, now that I have my own cotton candy maker I have learned that it’s not hot when it comes out. Warm, but not hot. I also learned there is a very good reason not to reach your hand in the bowl, not unless you want to get your hand instantly cocooned in sugar webs. Even so it’s not that bad. So long as there’s a sink near by I don’t think anybody should mind having a sugar mit.

I’m active.

Working on cutting down debt, building up a base again and anticipating Ilgaz getting here in December all feels pretty darn good. Keeping busy and all the while leaving room for the kind of fun stuff I don’t think I will ever be able to give up is good for me.

Comments Off on What It Means To Be Home

Doppelgänger Ilgaz

Aug 28, ’16 3:59 PM

Do you know Jenny Slate? She’s a comic and an actress, was on SNL for a while and made the movie Obvious Child and an internet thing I’ve never seen before called Marcelle the Shell with Shoes On. She also looks like Ilgaz.

In this interview from Conan she mentions that her Great Grandfather is Turkish. I bet he’s from Sivas, that where Ilgaz’ family is from.

Ilgaz-Jenny

Comments Off on Doppelgänger Ilgaz