PART 1
LYDIA: I come to the corner with the fur hat. It looks warm and causy. I should have worn my matching hat. I left my matching hat at home.
LALE: That is very bad
LYDIA: Yeah, i know. I need it now. It is a good idea.
LALE: Are you American? Of course!
LYDIA: Oh, please! I was at one time.
LALE: You are not anymore?!
LYDIA: No... I am a citizen of the world... Even then i am not happy to admit it. I live in Spain now.
LALE: Spain is good. My biggest love affair was Spanish.
LYDIA: The man i am with, he will be here soon, i’ve known him for 23 years and finally four years ago we got together. A very long romance.
LALE: He is coming?
LYDIA: Yeah yeah, he is coming soon.
LYDIA: Spain is a very good place. They finally learnt from their history.
LALE: They did.
LYDIA: Finally!
LALE: My Spanish boyfriend accused me of being racist towards the Arabs.
LYDIA: Spain has finally learned from its mistakes. I think it is one of the most sane countries now... As far as the happiness of the people concerned. It is not perfect, of course, but they were very smart in the money they took from the EU. They applied it and the people are not miserable. This is all we can hope for any country in this world. I cannot think of many countries where the people are not miserable.
LALE: I have just arrived from the United States....
LYDIA: Yes?
LALE: And i’ve been to Princeton. I couldn’t see any poetry there myself.
LYDIA: No, no, of course.
LALE: I saw only 3-4 people, young guys, who were poets and they were really wonderful and they say they couldn’t resign poetry in living. That was a big compliment.
LYDIA: Well, maybe if they were true poets they were living poetry instead of speaking it.
LALE: They are living poetry. They were good poets, but the others like in Princeton, i met the guy who won Pulitzer and many awards like that. We became close, we sat together in the dinner. Everybody said we are going to be good friends. I said, what if i don’t like his poetry? And then i read his poetry and i didn’t like it so much.
LYDIA: Well, i have to turn that upon myself because i have a lot of friends that i would not expect to like my art at all; because why should they? Maybe it is too strong for them. I mean, i am sure in this case it was too weak for you. Ok?! but i have many friends and i’ve had many lovers when i wouldn’t expect them to be interested in my art because maybe it is just too much for them. So i don’t hold that against people. I am sure they hold my art against me but i don’t hold it against them.
LALE: I have a bit the same problem as well, of being understood. Poets here, all revolve around Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze and so.. But they don’t really know them. It’s terrible, it is very funny, the poets. There are good poets though, nobody knows, nobody will expect Turkish people to write good poetry but there are good poets. I stand there as they are when they saw me as a Turkish poet.
LYDIA: Turkish woman poet, let’s not forget it.
LALE: In France it is forbidden to say “woman poet”, you know?
LYDIA: Because they understand literature a little better. In France for me was the easiest place when my book “Paradox” was published. It had the most response there because they are not intimitated by a woman speaking about sex in an ugly way. So it was no problem.
LALE: Good.
LYDIA: Yeah.
LALE: My father is dead, i can write the same way now.
LYDIA: I’d like to say i killed mine but that is...
LALE: You killed yours?!
LYDIA: I’d like to say that!
LALE: I don’t like my father very much but after he died my feelings changed.
LYDIA: Yeah so did mine. They got worse. I began to see how much like him i was and i really hated the motherfucker. The bastard really came back from the grave to inhabit my body and i had to kill him again. Disaster.
LALE: So i see we have the same stockings.
LYDIA: No i have boots but i like your stockings. The boots are like your stockings. There you go, see? You have the plain boots, i have the plain stockings. And then i have the floral and you have the floral. If we cut our legs off we can join as one. Siamese poets! A new sickness yet to be created. Siamese poets! Thay can’t stand one how are they gonna take two? It is a nightmare, a beautiful nightmare.
LYDİA: Last night, i did some recording with Babazula it was very nice. Three songs we made, improvizational music and i had some text and it was very beautiful. I was very happy to do some recordings here.
LALE: And today you don’t feel very good because it rained?
LYDIA: No no no i am fine. A little cranky but that is usual before the show. Little, little irritable.
LALE: I got to know Natasha Atlas. She was different from before the show. She was complaining about the one who sang before her.
LYDIA: Yeah, i see, i see... That is why i don’t think anyone is on tonight. I can only complain about the weather and myself.
LALE: What do you complain about yourself? Come on!
LYDIA: Never. I never. I am a biggest fan. If only everyone was more like me. It is true.
LALE: Well, it is true. I know it is true. There are very few human beings left in the world.
LYDIA: I think the biggest problem in America, i can only speak for Americans, i can’t speak for other people, the big problem in America both with man and woman is, it is not a gender thing, is people are terribly neurotic, terribly insecure because the culture is so hippocretical, it pretends to be very rich, it pretends to be very liberated and very democratic and these are all increable lies. America is very poor!
LALE: I know that.
LYDIA: Again, there is 50 million at least poor people in America, very poor! They pretend it is like television and Hollywood. This is not America at all. America is not New York or Los Angeles. It is not a democracy and they are not liberated. And the thing, because it promotes this consumer and capitalist society, people never feel they are good enough, they never have enough. The more they have, the more they want and then the more depressed they become. And it really makes people very unhappy with themselves and everything else. And neurosis, i think it is just the worst condition for people to suffer under.
Look, there is so much in the world to hate why hate yourself. I mean you have to have one thing to love and that should be yourself. And if you don’t like yourself, you’d better find a way to reconfigure that. I mean you are what you make yourself. That’s when you know that you no longer wanna be a victim to what everything is trying to make you. And i think this is the big problem in America. It is devastating. It makes the men neurotic which is very unattractive and it makes the women, you know, no better. And it keeps people down. It is a fear. They let the campaign of fear everywhere. This is what supresses people.
LALE: Unfortunately i couldn’t get to know such Americans because they took me from one university after another and made us meet poets. But if poets are no good then what else? Because it is the only less money gaining art you know, the Poetry. They are really, people who are poets really dedicate their whole lives to it and they get nothing at the end because what is important after all is fiscallity.
