Postcard from Istanbul

Since the carefree Italian musical jaunts of my youth, I’ve become resigned to enduring the English “summer”—resenting long periods of showers and Arctic temperatures, alternating with the occasional stifling heatwave, before the long drab grey August decline.

So—pace global warming, which despite the demurrals of many fuckwit politicians is actually A Thing—how delightful it is, around an island interlude, to spend an extended period in a region (thanks to my enforced homelessness) where heat is just a given, and one’s body just gets into the rhythm, finding shade, working at sensible times of day (if you have a choice, that is), and actually Enjoying Life, freed from the vain, desperate annual scramble to change colour—one of the afflictions of Being English.

Gary Larson.

Of course, such a sentiment would never have buttered any parsnips for the tanners of Zeytinburnu, nor will they for a waste collector in Tarlabaşı pulling a heavy load up a steep hill at midday (see e.g. here, here). And meanwhile in London, heroic NHS nurses are still slaving away, saving the lives of others, catching crowded buses and juggling childcare; in China and India, peasants are still tilling the fields, seeking water, dreaming of escaping hardship by migrating to urban apartment blocks.

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Plucked from Porgy and Bess, Gershwin’s song has become such a cliché (“the most covered song in the world“) that it rarely moves me. As always, Billie Holiday transforms the song—here’s her 1936 recording, when it was still new:

And it keeps inspiring musicians—here’s Miles in 1959:

Mahalia Jackson in 1960:

And the brilliant Andrea Motis with mentors of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band in 2013:

On a linguistic note, I like Stephen Sondheim’s observation about the opening line:

That “and” is worth a great deal of attention. I would write “Summertime when”, but that “and” sets up a tone, a whole poetic tone, not to mention a whole kind of diction that is going to be used in the play; an informal, uneducated diction and a stream of consciousness, as in many of the songs like My man’s gone now. It’s the exact right word, and that word is worth its weight in gold. “Summertime when the livin’ is easy” is a boring line compared to “Summertime and”. The choices of “ands” [and] “buts” become almost traumatic as you are writing a lyric—or should, anyway—because each one weighs so much.

For a fine Native American weather story, click here.