Category Archives: Travel

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)*

November 17, 2012 by Jeff C | Comments Off

Here’s the first of a handful of posts from a recent visit to Istanbul, Turkey. 

Napoleon once said that if the world had just one capital, it would be Constantinople – the city now known as Istanbul, Turkey.  Apparently lots of Emperors and Sultans felt the same way.  For over 1000 years, Istanbul was Constantinople – capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and named for the 4th Century Roman Emperor Constantine.  In 1453, the Ottoman armies of Sultan Mehmet II successfully laid siege to Constantinople and established Istanbul as the new capital of the Ottoman Empire.

The Sultan and the Ottomans were Islamic, so most of what is now Istanbul has been mostly Islamic ever since.  Grand Christian churches were converted to mosques.  The grandest of all was Hagia Sophia — originally dedicated in the year 361 and serving as a Christian church for nearly 1100 years.  When the Ottomans took over in 1453, the crosses and other Christian symbols that covered Hagia Sophia’s walls and ceiling were replaced with symbols of Muhammed and Allah.  A mihrab and minbar replaced altar and pulpit, and minarets (towers used for the daily call to prayer) were built on all four corners.  Fortunately, the enlightened Sultan only covered up – and did not destroy – many of the Christian religious icons.  Today the Hagia Sophia is a museum, showing off its immense and beautiful architechture and its odd current mix of Christian icons and Islamic symbols, and thus telling the story of Istanbul’s last 1700 years.

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The tiny Church at the Chora monastery a few miles to the west saw a similar fate.  Today it’s a museum, and most of the amazing and elaborate murals have been restored.

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*”Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” is a goofy song about the re-naming of Constantinople.  It was a gold-record hit in the 1950s by the Four Lads, and was recorded again by the They Might Be Giants in the 1990s.  If you don’t remember it, watch the recent version on YouTube.  It’ll make you smile.  “All the girls from Constantinople are in Istanbul (not Constantinople); so if you’ve a date in Constantinople, she’ll be waiting in Istanbul.” 

 

 

 

Four-Wheelers and Fishermen: Creede, Colorado 2012

September 24, 2012 by Jeff C | Comments Off

 

My trip to Creede wasn’t all (or even mostly) about leaves and cameras.  (You can click here to see the fall foliage pictures).  My Dad brought a trailer-full of 4-wheel ATVs.  So I spent a few days going down trails in the woods with my Dad (J.B. Cotner, in the red/blue shirts), my brother-in-law’s dad (Jim Parker, in camouflage), and a good friend of my Dad’s (John Frizzell of San Antonio, in the tan cap and black cowboy hat).

The mean age of my off-road 4-wheeling buddies was about 71, but we took on some long rides and rough terrain.  At one point, another ATV flagged me down at a trail intersection and encouraged me to turn back because the trail got “pretty hairy.”  He hadn’t seen that Dad and John had already gone right up it while I piddled in the back with a camera.  (The guy was right about the trail, though).

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Meanwhile, my brother-in-law (Bill Parker) and his good friend Derald Glover spent most of their Colorado time knee-deep in mountain streams or in the Rio Grande itself.  Bill has become as much of a fly-fishing fanatic as someone from eastern Oklahoma can reasonably be.  By the last day they were in Creede, he and Derald finally got the right combination of location, lure and body English to land some trout he was proud to show off.

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Fall Leaves in the Upper Rio Grande

September 22, 2012 by Jeff C | Comments Off

Ever wonder where the Rio Grande got its start?

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If you follow the Rio Grande upstream about as far as it goes — to where the Rio Grande is still a rio muy pequeño — you’ll wind up a little west of Creede, Colorado.   Fortunately, most Colorado tourists have overlooked this area because it’s a long way from major airports and ski resorts, but there’s a loyal Texas and Oklahoma crowd that usually arrive in RVs for riverside camping, or in 4-wheel-drive vehicles for exploring the mountains.

It’s a great place year-around, but — until last week — I’d never been there for the real “peak” color of the aspen leaves in the fall.  They’re beautiful, but they’re quick!  In the space of a week, lots of the a

spen leaves went from green to gone.  Fortunately, I got a few pictures before they all disappeared.

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If you want to see several more fall leaves shots, OR if that slideshow above doesn’t work on your browser or device, click here to see them on a different page.

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Pine beetles are a constant scourge in Colorado, and a few years back a wave came through and killed a bunch of trees.  The locals call it “Beetle Kill.”  The bugs eat the mature evergreens but don’t touch the aspen.  Lots of the pictures have at least a few obvious dead trees.  The shots below are of areas where the evergreens are essentially wiped out.  It looks as though the aspen will quickly take over the open space.

 

OverCapitalized

September 13, 2012 by Jeff C | Comments Off

It’s hard to take pictures in Washington D.C. that don’t look just like the zillion images you’ve seen all your life.  And you spend a disheartening amount of time waiting for a little gust of wind so the flags will look better flying in the breeze.  

It’s a tough time to get excited about Washington D.C.  Washington is nothing if it isn’t a big symbol – full of smaller big symbols – of the federal government.  A very big federal government.  I suspect D.C. tourism rises and falls a little with the approval ratings of the President and Congress – making this a fairly uninspiring time to visit the capital.

Even so, walking among the monuments and museums and memorials and government buildings, it’s hard not to be impressed.  I remember my first trip to D.C. many years ago:  what struck me was that it was full of American castles.  I’d grown up thinking that the U.S. – unlike England or France or Germany – didn’t have castles, but there they were in D.C., one huge, lavish government “castle” after the next.

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 I went to a seminar in Washington a few days back.  I got there a little early and stayed a little late so I could walk around the “mall” and take a few pictures.  Several of the pictures you see are of the Capitol just at sunrise (thus the pretty light).  There are a couple of shots – with the Washington Monument and reflecting pool – taken about 15 minutes apart, from the Lincoln Memorial.  One of those was taken as a nasty storm blew in, trapping me (and about 400 others) inside the Memorial watching the downpour.  A couple of shots (those from up high, and including the one of National Park Ranger Julia Clebsch) are from the clock tower of the Old Post Office.

That picture with the Capitol building in the distant, lower right and with the relief sculpture up close is at the Ulysses Grant Memorial, which is at a very prominent spot between the Capitol Building and the Washington Monument.  It was striking to realize that it’s a tribute to General Grant (as opposed to “President” Grant).  It’s a war momument:  He’s on a horse, dressed as a Union general, and flanked on all sides by dramatic sculptures of Union soldiers on the attack.  As a de facto Southerner, somehow that ongoing granite-and-bronze celebration is a little unsettling (To be clear, though:  I’d never suggest it be removed.  It’s real history.).  It reminded me of my lifelong observation that many Americans have been much quicker to embrace our former foes from international wars and conflicts than their fellow citizens from opposite sides of the Mason-Dixon.

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Chicago Double Feature

August 29, 2012 by Jeff C | Comments Off

September 12, 2012 update:  I made another trip through Chicago last weekend, so I added the wide shot now at the bottom of this post, and the mafia hit picture now in the ‘rotating’ gallery.  

Even if you’ve never heard of Chicago’s Second City comedy institute, you know its alumni.  People like John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Chris Farley, Amy Pohler, Mike Meyers, Bill Murray, Shelley Long and Dan Aykroyd.  It’s the Harvard and the Mecca of aspiring comedy writers and performers.

If it had never dawned on you that there was such a thing as a comedy training “school,” you’ll be doubly surprised that Chicago has two – spaced just a few miles apart near Lincoln Park and Wrigley Field.  “iO” is a symbiotic rival of Second City, with a slightly different focus but a comparable list of famous recent alums and a reputation for some hilarious shows.  (My favorite “iO” progeny is that guy who’s always in the passenger seat in the drive-thru window in Sonic commercials).

A few days back, my nephew Tyler’s comedic stars aligned on a Monday evening – putting him on the stage in separate shows at The Second City and at “iO” on the same night.   At Second City, it was sketch comedy like you see on Saturday Night Live.  There were several musical skits, too, with funny songs and goofy choreography.  I promise:  most of the other audience members were not blood relatives of a cast member, and they, too, were laughing and cheering.

At “iO”, the show was a “long-form” improvisation show known as a “Harold.”    Many improv sets often begin with a random “suggestion” from an audience member – like a place (e.g., airport, deli), or an occupation (librarian, jockey) – with the cast spending the next couple of minutes improvising something that has to do with that suggestion.  In the Harold show, Tyler stepped onto the stage and asked the audience for a suggestion “of anything at all.”  Someone yelled “unicorns,” so the 8-person team (“Trolley”) spent the next 25 minutes improvising a pretty-darn-funny show about escaped unicorns, distraught unicorn ranchers, master unicorn hunters with singing crossbows, and clever disguises for fugitive unicorns.

Any kind of show business is a tough business.  To get onto those two stages last Monday, Tyler had survived multiple layers of auditions and cuts that winnowed hopeful hundreds down to dozens, then dozens down to the few gifted folks we saw onstage.  So far so good for Tyler’s Chicago adventure.   Both shows are still running on Monday nights.  Also, over Labor Day weekend, he’s got a big role in a “live stage reading” of The Lockout: An NBA Musical — which has already been touted by an ESPN blog!  Go see it (details here)!

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Caitlin Parker (one of Tyler’s sisters), his proud parents and I made the quick trek to Chicago for the shows.  Long-sleeve shots above are at Second City; short sleeves at iO.   The outdoor “portraits” of Tyler and Caitlin are out on Navy Pier with the Chicago skyline in back.  The animals were safely confined in the Lincoln Park Zoo.  The sketches in the Second City show will change after this week, so I’ve already got my plane ticket for a return trip in September.

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September 10: