Geek By Marriage

The one in 2010 was in Darica (for our nephew), and the locale looked great. It was a municipality-owned property on top of a hill with 360-degree views, overlooking the Princes' Islands and the southern Marmara, and built to resemble the area's famous castles. Stone walls and turrets made a romantic setting, with the incomparable view as a backdrop, plenty of room for dancing and terrace seating. Except… our new bride at the last minute decided that the place where the head table would go wasn't decorative enough. Somehow this problem was passed to my husband, Lütfü (Lute) Amca, and I. On the afternoon of the wedding, I was tearing through my kiler (storeroom) to find something decorate brick pillars into an attractive frame for our girl's photo op. Strangely, I happened to have 21 meters of yellow damask that I had picked up for a song; so that plus a staple gun did it for me. After we were through decorating the wedding car in our garage along with another brother, he dropped us off at the wedding site. We almost didn't get there because of a freak storm that nearly blew the newly decorated car off the road. The incredible wind had blown in a cloudburst and when we entered the facility we were horrified to see workers folding up the last of the tables and chairs. No problem, we were told, we could move the party into the enclosed refreshment area; they proudly said at least 60 people could sit inside, not counting babies. Well, 60 people in our family is an intimate gathering; we had half that many coming from Samsun alone. Weather notwithstanding, the tables, tablecloths and chairs must go back up; I don't know how my husband convinces people to do these things.

Benjamin Winkler lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he serves as the editor of Splitleaves Press and is a member of The Philadelphia Hive, an interdisciplinary arts collective. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in: decomP, Galatea Resurrects, Otoliths, The Apiary, and Raft Magazine.

JenMarie Davis writes and makes books. As half of Fact-Simile Editions, a press that builds books from recycled and reclaimed material, she is concerned with how the phenomenal book manifests: as translation and embodiment. She has fashioned books that have appeared in exhibits such as Handmade/Homemade and her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from Glitterpony, Court Green, Little Red Leaves, Interim and Gargoyle. She has a chapbook, Sometime Soon Ago (Shadow Mountain, 2009).

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