they wouldn't believe the woman who came with him to constantinople the former singer and dancer that he married by this point was his wife, they resented the fact he came trailing stories of great fortune and success in russia and so when the turkish republic was proclaimed in 1923 when he was a state person. he managed to shield himself by having a surrogate turkish parties who were the nominal heads of his operation. by this point, he had abandoned that garden and opened a nightclub that he named after his place in moscow. it was for a number of years the most famous nightclub in this part of the world in the eastern mediterranean. this is also the time when american tourists rediscover constantinople and they arrived in the high season and they all wanted to do the same thing pivoted they wanted to see soviet and they wanted to see the blue mosque and they wanted to have a good drink because prohibition was in force in the united states and that is where they all went. so they began to make a lot of money and became successful again but because of the influx of the tourists others

popular in western europe and he described how in 1920 he escaped from the bolshevik and landed in constantinople then he wrote the following sentence which i will translate from the russians, i began to perform in the outdoor entertainment garden from the famous mosque cool negro -- moscow negro this so surprise me i close the book to put it down i studied this period i knew something about it i had never heard of many famous black person in russia at this time. in fact, to this day if you ask a reasonably educated russian person to name the most famous black person is almost certain they will say it was a brown hannibal who is famous because he is a great great grandfather of the russian writer but lived in the 18th century so there were no other famous black people whether from africa directly or the caribbean or the united states who lived in

we then layer on to that things like the catholic, the hierarchy from constantinople and then we layerwhich tries to sap the essence. so there are disadvantages to those layers. but at the same time, they make broadly available the spiritual essence. if you keep your eye on it. that's what i'm trying to cause the students to do in this course and in this book. >> in the course, we were looking at your syllabus. it has to be one of the cooler sets of books to read for a class. >> i want to make it very clear, it is also a class that is a demanding class. the students read at least a book a week. >> not for slackers. >> at least a paper a week. for the first class they read the iowa baseball confederacy and the sacred and profane. it is a very demanding course with a low grader. >> and you're in charge of the whole thing over there. >> excuse me, in charge is not a word that you use at nyu. >> i wanted to read a quote from the art of fielding which is my all time favorite baseball novel and a recent one. it talks about this philosophy. to field a ground ball must be considered a generous