"Applause rang out; a breed competition had just concluded. A woman in a pink suit ran to greet her husband with brimming, joyful eyes. Her name was Anita Gage, and her Irish setter, Ready—official name: More Than Ready—had just won an Award of Merit. She and her husband, Tom, had travelled for fifteen hours to get to New York from California. Tom, an English professor, told me later, “The beauty of the Irish setter has caught the eye of painters for centuries.” Somehow, we got on the subject of Turkish politics, and for the rest of the dog show, as handlers napped in camping chairs and the animals lined up, Noah’s Ark style, to exit through the loading dock, the two of us talked about Fethullah Gülen."