jujustan

Sense of an Ending

2012-01-01T06:56:00.002-08:00

Having lost interest in Barnes way when England England was published, I had to read what the old bean wrote to win the man booker. The book starts in a pubescent haze that I enjoyed. After that period it took me a long time to get through the rest as i found it simply boring. A few nice aphorisms of insight do decorate the pages that actually raise the bar of its profundity if anything at all ("history is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation"). However the last few dozen pages hit me like a truck in terms of emotional content. Waves of sadness that is pleasant only when they are artistic flooded over and an age-old metaphysical bellow of humankind tried to rise up my throat. It was not the content in fact I couldn t narrate what happens even to intentionally cause a spoiler to surface. I was reminded of another phrase Barnes had put down in Flaubert's Parrot on the tragedy of man -i believe belongs to Balzac but I' m not sure- which went something like "mankind is like a clumsy bear banging on a broken kettle while actually trying to serenade the stars". Anyway, i don t know if this book is booker prize material but it nonetheless contains some niches of wisdom and sources of contemplation if nothing else that can only come from a seasoned novelist as Barnes.

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The sen

2012-01-01T06:56:00.001-08:00

From Thomas Hardy

2011-11-27T02:06:00.001-08:00

Late Lyrics and Earlier by Thomas Hardy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

GOING AND STAYING
I

The moving sun-shapes on the spray,
The sparkles where the brook was flowing,
Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May,
These were the things we wished would stay;
But they were going.

II

Seasons of blankness as of snow,
The silent bleed of a world decaying,
The moan of multitudes in woe,
These were the things we wished would go;
But they were staying.

III

Then we looked closelier at Time,
And saw his ghostly arms revolving
To sweep off woeful things with prime,
Things sinister with things sublime
Alike dissolving.

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The Possessed

2011-10-23T04:28:00.000-07:00

The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them by Elif Batuman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Now, I have mixed feelings towards Batuman. Her scholarship is erudite and proper, no doubt. Her prose is fluid, lightly humourous and colourful, as much as a literary academic can be. However, what made this book a work difficult to trudge through for me was, to be crude, the uninteresting nature of her research and personality. I normally wouldn't include personality as a determining factor of an author's book but this book is largely based on her experiences while doing research on russian and russian lit and her travels in the old soviet republics so I believe I have the right to comment on her character. Apart from the last chapter that gave the name to the book, where she finally reveals a bit more sincerity of character, the rest of the text basically issues from a retentive narrator who is either really trying to conceal (both from herself and her readers) the depth of her emotions, or is actually a very boring person. However, in the last chapter we get a glimpse of Batuman's heart speaking, albeit still in the most reserved manner possible. Unfortunately her pastoral descriptions did not engage me, nor did her simplistic and superficial descriptions of her interaction with the characters of the worlds she encounters. It is as if she has taken up literary criticism not only as a scientific way of looking at literature but also as a framework that dictates her heart. Her relationships with people are cold, unassuming and marked with a distance that, to me, is just plainly immature coming from a graduate student of mixed origins
Her picture reminds me of my deceased brother so I still have a positive bias towards her but this book I hope is only a toddlers step in a future of truly genuine writing. On the other hand, there is no way I can take seriously the over-the-top praise on the back of the book. So, in general this book is not bad, though is dissapointing, given the rich content she has the opportunity to tap into.

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Garth Ennis' 303

2011-10-19T07:57:00.001-07:00

303 by Garth Ennis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Being my all-time favorite writer in the graphic novel tradition after Alan Moore, Ennis is right in his element in this mini series. Ennis is well-known for his extreme, sarcastic and cynically witty style as displayed in books like Preacher, The Pro, The Boys etc. but to me, his true calling lies in war stories. The series Battlefields, the two volume War Stories and even the farcical Adventures of the Bollock Patrol demonstrate his strange and creepy fascination with war machinery, strategy, weaponry but without an obsessive, fascistic and militaristic point of view. In fact what makes Ennis' stories so poignant is the balance he is able to draw between the truly heroic (!) esssence of human battle as been practised for centuries in its various forms and paraphernalia along with the inescapable paradox that it creates, which is the cruelty that man exacts upon man. Ennis is fascinated by war (especially the two world wars) but no matter how much guts go flying around the panels and limbs are torn to pieces in multicolor, Ennis never leaves the reader without a deep sense of sadness about [the misery that man hands upon man / that deepens like a coastal shelf] all the while praising some indistinct innate glory that physical conflict between bodies carry with them. This is why Ennis is a good writer: he doesn't try to solve the paradoxes of human existence nor does he pretend to have any ambitious certainties in mind, he just marvels at them with a compassion that is cynical enough to be seriously down-to-earth - thus to be taken seriously....

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Emmaus by Alessandro Baricco

2011-09-06T04:22:00.000-07:00

Emmaus by Alessandro Baricco

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Baricco'nun büyülü diliyle bir grup katolik italyan gencin yetişkinliğe trajediyle adım atmalarını anlatan Emmaus aslında bir taraftan da isa yoluyla yetişkinliğe adım atan insanlığı, 'biz'den 'ben' e doğru yürüyüşü simgeliyor: "Bu kadar zaman ne olduğunu nasıl bilemedik ve karşımıza çıkan her şeyin, herkesin sofrasına nasıl oturduk? Küçük yürekler - büyük yanılsamalarla besliyoruz onları ama yargının sonunda Emmaus'taki havariler gibi yürüyoruz, gözlerimiz kör olmuş, yanımızdaki arkadaşlarımızı ve aşklarımızı tanıyamıyoruz, artık kendini bilmeyen bir Tanrı'ya güvenerek. Böylece her şeyin nasıl başladığını ve sona erdiğini biliyoruz ama öze varamıyoruz. Başlangıcız ve sonucuz - her zaman geç ulaşılan bulgu." (s. 55)
Baricco her zaman kolay okunan bir yazar değil ama bu kitap dikkatle tekrar tekrar okunmayı hakeden bir dile sahip...

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The Book of Enoch

2011-08-19T22:28:00.001-07:00

The Book of Enoch by Robert Henry (R. H.) Charles

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Book of Enoch is a transitional piece of apocalyptica (!) written smack between the passage from Judaism to Christianity. So you have Sheol and not Hell, no Jesus but yes Son of God and so on. Some of the texts are as weird as the heaviest of the Nag Hammadi scriptures but in essence, tell of the same story of the time briefly described in Genesis, when the Nephilim came down from heaven and took human wives and worse, taught men agriculture, metal working, writing and so on. An A-level text for all "they came from outer space" nuts :)

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2011-08-16T11:24:00.001-07:00

Le Capitaine Ecarlate by David B.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

david b. 's hallucinatory dimension in which supernatural events are as common as buying bread for the morning breakfast decorates this tribute to schwob and enigmatic figures of french criminal literary figures or, grandfathers of genet. especially two panels stand out as pure visual and verbal poetry. Although I deeply admire david b.'s own artwork, the pencil here (emmanuel guibert) has added a does of cute a la Hergé, thus balancing beautifully the eeriness of the plot with a nostalgia for childhood pirate fantasies. For me, this was a re-kindling of my late childhood where j. verne reigned supreme.

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The King's Speech

2011-02-21T02:27:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's me hitting middle age and leaning towards a more conservative nature but the excellent film The King's Speech made me think about two things: One, the advent of psychoanalysis as a science albeit in an eccentric and unorthodox manner; Two, a justification for my recent contemplations on the importance of royalty in governing bodies of nation-states. Now I am not in favor of nation-states to say the least. In fact, I would call myself an anarchist if any political tendency is required to be submitted, however given the hideous shape representative democracy has taken today and which, until the foreseeable future at least, seems to be here to say, I have begun to consider the virtues of having a royal family at the head of a government, even if it shall function -or precisely as- a symbolic construct. There are two reasons for this: The first is the short cut to the Aristotelian notion of catharsis in Greek Tragedy translated onto the political stage. Very briefly, the commoner sees the way in which their superiors are wrapped up in the same human anguishes, if not more, and live pretty much the same anxious existence that they do, albeit on a financially more elevated scale, which makes the scandals and shortcomings even more delicious to the senses most of the time. David's resignation of the throne due to his love for a twice-divorced American woman (from Baltimore to top it off) in the film instigates more disgust in the royal family than in the people. For the commoner, it only goes to show that royalty is not devoid of human mistakes, errors and emotional fervor, which if i might add, can only restore any dignity in their eyes that was previously lost from the point of view of the royal family.
Now the second reason relies on, in my opinion, the present failure of representational democracy around the world. I do not take pleasure in being ruled by a bunch of oafs in suits who were in turn elected, by god knows what motivation, by other oafs who are mostly unable to think for themselves. Yes I know, this sounds very elitist and in contradiction to my anarchistic tendencies, however, anarchism depends heavily on an ethos of equality that also includes a certain level of awareness of the position and function of oneself in the world in relation to others, which doesn't manifest itself just by pertaining to the human race. Anyway, that is for another post. Coming back, it seems to be that masses of people who look towards leaders also look for reference points that collate and unite certain values and tradition that serves to hold them together and the above-mentioned oafs are far from offering this. Besides, the motivation of leading through representation is always bundled up with extremely pragmatic reasons for entering politics. On the other hand, royalty in a certain sense is bound by tradition and cannot go against the values it purports to represent as historical continuity. One must separate royalty and aristocracy here though. Decadence in the latter is far more possible than in the former. Again I do not think values and traditions are necessary for the governance of the human race but today it seems like the majority does indeed feel this need. Royalty may indeed be able to perform this function even if it may be completely and solely symbolic. I do not offer a better solution but only as a social safety valve for -the many- occasions when parliamentary politicians just become too disgusting to bare. I'm all up for the constant re-formulation of values and am completely open to change, and royalty at least offers a point of departure, even if the results contradicts the points of origin. It is easier to work within limits than be completely free to choose whatever one wants. Most of the time, with unlimited choice comes unlimited stupidity.
Must continue some other time, this post has already become too long... And the point about psychoanalysis is, i think, too apparent in the film to go into depth.

FRAGILE ! HANDLE WITH CARE

2010-10-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

As with all notions, the century has also cracked down on the school of thought called materialism and has taken up a role in today's daily discourse occupying a strange and vague, if not downright wrong position in describing an attitude towards the world. Today, the clinging to a certain object for no apparent reason (say a t-shirt that has holes in it, whose holder continues to wear even though it looks as if it is about to burst into threads) is often confused with an obsession with inanimate objects and a pathological strain that urges the subject to yearn for possession of the object or to mourn excessively for its loss. In fact, today's consumer culture has overturned the interest (to find a neutral enough word) to an object as shameful, though at the same time it urges everyone to get hold of (and get rid of) more and more. Apart from the usual and justified arguments on global warming and climate change, Marx's understanding of the commodity is more validated than ever. Today, the severed link between man and its labor can be strengthened with an outlook to possessions that also answers to a spiritual dimension. A man-made object comes out of the pockets of other men, no matter what way it was produced. It may not go back into the pockets it has come out of, nonetheless it carries the residue of human effort and all the shared associations therein. Casting away an object without trying to extend its life is not materialism (in the sense of Madonna's material girl) but rather to recognize and value the existential time one or many people have put into it. True materialists I would say are the thriftiest. Not in the short-sighted (though equally valid) interpretation pertaining to household economy and the like, but because the only way to fight the dehumanization and disrespect to objects that consumerism entails and purports is by attaching some significance to the assistance the object adds to our daily, small struggles. The way one treats an object turns out to be a clear indication of character. Paying the respect due to human effort in its metamorphosed form extends its force to the respect and recognition of what many see as trifles: the daily habits one makes, the public persona one constructs to meet the people that we meet, and the personal details one adds to the aforementioned tasks through long meticulous days of self-searching and contemplation that are the pillars that a true, honest, personal philosophy rises upon. Monetary value is in the background, though still inevitably there. However, objects still deserve a similar respect one pays (if one does that is) to father's watch for example, even if it is illusory and mocked by others. Like the Japanese, the true art of living and being at peace with it all may lie in the conscious effort to add art and beauty to all aspects of our interaction with the universe. All this may be criticized cynically as self-serving, which I would agree, though I am a firm believer that a trained care accorded to the way we deal with the objects that assist in our lives will lead to the careful handling of our human relationships, which are as, if not more fragile than the objects that surround us. We tend to forget that most of our objects will outlive us, and if imbued with enough sincere emotion, will carry on our name with the associations it draws on like a magnet by the people that know, and hopefully, love us. Of course, just like with the loss of a loved one, one always has to remember to let go... This world, with all the people, ipods, jackets and bushes in it, will constantly evade our grasp pleasing us with their company first, then hurting us with their inevitable demise...

Doris Lessing'in bir kitabına yazdığı önsöz

2010-07-29T02:22:00.000-07:00

Bilim kurgu yazarlarının kitaplarına yazdıkları önsözleri okumak bazen en yoğun felsefi denemelerden daha çok haz veriyor bana. Seçmiş oldukları tür edebiyat dünyasında yıllarca öylesine tartışmalı olmuş ki, zaman zaman kendilerini temize çıkarma ihtiyacı içerisinde bazen mahçup, bazen de sert bir savunma ruhu içerisinde yarattıkları dünyaların kendi dünyamızla olan yakın ilgisini irdelemek zorunda kalmışlar. Bunlardan beni en çok etkileyenlerden biri Ursula K. LeGuin'in “Karanlığın Sol Eli”ne yazdığı önsözdür. Bir başka etkileyici önsözü de yeni keşfettim. Türkçe'ye de çevrilmiş olan “The Sirian Experiments”in başında yer alan bu kısa pasaj Lessing'in ve genel olarak bilim-kurgucuların düşünce dünyasının derinliğini ve kurguya duydukları derin bağlılığın felsefi bir açıklaması adeta. Yanlış hatırlamıyorsam Alfred de Vigny'nin “Chatterton” isimli oyununda şöyle bir replik vardı: “Şairler medeniyet gemisinin rotasını yıldızlara bakarak belirleyenlerdir.”
Aşağıda bu önsözün kendi yaptığım çevirisi bulunmaktadır. Zevk almanızı diler, hatalar için şimdiden affınıza sığınırım.

ÖNSÖZ

Shikasta ve nispeten daha az olarak Alan 3, 4 ve 5 in Evliliği kitaplarımın yarattığı etkiler bana bir tür açıklama yapmam gerektiğini hissetirdi... Eğer bir kozmoloji yarattıysam, altında sadece edebi bir sebep yatmaktadır! Bir zamanlar gençken, gerek dini gerek siyasi fikirlere daha kolay inanırdım; şimdi ise inanmakta gitgide zorlanıyorum... Ancak merakım sürekli artmakta... Bana öyle geliyor ki bu gezegenin bir türü olarak kendimize bakışımız hatalı ve bu bakışımız bizi takip edecek olan kuşaklar açısından, mesela Yeni Gine'dekilerin dünya hakkında görüşleri bize bugün ne kadar yetersiz geliyorsa o kadar yetersiz gelecek. Bir tür olarak kendimize bakışımız bugün tamamıyle yanlış. Olan biten hakkında bildiklerimiz gerçekten çok az. Asıl olan bitenin büyük kısmı sıradan vatandaşa anlatılmıyor, aksine bu bilgi küçük kast ve cuntaların malı olmuş durumda. Eğitim sistemimizin -ve tabi ki bu kürede yaşayanların büyük çoğunluğunun- saçma bulduğu birçok konuyu merak ediyor ve üzerine kafa patlatıyorum. Eğer bir fizikçi olsaydım ortada hiçbir sorun olmazdı! Onlar yıldızları yutan kara delikler hakkında gayet rahat konuşabiliyorlar. O kara delikler ki zaman-mekan sıçramaları yapabileceğimiz mekanizmaları keşfetmede bize bilgi verip, matematiksel elçabukluklarıyla aralarından geçerek kendimizi evrenimizin yasalarının geçerli olmadığı başka diyarlarda bulmamızı sağlayabilir. Onlar rahatlıkla kendi evrenimizle içiçe varolan ama göremediğimiz, zamanın geriye doğru aktığı ya da kendi evrenimizin bir ayna görüntüsü olan paralel evrenlerden bahsedebiliyorlar.
Bugünlerde heryerde karşımıza çıkan, en sık tekrarlanan alıntının J.B.S. Haldane'in sözleri olması bence bir rastlantı değil: “Artık düşüncem evrenin sadece sandığımızdan da tuhaf olduğu değil, sanabildiğimizden de tuhaf olduğudur.”
Hepimizin bildiği gibi okurların kozmolojilere ve düzenli düşünce sistemlerine “inanma” tutkularının altında yatan sebep dün kesin doğru kabul ettiklerimizin her gün giderek dağıldığı dehşetengiz ve hayret verici zamanlarda yaşıyor olmamızdır. Ama birbirleriyle kıyasıya mücadele içinde olan bu kesinliklerin yarattığı çorbada tuzum varmış gibi yargılanmak da istemem.
Tanımları gereği hayal güçleriyle işlerini yapan yazarların bu özelliği neden yeterince kabul görmez ki? Biz “uydururuz.” İşimiz bu.
Bu tarz uzayda geçen kurgulara kendim girişmeden evvel, bir uzay aracıyla kendi güneş sistemlerinden bizimkine gelip, kendi sistemlerinde güneşleri bir süredir kendilerine kötü davranmaya karar verdiğinden, bizim güneşimizin de zalimce davranıp davranmadığını soran yüksek zekalı bir zürafa türü hakkında hoşuma giden bir öykü okuduğumu hatırlıyorum. Kendi kendime şunu söylediğimi hatırlıyorum: En azından bu hikayenin yazarı uzay aracında bir zürafa olmanın nasıl bir şey olduğunu soran dikkatle yazılmış mektuplar almayacaktır.
İnsanoğlunun hayal edebileceği herşeyin bir başka yerde, bir başka gerçeklik düzleminde karşılığı olduğu söylenegelmiştir. Tüm edebiyatlarımız, kutsal kitaplarımız, mitlerimiz, efsanelerimiz -insan ırkının kayıtları- hep iyi ile kötü arasındaki görkemli mücadeleden bahsederler. Bu mücadele polisiye öykülerde, westernlerde, romantik romanlarda hep yansımasını bulur. Bu kavgayı ele almayan bir öykü, şarkı ya da tiyatro bulmak gerçekten zordur.
Ama hangi savaş bu? Nerede? Ne zaman? Hangi Güçler arasında?
Hayır, hayır, ne aşağılık uzay korsanlarıyla dolu Shammat diye bir gezegen olduğuna, ne bu gezegenin bizim zavallı küremizden enerji emdiğine, ne de gezegenimizin Canopus ve Sirius adında o büyük imparatorlukların çekişmelerine sahne olduğuna “inanıyorum.”
Ama kadim kozmolojilerde Canopus ve Sirius'un bu denli büyük rol oynaması birşeylerin göstergesi olamaz mı?
“İyi” ve “kötü” hakkında fikirlerimiz neyi yansıtmaktadır?
Gezegenimizin bizden daha ileri yaratıklar tarafından deneyleri için kullanılmış olduğunu öğrenmek beni şaşırtmazdı... Ya da binaların boyutlarının tahmin edemediğimiz şekillerde bizi etkilediğini ve geçmişte varolmuş olup sonradan unuttuğumuz bir başka bilimin olduğunu öğrenmek... Ya da zamanında bilemediğimiz yollarla köleleştirilmiş veya yardım görmüş olduğumuz... Veya zamandaki konumumuz hakkında nadiren gerçeklerle örtüşen kişisel görüşlerimizin “yaşlanma” olgusuna şaşırmamıza yol açmasının belki de geçmişte bir başka tür yaşam döngüsüne sahip olmuş olabileceğimizin bir göstergesi olabileceği, ve bu geçmişin biyolojik anlamda aslında yakın bir geçmişe tekabül etmesinden dolayı henüz tarafımızdan psikolojik olarak hazmedilememiş olması.... Ya da her çeşit antik araç-gerecin bir zamanlar -belki de hala- henüz tahmin edemediğimiz işlere yaradığı... Ya da insan ırkının geleceği hakkında şu anda tasavvur edebileceğimizden çok daha muhteşem bir planın varolduğu... Ya da...
Ay'ımızda uzaylıların yaşadığına “inanmıyorum.” Ama neden olmasın?
UFO'lara gelince; hem bilimsel hem de sivil çevrelerden birçok akıllı, sorumlu, duyarlı insanın bolcana sunduğu kanıtlara inanmamak bazen zor olsa gerek.
Bir başka nokta...
Bu kitapta yarattığım dişi bürokrat, tekdüze, adil, görevine bağlı, etkin ve kendi doğası hakkında yanlış fikirlere sahip. Kendisi yetenekli bir idareci, bir toplum mühendisi. Ambien II'yi aslında çok daha fazla sevebilirdim. İlgilendiği meselelerin bir kısmı tabi ki benim de ilgi alanlarım. Bunlar arasında en önde gideni grup aklıyla, yani nadiren kabul ettiğimiz ama hepimizin bir parçası olduğu o topluluk aklıyla ilgili. Kendimizi özerk varlıklar olarak görmeye meyilliyiz; zihinlerimiz kendi ürünümüz, inançlarımız serbestçe seçilmiş, fikirlerimiz kendimize özgü ve biricik diye düşünürüz... Milyarlarcamızın yaşadığı bu gezegen üzerinde hala her birimizin biricik olduğuna inanmaya, ya da her ne kadar diğerleri yığının içindeki noktalar kadar önemsiz olsa da en azından Ben'in kendi kaderini tayin eden, kendi zihnine sahip olan bir varlık olduğunu düşünmeye hazırız nedense. Acayip olan bu işte, ve üzerinde düşündükçe gitgide daha da acayipleşiyor bence. Kendimiz hakkında böyle düşüncelere nasıl varıyoruz?
Bana öyle geliyor ki fikirler insanlık boyunca gel-gitler halinde yayılıyor.
Nereden geliyorlar peki?
Okur ve eleştirmenlerin bu seriyi, yani Canopus Argos'ta: Arşivler serisini sürükleyici (olduğunu umduğum) birkaç hikaye anlatmamı sağlayan, hem kendime hem de başkalarına sorular sorduran, bazı fikirleri derinlemesine incelemek ve sosyolojik olasılıkları değerlendirmek için kullanabileceğim bir çerçeve olarak görmelerini dilerim.
Tabi ki aslında bahsetmek istediklerim Kızıl ve Beyaz Cüceler ve onların Hatırlayan Aynası, (anti-yerçekimi gücüyle beslenen) uzay roketleri, refakatçi varlıkları olan Hadron, Gluon, Pion, Lepton ve Muon, ve Tılsımlı Kuvarklarla Renkli Kuvarklar.
Ama hepimiz de fizikçi olamayız ki...

Hast Thou Forsaken Me?

2010-03-24T13:28:00.000-07:00

Times have been trying… Illnesses, deaths in the family, dead friends; life’s hardware and software, failing one after another. Strangely at times like these writing is not really a valid resort for me. On the contrary, it feels as if the whole carpet is pulled from under my feet and though it may sound depressing, it as at times like these that I become painfully –and exhilaratingly- aware of the tragedy we are all burrowed in. However, this realization also brings a clear sense of being alive; perhaps that’s why I do not resort to writing, which to me is so linked to the past, so linked to death. The task is not to imagine or re-create this death; it is to live it to the fullest.

I do not know if misfortunes are brought on by one’s own conceptions, there are some who say they are, as if we are in the center of the universe; summon or be summoned. I really have doubts about all these laws of attraction and such. True, subjects do conceive of things that might turn into self-fulfilling prophecies, but I find it extremely unfair to blame a person’s temporary inability to cope with what life brings simply on cognitive negativity. Life and the universe are far too complicated to boil down to a person’s wishes and aspirations. We may be extremely strong creatures, but we are also painstakingly weak and insignificant. I take comfort in this thought.

When disaster strikes me, it usually does so in a flurry of events that unfold one after the other in quick succession. I have had many friends who have remarked I must’ve been a horrible person in my past lives. I refer them to the Book of Job to re-think their convictions. It seems to me that tragic trials are a gift, even though they may be painful while experienced. Happiness is just a sordid trope that we invent to sustain ourselves, though this is not to devalue it. No one likes to wake from a pleasant dream, but we all eventually do. Just like trying desperately to scream while dreaming, we smile in waking life knowing it is a fleeting cover of what lurks beneath. But we smile, we always do, we always will. As Beckett so wonderfully put it, I can’t go on, I will go on…

Yaşam ve insan sevinci veren anlardan...

2009-10-14T13:11:00.000-07:00

Mahallemde park yeri bulmak dünyanın en zor hallerinden birine kolaylıkla dönebilir. Ben arkadaşım olan bir dükkan sahibinin (sağolsun) bana yerini vermesiyle bu işi kısmen hallettim. Tabii sonucunda civar esnafla da bir güzel arkadaş oldum. Bugün eve dönüp park ettikten sonra, kuaförün adamı arabamın kaportasındaki göçüğü görüp benimle konuşmaya başladı. Konuşma çok çabuk kendi tecrübelerine ve nasıl böylesi sorunları altettiğine geldi. Sonra beraber bakmaya karar verdik. Kaput açıldı, sorunlu bölge elle yoklandı, gerekli tetkiler yapıldı ve bir çözüm olarak çekiçle tersinden vurma ortaya sürüldü. Bu arada kuaförün daha genç çırağı, karşıdaki elektrikçi, basket forması giyen tıfıl bir çocuk, dvdci arkadaşım ve bir müşterisi de etrafımıza toplandı. Her kafadan bir ses çıkıyor, "çekiç gibi birşey var mı?" cinsinden sorular havada uçuşuyordu. Tıfıl çocuk "ben bubamdan alır gelirim" dedi ve bir anda ortadan kayboldu. O sırada arkadan geçen devlet memuru ya da taşra avukatına benzeyen mahalleden bir adam elindeki çantayı bırakıp olaya el atmaya karar verdi. Arabaya yaklaşıyordu ki çocuk elinde çekiçle çıkageldi. Kuaför çekici aldığı gibi kaportaya çakmaya başladı. Tabi nafile... Bu sırada memur bey gelip saçta yarılmış kısmı gösterdi engin bilgisini paylaşmaktan, haklı çıkmaktan keyif alarak.
Çekiçten medet umulamazdı.
"Geçende ben bizim kayınçonun arabasını yaptım."
"Ha yapmıştın evet."
"Dur şimdi ben bir bakayım..." Kuaföre girip sepetteki broşürleri kaptı, elinde burup katlayarak kalın bir dikdörtgen yaptı.
"Bak şimdi bunu koyacaz, sonra bastıracaz, pat diye yerine gelecek."
"E abi sen onu tahtayla yapmıştın o gün?"
"Olum elimdeki neden yapılıyor?"
Kimse ne diyeceğini bilemedi. Adam bir süre denedi ama herhangi bir değişiklik yoktu arabada. Yandaki çaycı da, iki dükkan ötedeki balıkçı da, nalburun oğlu da olay mahalline antenlerini uzaktan da olsa uzatmışlar, mevzuya kaynamışlardı.
Bir süre gülünüp konuşuldu sonra sessizce dağılındı.
Bir kez daha burada yaşadığıma sevinerek, gülümseyerek eve yöneldim.

Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me? 3 and a Half

2009-09-28T03:14:00.000-07:00

While looking at old notes about the next danger I want to write about, I came across this quote by Salustius (4th century BC, writer, friend of emperor Julian) quoted in The Jesus Mysteries (excellent book by the way; Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, 1999):

"To wish to teach all men the truth of the gods causes the foolish to despise and the good to be slothful, whereas to conceal the truths by myths prevents the former from despising philosophy and compels the latter to study it."

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Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me? 3

2009-09-14T05:31:00.000-07:00

Danger 2: The nature of these teachings is almost always shrouded in secrecy, hence “mysteries.” This theoretical foundation is usually backed up with lived experience that introduces the subject’s five senses to a challenge, to a glimpse of the world beyond so to speak. Today, just as it is –purportedly- easy to lose 20 pounds by strapping weird vibrating gadgets to our fatty regions, we are given the gracious chance to become “enlightened” in a heartbeat. Gone are the harrowing days of fasting in a cave, or undergoing rituals that are so harsh on the body and mind that one tries to hallucinate their way out of the ordeal, or at least they’re gone for the most part. Now I am definitely not one to promote asceticism in any form, but I believe there is a purpose for this gateway to the acquisition of esoteric knowledge: One must actually deserve it. Through these initiation rites, candidates are forced to see the limitations of their five senses and are put under the pressure of a near-death-experience to “die before one’s dead.” So while the first lesson one learns is the fact that one has to deserve this knowledge, the second concerns humility...

(tbc)
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Blogumdaki Twitter

2009-09-14T05:09:00.000-07:00

Garip bir şekilde tanımadığım birinin twit leri blogumdaki twitter update widget'inda görünüyor. Neden, nasıl hiçbir fikrim yok, zaten twitleri gözüken arkadaşın da neden olduğuna dair bir haberi yok... sanal böceklenme...

Furuğ'dan (yeryüzü ayetleri, çev. Makbule Aras. Can: 2009)

2009-09-06T22:38:00.000-07:00

Genç yaşta hayatını kaybeden İranli kadın şair Furuğ'nun kitabında, uzun zamandır aşk hakkında duyduğum en güzel dizelere rastladım. İşte buyrun:

hayattan ne istiyorum biliyorsun,
ben sen olayım, sen, tepeden tırnağa sen
bin defa gelmek mümkün olsa dünyaya
her defasında sen, her defasında sen

(SEVMEKTEN, s. 28)

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Yaş Bakla 2: Psikanaliz

2009-08-30T07:30:00.001-07:00

Çağdaş, Levent ve konukları Daniş'le psikanaliz üzerine bir sohbet. Kayıt biraz kötü, Madagaskar'da yeterli ekipman bulamıyorlarmış, ileride düzeleceğine söz verdiler...

http://www.divshare.com/download/8329037-2a5

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Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me? 2

2009-08-30T03:24:00.000-07:00

Danger 1:
Ever since mystical knowledge has become widely accessible in popular culture (when exactly did this begin I have no clue of but I presume it must be around 18th-20th century) thanks to capitalism, it has fled the underground drawing-rooms of mesmerism, washed itself clean of the horror fiction it engendered and has found itself positioned right next to the cashier at a bookstore near you in nice, bite-size packages. With so much material at hand, it is easy to fall into syncretism, which is not a problem for the scriptor of this text as long as the study aims at something. However, things, I think, get out of hand once the paradoxes, parables and a plethora of lovely phrases that these traditions have engendered become tapas (meze/bitings) for whatever the service the subject enunciating requires. Kind of like an inverted intentional fallacy, or reader-response theory gone haywire… This, merged with postmodern cultural relativism (which is going out of fashion in academia finally, but will stick to the streets for now it seems) and a warped idea of Democracy and Reason, produce a terrifyingly idiotic genie that possesses human agents and urges them to become tools to the cop-out that is “this is my opinion, you have to respect it…” Once this is uttered, the expectation is that all interpretation must stop, all paths to t/Truth are blurred and each one is assigned their own little game to play. Not only that, the game you play is different than mine, since we are both unique (You got to admit that this idea of the unique caresses many narcissistic soft spots) therefore you go your own way and I go mine… You got to do what you got to do, in NYC parlance (when I share something with you, I’m by default asking for you to tell me what I should do? The audacity…)
Fair enough, but can you possibly imagine a world where everyone ceases to interrogate the others' opinion? It would be as boring as golf if you ask me. What else do we have to talk about? Consider the minute the other ceases to be a zone of psychic give-and-take, we’re left with nothing but ourselves, this supposedly unique being which stops being unique if there is nobody else to measure itself up against - can you actually imagine white without black?
But I digress…

Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me? 1

2009-08-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

I’ve been seeing –as I’m sure you are too- people taking up spirituality in various guises these days. I am still confused whether to call it spirituality, mysticism or plain religion, but I am tying to refer to the anxious (and I mean this in the medical/psychiatric sense of the term) search for some inner kernel of our soul that will, once found, will somehow trigger every possible positivity, imbue our universe with meaning, thereby enabling inner and worldly peace. Some try their luck in known practices such as meditation (in its myriad of forms), Rei-chi, Yoga, Crystals, Horoscopes, the Occult, Sufism, the Cabala, Gnosticism; the list, as you know, grows long. I am not going to go into the why’s, as I think anyone reading daily papers has, at one point or another, come upon the same self-reflexive, self-flagellating confessional as to how modern life disseminates anxiety and guilt, driven by a system built on individualism and competition, so on and so forth. The reasons are, to me, of secondary importance; however, this fascination with mysticism, or at least the act of filling all one’s ‘leisure’ life with spiritual practices indicate to me a strange and interesting object of study in itself.

(to be continued)

Philosophy according to Alan Watts

2009-08-21T06:28:00.001-07:00

According to Alan Watts, philosophy has repeatedly asked the same five questions throughout the history of reported time. They are as follows:

(it = existence)

1. Who started it?

2. Are we going to make it?

3. Where are we going to put it?

4. Who's going to clean up?

5. Is it serious?

:))

Önemli Bir Tespit...

2009-08-20T07:39:00.000-07:00

Arkadaşım Deniz B. şöyle bir tespitte bulundu. Görelim ne soylamış:
'Eskiden kadınla erkek birdir diye düşünürdüm. Şimdiyse eminim ki kadınlarda en az bir gen farklı. O da herhangi bir tartışmadan muhakkak galip ayrılma zorunluluğunu yaratan gen. Öyle ki bir kadına dersin, Hava ne kadar sıcak. Cevabı alırsın, Ne bekliyordun ki?'

Adana, GA...

2009-08-20T03:46:00.000-07:00

Adana'ya 8 sene sonra yine geldim. Buradan aklımda kalanlar, üniversite yıllarımda gördüğüm inanılmaz şuh kadınlar ve yemeklerinin acı lezzetiydi. Bu gelişimde Adana'yı daha değişik görme şansım oldu. Aşırı fazla yemek yedim ve etrafı seyrettim...
İlk gözlem şu: Adana, ABD nin kırsal eyaletlerinin yavanlığını fazlasıyla örnek almış kendine. Şehir merkezi var mı belli değil. Zaten herkes sıcaktan klimalı mekanlarda durmak zorunda. Yemek desen evet harika bir hizmet ve sofra kültürü var, da burada yaşayan biri dikkat etmezse damar sertliğinden gider bir kaç on yılda... Eski evler bakımsız ve ıssız duruyorlar ki sanırım öyleler... Gezecek bir yer pek yok ve manzara diye size gösterilen yerleri gösteren üzülmesin diye ilgiyle seyrediyorsun, zira manzaralar insanın estetik kaygılarının standartlarının ne kadar düşebileceğini gösteriyor. Bu da insanların uyum konusunda ne kadar usta olduklarının bir temsili adeta. Gidilecek yerler şehrin kıyılarına yosun gibi yapışıp kalmış dev alışveriş merkezleri. Tabi ki arabayla gidiliyor. Toplu taşıma araçlarının pencerelerinin açık olması klima eksikliğine gönderme yapıyor, tabi hangi yurt evladı o otobüslere dayanabiliyorsa bence hemen komando yapılabilir...
Trendy restoranlar henüz burayı ele geçirmemiş zaten Adana sofralarının zenginliği ve lezzeti karşısında bugünün trendy fusion yemekleri ayakta kalamaz gibi geliyor bana. Ancak görünmek/göstermek işlevi görüyor sanki bu trendy kafeler...
Kahve aldım.
Yemek yedim... Hem de çok...
Sokaklarda dolaşamadım çok sıcaktı...
Hayatımda gittiğim en harika saunaya gittim, soğuk havuzda onbeş dakika kaldım bana mısın demedi, ama saunaya en fazla 7 dakika dayanabildim. Ne yaparsın kanımızın yarısı ABDli...
Gecenin bir yarısı arkadaşımla bir taksiye binip bir ocakbaşına götürmesini söyledik. Eski, pis bir mahalled iki bina arasına sıkışmış bir aralıkta harika bir lokantada patlayana kadar yedik. Müzisyenlere Kimseye Etmem Şikayet'i söylettik. Arkadaşımı Türk Sanat Musikisine döndürdüm.
Hayat güzel, yaralarımızı yalıyarak kabuk bağlamalarını bekliyoruz...

Vignette of The Week

2009-08-13T00:09:00.000-07:00

"All speech is demand. Every demand (is) a request for love." - Lacan

Jokes from The Sublime Object of Ideology (S.Zizek, Verso:1989 /Zizek'in İdeolojinin Yüce Nesnesi'nden fıkralar

2009-08-10T00:50:00.000-07:00

"At an art exhibition in Moscow, there is a picture showing Nadezhda Kruopskaya, Lenin's wife, in bed with a young member of the Komsomol. The title of the picture is 'Lenin in Warsaw.' A bewildered visitor asks a guide: 'But where is Lenin?' The guide replies quietly and in dignity: 'Lenin is in Warsaw.' (pg. 178)

"Moskova'da bir sanat sergisinde, Lenin'in zevcesi Nadezhda Kruopskaya'nın genç bir Komsomol üyesiyle yatakta bir fotoğrafı asılıdır. Fotoğrafın ismi 'Lenin Varşova'da'dır. Şaşkın bir ziyaretçi bir rehbere sorar: 'Peki Lenin nerede?' Rehber sessiz ama vakur, cevap verir: 'Lenin Varşova'da.'

* * * * *

"A conscript tries to evade military service by pretending to be mad. His symptom is that he compulsively checks all the paper he can lay his hands on, constantly repeating: 'That is not it!' He is sent to the military psychiatrist, in whose office he also examines all the papers lying around, including those in the wastepapaper basket, repeating all the time: 'That is not it!'The psychiatrist, finally convinced that he is really mad, gives him a written warrant releasing him from military service. The conscript casts a look at it and says cheerfully: 'That is it!' (pg. 180)

"Askere çağrılmış bir genç, askerden kaçmak için deli taklidi yapmaya girişir. Belirtisi, kompülsif bir şekilde eline geçirebildiği tüm kağıt parçalarını inceleyip, 'Bu değil!' olacaktır. Askeriyenin psikiyatristine sevk edilir; orada da çöpte bulunanlar dahil gördüğü tüm kağıt parçalarını inceler ve devamlı tekrar eder: 'Bu değil!' Psikiyatrist eninde sonunda adamın deli olduğuna kanaat getirir ve ona 'askerliğe elverişli değildir' belgesini verir. Genç adam belgeye bir bakar ve neşeyle, 'İşte bu!' der."

* * * *

"How does a man from Montenegro masturbate? He digs a hole in the ground, puts his member in it and waits for the earthquake."

"Karadağlı bir adam nasıl mastürbasyon yapar? Yerde bir delik açar, içine organını sokar ve depremi bekler."

Bir analist olacak candostuma...

2009-08-09T09:29:00.000-07:00

Psikanalizle ilk ilgilenmeye başladığım yıllardı, sanırım 15 ya da 16 yaşındaydım. Birkaç tane Freud devirmiş, "du bakali n'olcek" gibisinden aranıyordum. Ailecek o zamanlarda İzmir Fuarı'ndaki Kitap Fuarına gitmiştik. Görür görmez atladım Yeni Başlayanlar için Lacan adlı çizgi-kitaba (bu arada bu kitapları çok tuttuğumu söylemeliyim - okurun asıl metinlere yol alması için bir giriş niteliğinde kullanıldıkça en azından). Babam sordu bu kimdir nedir diye. Anlatmaya Oidipus Kompleksinden başladım. O'na "oğlan çocuğu Anne'yi arzular, Baba önünde bir engel oluşturduğundan, sembolik olarak onu öldürmek ister" dedim, biraz da onun ilgisini çekmek, önyargılarını kaşımak için. Gerçekten entelektüel olan (ama maalesef Psikanalizle ilgilenmeyen) Babam bir an yerinde durdu, sağ elini bir Osmanlı külhanbeyi gibi kaldırdı ve "böyle heriflere bi koyacaksın bazen!" diye matrak ama bilgelik dolu bir laf etti. Babam bu konuda haklı olmayabilirdi, ama büyük adamdı vesselam!

Syntax and Sociology

2009-08-09T02:42:00.001-07:00

Now humor me. As I was putting my daughter to bed, an idea popped up among the now mantra-like lullaby singing. One of the differences in syntax between Turkish and English concerns the position of the relative clause/sıfat-ilgi tümceciği in relation to the subject/özne. While the relative clause usually comes after the subject followed by the action it is performing through the verb in English whereas in Turkish, the clause comes before the subject, turning it into a full-blown adjective that describes it. Moreover in English, relative clauses are usually separated by the main sentence by use of punctuation, especially the comma. In Turkish though they are –again usually- attached to the subject, which waits patiently for the moment in speech to arrive at the verb-al action it sought out to perform in the first place. In English the subject and the verb announces their presence up front, foregrounding the do-er of the action and underlining what there is to be done. The image of the mighty individual, pronouncing its voluntariness and intention to take action towards the world comes to mind. On the other hand the Turkish subject is able to perform its action only after the elements relating to the subject are fully expressed.

Consider these sentences:

TR: Gönderdiğin çiçekler için teşekkür ederim.

ENG: (I) Thank you for the flowers (that/, which) you’ve sent me.

This may sound simplistic, as my attempt here is not to go into linguistic conundrums. However, as a (perhaps too big a) generalization, I think I can posit the relevance of a socio-cultural trait in this linguistic rule. In my opinion, the Turkish language/culture tries to foreground modesty, and even to a significant extent, submission to a higher authority in its usage of language. Perhaps this is why sentences with passive constructions are much favored. The subject of the action is enshrouded, blurred, and the actual verb and what it does to the world takes precedence. This idea resonates fully with Islamic precepts that foregrounds Allah’s will before everything individuals do. The word Islam itself means, “to surrender.” Therefore the subject, though possessing free will, still is under partial (or full, I still am not quite clear on this-this is I think one of the many doctrinal difficulties of Islam) control of Allah. The same goes for the submission to higher authorities. Consider the sacred position of the Caliphate or the Sultan, which can be easily found in collections of folk tales like the Tutiname, or the 1001 Nights. Now on the contrary, I think it is safe to say that Western Capitalist culture foregrounds the individual as a free agent, whose actions are mostly based on their own intentions (this is of course much challenged since the 19^th century onwards). In language use, in contrast to Turkish, English favors the use of active sentence constructions too, positing the defined/implied subject in the beginning of most sentences, clearly delineating who does what. Surrendering to Christ is also present in mostly secularized Continental and Anglo-American culture, however this surrendering I think is very different than the one in Islam, which is a concept too large to discuss in this particular piece. In any case, the said process of secularization is also an interesting point of inquiry.

Take the courtly love tradition, or even the great masters of Continental literature like Dante. Today it is no secret that both these examples are hugely indebted to Ummayad-Andalusian Islam. Sufi masters of the period posit Allah as the Beloved, which can never be reached, maybe only glimpsed at, but “married to” through death. Now consider Dante’s Beatrice in La Vita Nuova, or the way the troubadours shifted these, sometimes almost erotic metaphors onto their understanding of the lover (the Knight for example), or the loved (the Princess in peril for example). There is an excellent book by Robert Briffaut on this subject if anyone is interested (The Troubadours, 1965: IUP). In this sense, the Beloved is transposed onto a mortal agent, though the fact that the Princess/Lover (as in Dante’s Beatrice) is not to be reached, although she remains a Muse for life of the agent. So, what happens then? In comes an action that again foregrounds the agent’s conscious intention towards an action that has the possibility of changing the situation to their own, worldly advantage: The slaying of the Dragon… In this way, Continental troubadour poetry not only secularizes the religious imagery employed by the Sufis, but also posits smack in the middle, an event that requires full, external action based on the agent’s intent to an endeavor in the world, whose consequences are physical…

I know all this sounds too simplistic, but neither is this a dissertation nor am I a scholar. The point is that both languages reflect and affect their own cultural evolution.

There is also the position and function of the author in both languages that helps this argument but I shouldn’t get carried further away. At least, not for now.

All criticism (negative or positive) are welcome.

letter to a father of a daughter

2009-01-05T15:06:00.000-08:00

as for having a daughter... may allah bless every man with a daughter my friend, you are among the lucky of male mortals...
kiss her much, cuddle her frequently; make sure she knows she is loved...
don't sweat sleepless nights and long drawn out crying sessions, those will be the true moments of human existence, you will be tackling everything bu the credit crunch, thank god for that! besides we need less and less sleep as we get older... so consider it as a training session for those long nights when you're 70 and are having attacks of nostalgia...
imagine talking to her about condoms when she brings in her first horribly pubescent young man into the house, gets drunk or high for the first time; when she gets the first existential anxieties and consider yourself lucky for having the experience necessary to console her...
loveherloveherloveher
take her out often to meet the butcher, the grocer, the local video store et al. make sure she sees as many people from different walks of life as possible.
readreadread to her, they become zombiefied through tv as they grow, no matter how educational the program on tv may be...
loveherloveherloveher... if you really, truly love her, the rest will come as easy as pie. and since once you have her in your life, the opposite won't be possible, so you are set my friend, don't worry about a thing!

Arrrgh, once again

2008-07-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

I am terribly unlucky with computers. I have probably have a history of 5-6 computers, all ceasing to function for reasons that even boggle the technicians. Once my hard disc gave a loud crack and a sound of a loose bearing hitting the casing with loud and frequent "pings" went on until I pulled the plug on it. Another time, something in the cd-rom suddenly cracked, stopping playing the cd. When I took it out of the case and turned upside down sideways, only to see flakes of the stuff of the cd coming out like snow. The cd-rom had broken the cd down to its very shards (Tuz-Buz -salt, ice- as they say in Turkish) and somehow managed to damage my hard-drive as well. I have lost all my academic papers and creative pieces. about 80 poems, and countless translations. Do I hear back up? I've had the strangest problems there as well. Either the backup cd didn't have everything or would not open, or the files came up damaged when I transfered it onto another computer. I'm seriously starting the feel I must have some cyber-jinx energy, or god doesn't want me to write, on a computer at least.

To end this once and for all, I bought superduper Mac Book Pro, hoping my troubles would come to an end. After all, I have friends who have been using the same mac for years without any problems. Well, 10 months in using it, suddenly the damn machine refuses to turn on. I try everything in the manuals, then take it to the technicians. They tell me its cpu board is caput. This is, apparently a terribly rare thing, as they have to order one that'll arrive in a month from the States. I thought we were in the fast age, flying all around the world in days and all. What is this one month b.s.?

Hopefully the memory is intact, maybe there the Mac can cast its counter-spell to my jinx. Maybe this time the measly number of files left to me from my last 10 years can be saved.

So-so poem from 2 years ago which I found in my computer

2008-07-18T11:36:00.000-07:00

And so you sprinkle

Down the hills in existing

Like flakes freeze

So dense you choke

First cry then whack

In q-tips your heart doth lie

I come out all teased

With angelic upbringing

When some do say, in life

One cries incessantly, I

Look out of necessity

To brighter days underfriend

Ship on a glade wave tosses

Futures and means

Dressing my salad never was heard

As eloquent as dream

Flesh of my flesh

Blood of my blood

This is what i should

Have done in your

Name

Drape a wall

Dig my hole

Wait to clasp

The flowers that dropped after

Your name

really not good, but in tribute to the occasion it was written for, I leave it be, as if it were a haiku that's written on the wind.

Reading and Cognition

2008-07-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

I think everyone will agree that the recent generations of human beings are endowed with certain perceptual peculiarities that are distinct to this age. Again probably most people will agree that the presence of television and visual media, the proliferation of computers and the web are changing children’s ways of spending leisure time. We hear more and more about the harmful effects of over-exposure to TV or the computer monitor, running parallel with the declining rate of reading in children. In addition to this, it is somewhat perplexing to notice that Turkey is right after the States in the world's highest rate in TV viewing. Considering the fact that my generation didn’t get to see a color TV or multiple channels until the mid-80’s, I remember my childhood as a more extraverted time of activity, where we spent most of our time outside with neighbors kids, inventing all sorts of different games ranging from tag to charades, from makeshift magic shows to making puppets and backdrops to produce a shadow-play for the parents and other kids. Other than that, being outside-bound for fun had other advantages as well. We were able to make friends with the community much easier, doing errands for the house like picking up groceries, running to the “bakkal” and so on. My mother felt relatively safe when I would wander out for a chore, as she knew that everyone around knew me and whose child I was. Mostly due to TV and household entertainment, as well as limited playgrounds in our urban environment, I think it is safe to say that today parents are less reluctant to let their children interact with the grocer, the butcher or the baker. These days, especially in big cities, living your childhood in healthy activity is becoming more and more difficult, as buildings get bigger and bigger, and playgrounds and parks get smaller and smaller. I can’t deny that safety has become another big concern, but outside of Istanbul, Turkey I believe, is still a safe place.

Coming from a reading-oriented family, one of my ambitions in child rearing is to pass along the same love of reading that my parents engendered in me. Reading was a huge part of my childhood. After having spent hours devouring the beautiful children’s books my mother had brought from the States, I still get a familiar tingle every-time I hear a Dr. Seuss rhyme today and the images that accompany my favorite books come back to me in 3D pictures that waltz along my mind. My mother tells me that I enjoyed her reading to me so much, she would, out of fatigue, have to record her voice onto tapes and play them back to me just so I could hear my favorite book over and over again. Of course, when there is not a lot of TV around, one might say, it is easier to kill time with books. However, I believe the issue is a bit more complex.

Years ago when I was a teacher, I remember a British educational scientist giving a seminar on how TV is harmful to children, especially in those between 0-3 years of age. Moreover, the worst harm, he claimed, was caused by commercials (which actually resonates with many parents’ complaints about their children’s TV habits). How this harm takes place is still not totally clear among the scientific community but there are some indications that point to a neural development that lacks a semantic complexity, due to an over-saturation of images emitted in high frequency intervals. The child tries to make sense of the images that are projected, but when the images are too many and too frequent, a causal relationship becomes more difficult to achieve. Hence the zombified look that children have when watching the image bombardments TV commercials produce. Consider how one minute there's an explosion on the screen, stars burst into the air, then a disembodied stick of ice-cream drifts towards the viewer with, say a dancing lion on it. Things happen so fast that the baby is not able to attach meaning or a relationship between the sequences of images. Now this may seem far-fetched at first but it seems to me no coincidence that baby channels like Baby TV or Babyfirst emit programs that change scenes slowly, almost as if they try to let the baby take in the scene with all its detail and cognitively absorbe it. A recent study states that babies perceive color in the pre-linguistic part of the brain (the right hemisphere) and that adults perceive the same colors in the linguistic part (the left hemisphere). If this is true, then a healthy transition from pre-linguistic to linguistic perception is an essential component in the child’s cognitive development in later years. In fact, what the seminar speaker suggested was that over-exposure to TV inevitably creates potential attention-deficit disorder, and a lack of concentration needed to finish a book as the children reared on TV are so used to passively watching the colorful lights whereby the imagination is stifled and meaning can not be generated due to a lack of time for neural synapses to form.

Does this mean reading is dead? I definitely do not think so, as I witness with my child that although we do show her TV, she is much more interested in reading, as long as one of us is with her. Now, when I ask her if she wants to read a book she rushes into her bedroom in her clumsy toddler trot, grabs her favorite book (“Good Night Gorilla”) and returns holding the book out to me and uttering her favorite syllable, “boua”. Then she sits next to me with her arm draped along my leg, watching my fingers as I trace the action depicted in the words, and she joins me in emitting the animal noises that are on the pages, turning to me for approval, and cheering when I nod and smile. In other words, interaction still seems an important element in a child’s cognitive development and I believe no Sesame Street character will ever take the place of mom or dad, as long as we don’t let it.

Two Poems With A Funny Moon

2008-07-06T10:01:00.000-07:00

YOUR FUNERAL, MY TRIAL

I am a crooked man
And I've walked a crooked mile
Night, the shameless widow
Doffed her weeds, in a pile
The stars all winked at me
They shamed a child
Your funeral, my trial

A thousand Marys lured me
To feathered beds and fields of clover
Bird with crooked wing cast
It's wicked shadow over
A bauble moon did mock
And trinket stars did smile
Your funeral, my trial

Here I am, little lamb...
Let all the bells in whoredom ring
All the crooked bitches that she was
(Mongers of pain)
Saw the moon
Become a fang
Your funeral, my trial

- Nick Cave (from the album of the same name)

ABOVE THE DOCK

Above the quiet dock in mid night,
Tangled in the tall mast's corded height,
Hangs the moon. What seemed so far away
Is but a child's balloon, forgotten after play.

- T. E. Hulme (from Collected Poetical Works, 1912)

A Bold Claim

2008-07-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

One of my imaginary PhD dissertation topic is the converging of sufism, anarchism and psychoanalysis in their formulation of a fulfilled human being. Now this might sound strange and I cannot write of such a broad idea in a few sentences but one way in which psychoanalysis is helpful to sufism is by examining sufism's insistence on the necessary relationship between teacher and pupil. Although I consider sufism as the most refined and perfected mystical tradition in all religions, this necessary relationship is open to human error, especially in the danger of an interpersonal relationship that might turn to a narcissistic exploitation on the part of the teacher. No matter how learned and "enlightened" the teacher may be, as a human being he is volatile to say the least. Submission to any human being is swimming in dangerous waters and I believe psychoanalysis may serve in keeping unconscious motives at bay in both parties. Of course both will have to tweak many a knobs to agree to converge but hey in theory at least, many things are possible...

Then again, psychoanalysis at times can use the example of the pupil that asks a zen master whether or not the tao exists and the master whacks him hard with his walking stick.
The same way my dad once responded when I was telling him about Lacan's mirror stage: "..sometimes guys like this need a good slap to come back to earth!" (whacking motion with right hand accompanies).

There is...

2008-07-03T06:37:00.000-07:00

...madness in the air.
For a brief moment,
a waltzing scent of hospital spotlessness,
tinges the visitors with despair.

Waiting is for those who care,
Tubular insertions, jugular manipulations
and many other actions that trigger tremors under the skin,
cease to, in a day or so, to dig in.

There is something totalitarian about
hospitals and doctors that care,
one bars one's entrance to the underworld
although one might have in pocket the fare

...

Secularism and Religion - 2

2008-06-30T04:33:00.001-07:00

Another important point between the clash of Islam and Secularism in particular is that secularism rests on the Enlightenment ideals of Science and Reason, where the naming of "things" are the determining factors of our understanding and therefore domination of them. Underlying this idea is the claim that the universe is indeed graspable, comprehensible by man's reason. Islam, Sufism to be exact, on the other hand, claims that naming is important, because Adam was in the first place given the authority to name things in creation; not in order to dominate them or reduce them to things though, but because each name also includes in its essence the trace of God, and therefore each name is a variation of God's names. Thus very simply put, knowing the universe doesn't mean grasping it in parts but seeing that in each creature, there is an essence that will be forever unknown to man, which by the way, is a mystical doctrine that is very much at the heart of all mystical strains. In this sense, religious science aims at the revelation of the the godhood in everything, also implicating that all is sacred. When one considers today's environmental problems and how Man treats human nature, one can find all sorts of contemporary mystical writing from all religious thought, touching on the relocation of the sacred and how its absence leads to domination and anthropomorphic arrogance.

Secularism and Religion

2008-06-30T03:30:00.000-07:00

These days in Turkey one argument reigns supreme... It permeates every level of high/low culture and finds an expression from the most sophisticated to the most vulgar of mouths, transcending all boundaries of caste, color and creed. It is an argument that has been the scourge of this nation ever since it has been formed: The relationship between religion and secularism is the argument, and the gist stems from the simple, misguided and misinterpreted formula of how these two concepts are completely exclusionary, meaning you either have one or the other. You're either a secularist, or you're deeply religious. There seems to be no compromise between these two camps and although a huge majority feels left out in the debate, the argument rages on in the same vein. To some extent this is understandable and in the following lines, I'll try to elucidate why.
Secularism in this country has always been a western import, and bears the mark of an evolution of Christianity more than anything. It may look like the rise of secularism happens to the expense of Christianity, but the coming of secularism is, in my opinion, for a part, due to the historical changes that Christianity has undergone since its inception. I turn to Gianni Vattimo's collaborative work with Richard Rorty, The Future of Religion (ed. Santiago Zabala, CUP: NY, 2005) in which Vattimo (a Catholic Scholar by the way, not an atheist) claims that "secularization...is the constitutive trait of authentic religious experience." (35) Whoa! From where I stand (Turkey, Middle East, Islam), this argument is blatantly blasphemous. How can the exclusion of religious rules (Sharia) from the public sphere be in anyway connected to religious experience. According to Vattimo though, the western postmodern conception of textuality and historicity has rendered the understanding that Nietszche's call to God's death is similar to the death of Christ on the cross. In both instances, religion is primarily taken out of the hands of God, or a supreme authority and has been placed under human responsibility. God has been killed by the Church by usurping the religious experience from the people, and Christ has died in order for humans to take control of their religious destiny, to carry the responsibility of the Gospel that God has given to them. This responsibility for Vattimo, or the only transcendental signified the Scriptures have to offer, is the notion of charity and love. The practice of this responsibility can only occur in a secular public sphere where different interpretations on the same text(s) have to be in constant interchange without degenerating into a power struggle. For this, we need a religiousness that is non-metaphysical says Vattimo. That is, one that accepts that each text is historically significant in its mode of creation but not exclusionary of others when measured up to a metaphysical Truth.
Now this is all nice and well, and Vattimo, I believe, demonstrates a very reasonable and sophisticated branch of postmodern thought, without falling into the mish-mash of culturally relativistic US counterparts. But just like his insistence on the historicity of Scripture and religion, Vattimo demonstrates an interpretation of religious thought that is deeply rooted in the western metaphysical and philosophical tradition that is, alas, quite absent in Turkey. Here is the problem. Secularism in the western sense does strike an Islamic scholar as blasphemous since the Qur'an's ontological basis of being God's direct Word, delivered through Mohammad is unchallengeable to begin with. Therefore all may be text but the Qur'an is simply not just a text. The second point is that Islam stresses the importance of the meaning in re-ligio (to be re-united) more as a private matter than Christianity does. Every creature wishes to be re-united with the sacred Source it has sprung from so by default, this world serves as an intermediary stage, a stage where the flow is seemingly suspended for the creature to relocate the Source and reconnect to it (Bataille expresses this in a most succinct manner by claiming that "religion is the search for a lost intimacy"). Thus the public sphere is an impediment in a way, and it has to be re-organized so the search for the Source can be facilitated. One may ask whether the Islamic republics of our day are achieving it, and most of us will respond as no; however, that doesn't necessarily cancel out the efficacy of Sharia, as many Muslim scholars will claim that the perfect Islamic state hasn't arrived yet, in a way pointing to an utopian strain.
Thus, Turkey is seemingly at a divide that at the moment looks unbridgeable, however, just the fact that we live this divide in our daily life, shows that some sort of discussion is present and hopefully will lead to a compromise on two sides as time goes on. In my opinion, religion is useful in its preserving and delivering of tradition in the form of metaphors that may change over time but that do point to an inherent human understanding of its relationship with the whole, whatever that whole may be, thus has to be preserved in some form or another. Neither banning it nor letting it roam rampant in the hands of ecclesiastical authorities (!) is the only solution.

Houllebecq et moi

2008-06-12T13:05:00.000-07:00

Fransız yazar Houllebecq'in romanlarıyla bundan 6 sene evvel Les Particules Elementaires'le tanıştım ve romanı bitirene kadar elimden bırakmadım diyebilirim. O sene özellikle Fransa'da ama bütün Avrupa'da bir nevi itirafçı edebiyat diyebileceğim (Rousseau akla geliyor) bir yönde bir sürü ürün verildi. Aklımda kalan en önemlisi otobiyografik bir roman olan (nasıl oluyor denecek ama kadın yapmış işte) La Vie Sexuelle de Catherine M.
Öyle görünüyür ki Avrupa kültürel dünyası o sırada olgunluk ürünleri veren 68 kuşağından insanlarla doluydu ve bütün bu insanlar, zamanında cinsellikleri konusunda eyleme döktükleri samimiyeti şimdi de geriye dönüp bakmak için kullanıyorlardı. Hatıralar, maceralar okuyunca müthiş ama akabinde gelinen noktaya hiçbiri olumlu yaklaşamıyordu. Hepsi, eninde sonunda başta istemedikleri zengin, ailesiz ve yaşlı kimliklerine teker teker oturuyorlardı ama hiç olmazsa bununla yüzleşip hesaplaşacak ve gerektiğinde kendilerini yerebilecek kadar olgundular.
Houllebecq de böyle. Romanları tabii ki kurmaca ama ele alınan karakterler ve yaşayıp düşündükleri öylesine benzer ki, zeitgeist ı iyi yakalamış bir yazardan çok kendi dertlerine okuru ortak edyormuş hissi veriyor. Bunda yanlış birşey yok, aksine bence yeni bir edebi tarzın tohumlarını ekiyor belki de (Erje Ayden, Bukowski, Beatler vs. den etkilenmiş olabilir.) Houllebecq'in kendine, işine, toplumuna ve insanlara yabancılaşmış bireyleri paranın satın alabildiği veya zamanın onlara sunduğu bütün nimetlerden ölesiye yararlanıp sonra garip bir buruklukla kabuklarına çekilen tipler. Ama intihar edecek haysiyete de sahip değiller. Berbat addedikleri hayatı parayla renklendiriyorlar ama nafile (Burada da Martin Amis akla geliyor doğrusu ama H.'nin karakterleri daha basit daha insancıl)... Houllebecq'in hiç bahsetmediği Tanrı ve metafizik eksikliği, daha doğrusu inanç eksikliği sırıtıyor yokluklarıyla(bu tabii benim yorumum). Öte yandan Houllebecq'in insanlığın sefilliğine dair saptamaları o kadar doğru ve çağımıza uygun ki, okur, yine romanlarda yazılmasa da insan türünün aciz ve zavallılığı karşısında derin bir acıma ve sevgi uyandırmadan geçemiyor; zaten bu yüzden usta bir yazar Houllebecq. Özellikle AVrupa medeniyetinin her anlamda girdiği varoluşsal çıkmazı hiç entelektüelize etmeden müthiş bir şekilde açık ediyor. Seks bu yüzden sürekli gündemde, türümüzün hiç değişmeden kalan belki tek özelliğinden biri, ve hayatımızı yönlendiren temel aktörlerden biri libido. Libido ve onun insana etkileri, bir medeniyetin, tüm ilerleme zırvalarına rağmen hala aslında henüz fazla olgunlaşmamış insanoğuyla uğraştığını hatırlatıyor mütevazılığa bir çağrıyla (medeniyet, bastırma -repression- sayesinde gelişir der Freud)
Bu aşırı derecede kendini tekrar eden konu ve konuklar romanları değersiz kılmıyor ama itirafçı edebiyat dediğim tuhaf amorf bir alan sokuyor eserlerini. Motif diyemeyeceğimiz kadar sık kullandığı konu ve eylemler bir süre sonra H.'nin kendisine atf etmemi sağlıyor anlatılanları. Sanki karakterleri birleştir ortaya Michel çıkacak.
Şiirlerini okuyup aynı şeyleri orada gördüğüm zaman analizimden artık emin olduğumu düşündüm. Yanlış anlaşılmasın tekrarı yermiyorum sadece kurmaca olamayacak kadar sık tekrarlıyor kendini demek istiyorum. Bu da monotoni yaratan tekrardan farklı bir ontolojik boyut.

Bu da bizi H.'nin başarısının sebeplerine getiriyor:
1. Post-postmodern roman belki de böyle hızlı okunabilen (okur arttırır), bir çok ilgi uyandırıcı mevzuyu dahil edip tribünlere oynayan (seksin her türlüsü -erekte eden cinsten, uyuşturucu, rakınrol), ama self-help kitapları kadar da kendine psikanalizle uğraşan karakterlerle hem edebiyat hem de cep romanı tadında bir tür olarak oluşmakta belki de. Ölümcül uzunlukta sanatsal tasvirler yok, ama ufak, sessiz bir iki cümleyle veya tanımla bir anda verilen bir mesajın olduğunu ve üstelik bunun derinden verildiğini hissediyorsunuz; öte yandan, uzatılmış bir grup seks sahnesini okurken uyarılabiliyorsunuz. Yani edebi zevki almasını beceriyorsunuz bir de üstüne kırmızı noktalıymışçasına muzipçe okuyorsunuz kitaplarını...
2. H. aynı zamanda az bilinen rock starlığıyla tam günümüz medyasının bayılacağı bir kişilik, dolayısıyla pompalanıyor ve akabinde gerçekten satıyor. Benim düşüncem, aynı romandaki karakterleri gibi H. başarıyı buruk bir gülümsemeyle karşılayıp milyon eurolar dolmaya başlayınca da yaptırdığı bol odalı malikanesine kurulup devrimci geçmişinin kendisinde yarattığı sızıyı sakinleştiriciler ve alkolle geçirmeye çalışabilir iyice yaşlanınca. Ancak eğer edebiyat, yazarlarının nevrozlarını koşturduğu pistlerse belki de romanları sayesinde kafasındakilerden kurtulup karakterlerinin yapamadığını yapip Avrupa insanının kendini bulduğu kısır döngüden çıkacak. ne bileyim aslında uyduruyorum işte:)!

peki bu kısır döngü ne? Ya da H.'nin elinde nasıl gösteriliyor? Daha önce de belirttiğim gibi H.'nin romanları tam tanımlamıyor ama büyük etkenlerden biri Marx tarzı yabancılaşma (yine romanlarda adı konmasa da) Marx'ın tanımladığı yabancılaşmanın dört hali (başka yazı konusu) hep ama hep karakterlerin hayatında görülebilir. Çare komünist/sosyalist devrim mi? Houllebecq'in karakterleri 68 kuşağı devrimci pratiklerine rağmen turbo-kapitalist dünyamızın oluşumunu seyrederek gitgide politik anlamda, kötümser, çekingen ve apolitik olmuşlar zaten. Ya da güzel bir kadının vücudunu her tür devrime yeğleyecek insanlar.
Bir ikinci etken roman karakterlerinde hiç bir zaman olmayan inanç ve din faktörü. hatta kurumsal dinin içyüzünü öylesine iyi çözümlemiş ki... Islam'in yayılmasıyla ilgili bir-iki sayfası var ki, orijinalliği için olmasa da, sinikliği ve Swiftvari sarkazmiyla tadından yenmiyor. Metafizik ise ancak quantum fiziği seviyesinde ve tabii ki seküler bir düşünce yönelimi olarak kendine yer bulabiiyor sadece.
Çok sağlam bir yazar Houllebecq. İleride klasik olarak okunur mu bilmem ama yazarın çok ta umurunda olacağını sanmıyorum... şiddetle tavsiye ediyorum eserlerini.

p.s. adamımızın resimdeki hali ve elindeki sigaranın hali de cuk oturuyor romanlarındaki karakterlere...

I don't know if he will be read 200 years from now but he certainly rides the zeitgeist here and now!

2008-06-12T13:01:00.000-07:00

LES IMMATERIAUX

La présence subtile, interstitielle de Dieu
A disparu.
Nous flottons maintenant dans un espace désert
Et nos corps sont a nu.

Flottant, dans la froideur d’un parking de banlieue
En face du centre commercial
Nous orientons nos torses par des mouvements souples
Vers les couples du samedi matin
Chargés d’enfants, chargés d’efforts,
Et leurs enfants se disputent en hurlant des images de
Goldorak.

THE IMMATERIALS
The subtle and interstitial presence of the Lord
Has disappeared.
We now float in a deserted space
And our bodies are naked.

Floating, in the freeze of a suburban parking lot
Across the shopping mall
We guide our torsos in supple movements
Towards the Sunday morning couples
Loaded with children, laden with effort,
And their children fight, yelling scenes from
Goldorak.

- Michel Houllebecq (from La Poursuite de la Bonheur/The Pursuit of Happiness)
translated by m.e.
image: Goldorak

Where is the World Going To ?! :))

2008-05-19T04:43:00.000-07:00

Peter Thiel Makes Down Payment on Libertarian Ocean Colonies
From Wired News 19 / 05 / 2008
Tired of the United States and the other 190-odd nations on Earth?
If a small team of Silicon Valley millionaires get their way, in a few years, you could have a new option for global citizenship: A permanent, quasi-sovereign nation floating in international waters.
With a $500,000 donation from PayPal founder Peter Thiel, a Google engineer and a former Sun Microsystems programmer have launched The Seasteading Institute, an organization dedicated to creating experimental ocean communities "with diverse social, political, and legal systems."
"Decades from now, those looking back at the start of the century will understand that Seasteading was an obvious step towards encouraging the development of more efficient, practical public-sector models around the world," Thiel said in a statement.
It might sound like the setting for the videogame Bioshock, but the institute isn't playing around: It plans to splash a prototype into the San Francisco Bay within the next two years, the first step toward establishing deep-water city-states, or what it calls "seasteads" -- homesteads on the high seas.
Within the pantheon of would-be utopian communities, there's a particularly rich history of people trying to live outside the nation-state paradigm out in the ocean. The most ambitious was Marshall Savage's Aquarius Project, which aimed at nothing less than the colonization of the universe. There was also Las Vegas millionaire Michael Oliver's attempt to create a new island country, the Republic of Minerva, by dredging the shallow waters near Tonga. And the Freedom Ship was to be a mile-long portable country costing about $10 billion to construct.
None of these projects has succeeded, a fact that The Seasteading Institute's founders, Google's Patri Friedman and the semi-retired Wayne Gramlich, are keenly aware of throughout the 300-page book they've written about seasteading.
Instead of starting with a grand scheme worthy of a James Bond villain, the Institute is bringing an entrepreneurial, DIY mentality to creating oceanic city-states.
"There's a history of a lot of crazy people trying this sort of thing, and the idea is to do it in a way that's not crazy," said Joe Lonsdale, the institute's chairman and a principal at Clarium Capital Management, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund.
The seasteaders want to build their first prototype for a few million dollars, by scaling down and modifying an existing off-shore oil rig design known as a "spar platform."
In essence, the seastead would consist of a reinforced concrete tube with external ballasts at the bottom that could be filled with air or water to raise or lower the living platform on top.
The spar design helps offshore platforms better withstand the onslaught of powerful ocean waves by minimizing the amount of structure that is exposed to their energy.
"You have very little cross-sectional interaction with waves [with] the spar design," Gramlich said.
The primary living space, about 300 square feet per person, would be inside the tube, but the duo envisions the top platform holding buildings, gardens, solar panels, wind turbines and (of course) satellites for internet access.
To some extent, they believe the outfittings for the seastead will be dependent on the business model, say aquaculture or tourism, that will support it and the number of people aboard.
"We're not trying to pick the one strategy because we think there will be multiple people who want one for multiple reasons," Gramlich said.
Dan Donovan, a long-time spokesman for Dominion, an energy company that operated Gulf of Mexico-based gas rigs, including Devils Tower, the world's deepest spar structure, said the group's plan wasn't too far-fetched. His company's off-shore rigs, which are much larger than the institute's planned seasteads, provided long-term housing for its workers.
"They were sort of like mobile homes. We could move them from one place to another," Donovan said. "People did live on them."
But even the institute members admit that their plans aren't far enough along to stand up to rigorous engineering scrutiny. Some engineers, Gramlich said, have been skeptical of their plan, particularly their desire to do it on the cheap.
"We have some legitimate doubting Thomases out there," Gramlich said.
But if the idea turns out to be just crazy enough that it works, Friedman, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, envisions transforming the way that government functions.
"My dad and grandfather were happy arguing their ideas and were happy influencing people through the world of ideas," Friedman said. "I see a real need for people to go out and do something and show by example."
True to his libertarian leanings, Friedman looks at the situation in market terms: the institute's modular spar platforms, he argues, would allow for the creation of far cheaper new countries out on the high-seas, driving innovation.
"Government is an industry with a really high barrier to entry," he said. "You basically need to win an election or a revolution to try a new one. That's a ridiculous barrier to entry. And it's got enormous customer lock-in. People complain about their cellphone plans that are like two years, but think of the effort that it takes to change your citizenship."
Friedman estimates that it would cost a few hundred million dollars to build a seastead for a few thousand people. With costs that low, Friedman can see constellations of cities springing up, giving people a variety of governmental choices. If misguided policies arose, citizens could simply motor to a new nation.
"You can change your government without having to leave your house," he said.
Of course, one major role of government is to provide security, which would seem to be an issue on the open sea. But Friedman's not worried about defense beyond simple firearms because he thinks pirates will lack the financial incentive to attack the seasteads.
"More sophisticated pirates will take entire container ships that have tens of millions of dollars of cargo and 10 crew [members]," he said. "On a seastead, there's a much different crew-to-movable assets ratio."
In fact, his only worry is that a government will try to come calling and force their jurisdiction upon them. Toward that end, they are planning to fly a "flag of convenience" from a country that sells them, like Panama, to provide them with protection from national navies.
"If you're not flying a flag … any country can do whatever they want to you," he said.
Even if their big idea doesn't end up panning out, their story should live on in internet lore for confirming the dream that two guys with a blog and a love of Ayn Rand can land half a million dollars to pursue their dream, no matter how off-kilter or off-grid it might seem.
"Everything changed when we got the funding," Friedman said. "Before that, it was two guys with some ideas writing a book and blogging about their ideas.... Now that we've got some funding, it's something I plan to make a full-time job out of."

Today...

2008-05-01T11:50:00.000-07:00

I watched a few hundred policemen run down my street chasing maybe 150 young men and women, cowering from tear gas. Another usual day in Turkey? In this fascist police-state of ours, cops are nothing but a threat. I do not know a single person who trusts them. Most people don't go to them for help when necessary, as there is always a possibility they will charge you with something and you'll end up worse than when you came for them.
I am not for organized struggle... Maybe it's cowardice but crowds do not make me feel empowered or liberated. I try to stick to my political principles in my own sphere. With my daughter, my wife, my friends. I am not sure that the people in the crowds are practicing what they may be preaching, my choice is to try to do that in my daily life, hoping I may change things bit by very small bit.
However, there is no justification for what happened here today. No one should be chased down a street by robocops with shotguns. I am at a loss for words... Really.
I had the urge to document the whole thing by going out with a camera; then looked at my wife and child. They weren't pleased with my idea, needless to say. Especially not after we had to close the window to block the tear gas. Not sure what to do, I suddenly remembered a whole list of chores I had to do with state offices and grandparents, and knowing most people are staying at home, minding their business, I took this as an opportunity to handle stuff in an Istanbul without traffic.
Am I a coward? Perhaps, but when I saw my centenarian grandfather's face light up when I came to surprise him, I really wondered if I had paid some sort of dues to somewhere, I don't know where though... joy is so short lived and so infrequent in this world; it s a shame what we have created in the name of civilization. Or maybe Buddha and Schopenhauer and Jesus Christ were right. Maybe one has to recognize that all is suffering, in order to know non-suffering. Maybe when thinking of the suffering of the masses, one should look at a babies' face for momentary relief. Not for forgetting the former, but to re-kindle the hope that humans are, in the end, incredibly beautiful creatures, and can do beautiful things for the world. Like Bukowski, I can easily stay away from individual humans for days on end but am terribly in love with the race. Humans are hideously mesmerizing, like Kafka's giant bug. Disgust and awe in one. Desperation and hope at the same time. Sorrow and infinite love bundled in the same experience. One can go on with these binaries. Maybe the Tao is silent and noisy as well.
At moments like these I also like to daydream about my imaginary anarchist commune where money doesn't exist, where we are off the grid and self-sufficient, where all are truly equal and eventually I move to fantasies in having the farmers nearby our commune start trading with us without money and how we might spread a different understanding of life, bit by little bit. Not impossible I think, in fact more probable than overthrowing the state. Power corrupts, no matter who is involved with it. No masters no slaves, no representatives, i don't trust anyone who professes to help me through politics. As Jack Nicholson says to the Martians in Mars Attacks: "Why can't we all just get along?" Then ZAPPP!:)
Today's attack was no surprise to anyone. However, i think it really showed how the present administration is full of fools. Again, I'm sorry and feel shame.

Re: Control

2008-03-28T07:39:00.001-07:00

Recently I watched the film "Control" that narrates the life and suicide of Ian Curtis from Joy Division. Ultimately a tragic story, Curtis' depression, caused by multiple reasons some under his control and some not, was depicted so beautifully that I felt like screaming to the screen: "Can't somebody just give him some Prozac or some SSRI?" After all, they were pumping him with carbamazepine for his epilepsy, surely they could've heard the poor soul out... Finally as he committed suicide I was astounded to hear my friend comment on how selfish an act it was, how idiotic Ian Curtis had been. After all, he was leaving so many people behind... At first a sensible argument that can be brought in from many sides, I found this to be somewhat unemphatic, coming from my friend who was himself prescribed anti-depressants before for his depression. I wondered "why would many people regard another's internal pain with so much reference to the outside's welfare?" When you think about it, everyone always gets left behind some way or another. People come, people go. You come, you go; why do we not wonder more among us, after the suicide has happened, what was it that we DIDN'T DO, that could've helped him? Although most suicides don't place the blame on others, why is it that we are so eager to push the blame on the person who actually suffered and even go as far to play the victim (How could he do this to me?etc.)
why, when the matter is suicide along with metal illness are we so reluctant to stare at the patient with unsympathy? Anti-depressants's are last centuries wonder drug and they re prescribed to anyone who may feel slightly "blue" so there is a loss of credibility on the part of psychiatry, fair enough, however this doesn't make mental illness an un-reality. In fact viewing it this way, it is easy to dismiss illnesses of the mind as meagre caprices, but severe cases do exist and if anything, in their cure can we see the advantages of psychiatry. the stigma that comes along with mental illness doesn't really make things easier. As the patient stumbles deeper into "abnormality", the "normal" ones wallow in their acceptance by this hideously crooked establishment we call society. It is sad to see, even in pharmacies in Turkey, where a simple bandaid purchase is greeted with a "geçmiş olsun", the purchase of pshychiatric drugs are given to the customer with a silent sense of distaste. These two attitudes are exactly the same, and woe be to the utterer to really know the deepest pits of depression, mania, and psychosis. All this stems from the centuries' old cultural discourse of marginalizing the mad. Today, we see a new development in viewing these diseases. Not as an abnormal functioning of the brain but a sort of individually unique defense mechanism of some morbid "normality" the subject is asked to adjust to. In fact, to carry this theory even further, one would assume that the most psychopathic among us, are those who have no problems in blending in with what society offers. Needless to say, I guess most sensible people would rather not be "normalized" to, say, Hitler Germany. So, although it is easy to look down upon someone who suffers for no apparent external reason ("s/he should get on with life just like we do" for example), to do this with a view of the patient spreading misfortune and black bile to others as if it were a cancer cell in society that infects it, is equally damaging to society. For I shouldn't need to remind anyone, but progress in arts, sciences, religions are all laid out by the prodigious and prophetic madpeople of our world. It is the "normals" who usurp and degenerate their vision...

Freak-folk again

2008-03-24T14:03:00.000-07:00

This is just a note of appreciation for all the following musicians who have brought back my youth of singing and playing the guitar for long long nights, accompanied by great friends, candles, cheap beer & wine, but most of all, a hippie spirit that is (nowadays) individual though still providing such communal feelings of tenderness, unblemished love, a juvenile sense of rebellion toned down from actual action but able to place a smile on the face and a willingness to sing along. It is significant that for the most part these musicians start of doing everything by themselves. Locked in a cabin recording for days, etc. Contradictory in terms of their earlier inspirations but definitely fitting with the zeitgeist.
The quieter the better guys, roll on!!! : Iron & Wine, Tunng, Songs: Ohia, Ben Iver, Wilco, Caribou... Nick Drake must be happy in the grave! Thanks for taking/bringing me back/forward!!!

Saint Genet...

2008-03-21T02:00:00.000-07:00

...was what Sartre called Genet. His lop-sided but definitely un-hypocritical subversive morality and his almost religiously sticking with it surely were among the reasons for being called so. Am reading these days his magnum opus Journal du Voleur and have to say am bedazzled at the literary skill but also his daring candidness in reporting his delinquent escapades that have lasted for years in the streets, ports, cities of Europe: Barcelona, Anvers, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Krakow... He describes his instances of theft like pieces in an art exhibition, emblazoning the memorable moments of the act with pieces of introspection. Most importantly though, in my opinion, is Genet's descriptions of his many lovers. Now I am not gay and I sure don't get disgusted etc from reading about gays and St. Genet in this regard, I believe is the ultimate king. I do not think I have ever read instances of male homo-erotic behavior that resonate so well as timeless renderings of the erotic in the male of the species. Genet's lovers are not sublimated, or if they are, they are sublimated in the way sex is treated in his plays Les Negres, or Le Balcon , as an invitation to partake in an earthy power play. Furthermore his lovers take on descriptive beauty in the context of and through objects, settings and tiny details whose connections to beauty are so far removed than commodified ideas of love and eroticism that they take on the characteristics of an admirable yet uncanny expressionist painting. The wearing of a wrist watch and the twitch of a wrist, a wrinkle in the brow, the way a belt holds up a pair of trousers, the touch of a pair of eye lashes onto the lovers' neck, and the interminable instances of violence make up the erotic world of Genet. Genet loves domination though not in a purely masochistic way; when the possibility arises he is more than happy to take the position of top so to speak, and candidly reports his anomaly as just another instant in his sexuality, which is considered as ever-changing, although one thing is constant: his disgust of women. It is as if Genet's motif of theft is also present in his amorous liaisons. He wants to both be ravaged and have his identity stolen by the lover, just like he steals from others less powerful than he is. As he chases a lover of his devoted to him out of the room he closes his eyelids and tends to examining the myriad of shapes that appear on the black eyelids, completely forgetting the pain he might be causing just like he doesn't mind the pain that is caused to him by his mean lovers: It is the rule of the game, in fact that is what he expects from his lover. For Genet masculinity is almost always linked with the beauty of violence which is like an aura that resonates more strongly in his chosen lovers.
Thieving for objects, both inanimate and human, Genet seems to be touching on the remarkable role that objects have in our lives. How we might think we made them but in fact they re-make themselves by penetrating our worlds and make us something more than what we were without them.
Which brings us to the poem of the day:) This is Las Cosas by Jorge Luis Borges

El bastón, las monedas, el llavero,
La dócil cerradura, las tardías
Notas que no leerán los pocos días
Que me quedan, los naipes y el tablero,
Un libro y en sus páginas la ajada
Violeta, monumento de una tarde
Sin duda inolvidable y ya olvidada,
El rojo espejo occidental en que arde
Una ilusoria aurora. ¡Cuántas cosas,
Láminas, umbrales, atlas, copas, clavos,
Nos sirven como tácitos esclavos,
Ciegas y extrañamente sigilosas!
Durarán más allá de nuestro olvido;
No sabrán nunca que nos hemos ido.

Things
My cane, my pocketchange, this ring of keys
The obedient lock, the belated notes
The few days left to me will not find time
To read, the deck of cards, the tabletop,
A book and crushed in its pages the withered
Violet, monument to an afternoon
Undoubtedly unforgettable, now forgotten
The mirror in the west where a red sunrise
Blazes its illusion. How many things,
Files, doorsills, atlases,wine glasses, nails
Serve us like slaves who never say a word
Blind and so mysteriously reserved.
They will endure beyond our vanishing;
And they will never know that we have gone.

Translated by Stephen Kessler

What a Wonderful...

2008-03-17T13:33:00.000-07:00

...country we live in. It is the most beautiful and diverse land I have ever seen yet is scene to some of the weirdest instances of the political human. Our political life reminds one of a coffeehouse, or a zoo; however at the same time it displays the fragility of humanity and trains us to be less susceptible to the allure of suits and manners. The state exists for its own good which is disheartening when raising a family, however, this absent existence also gives us the thrill of being alive, by constantly bringing up new obstacles, generated spontaneously by humans placed in a lawful world where no law really works, as law is, by nature not like jelly, as it is here. With luck and street-wisdom you can be extremely rich in a very short time, but lose it all overnight as the stock markets crumbles, yet again, because some childlike adult representative throws something to another. It shows you that money rules supreme, yet also displays how huge numbers of humans can live, work, bring up families, with an amount of peanuts for money
It teaches you to despise disorder, only to find that once it's absent (say in a wonderfully ordered European town), disorder is what kept you groping for life. Without it you survive, but there always remains a sense of timelessness that un-safety and un-order brings, which is akin to what happens when one is happy. Lessons of life here are taught in contingent mysteries, and no one can guarantee what the next mystery will bring... Strange country... Really strange...

Comix and Today's Myths

2008-03-17T13:28:00.001-07:00

It seems to me that the comics form or the graphic novel as it is called is becoming more powerful by the day. There are several reasons for this, some of which I will highlight for my own use:
1. Graphic Novels swing between reading habits by never leaving the literary completely but also relying heavily on visual habits, therefore allowing more access to readers of literary or visually oriented alike. True, this at times makes comics more superficial in theme and story but there are exceptions that challenge this and will continue to do so as the form flourishes.
2. Comix are truly a collaborative effort which pulls together various individuals that are experts in their field, which creates a true synergy. Although these days, artists and writers do get to be more in the spotlight (a remnance of our romantic heritage. cf. The Author-Function, M. Foucault), none can deny that the wrong lettering or coloring can really ruin a reading experience. This collaborative effort renders each work an ongoing process whose outcome can never be fully determined, no matter what the editor plans. In this sense, it is spontaneous, non-hierachical, experimental, anarchistic and self-reflective.
3. Most importantly I believe, is that comix tap into a collective memory that our culture desperately tries to stifle, and that is the creation or revival of myths. I cannot go into a much-needed long definition of what I mean by myth due to space and time, however suffice it to say that I think myth in terms of Jung, Bachelard and Barthes. An analogy like this may also clarify. If myths are reflections of the human psyche, one which all of us indiscriminately partake in, then myth is timeless though it alters shape and challenges rational, materialistic thought through elements of magic, such as psychic projection, belief and archetypes. Nevertheless, comix release, through its octopus-like creation, archetypes into our narrative-driven minds, that have been used and re-used all through human history. The stories they tell are no longer pigeonholed as high art or low art as they transcend these categories and stimulate psychic imaginative powers to the point of making the reader believe in them. How many Spider-Man kids do you know who aren't enslaved by their hero? Do they really care if the story is good by today's literary standards.
Now you may say, well that is what good stories do, no matter what medium. However, aiming at a totally amorphous mass of readers, this medium, more than any, balances out the literary and visuals to form a whole set of signification that neither leaves it all for the readers imagination, nor does it stifle it with its own set of visual signs a la film. This requires longer and further study of course; this is just a preliminary expression of thought, however I feel there is something in this new medium that befits the age, that reflects it and more, has a power to transform its artistic and existential sensibilities, just like earlier forms that preceded it.
I have been an addict to comics ever since I learned to make sense of art and there has never been a house I have lived in which didn't have a shelf of comics. I used to sneak them in because my mom had had enough of me, or cut class (in primary school), go to a park and sit for hours, reading every line, every shadow, every speech bubble. What it left me, and leaves me with still, is a space in my mind (as bob marley said) where mythical humans or creatures do not have to live the dreary modern day-to-day reality we have created for ourselves, do not even have to go to the bathroom, in short a space of archaic feelings and joys that can be lived on end without restraint.

Nerd wha?! - from WIRED NEWS

2008-03-12T04:23:00.000-07:00

SXSW: Geeksta Rap Godfather's 5 Steps to Nerdcore Stardom

AUSTIN, Texas -- Nerdcore rapper wannabes, take notice. Damian Hess, better known among fans of the nerdy hip-hop subgenre as MC Frontalot, is here to school you.
The master MC (pictured above) was hanging out in Austin for South by Southwest to promote the release of Nerdcore Rising, a documentary following the godfather of the genre on his first national tour. Hess, who began rapping with friends during college, recorded his first songs as MC Frontalot nearly a decade ago.
"I called it nerdcore because I was performing for an audience of Boba Fett action figures," said Hess over dinner in Austin. "And I thought, how nerdy is this?"
Nerdcore hip-hop is shaped by geeky monikers (like Optimus Rhyme and MC Hawking) and lyrics embracing all aspects of geek culture like math skills, coding protocols and Star Wars. Not surprisingly, the underground music movement has inspired a cult following.
Want to be the next nerdcore rap superstar? Hess, aka Front, is here with five tips that will help you achieve your dreams of becoming a computer-science baller, a rhyme-spitting, algorithmic shot-caller.

Step 1: Embrace Your Inner Dorkdom
Avoid sports and those who understand sports. Cultivate instead a wide variety of intellectual pursuits, like ColecoVision. Pick your favorite Doctor Who doctor, your least favorite Trek captain and one issue of Heavy Metal to dog-ear during your post-adolescence. Be prepared to defend each of these choices in heated debate. You will waste your allowance on Marvel comic books, which is appropriate since this tip involves retconning yourself. You may, of course, skip this tip if you are already the product of a dorky childhood, or if time travel is impossible.

Step 2: Forget the People Who Dissed You Back in the Day
One day you will notice that you never really wanted to hang out with those jackasses anyway, and you will begin to feel pride over formerly shameful aspects of your character: your wealth of flawless Python quotes, your home-brewed Linux kernel, your persisting virginity. You are almost ready to rock a nerdcore track.

Step 3: Pick an Awesome Rap Name
You may want it to subtly communicate your geekishness. For reference: Kid Decoder, subtle; tEH 133t3st H4x0R 3v4RR, not subtle. Suggestion for a nerdcore lady rapper: Minnie Perl. You can have that one. Really, gratis.

Step 4: Get Ready to Rock a Nerdcore Track
Carefully choose a software multitracker, hardware D/A interface and starter microphone (Note: Those vended by Radio Shack do not rise to the level of "starter"). Learn to use these things through trial, error and the studious perusal of home-recording FAQs. Dedicate yourself to the mysterious art of beatsmithing, or just jack a drum break from your favorite old record. I use the term "record" only to be snotty; I mean MP3. Loop, repeat. Compose and record a vocal. Practice this until you are not entirely embarrassed by the result. Do not sidestep embarrassment by pretending that your song is meant to sound terrible for comic effect. Mix carefully and serve.

Step 5: Become a World-Famous Nerdcore Rap Star
I don’t have a well-developed tip for this one. I assume it just automatically happens.

Odd jobs that I like and would like to practice even if once

2008-03-08T18:08:00.000-08:00

Taxi driver
Barber
Pottery Artisan
Bookstore clerk who is paid to talk (thus sell) to customers
Librarian
Levi's sales staff (at age 12)
Amateur Scuba-Diver Fisher
Sailor for at least a year
Psychoanalyst/Psychotherapist
Professional Juggler
Freelance seminar preparer
Bed & Breakfast manager
Comic bookstore clerk
Astronaut
Carpenter
Field-happy anthropologist
Amusement Park manager
Illusionist/Magician
Individual think-tank for researchers (paid for ideas?)
Anarchist commune worker/citizen
Tea House owner (after 60-5)
Game & Comic book reviewer
Cocktail Bartender (again and again)

still to come i m sure...

2008-03-08T16:50:00.000-08:00

AREN’T YOU TOO YOUNG TO BE WRITING APHORISMS?

Hold soft the hammer
Lest you be the nail one day

Drink knowledge in gusts, into guts
As if stranded in a desert

Know that desires
Are there, not to be fulfilled
But enjoyed for the passion they ignite

Hope all you want
Though know it is for its own sake only

Follow not your heart
For the heart is deceitful
The heart is true the heart is chaste
Yet it recoils from its’ own shadow

Never give advice to your offspring
About wanting being real
Wanting doesn’t mean getting
And that you are also made of all else
And all else also have wants

The hare got cross with the mountain
But the mountain was unaware
(Turkish proverb)

No action is blessed
Lest it benefit someone else

Hope is no less an illusion than the world

Think of the visceral often
Scent of Man, tissue teeming
With a myriad of organisms
Marvel at the miracle of love.

9 March 2008

2008-03-04T01:23:00.000-08:00

Babies See Pure Color, but Adults Peer Through Prism of Language

By Brandon Keim March 03, 2008

When infant eyes absorb a world of virgin visions, colors are processed purely, in a pre-linguistic parts of the brain. As adults, colors are processed in the brain's language centers, refracted by the concepts we have for them.

How does that switch take place? And does it affect our subjective experience of color? Such tantalizing questions, their answers still unknown, are raised by this developmental shift in color categorization, described today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
To test the phenomenon, a team of British and English researchers asked adults and infants to focus on a briefly flashing target circle.
Sometimes the target appeared in the subjects' right visual fields -- roughly speaking, the right half of a person's field of vision, which is transmitted from the eyes to the brain's left hemisphere, where language processing also takes place. Sometimes the targets appeared in the left visual field, which connects to the pre-linguistic right hemisphere.
When asked to pick out a target against a similarly-colored background -- a more mentally demanding task than distinguishing between different colors -- infants performed better when the target appeared in their left visual fields. Adults, by contrast, had an easier time with targets in their right visual fields.
But might adults see colors differently? That seems plausible.
"As an adult, color categorization is influenced by linguistic categories. It differs as the language differs," said Kay, who is renowned for his studies on the ways that different cultures classify colors. He cited recent research on the ability of Russian speakers to detect shades of blue [pdf] that English speakers classify as a single color.
How does the switch to a language-bound perception of color take place?
"That's the $64,000 question," said Kay. "We have every reason to believe that learning a language has a lot to do with it -- but [as for] how that works, it's early."
Categorical perception of color is lateralized to the right hemisphere in infants, but to the left hemisphere in adults [PNAS]

2008-02-29T00:58:00.000-08:00

A LATE REQUIEM

When I look at you,
At your eyes that shine like newly-cleaned
Windowpanes,
Your poise lean and crisp
Almost rising above ground

Your unshattered fresh belief
in a colourful reliéf
echoing your preference in technicolor,
I think of my brother,
A life sliced too thin for his loaf,
Leaving behind too many unposed questions
His poise tall and lean
Always watching the clouds above

-cut to tall sweet grass thinly disguising the headwound-

When I think of him
A lazy student who “can but won’t” do,

I feel he was right
In making merry in the short time he had,
As if he from inside, in unconscious submission
Knew his fate of multiple doom.

So I look back at you,
Your efforts so sincere
Being naive as they are,
Nonetheless they
somehow assure me
of a long life ahead.
the possibility of death being
a sculpture you never liked
but never left behind...

The Revolution will not...

2008-02-27T05:50:00.000-08:00

There's a war going on in our country. Bodybags have begun to accumulate once again. I have financed this war for more than 10, my father, more than 20 years with the huge amounts cut from our paychecks in taxes. We've bought better weapons, planes, trains, tanks and the like. We watched our income be siphoned out at the tax ratio of a Scandinavian social welfare state, yet my daughter does not and will not have free health or education services. We've all financed so-called reform work for the last 25 years (GAP) in the region, and still we watch the same words from similar leaders' mouth coming out, as if they were ruminating discourse from years ago and just vomit it out when necessary. The worst is that the same discourse is gratuitously used by actual citizens, who take some sort of sadistic pleasure out of war. I try to sympathize with them but when I hear the charcoal-black slab of sentences that come out, I only get disgusted. A disgust that arouses pity, though with no intention to help or even converse. There's a sacrificial frenzy at the moment; metaphors of blood are on each corner. Yet we are fed the crimson flag hoisted up high, as if there still are clear-cut sides to this war
Never mind the revolution not being televised or serialized, the revolution, or any revolution will not happen until each citizen of a nation really has the means (finances? leisure? luxury?) to decide for themselves. WHO IS SPEAKING WHEN YOU OPEN YOUR MOUTH TO HATRED? TO WARMONGERING? TO BIAS? TO FUNDAMENTALISM OF ALL KIND? AND WHY DO YOU LET YOUR MOUTH RUN OFF? DOESN'T ANYONE THINK ABOUT THEIR SPEECH?
One reason is it's easier, and probably is less likely to give an ulcer. I know that but that is all I know...
One contrarian of all people in Turkey, a transsexual singer, just declared that if she were to have a son, that she would do everything to not have him go off to the war. An honest statement that probably comes out of mothers all over, daily. But Presto! The lynching process began. Now she will be sent to court. This is a typical case for Turkey. Our hundreds of columnists don't get into trouble (because most are for the war, and probably those who are against have far too many court cases to have the courage to handle yet another one.). Another singer (a woman ifyoucanbelieveit-I've long lost faith in a matriarchal world, these women have bigger balls than me) stood up, spouted the usual slogans handed by our leaders and added that if her son needed to die, so be it... HOW CAN YOU SAY THIS AND LOOK YOUR SON IN THE EYE WITH LOVE ,WOMAN? Necessity, self-defense etc. is one thing, volunteering to die is another. I mean in today's world, can anyone name a sacred cause for war? independence? wtf does that mean when the stock market carshes in the states we all lose? nationhood? what does that mean? unity? define please. Resources? How much of it will trickle into your paycheck do you think? Love of your country? Would you ask your girl/boyfriend to shoot herself for your love?
Sorry but my stomach is turning over, I have to go throw up.

We live in such a sick world that the ones who are the best adapted to it, who glide among the classes untouched, unscathed, and who continue to pursue the good life without noticing that it is to the expense of millions of people, are the most vicious psychopaths. If you're somewhat deranged, mentally unstable, and generally depressed due to the nastiness you see, cherish it, you're still human.

Freak-folk ya da Sürrealist Amerikan Köylüleri

2008-02-26T02:09:00.000-08:00

Amerika'da yeni peydah olduğu söylenen bir akım var: Freak-folk. Benim açımdan gitarın dinlenebilecek bir sertlikte seyretmesi ve idie rock müziğe beni geri döndürebilmesi kıstas oldu bu yeni akımla ilgilenmeme. Bazı temsilcileri şöyle: Calexico (Texas), Iron & Wine (South Carolina), CocoRosie (NY), Songs: Ohia (Ohio). Enstrümanların dizilişi ve kullanılışı amerikan folk müzisyenleriyle (Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon vs.) aynı ama "freak" diye tabir edilmelerini sağlayan, duruşları ve sözleri. Hoş ABD de freak tabir edilmek hem çok kolay hem çok zor. Georgia'da "freak" olmak kolaydır da NY'de mesela "freak" olabilmek CocoRosie'nin acaip şairaneliği ve cinsel yönelim/deneyim + sahne şovu vs. gibi ek gayretler gerektirir. Ancak bu gruplar arasında ortak nokta aranacaksa, tekinsiz bir içedönüklük ve sürrealizme varan tuhaflıkta sözler, temalar bulunabilir. Herhalükarda Bob Dylanların barış, sevgi, gelenek vs. gibi kaygılarından pek fazlasının olduğu söylenemez. Daha çok gotik münzeviler gibi takılıyorlar sanki. Neyse bana gitar dinletiyorlar ya...

SOMETIMES AN ASS IS JUST AN ASS!

2008-02-21T08:34:00.000-08:00

One of the things I really like about Turkey, is the understanding among the people that strained kindness is unnecessary. By strained kindness, I have in mind especially the myriad times I heard 'thank you' and 'excuse me' in the US and especially, because of its wider implications, the idea of political correctness. Daily discourse in the US is so widely regulated that one speaks in fear of causing offense, especially when identity politics are at stake. I can see the reasons for defining your identity, however, once the identity is socially accepted as a fact, the ongoing usage of a particular term actually turns onto itself and enables more pigeonholing than integration. Politics that were out for integration become separatist themselves. Bestowing so much meaning & importance on a word, I think has limiting consequences. Words should belong to us, not us to them; in the end we created them. Limiting your infinite being to some inadequate consensual description seems to me to be not only a waste of time and friendship but also is damaging to society as a whole where the once liberating differences become rigid categories and thus are used to usurp discursive power over other 'difference-bearers'.
In this sense, we all know that politicians use language in a vacuous way, where meaning sometimes can be disguised to the extent that what ends up coming out is a waste of concentration. I recall the speeches by Bush and Cheney, especially the one where Cheney speaks on account of WMD in Iraq (We know what we didn't know and so on). Somehow we take this for granted. We may laugh but in fact we just stomach it silently, chasing it to the realm of politics, which we should all take part in but since we're civilized, we make do with voting.
Coming back to Turkey, the recent discourse our PM is using is criticized to death as rude, crude and full of fury. I agree totally however, there is something to be said about revealing your true nature through words, without thinking of etiquette. From a larger perspective, it seems to me that Erdoğan frequently has in mind the expression I put in the title. That sometimes, an ass should be called an ass, and not a behind or buttocks etc. And since we all possess one, what in god's name difference does it make when you call it in a more polite way? You're talking about an 'impolite' body part in the first place!
In the same vein, I find Erdoğan's blasting ghetto-mouth as a funny twist in Turkish politics. As much as he is showing his true colors (hideous to you and I, they may be, but that is not the issue), he also is bringing the level of discourse 'down' therefore is setting an example to potential politicians who may break this uniformity that world politics have. How many of you really believe there is a person underneath those black suits and ties? Only socialists and communists break this taboo of dressing and most of us dismiss them as being unrealistic and such. However the buzz word difference can only really be in vogue if we actually see the true colors of our politicians and recognize their differences, albeit it may be from physical appearance at first.
Calling an ass an ass in full comfort and liberty, without causing offense is the point where humans interact with humans directly, without the intervention of power politics. I remember feeling elated when I was able to call my black (African) friends niggers and laugh about it together. They called me 'white-ass' back, which is- in skin color- true and there's nothing I can do about it. I was later promoted to a 'wigga' (white-nigger) which made me even more happy, but hey, I'm not going to go around telling black folk that 'I understand your struggle' (like many white folk do, in a patronizing manner I believe) and such, because I truly can't; my experience in life is different. But I can sympathize and try to understand, as long as I am provided with an entrance to their discourse. Barring me from using your words, is not going to make me appreciate you. Letting me use them provides a lesson in tolerance
Also, like a great friend of mine said once, 'küfür ruhun yelpazesidir' : 'Cursing is a fan for the soul'
So yes, words carry power, yes we have to think twice before saying anything, but sometimes an ass really is an ass, and nothing more.

"Doğaya Dönüş" hadisesi...

2008-02-20T03:33:00.000-08:00

Hepimiz artık şu küresel ısınma mevzuundan yeterince haberdarızdır. Garip olan bir anda Al Gore'la başlayan, tüm zengin sınıfları ve anamal sahiplerini etkisi altına alan "haydi bu düzeni durduralım" vari çırpınışların ortaya çıkması. Kesin bir iş var burada diyordum ki bir anda Le Monde Diplomatique'ın Şubat sayısında bir makale yardımıma yetişti. Mevzu Fransa'da ki kayak merkezlerinin küresel ısınma sonucu karsız kalması, sonra da mevcut müşterinin daha ucuz olan Avusturya veya Bulgaristan'da ki kayak merkezlerine kayması.Görünen o ki, küresel ısınmadan yakınan zengin kesimin derdi başka: yani her zamanki gibi, kar marjı! Aman boş kalmasın merkezler, aman zenginler başka yere gitmesin kayağa!
Küresel Isınmadan nemalanan -dolaylı ve söylemsel yoldan- bir başka kesim daha var dünyada, o da Renaud'nun deyimiyle BoBo'lar, yani "Bohem Burjuvalar". Bizde neye tekabül ediyorlar derseniz, herhalde en yakını "cihangir cumhuriyeti" denilen oluşum. Dertleri nedir ve nasıl dile getirilir?
1. "Abi bıktım ben bu pistanbul'dan, şöyle alacaksın bir arsa güneyden, çek kayığını da oooh!"
2. "Şehir hayatı kasıyor abi, doğadan koptukça insanlıktan çıktık, hadi geri gidek!"
3. "Şehir hayatı doğal değil, kır hayatı doğal!"

Bu süregiden doğaya dönüş muhabbeti bana acaip ikiyüzlü geliyor. Neden?
1. Şehri pisleten senden gayrı tipler değil ki! Hepimiz bir olup pisletiyoruz. İnsan çöp ve dışkı üreten varlıktır. Bunu değiştirmeye çalışmadan ister fizan'a kaç, pislik seni bulur. Daha biz "geri dönüşüm" ün ne olduğunu yeni anlıyoruz yahu!
2. Şehirle kır arasındaki kurulan bu "doğa" anlayışındaki zıtlığın kökleri 18. yy Romantiklerinden çıkma doğa tasvirlerine gidiyor. Yani bu romantize edilmiş, şairane bir duyarlığın göstergesi sayılan doğa sevgisi, gerçek anlamda doğayı değil, insanın kendi yüceltmesi (süblimasyon) sonucu oluşturduğu bir figüre gönderme yapıyor. Bir düşünün doğa dediğinizde pastoral manzaralar, saçlarda uçuşan doğalına dönmüş saçlar ve serbestçe koşturan bin türlü hayvanat geliyor mu, gelmiyor mu? Peki bu mudur doğa denilen ya da gidilecek olan?
3. Yine aynı zıtlığı bir de şöyle açalım: Şehirde tükettiğiniz elektrik, su, doğal gaz, kırda da tükenmeyecek mi? Tüketilecek, üstüne üstlük belki de daha fazlası tüketilecek, zira şehirde yaratılmış düzeni doğaya uydurmaya çalışırken (zira kabul edelim, pek azımız hakkıyla bir Manisa Tarzanı olarak yaşayabiliriz) şehirde tükettiğimizden daha da fazla benzin ve elektrik tüketeceğiz. Misal bir süpermarkete şehirde yürüyerek ulaşıyoruz, halbuki kırsalda mesafeler daha uzun, dolayısıyla araba daha da önem kazanıyor. Bir de şehirdeyken taksitle aldığınız plazma tv yi almayacak mısınız yanınıza? Alacaksınız tabii, hem de bilgisayar, playstation vd elektronik malzemeyle...
Sonra ne oldu? hadi döndük doğaya... Bir de ıslık çal koyunlara da tam olsun!

jujustan

2006-08-05T03:09:00.000-07:00

MY HEART LEAPS UP WHEN I BEHOLD My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

jujustan

2006-08-03T00:51:00.000-07:00

jujustan

Bebeğim doğdu, kendisi özgür ruhunu her fırsatta bize göstermeye niyetli. İnsan olmak için bu kadar gayret gösteren bir bebek daha görmedim. Daha iki haftalık ama elleri sürekli birşeyler arıyor, esniyor, geriniyor, ayaklarını ittiriyor, çekiyor, sanki spor yapıyor. Yüzü bin türlü değişik şekil alıyor, öyle ki her yaştan insana benzeyebiliyor. Nasıl bir tohum içinde bir ağacı ve bin türlü yaprağı barındırıyorsa, bu bebekte olabilecek yüzbinlerce değişik insan çehresini barındırıyor sanki. Ve şu an hepsini özgürce deneme zamanı (ya da bilinçsizce kaslarını oynatma zamanı). Hangisinin yüzüne oturacağını bekleyip göreceğiz. Geliş koşullarını düşündükçe, kendisinin bu işe niyetlendiğini, herşeyi onun ayarladığını ve tıkır tıkır işleyen bir doğumu da onun sayesinde yaşadığımızı hissediyorum. O derin buğulu mavi gözlerine baktığımda da önceki cümledeki deli saçması gibi görünen önermelerin hepsinin doğru olduğunu bir kez daha anlıyorum. Biz sana kontrol edemediğin o kaslarını kullanmada yardımcı olacağız sevgili Susum, sen de bize unuttuğumuz, unutturulduğumuz o saf sevginin hüküm sürdüğü diyardan bilgelik getireceksin.

gençlerin cinsi hezeyanları üzerine...

2005-06-25T05:17:00.000-07:00

bu da başımıza gelecekti demek...
sinemaların haftaiçi erken seanslarını ziyaret etmek uzun zamandır düşündüğüm birşeydi. bu saatlerde gelen insanların ilginç hayali durumlara beni sevketmesinin yanı sıra, bizim hanımın "kapalı alanlar ve egzibisyonizm" adlı doktora tezinin alan çalışmalarının hiç olmazsa öznel deneyim tarafını aradan çıkarmayı umuyorduk. salonda kimsecikler yoktu, yaşlı iki bayan, bir-iki çocuktan ibaretti. filmin bol gürültülü olması işimize gelecekti. en arka sıraya oturmaya davranacakken, makinistin dev camdan bizi görebileceğini bizim hanımın hatırlatmasıyla, bir alt sırada sağcanak koltuklara oturduk. tam yalnızlığını tadını çıkaracağımıza dair öngörülerde bulunuyorduk ki arka sıraya, tam da bizim vazgeçtiğimiz yere, gencecik şuh giyinmiş bir hanımkız, yanında kısa boylu, zakariyas modeli saçlı bir delikanlıyla oturdu. kötü talihimize lanetler okuyarak, dikkatimizi filme yönelttik.
filmin ikinci yarısının ortaların doğru yukarıdan koluma birşey damladığını hissettim. hanıma sordum, pek oralı olmadı. klima suyudur diye konuyu kendimce kapattım.
çıkışta kolumun üzerindeki lekeyi farketmem için bol ışıltılı bir yere oturmamız gerekti. hanıma bu kez, kendimin cevabından emin olduğum soruyu sordum:
-bu ne?
hanım dikkatle baktı, biraz dokundu, kıvamını hissedince,
-sümük, dedi.
ancak yanılıyordu.
koluma damlamış olan kıvamlı köpüksü maddenin zakariyas modeli daçlı delikanlının ersuyu olduğundan yüzdeyüz emindim. ani bir tiksintiyle kalktım.
hanım gülüyordu:
-bu sana bir mesaj olmasın bey? dedi.
bir cevap vermeden lavaboya yollandım. yolda, "boynuz kulağı geçermiş" diye düşünüyor, delikanlının locistik başarısına gıpta etmekten kendimi alamıyordum. hanımın doktora tezi böylesine bir şahitlikle mutlaka zenginleşecekti.

climbing up the walls...

2005-06-06T02:01:00.000-07:00

the kids are climbing up the walls... full proof that what we are doing may be somewhat unnatural...sadistic thoughts of leashes given out at the school gates...taking them out on a field trip to a faraway island and leaving them there...let the lord of the flies decide who stays and who comes back...and until then, we sit by the pool siping our cocktails, chirping birds on the branches above us covering us in a sleepy, melodic breeze streaming through the leaves, cushioning the sunlight.

morning rituals

2005-05-31T22:42:00.000-07:00

morning rituals, as long as one has woken up in full health and ample slumber, are essential for the rest of the day. after years of black coffee usage in the mornings, this morning I have reverted to tea. infused while I was in the shower, tea turned out to be a very smooth and relaxing alternative to the spiky, strong taste of coffee. with a lump of sugar please dahling, it helps me wake up y'know...

sin city

2005-05-16T05:34:00.000-07:00

dün sin city yi seyrettik aylin le. Aşırı karanlık ama bir o kadar da etkileyiciydi. Sanırım şimdiye kadar seyrettiğimiz en iyi çizgi roman uyarlamasıydı. Uyarlama aslında yanlış sözcük. Çizgi-film ya da Sine-roman ya da sine-çizgi tabiri uygun gelebilir. bruce willis in karanlık fon üzerinde sürekli hareket eden beyaz kravatı müthişti. Yapan yapıyor kardeşim.

Bir önceki blog a ek...

2005-05-15T22:41:00.000-07:00

Ballard'ın 1982 tarihli kehanetine bir de William Gibson'un aynı tarihte çıkan Neuromancer'ı da eklenebilir. O da ilk kez the net, matrix, cyberspace gibi kavramları kullanmak suretiyle, De Vigny'nin Chatterton adlı oyununda, lanetli şair Chatterton'a söylettiği "şairler, medeniyet denizinde, insanlık gemisinin rotasını yıldızlara bakarak çizen insandır" repliğini doğrular.

Değişen Türkiye filan...

2005-05-15T22:21:00.000-07:00

Dün sayfası bol pazar gazetelerini karıştırırken gözüme her iki sayfada beliren şehir dışı kapalı devre yerleşke ilanları çarptı, country life, healthy life, bilmemne country tarzı isimleri olan bu kentçikler bana J.G. Ballard'ın 1982'de yazdığı Running Wild isimli kısa polisiye hikayesini hatırlattı. Hikayede, Londra'nın dışa kapalı, bekçili, yürüyüş patikalı vs. uydukentlerinden birinde, bir sabah bütün yetişkinler birbirinden hunharca, ama bir o kadar da şaşırtıcı şekillerde öldürülmüş bulunuyor; bütün çocuklar da kayıp... Kitap boyu süren araştırmanın sonunda bütün yetişkinlerin, kendi çocukları tarafında öldürülmüş olduğu anlaşılıyor. Bir nevi Sineklerin Tanrısı durumu. Tek farkı, ıssız ada yerine ıssız bir uydukent, ıssızlık da, çocukların kendi kendilerine yaşadıkları bir tür ruh üşümesi... Dışarıdan yalıtılmış bir hayat içerisinde çocuklar kendi doğruları ve yanlışlarını oluşturuyorlar, kendilerine uygun görülen bu yaşamın cezasını ebeveynlerine çıkartıyorlar. Ya da dış dünyayla karşılaştırabildikleri tek toplumsal ölçütleri olan televizyondan, şiddete dayalı bir dünya tanıyıp, bir klanlaşma içgüdüsüyle, bütün rakipleri yokedip, kendi bağımsızlıklarını ilan etmeye vardırıyorlar. her ne olursa olsun (ki Ballard'ın yaptığı yorum neydi hatırlamıyorum) hayatında belediye otobüsüne binmemiş bir sürü gencin olması övünülecek birşey mi bilmiyorum...

end of the year surprise

2005-05-15T22:07:00.000-07:00

So it's the end of the year. So I thought I wouldn't have to get acquainted with new students. Well, I think again, I take over two classes. The sun smiles at me from my office window. Teenagers spill out spring pheromones and chirpy noises along with it. All is well with the world.