That Warm, Fuzzy Feeling

Tents to the Sky

2011-07-14T15:11:00.002+03:00

tents to the sky, originally uploaded by Alara.

It's time to move to a different place and time, a place where you are your only anchor in a sea, a festival of swarming, laughing people.

These "people with laughter in their eyes" (a great observation by Hornby), who are they?
Perhaps they are the people you have disregarded and dismissed as one-dimensional on a daily basis as you bitterly pat yourself on the back for the troubles you proudly carry in your busy modern life, but also those whom you've secretly admired for the their simple take on being in that very elusive thing - 'the flow'. An envious admiration stemming for your own yearning for a simple slice of life where location, time and money are not mutually exclusive but mutually, purposefully poised together as you go on about the business of becoming one-dimensional yourself. As it is when planning a vacation, planning a state of being.

The state of being on vacation is not dissimilar to that of being in an airport, or of travelling on an airplane, finding perspective in motion from your sea. In the case of a vacation, it's a chosen chance to climb up or down somewhere your usual burden of daily worries just can't. For some it's a chance to restore, for some it's to renew, sometimes to re-create an instance of yourself that you liked better. A transition from being extremely conscious of one's self, watching yourself from the outside as you travel, as the further you get, the sounds dying out, watching yourself from a navsat system in your mind, aware of how far you have travelled until you are just being, there. Staring at your tanned feet in the evening, lying in the sea and pulling water through the pale insides of your hands. Letting your hair knot with salt, the only worries being what to eat and when.
And though it may seem quite the polar opposite of being on-guard at a bustling festival, behind the scenes, it is not that dissimilar in terms of place and circumstances. A festival being another place that has its own timezone, a contained set of conditions. So this year, while I'm surrounded by the swarm of the shiny happy audience people, making my way through and around them, I will take stock of my own contained life behind the scenes, a different chance to reset and breathe on festival time.

It's time to relocate, adjust, and experience.

My Inner Child Wears a Tie

2011-04-06T01:20:00.008+03:00

Having been working steadily now for a few years, post-college and after deciding not to uproot myself to Chicago for another year of Master's escapism, I found myself thinking about procedures, regulations, and school recently. Or rather, the strange things that did not ever seem strange then. In particular, the rules that governed daily life, that laid the groundwork to naturally abide by the status quo of any assimilation, that were most profoundly established in elementary school.

I went to elementary school here in Istanbul for the most part and was lucky to have been able to attend a private school, the largest advantage being smaller classes and an ideal teacher-student ratio. Most public schools across Turkey adopt and maintain a very basic unform system which consists of a frock and collar over plain clothes. At the time when I arrived back in Turkey, right around the second half of 2nd grade, the transition at my school to "full uniform" had begun.

Full uniform meant a wool pleated skirt, white socks, black shoes, a grandfather-style sweater vest, matching cardigan, white shirt (sometimes with stripes that matched school colors), and... a tie. A white collar type tie, completed
with diagonal yellow-and-black lines. Yes, at age eight, myself and many others began wearing a tie regularly every morning. I'd pop a Flintstones vitamin, locate my favourite smelly eraser, then meticulously clip on my tie before leaving the house. Even though it was a clip on, there was such acceptance in the ceremony of putting it on, not even questioning why we were wearing something so corporate at such an early age. My elementary school in Istanbul did not provide us with lockers, so every morning we would get on the bus with approximately 8 kg worth of textbooks and notepads. At the beginning of each school year, we would wrap our textbooks in wrapping paper, like gifts to ourselves. Except there was no celebration in this meaningless ritual. We were at the mercy of what our parent(s) had picked out or worse yet what had been left at home from a previous birthday or other present-involving household event. The lucky ones got the expensive neon self-adhesive kind, while the worse was ending up with thin, easily torn metallic scrunch paper. When I think about it now, I understand that this was either to preserve the books (which we all bought, not property of the school) or somehow deem them more exciting and colorful to us. We then, tie properly in place, had to label each one as we could no longer judge them by their actual covers. And this act usually required The Red Pencil. The red pencil was the ruler of all written work, the headline maker, the margin drawer, the corrector and marker of right's and wrong's. It was exceptionally hard to wield, with its thick sluggish grooves and the impossibility of erasing its marks, though many of us discovered that mixing it with water created a whole other world of fun (fake lipstick or bloodmarks). The red pencil was also the star of a class I can only translate as "beautiful writing class", which would only be recorded on a specially sold "beautiful writing notebook", with lines for different cases and slants to perfect our scrawls. Our "beautiful writing" teacher also happened to teach art class, for which we of course had a a separate carrying case to hold an A3-sized sketch pad and oil markers. The case, made of cardboard-like plastic, would bend out of shape easily, so we would cover it in stickers, carrying it with great concentration not to scrape it against a wall in our ties and sweater vests. At birthday parties the second most exciting thing after the possibility of chocolate cake was the anticipation of all of us revealing our 'true selves' in 'everyday clothes' which were so very carefully planned.

The tradition of flaunting who we 'really were' when off-duty continued throughout high-school and still does, now, outside of our full-time jobs. As the rules and regulations and procedures have evolved from clip-on ties and specially appointed pencils graduated to blazers and company-wide email policies, desktop wallpapers and phone backgrounds hint at what we really are like, on display for discovery. And so we tweak our facebooks and twitters and tumblrs with things untouchable by daily rules, regulations, procedures, to reflect our inner selves, this too becoming a procedure in itself.

Persona

2011-01-18T00:34:00.004+02:00

oh no, originally uploaded by Alara.

I haven't been writing much lately because it's been taking a bit longer to digest all and find something so inspiring that it warrants a longer entry than a 140-character tweet or a semi-paragraph wall post. But I've been sitting on an issue for a while, letting it stew a bit, and like all other things on this blog, it's not necessarily a complete idea but rather grounded on feeling.

A while ago (certainly a shorter while than since I last wrote here, but still perhaps a light year in terms of internet time) Viralp posted about "first and second generation" internet and social media users. To paraphrase, the entry shone a light on the rift dividing the two generations --- Gen 1s were essentially geeks and early adopters of their times, not necessarily social but definitely into new media and taking it all in with hardly any room to breathe, while Gen 2s were born into a space where digital and analogue live in tailored harmony, and they use social media outlets because they are social in real life. And now Gen 1's a little bit tired, a bit burnt out, of being on every new thing all the time. Because that's just impossible; we followed every little development and then the learning curve just exploded into a gazillion little bits and the more choices we had, the more spliced our "lifestreams" became. I have now identified myself as 'Gen 1', because after email accounts on just about every platform available then (angelfire, hotmail, yahoo, mail.com, all after netscape of course) I had a Friendster account before Facebook, and you could see friends of friends of friends' pictures by default, and when I joined Facebook it was 2004 and we had to wait for our school admin office to verify we studied where we did, because I joined yonja and orkut for about 5 minutes, because I have about 6 deserted blogs on Blogger, because I also had a livejournal, and I had briefly joined the square, still haven't quite figured out rss feeds, and I don't exactly recall the moment when I got fed up of keeping track of it all and dropped my ICQ, msn messenger and AIM accounts, respectively. For image sharing we had tripod, shutterfly, picasa, kodak's sharing site; Flickr stuck on.

Cut to 2010, nay, 2011: only 1.5 of my close friends are on friendfeed, 3 tweet regularly -and they're quite sociable beings- while the vast majority prefer FB because a) it's visually comfortable/relatively stable b)you can exist with fewer updates and still remain relevant on the feed. It's kind of like a museum that needs minimum housekeeping, and only what you really want goes in there.

Now, if Facebook is Gen 1's low-maintenance museum, it's certainly the hip new gallery downtown for Gen 2. Twitter is the new text message, friendfeed is the daily swarm. Viralp believes that Gen 2's 'social inside' plug-and-play ways could bring about a more transparent, do-good honest world in real time results.I'm not so sure, but perhaps that's because I'm a cynical Gen 1. I see a lot of Gen 2'ers who are different from Gen 1 in real-life matters in more honest ways -- more clearly stating their needs, not afraid to criticize, generally more expressive, as they are with comments and conversing/collaborating/debating online. On the other hand, I also sense those being forced to be social and sharing every minute, where one stated that they didn't feel they existed if 2 days had gone by without a tweet or a status update. Perhaps they are less reserved about what they share, but it is calculated, in that they are growing up in a frenzy to conform to what everyone is "like"ing or to put something totally new out there to stand out. Yes, the budding Gen 2's are out there, riding the wave of cutting and pasting and expressing as fast as they can read/see/hear, react and type, turning hierarchies upside down with glee **. But I'm not necessarily sure if they're having enough time to think about who they are while they are busy with the construct of their semi-curated online selves. If more transparent space will create an army of ideal personas instead of real personalities. Or if "I" will have the same meaning 20 years later.

Cut to“I AM WHAT I AM.”, as said by Reebok and more importantly, in relation to managing our online state , quoted directly from The Invisible Committee:
"Never has domination found a more above-suspicion slogan.
The maintenance of an “I” that’s in a permanent state of semi-disrepair, in a chronic
state of semi-failure, is the best kept secret of the present order of things. The
weak, depressed, self-critical, virtual “I” is essentially the indefinitely adaptable
subject that requires a production based on innovation, the accelerated
obsolescence of technologies, the constant upheaval of social norms, and
generalized flexibility. At the same time the most voracious consumer, and,
paradoxically, the most productive “I,” it will throw itself with the most energy and
avidity into the slightest project, only to come back later to the embryonic state it
started from.
“WHAT AM I,” then? Washed since childhood in the waves: milk, smells, stories,
sounds, emotions, nursery rhymes, substances, gestures, ideas, impressions, looks,
songs, and foods. What am I? I’m totally tied to places, sufferings, ancestors,
friends, loves, events, languages, memories, all kinds of things that obviously are
not me. Everything that attaches me to the world, all the links that comprise me, all
the forces that populate me – they don’t weave an identity, though I am encouraged
to wield one, but an existence: singular, common, living, and from which emerges -
in places, at certain moments - that being that says “I.” Our feeling of inconsistency
is only the effect of this foolish belief in the permanence of the “I,” and the very slight
concern we give to what makes us."*

The online "I", to those connecting the dots from the outside, are events attended, places checked into, videos posted, entries and links and clouds; plenty available to those who have the means. The internet was supposed to be about democracy of spirit, but some issues keep bouncing back. Namely, technological determinism reigns on: if you don't have the device it's too easy to get left out of the conversation (no iPad -- you have to go watch the video of the application... no iPhone or easy-status-update device, wait till you get to your computer or wifi zone, by the time you do, you'll have missed half a day's worth of timelines and probably the picture that goes along with your story.)

I'm hoping that the new generations do collaborate for something simpler, better, cleaner, fairer, but that they do it because it's what they want, not because of etiquette to only do good and interesting in the glass bowl that is the web. To not just be documentary makers of themselves.

My next post will probably be about preserving and archiving the personal online trail.
But here's something warm and fuzzy to end this for now...

*from The Coming Insurrection, The Invisible Committee
**Further reading: The Pirate's Dilemma, Matt Mason

Waiting to Pop

2010-09-28T19:13:00.024+03:00

intimate gestures from Arcade Fire, Visionaire and Cadbury Nibbles

Almost a year ago I wrote a piece for Skylife Business (Turkish Airlines' Business Class magazine featuring tons of topics from travel to taking care of your books) on Pop-Up stores and why it is that that kind of exclusivity is/was the new luxury. You can read it if you scroll down to the bottom of this post. Cadbury Nibbles' digital pop-up event didn't have enough time to make it into the article then.

I had ended the piece on the note of not necessarily high-priced items available for short periods of time but with something about street food, and the high note of thrill hunting.
So while pop-up stores have perhaps evolved out of the load-in and load-out box concept, the basic idea has run amok across many fronts (luxe living-design-art hub Visionaire's boxed issue 55 included a "surprise" themed set) including that most coveted small window of all -- the live music event. Most notably, Arcade Fire have been on trend with "surprise" and/or "secret" appearance while fueling the hype from their new album all over the place since midsummer.

So while exclusive evolves into authentic and then intimate, maybe waiting and pursuing have become coveted virtues again in the post-digital age, as feelings that we have lost in our impatient gratification.

"Spontaneous Splendor: The Pop-Up Store Evolves"
originally published in Skylife Business magazine, December 2009

Strolling down a so-familiar-you-could-program-a-GPS-code neighborhood, you are confronted by a splash of color on plexiglass,or a cool glow beckons you from a daintily lit tent, or perhaps suddenly there’s a decked-out industrial container in the usually empty lot. Is it here for only two nights or two months?
You’ve chanced upon a pop-up store, the term for temporary spaces that are familiarly branded and diversely curated, offering exclusivity and accessibility at once. And then they’re gone.
It’s nearly been a decade since the first pop-up appeared and despite its ephemeral nature, the trend is stronger than ever. A quick boost for business in the recent downturn, pop-ups are
a new source of refinement for shoppers: with over-cautious planning and the abundance of information leaving us with wanderlust on the one hand, the longing to see uncertainty in a good light on the other, carefully curated limited-time boutiques may offer a genuine gateway to exclusivity.

Pop-Up Luxury
As we strive for unique self-curation, shops have also evolved in a world where everything is too available. The first pop-ups, coined so by long-term flexible retailer Vacant’s founder Russ Miller, took form as pockets for mass staples like Levi’s, Nike, the GAP, even eBay. More niche, arts-music-accessories and high-design collaborative efforts followed. With the need to have “it” here and now, pop-ups have evolved to prompt us to seek out the new while curbing our exclusivity appetite.

It’s no longer about niche,but full-on chic. Chanel, Fendi, YSL, Prada, Proenza Schouler and Azzaro are just a few upscale names who have embraced the trend, putting their most
coveted items on a pedestal in similarly coveted locations. Last summer, Hamptons beach-goers got a surprise stacked-orange dose of Hermés with special beach-wear as well as a one-off
“price available upon request” leather saddle, among classic accessory pieces.
While the pop-up brings refreshed renditions, a visit can often be of the more sensory variety. Chanel’s temporary boutique in 2008, housed in a plexiglass pod by Zaha Hadid in NYC, featured giant crawl-in versions of such icons as the quilted purse. Yves Saint Laurent’s Edition Unisex debuted at its temporary boutique in New York last winter on Great Jones Street, the
raw space framing Stefano Pilati’s Le Smoking-inspired tuxes and fragile cardigans.With most of these happenings now behind us, there’s no need to fret as some are going a bit more steady, say for a year, like at Comme des Garçons, which has spearheaded the guerilla designer collaboration movement with grace. You may have caught a conceptual smorgasbord when their first guerilla boutique sprouted like a blade of grass through concrete fiveyears ago in East Berlin, or later in Barcelona, Singapore, Reykjavik, or at a former greengrocer’s in Warsaw, among others. The brand’s collaboration with Louis Vuitton at Tokyo’s new Dover Street Market project recently met shoppers with coolly customized LV totes by Rei Kawakubo. The boutique concepts are the epitome of one-off communion– if you’re quick, you may grab a rare-print pair of Visvim topsiders or limited t-shirts during the current “Vogue Nippon x CDG” run. Just aglimpse of the custom mannequins (by Karl Lagerfeld) may be worth the visit.
Sometimes, it’s not even about buying but the pure privilege of saying “I was there”, and having a real-time experience when online ordering is just too easy.

The Accidental Tourist
The thrill of a find from a handpicked flea market combined with upscale selection makes recent pop-ups even more enticing. Retail therapy is a very real phenomenon, re-confirmed by shopper-psych guru Martin Lindstrom in Buyology– the burst of dopamine that comes with the rush of a new buy can fuel our social emotions and restore self-regard. Double the excitement
if you too are temporarily visiting: buying a steely-grey saffiano leather purse from Prada’s
unprecedented two-storey pop-up on Paris’ Place Beauvau surely beat the always over-crowded Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milanby experience this summer. Gucci’s Icon Temporary series kicked off this fall in New York with the Ronson sneaker (by music producer
Mark Ronson) and will be touring each month through three continents,with 18 limited edition
styles all specially packaged according to location.

The glorified chase doesn’t end with apparel: San Francisco’s elusive Crème Brûlée Cart tweets
as it trawls to its next location,sometimes as close as 15 minutes to “opening” with scrumptious new flavors. For a more holistic experience, Glasgow Airport’s new Planeshop will embody transience with exclusive fashion, food and music finds refreshed regularly for passers-through.

While the novelty of first arrival may wear off, the thrill of the find lasts. Expect more home and
gadget-related pop-ups in 2010,and get used to being surprised –there’s still much to be wonderfully breathless about. (Article also featured a short Q & A with Russ Miller on Planeshop, will post later)

-AO, December 2009

Emotive Shuffling

2010-09-03T01:33:00.002+03:00

the way back, originally uploaded by Alara.

On a regular basis, for lack of an actual entry and out of curiosity, I revisit the iTunes shuffle quiz (put entire library on shuffle, answer the questions). Here it goes

1. How am I feeling today?
Oasis- Wonderwall

2. Where will I get married?
Elliot Smith - Between the Bars

3. What is my best friend’s theme song?
REC14 - a recording by me of white noise

4. What was High school like?
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird

5. What is the best thing about me?
The Turtles - Do you believe in magic

6. How is today going to be?
Satyajit Ray - Ruku Room

7. What is in store for this weekend?
Architecture in Helsinki - One Heavy February

8. How does the world see me?
Fergie - unknown name

9. What do my friends really think of me?
Knight Rider Theme

10. How can I make myself happy?
Coldplay - Violet Hill

11. What should I do with my life?
Blondie - Heart of Glass

12. Will I ever have children?
Mos Def - Six Days

13. What is some good advice?
Morrissey - First of the Gang

14. What do I think my current theme song is?
Velvet Underground - Sweet Jane

15. What does everyone else think about my current life?
Gnarls Barkley - Crazy

16. What type of women/men do you like?
Ben Folds Five - Philosophy

17. Will you get married?
The Thrills- Santa Cruz

18. What should I do with my love life?
Frankie Vallie and The Four Seasons - December 1963 Oh what a night

19. Where will you live?
Smokey Robinson - The tracks of my tears

20. When I meet a guy/girl for the first time I say…
Mark Mothersbaugh - You're breaking his heart

21. When my parents are angry I say…
Yasmin Levy - Perdono

22. What always makes me happy?
Astrud Gilberto/Jobim/Getz - Aquas de Marco (true!!!)

23. What always makes you laugh?
Jack Johnson - When I Look Up

24. What makes you cry?
NKOTB - Step by Step

25. What makes you angry?
Everything but the Girl - Wherever you go...

26. What’s your biggest weakness?
Oscar Peterson Trio - I Could Have Danced all Night

27. And your greatest achievement in life so far?
Reliant K - Fraggle Rock

28. And your greatest ambition?
The Police - Every breath you take

29. What song sums up how you feel about the girl/guy you like?
Santogold - Anne

30. What’s the most important thing in your life?
Katy Perry - If you can afford me

31. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
ODB - Baby I got your money

32. And the worst?
Sunshine Reggae

33. What was your childhood like?
Morrissey - Hairdresser on Fire

34. What are you thinking right now?
The Kinks - Sunny Afternoon

35. What will you end up doing in life?
Death Cab for Cutie - Summer Skin

36. What would you like to say to your friends?
Morphine - I'm Free Now

37. What about your enemies?
Milow - Ayo Technology

38. And what’s your final message to the world?
Depeche Mode - Dream On

Free Up Advertising by 2012

2010-05-22T20:16:00.003+03:00

enter empire, originally uploaded by Alara.

Advertising is invariably bound to popular culture and is in fact a mirror of it. It feeds "it" and feeds from "it". The very concept of advertising itself, as it is intertwined with the ever mouth-watering notion of design, is popular once again. As popular as the whole 2012/energy healing debate. As we approach the web 3.0 era and devise new gadgets and streams to battle our information overload, I’d like to dive in and see where we can escape fatalistic thoughts about both schools and even see if there’s something in common to help us remain a little flexible.

If we push all the cliches and labels about “working in advertising” aside, externally and internally (which are;

-“cool job”

-“crazy hours”

-“wickedly creative”

-“client services is for extroverted airheads, planning means you’re smart but aren’t artsy or gutsy enough to be in creative, creatives do whatever the hell they want and don’t need to tend to marketing issues... etc.”

-“copywriters are wannabe novelists who knew they would never make it”

-“art directors are artists who moonlight at agencies because they’re afraid to submerge themselves in their art with the full consequences of potential starvation”

etc... we can see there are certain truths about the business. We’re all here for a reason, whether we’re conscious of it or not.

I doubt that the majority of us grew up saying “I want to push brands for the rest of my life, whether it’s diapers or sneakers”. Maybe we said something like “I like observing the world, and I think I’m good at it, but I don’t know who would pay me to do that”.

For me at least it’s just that it’s the closest thing I know to having a profession where I can touch base with several different, interdisciplinary areas on a daily basis. In college when I had to declare my major I had the option of just declaring “Communication” but that wasn’t enough for me. I needed something larger and more diverse to feed on. So I chose an amalgam of the arts and social sciences (Psych and Visual Studies, lots of seminars on the humanities, computer science, drama, documentary film and even biology thrown in as electives). When I graduated I did not have a pre-defined place I should go to “start off my career”--- unlike my electrical engineering, architect, english literature, history, you name it, majoring friends. My broadness disturbed me in comparison to their seemingly clear-cut paths. I dabbled in film production, art restoration, publishing, before returning to advertising, because I could feed on everything I know, absorb, and float between disciplines. I'm now in live music marketing, seeing where I can connect the dots with things I love more, but the way I think and absorb has not changed. Let's call it a parallel universe instead of client-side.

That’s just my story in brief.

As for others, I think we all have some sort of a “tortured soul” syndrome, stuck in the middle with many interests, generalists rather than specialists, because we fear becoming tunnel-visioned.

And you know what? I think this is a really good time to appreciate that tendency within ourselves --- that being “a floater” is a good thing. Rolling stones never moss, right?

Yet once we settle in the industry, our egos start developing, as it is such an ego-heavy strata. What with the awards, the “are you in a network or local agency” questions, the trademarked methodologies, it is easy to get sucked into living and working in just a fraction of our potential. If you never leave your own town you can never make a personal imprint of your impression of the world, no matter how many books you read.

Perhaps the danger is that being attuned to the larger universe and not bearing our labels close to our chests (“I’m just a .... (fill in the blank—account executive, planner, copywriter, graphic operator, art director, producer”) is something we can forget to do along the way, if we only feed off of the inner strata and get stuck on these “labels”.

I find this behavior so natural, and so similar to the idea of being attuned or out of tune with the universe in general. It’s so easy to become trapped in the “daily game”.

In the “school of energy”, let’s say, we are all everything at once. We live our lives (or maybe several) putting different costumes on, mirroring each other, for the experience or the journey itself --- people enter and exit our lives for a reason, to mirror a particle of ourselves we may have never noticed before. This is a game where if we can channel our energies outside of the egos and the labels, we reach the source. This is known as love over fear. Ambition is another part of fear. And love here is not the romantic, bubbly, fuzzy love we know but purity and enlightenment and being free of fears of the contemporary age (fear of being unsuccessful, of being judged, of being alone, of overstepping some invisible boundary). We become free by figuring out why certain people enter our lives and studying which of our fears they mirror to us (the things we criticize most in others are actually our own faults).

But sometimes we forget this is only a game, and at the deep end get stuck on certain attributes. For example, I don’t think anyone in advertising can deny that they have enjoyed saying “I’m in advertising” to their 9-to-5 corporate friends at least once.

Back to being “attuned”--- we all vibrate at different frequencies. Our personal frequency can reach higher ground the more we learn to go with the flow and not get stuck on a set path; much like how if you fight the waves rather than swimming with the current, you will burn out soon enough. So how can we work with labels without getting stuck in them?

We need to remember we all have the same source more or less, leaning towards certain talents, but all have the capacity to move beyond the “daily game” .

Translated into the agency format, account people can be strategists, strategists can be creatives and so forth. We need to remind ourselves this so we don’t keep fighting against the proverbial waves created by our egos. Same goes for people working creative communications outside the agency hub -- marketers, brand consultants, brand specialists, design consultants, even product designers and a whole truck of newly developed titles starting with "brand".

Perhaps the word “integrated” agency has become hollow. But “unified” is a word we could work on.

Agencies of late have been burdened with the trouble of branding their “culture”. Perhaps not having a “culture” per se is a good thing too. A major advantage to a loosely defined model is democracy of spirit --- not anti-establishment but a democracy that is not “manned by the boss” (the system fails where the head of agency is absent to license power), or “a one-man show” (the famed single creative director), or the “name legacy” (the legend of the agency’s namesake haunting workers for decades). Expression of opinion should not be bound by hierarchy in such an environment .

It is in this kind of environment that when brands become successful for the right reasons it’s because the people behind them have treated them not as a “client account” but a living entity that needs care, encouragement, and known when it has grown enough to speak for itself, much like raising a child. In fact, a brand is as strong as the love the people working on it have for it.

So, if we go back to the benefits of “floating”; the more we can allow ourselves try on different paths and get out of our labels, the less rigid and scary accounts seem and eventually the more passion we can uncover.

Almost like chanelling energy.

Yellow Days

2010-04-16T00:39:00.002+03:00

Kodak is "The Best" (İhap Hulusi Görey)

Kodachrome by mr. simon!

Pure Live Music

2010-04-07T00:58:00.002+03:00

I love this segment - Canned Heat at Woodstock.
Live music is still the one of the greatest assets we have in terms of creating unbridled excitement and this is a prime example of easy-going "liveness" (that wonderfully sincere interaction at around 1:25 is hard to find at today's Glastonbury/you name it festival), a sweet touch for our generation since we are all too afraid and heavily guarded nowadays.
For anyone who hasn't watched the Woodstock documentary, it's a good place to start. And if you generally don't like documentaries, then I would suggest going through the musical back-door -- Don't Look Back (Bob Dylan's first UK tour venture cheekily documented by Pennebaker) and then Woodstock.

Making and Creating

2010-03-23T22:33:00.003+02:00

JEN STARK/2007

I love paper and I love the internet too. I like being able to touch what I'm thinking about (curling up with a book, turning the pages of a magazine), and when I can't touch it I usually go and take a picture (metaphorically and literally) and post it online so it can be there, somewhere where I can find it, where it becomes tangible and somewhat permanent.

I also love Made by Many. Not just because of my job but because their posts are truly documenting what advertising and design and the culture borne out of them (I'm not saying 'advertising and design culture' because I think that those terms have overtaken culture as a whole) is becoming and how it affects our lives. The way we see things. The way we want things. The way we want to be and the way in which tools we have either help or hinder that ambition. The way we want more to grasp.

So this post remarkably pinpoints an area that trendspotters and agency thinkers and the whole design hub have been labelling as the home-made, DIY etc megatrend, labelling the situation as 'post-digital'. And why we still have an urge to make things and manipulate things with our hands.

We need tangibility, we need texture, we need to see our footprint in real life surroundings, not just through pixels.

I'm hoping that we will soon see the horizon over the social media and tons-of-tools cloud and it looks nicely semi-analogue.

Fragments II: Photographic Bliss

2010-03-17T15:22:00.003+02:00

Great, simple curation of a Flickr group. This is my favourite.

Fragments

2010-03-17T00:47:00.003+02:00

Garlic at Abracadabra

Deck chair in September

Best reading of 2009 -- Nick Hornby on reading

Picture of another magazine page while trying to meet print deadline.

An unchanging sign, repainted every year

A little nightlife

Arriving at my favourite place to visit

Arriving at myself

A small selection of moments from the past few months, when things were not muted, in the midst of making decisions and living with them. Snippets of feelings, expectations and daydreams.

Go Outside

2010-03-08T23:51:00.005+02:00

<a href="http://cults.bandcamp.com/track/go-outside">Go Outside by Cults</a>

In this nebulous weather, the sudden break-out of The Cults and their release, Go Outside, is quite understandable -- the lyrics are barely audible but the echoes of lighter ways of being touch the hearts of this generation the way MGMT freed many to embrace uncertainty, liquid modernity, coupland's annoyingly true generation x observations and the whole looking forward to 2012 ordeal. I love the lyrics (deciphered thanks to Pitchfork).

You really want to hole up
You really want to stay inside and sleep the light away
I know what's good
Exactly 'cause I have been there before.

Internet Music History

2010-03-07T21:37:00.002+02:00

I love how gmail holds an archive of most of my online past. Stumbling inside my very own inbox I happened to find a compilation to a TMT request.
Unfortunately since the site got a rehaul it appears that stuff from 2005's no longer around.
Here were my suggested tracks:
"songs for people who push people away but then realize they're lonely."
Requested by: SS
Compiled by: Alara

01. Simon & Garfunkel - "I Am A Rock" (Sounds Of Silence)
02. The Smiths - "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" (Louder Than Bombs)
03. Future Bible Heroes - "Lonely Days" (Memories Of Love)
04. Phoenix -"If I Ever Feel Better" (United)
05. Pulp - "Disco 2000" (Different Class)
06. Wilco - "How To Fight Loneliness" (Summerteeth)
07. Al Green - "Tired Of Being Alone" (Gets Next To You)
08. The Walkmen - "Wake Up" (Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone)
09. The Magnetic Fields - "I Think I Need A New Heart" (69 Love Songs, Pt.1)
10. Chad & Jeremy - "Everyone's Gone To The Moon" (Distant Shores)
11. The Beach Boys - "In My Room" (Surfer Girl/Shut Down Vol.2)
12. Blur - "End Of A Century" (Parklife)
13. Built To Spill - "Sick & Wrong" (The Normal Years)
14. The Beatles -"Help"

Fire, Fire!

2010-02-26T23:44:00.005+02:00

I have committed this scene to memory and watched it so so so many times and yet I forgot this whole movie until today... "Bon Voyage Charlie Brown". 1980. We had in on beta. I love the Linus storyline, and I loved the French girl's accent when I was little.

SOMEBODY SAVE THE CHATEAU!!! This was probably the scariest thing I watched at the time.
There are small details I love about this scene-- the sound of the car driving up at the beginning, the mechanic sound of the fire hose.
I love you, Charlie Brown. Snoopy was my favourite cartoon character growing up. And dear woodstock. Thank you Peanuts.

Visual Peace Series No. 1

2010-02-26T23:03:00.001+02:00

no baggage, one single expectation

New Guitar Hero Request

2010-02-18T00:18:00.002+02:00

A new request for Guitar Hero programmers.
Twangy solos are my new thing. Or always have been, now I embrace the country-esque melodic lonely rocker living inside me.

hey roof man, make a roof for me

2010-02-16T00:49:00.001+02:00

hey roof man, originally uploaded by Alara.

Finding a home for yourself, by yourself, is very much like preparing to get married to yourself I suppose. I'm sure it takes just about as much time, courage, determination and hysteria and doubt. My own specifications are not high except for hardwood floors (I'll settle for fake hardwood-- laminates), sunlight, a reasonable layout that doesn't require a fridge to be in the hallway or an oven in the bathroom, and that other elusive element I can't quite define.

My old house recently went on the market (we rented) and, stripped of what made it mine and my flatmate's home, it became just another ad with expansive shiny surfaces taken at angles that try to capture everything and only end up getting the floor and some wall. How dull the kitchen looked, bare and without the carefully propped-up lighting. How clean the bathroom looked without the scruffy towel mats. How ordinarily someone else's, or anyone's, it looked. Wherever you set up those lights, that mat, that little corner in your bedroom that never changes -- that can become home.
Now that I'm looking again, in the context of Istanbul, I'm waiting with my set of things that make a place home to me, and while the options are vast, the prospects are always dreaded.
Istanbul is not a democratic city to rent in, especially if you are a single renter. There is no such thing as decent mid-to-low-range housing if you modestly want sunlight and proper flooring and reasonably laid out space. Add a pseudo-Scandinavian kitchen cupboard (I'm talking flat-pack variety) and the rent is spelled out in euros. Want to see trees? Then you're going to probably live on the side of a hill, or out near the airport, or with lots of elderly families in a not-so-you neighbourhood. The so-called Shoreditch/Williamsburg of Istanbul has also grown too fast, too soon, and it's too dangerous to be this overpriced, when it could be a hub of loyal and single renters. Instead, it has become a mecca for short-term and overpaying, most often foreign tenants. The emerging beauties of the city are yet to be deemed safe for single renters.

But I have hope, because again, in the context of Istanbul, I have several settled neighborhoods I have come to love, bad signage and all, and different as they may be, they all have their charm and Istanbul forces you to adapt quickly through incredibly disparate yet neighbouring streets. So I may give up on the whimsical old tile and sun-drenched bathroom (the rarest find in the city), because I know that whatever roof I choose, my corner will be under it, and suddenly it will become the familiarly lit place called home.

covering the 90s

2010-01-31T22:45:00.001+02:00

Florence + The Machine

for first florence entry click HERE

What are we going to cover or wear when we're done with the 90s too? Anything that stands out in the 2000s that is strictly '00s?

Bad Trip

2010-01-27T23:37:00.003+02:00

I have finally decided that this is exactly how the Şişhane metro stop makes me feel -- walking down, down, down, around, walking, stiflingly grand gestures of granite everywhere, strange murals, an endless trajectory of feet shuffling and huffing and puffing until you come to a stop and look up at the digital screen that non-chalantly declares that there is still 6 minutes and 20 seconds until the train will arrive. And then I abruptly stop and everything is still spinning. People's faces mirror my discontent. And it arrives and there's that strange beep and sterile, 'the future is now and now we are kindly taking all you walkers into quarantine' kind of atmosphere.

I guess getting to where you're going with the notion that the vehicle you choose is supposed to be faster than everything else available when it actually takes longer than all other choices is extremely frustrating. The Şişhane line is in fact more like a really slow elevator ride to the 'proper elevator'. A lost chapter of a cheap novel, a ghost limb, a misplaced portal, a sheepish extension trying to connect comers and goers. I'm thankful for it nonetheless and just hope the ride gets better soon. I get anxious when I stop moving.

IMAGE VIA STEPH DAVIDSON

Don't Stop Moving

2010-01-19T22:49:00.004+02:00

It's time to get things I can change in exactly the way I want them to be -- rid of useless templates, collecting things I want to keep, not afraid to delete anything, trying new recommendations like evernote...

A simpler, cleaner place where things are loosely together but clash in comfort.

Obviously I'm talking about my blog. The only space that is mine at the moment as I am between apartments/homes. I've postponed this for oh so long.

The brief is simple: visual tagging, contextual separations, obvious patterns. Links and what not I'll sort out. But I need to get my visuals and visuals I like under one umbrella. And then projects under another.

It's time to make use of the incredibly fast age of processing and connections and let my mind relax for one (I have nearly photographic memory but I'm afraid I need to let some of that cognitive tagging out to make room for new memories now). Using my brain as a brain and not a server.

That's one wish for the new year.

PHOTO VIA NO ONE LOSES AND DEAREST HELEN

Melancholy and the Infinite Happiness of Quiet Streets

2009-11-14T18:22:00.011+02:00

I'm not a big fan of infinitely happy streets -- streets that most people love, and I admire other happy shiny people for being so taken by them, streets like the bustling ones of NYC, around Times Square, Central Park, or London's Oxford Street, or any street in Nişantaşı in Istanbul, or Istiklal Caddesi. While most people feed off of the crowd dynamic and colors and noises, I usually falter or flounder to get to where I'm going. It's too much. That is why I need some melancholy, some drollness, to really enjoy and pick out my surroundings in detail. I love cracked walls in faded colors, stone textures, and overgrown balcony flowers and wondering how other people live, and notice what shades apartments glow in. I like quiet alleys and back streets, like the one right behind Ahtapot restaurant at the Beşiktaş Fish Market, which is one of the most daunting places for me: who knew that behind the snazzy glow of irregular shop signs, fish water-drenched walkways and screaming waiters lies a lush, shady, stone-walled street that's remained the same for pretty much forever? In the middle of house-hunting I found myself there with my housemate, curving up from the restaurant, all the noise slowed to a hum, then to calm nothingness, like a mystery now-its-here-now-its-not alley from a Harry Potter vehicle.

Melancholy is Orhan Pamuk's favourite subject and I think that readers who read him because of his train of thought and minute observation, not because of the glory/stigma surrounding his name, read him because of the good light in which he portrays sullenness. Achingly so. They identify deeply with obscure yet so familiar notes. And when I came across a piece by him about Venice in Conde Nast Traveller's Best 100 issue, I was delighted.

Because though I've never been, his descriptions and what he noticed about it sounded exactly like the things I would notice, and the things I usually take with me when I'm a tourist. Minute details, moods, reminders, new possibilities of happiness in the oddest ways, unburdened with whatever's been going on where I've come from. I read it slowly, in the way I cherished the facets of Milan that my parents ignored (while they busily and happily rushed off to shop, into the crowds, bursting into shiny restaurants, I lingered behind, staring at light bouncing off odd buildings and peering into dull kitchens, watching people live their Milan lives).

Then he mentions street painters and I thought -- who paints on streets anymore? Could I do that? Subject myself to public scrutiny and manage to not hurry in the face of it, take my time to drink it all in? There's a city where that happens that can escape the cliched description of an "artist's city"? And looking. Looking is so important. Sometimes looking and letting walls, textures, colors, and reminders of other places, memories, is so much more fulfilling and enlightening than doing a full tourist impact. Pamuk calls this a kind of visual landscape.
I exist from my visual landscape. Complex parts, like Istanbul's cityscape, and simple preserved tokens, unblemished, live together in it. Sometimes is needs housekeeping, which is what I do when I go to another city -- take out old stock and renew textures. It's a sort of a search for simplicity for an overcrowded mind. Those scenes are clean air for my eyes, my brain, my soul. That's another facet that marks Pamuk's writing. Though translated, the simple yet carefully punctuated English of what he writes is unmistakably alike his spoken English -- carefully considered, subtly stated. Sparse meanderings about complex things which result in a nice, soulful and yes, melancholic harmony. So I'd like to congratulate the translator, whether he is aware or unaware, for preserving character and not embellishing or over-sophisticating the material. As a fellow translator I know how hard it is to not over-do it -- sometimes lost in translation doesn't mean omission but also extraneous additions too.

Anyway, most of the piece is about kissing in Venice, which is not what prompted me to respond but he does have a point: happy (for me at least) is when you can slow down and be there and then, or lost in thought somewhere, letting yourself be engulfed by actions and not burdened by what's been done or what's to come. Or, just standing perfectly still and being OK with not knowing where you're going. Preferably with a paper bag of fruit in one hand.

Kasabian Football Hero: The new mash is hardwired

2009-11-01T18:27:00.003+02:00

That's what I'm talking about... I may be bent on getting older tunes onto Guitar Hero, but here's a Kasabian number rigged to play when footballs hit the right colored bases.

It's worth the time they took

Musical Check-up

2009-10-08T01:02:00.004+03:00

It's time for my annual (or semi-annual) iTunes shuffle quiz!
Let's see what new tracks since the last one foresee..

How does the world see you?
Sail Away -- Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Will I have a happy life?
Maneater - Nelly Furtado (ouch)

What do my friends really think of me?
Jumpin' Jack Flash - Rolling Stones (ha!)

Do people secretly lust after me?
Hung Up - Madonna

How can I make myself happy?
Sugar, we're going down - Fall Out Boy

What should I do with my life?
Do a little dance - KC & the Sunshine Band

Will I ever have children?
Silly Girl - The Beatles

What is some good advice for me?
Via con me - Paolo Conte

How will I be remembered?
Philosophy - Ben Folds Five

What is my signature dancing song?
Jacksonville - Sufjan Stevens (not so danceable, but I do sway and shuffle mostly)

What do I think my current theme song is?
Country Road - James Taylor

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
Time of My Life - Dirty Dancing Soundtrack

What song will play at my funeral?
Girl Don't Come - Sandie Shaw (mm.)

What type of men/women do you like?
Know Your Onion! - The Shins

What is my day going to be like?
Do You Believe in Magic - The Turtles (I do need some)

outsider art

2009-09-28T16:12:00.003+03:00

The 11th Art Biennial is here. I only visited the largest leg, at Antrepo 3. It's a hard and gaunt collection to decipher -- is it saying "you have to look at these before you can get to the 'good stuff'"? Bear through the wars and scrutinize just a bit longer before we move on? Since when did government security agency connection maps become art? Were they encouraged by the inclusion of OMAs Dubai views (quite different) from the last biennial?

The only thing that stuck with me was the Korean father and son Donghwan and Haejun Jo's recollections of the Korean War.... a great package of startling, stark and amusing anecdotes that rattle you every now and then when you think of the context in which they're told, physically well paced too.

I hate video art. Or I am extremely impatient. But here is a video that breaks the static and makes me go "any response is a good response"-- the Begenal anti-biennal chorus

And moving on to Sarkis at the Istanbul Modern.... which was macabre but interesting to have "previews" of what was about to unfold in the large stretches of previous work. if we must build meaning on the "site" provided I guess I can understand his attempt to reconstruct all he has done over the past years and remind us of things we'd rather forget, like Jason and his chainsaw.

Did not yet visit Joseph Bueys at Sabanci.

The current Turkish art visiting environment is just that--- visits to contained "events" that are few and far apart, meaning that the motivation to attend is triggerred by "shoulds" rather than "wants". Spatial management seems stunted in most venues, with apparent unbridled enthusiasm to be bigger and better, yet feelings of constriction are hard to ignore.

So Far Away... Turkish Tapestry?

2009-09-24T15:57:00.002+03:00

The sleeve for massive Turkish pop star Gulben Ergen's late 2008 release, Uzun Yol Şarkıları (Songs for the long road), reminds me of Carole King's Tapestry cover. Minus the guitar and the cat of course. Maybe she'll cover So Far Away in Turkish soon. With lots of synth.

Typewriter, Tip Tip Tip Tip

2009-08-27T00:57:00.003+03:00

A big entry is coming. Or a whole new mini-blog dedicated to the wonder that is Bozcaada (Tenedos island), my good friend for about 5 years now. It may or may not include topics such as taking the wrong service bus to get to the actual bus and why that is a good thing if hundreds of people are seeing off hot-blooded 18 year-old males to the military with firecrackers and national anthems; what a b&b run by amazonian island villagers has in common with goethe; why wanting to cry at how beautiful garlic in your food is meaningful (for you, not your roommates who will suffer through your dragon breath all night long); why Ray-Bans may make your world physically colder while you look cooler; what a midnight cat face-off looks like; and why you should expect to see a middle-aged neon thong-wearing exhibitionist male at a beach you envisioned would be more from here to eternity than a second-rate art film.

This entry may be accompanied by a batch of loosely edited pictures from among 324 photos over the course of four days with 5 girls.

Collect the moments one by one, I guess that's how the future's done

2009-07-21T11:00:00.003+03:00

Olympus Pen's tribute to itself is a feat of warm/fuzzy production that has had us clutching our hearts since Sony Bravia's colored balls.
It's hard to make an "annivesary" or any sort of "tribute" for a brand without coming off as didactic, but thankfully Olympus operates in a category that can pull the whole attitude/mood projection method off (no need to go into technical prowess rationales).

Enjoy.

red fish blue fish

2009-07-14T18:44:00.002+03:00

Dear blog which will now turn personal on a rare note,

My arms ache from swimming and squeezing out towels, my own hair, and the ropes of the boat we took today from Selimiye. We went all around the coast to Bencik Island and got back. I only wish my brain were this calm and the only things I ever worried about were sunblock, staying hydrated, when my bathing suit is going to dry, and catching the bus to Bodrum tomorrow.
Being on Zitromax for a double dose (two boxes, 6 pills) has not been easy but then again at this age I'm not really up for drinking into the wee hours anyway, the lethargy it has brought on has been welcome. Only then did I learn to slow down.
Maybe that's the balance trick --- learning to slow down but keep moving enough to keep you stimulated but you have time to digest too without mulling too much.

Things to Hang On To

2009-07-02T23:41:00.006+03:00

Thanks to Guitar Hero I'm living out my alter classic rock-country ego.
My current ideal setlist would be as follows (still on medium); and of course they'd have to develop acoustic guitar hero for some of them so all our 70s-youth dads could strum along too:

1. Freebird (OK so this one is actually on the game and I hope one day I can switch to hard). Here's the Old Grey Whistle Test live performance, circa 1975

2. Carolina in my Mind

3. America, Kodachrome or 50 Ways to leave your lover

4.California

I want everything in one place

2009-06-23T01:10:00.002+03:00

3 projects going on at once
+
My own visual bookmarks
+
Bookmarks for work
+
This blog
+
This one
+
flickr

I'm not leaving a very clear keyboard print am I??

Gotta start somewhere. Wondering if not on paper should serve as my visual cue place.
Hmmm.

Indecisive as always.

More Than Ever

2009-04-28T13:48:00.005+03:00

... bulletins, newscasts, microsites, portals, blogs, reblogs, podcasts, twits to just control the information flowing through the zeitgeist.

How are we going to deal?

I'm thinking about it. Because it's not only vital for the job I do, but for all of us' well-being against the onslaught of occurences.

In the meantime, as we all do against onslaughts of new stuff, I return to the naive, and hold on to new things that meld with the old and familiar. Demeter's new Play-Doh and Crayola scents. Remember this post??

cc'ing you on cctv

2009-03-03T21:35:00.004+02:00

I spent 1 hour of my life watching CCTV Cities. Established to track hooligans and potential troublemakers, then use footage to apprehend culprits the system is managed by local police units. It scared the hell out of me. Most streets now have cameras recording where people go 24/7. I rode past this CCTV is watching you graffiti by Banksy, claimed to be his largest work in Central London so far. And he was able to execute it right in front of a CCTV lens.

Why the idea scares me beyond the whole big brother cliche: while our trajectories across the web can already be recorded and our exposure to advertising messages getting more and more custom-fed; I don't want to wonder too much about how our physical trajectories being recorded will do to marketing.

Example: shoppers of a certain demographic can now be tracked as they exit a Sainsbury's and studied for where they stop next, what their general tendencies are, where they spend most of their time, and in what order, on what day of the week, and with whom. And it is broadcast to the public.
We are all on record, this included.

Dog Days Are Over

2009-02-23T13:30:00.006+02:00

I will now tell you of one of the only good parts about being sick on a business trip in a wonky uber-trendy hotel (in legacy of the unorthodoxy of Virgin and the approach of the Ws, a small chain that uses tons of neon purple ambient lighting, black shiny surfaces, and 'cooler' names for soap and even the bill. I'm worried how our accounting department is going to take my food voucher with the title "The Damage" on it). So other than the fact that the hotel's name implied the exact opposite of goodness (starts with Mal), loud attitude for the sake of attitude and dark paint is really not comforting at all when you're alone and nursing a swollen head/drippy nose/ear echo monster. Especially if you're in the drab jewelry district of London with courtyards bleeding into streets that look like poor renditions of Diagon Alley.

But I did have a lovely TV screen and was able to watch the Brit awards, accompanied by overpriced onion soup. The highlight was getting a good listen at Florence and the Machine.

Here I present their (her) song Dogs Days are Over, with some of the best lyrics and voice I've seen/heard in a long time. Hard to believe it was recorded in "a room as big as a loo". I find Wiki's attempt to categorize it as "soul meets indie" correct.

happiness, hit her like a train on a track.
coming towards her, stuck still no turning back.
she hid around corners and she hid under beds.
she killed it with kisses and from it she fled
with every bubble she sank with a drink
and washed it away down the kitchen sink

the dog days are over, the dog days are done
the horses are coming so you better run
run fast for your mother run fast for your father
run for your children for your sisters and brothers
leave all your love and your loving behind you
can't carry it with you if you want to survive
the dog days are over the dog days are done
can't you hear the horses cuz here they come

and i never wanted anything from you
except for everything you had and what was left after that too. oh.
happiness it hurt like a bullet in the back
struck above from great heights by someone who should know better than that

the dogdays are over the dog days are gone
can you hear the horses cuz here they come
run fast for your mother and fast for your father
run for your children for your sisters and brothers
leave all your love and your loving behind you
can't carry it with you if you want to survive

the dog days are over, the dog days are gone
can you hear the horses because here they come
-Florence & The Machine

To Want and To Have

2009-02-12T17:26:00.003+02:00

That is the question when it comes to film festivals. One year I remember buying no less than 60 tickets and ending up attending maybe 20 of those screenings.

Nowadays it's not just about "getting it later on DVD" but also "already watched it". !F Istanbul has begun and while I still have pangs of guilt about not being able to prioritize it as much as I would have 4 years ago, knowing that I've watched several on the roster (Slumdog, to begin with) provides me with a strange comfort of control.

It's easier to make this list now, based on knowing they definitely won't come out on DVD, or be torrent-able with subtitles, anytime soon. The motivation to experience at the theater is still there, though minimal (valid for Tokyo)

my in process !F 2009 wishlist (in no particular order)

Tokyo
The Man Who Loved Ingve
The International
Franklyn
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Olfactory

2008-12-27T17:34:00.002+02:00

Someone once told me that I smelled like play-dough. I thought it was bizarre but then I thought that maybe it was true. Sometimes I smell like crayons.

With Christmas and New Year's in the air, the time when my olfactory senses get really worked up, I decided to think about what my friends smell like (without perfume).
Perfume will have to be another topic, another post... Though a lot of us have changed our "bought scents" over the years perhaps it's the old ones that stick around the most, when our deepest memories have formed.
Esin for example either smells fig-like naturally. But if I smell Bulgari Black, that is also Esin's scent for me, even though she doesn't use it anymore.

Esra uses Amazing Grace from philosophy but in general for me she smells of olive oil and cookies.

Caroline Herrera's 212 will forever be a shared memory scent for me and Asli, during a time when we both used it and both in the States. It reminds me of early college and going out and dreading papers but procrastinating anyway. Asli on her own smells like cloves. Which brings me to Zeynep, who I will always associate with Djarum Black clove cigarettes and the smell of Irises. I love it when she's wearing Hermes Hiris because it always means Ithaca, and sitting in sweaters with tea in the cubbyhole that was their apartment above ours. Without the perfume I think her natural scent is close to bergamot tea mixed with something floral, a distant aroma that has faded throughout the day, maybe rose.

I will continue my olfactory pondering later.

I love web comedians and I love spoilers even more

2008-12-25T13:48:00.001+02:00

100 film-end Spoilers in under 5 minutes, brought to the web by Fine Bros

Merry Christmas!!!

High Expectations and Misconceptions

2008-11-01T19:12:00.002+02:00

After blogger became normally accessible (meaning not covertly entered via ktunnel or vtunnel, my dear saviors) I developed a sudden urge to write again. Take it away and she will want it. And I mean write about anything at all, not matter how banal.

So, to summarize the past few months I did absolutely nothing to my abode here;

-After 4 summers of boycotting it, and visiting briefly to dip my feet in for 3 days last summer, I made this summer the return to Bodrum. 3 times and possibly a 4th coming up. I suppose we all fall back to safe havens. Yet by boycott did continue--- have not been to t.buku since before college. Hah.

-Had such high expectations of Tropic Thunder, especially with Esquire printing that it was "The funniest movie of the decade", it really was lame. Except 3 sequences. Please check out similarities between Len Grossman and Recep İvedik.

-Renewed lease in apartment with Esra. Plans change. Hurrah for a new year...

-Developed chronic neck and back pain, had 15 brilliant (yes, painful too) sessions of physical therapy and for the first time in my life, am making conscious efforts to sit up straight. Apparently I'd really mastered that slouch since puberty.

-Highlights of past reading: Kite Runner, Norwegian Wood, and just the first volume of Armistead Maupin's delightfully surface-scratching Tales of the City. Next volumes, next summer.

-Upcoming recreational reading: Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, Masumiyet Muzesi, Dragon Lance Volume 1, and Hanif Kureishi's Memories of My Father.

-Dream night out: a place in Istanbul that plays Chromeo and MGMT but is a dive bar.

-Anticipating a surge in open source with the crisis. And learning to manage the information chaos.

-Apparently people embarassed to be unaffected by said crisis and shopping in luxury goods departments are buying off the web while NetAPorter, Bluefly and the likes have taken to sending packages unlabelled, intimate-toy store style.

-True Blood is the best new series of the past 3 years. Or whenever Six Feet Under ended. Respect to HBO backing it up.

-Election. Please watch Wassuppp 2008 edition.

Be back soon.

iTunes Shuffle Quiz Time

2008-07-26T14:08:00.003+03:00

I've revisited the iTunes shuffle quiz.

1. How am I feeling today?
Rolling Stone-- You Can't Always Get What You Want

2. Where will I get married?
Sufjan Stevens--Jacksonville (so specific!)

3. What is my best friend’s theme song?
Gypsy Kings--Bem Bem Maria

4. What was High school like?
Feist-So Sorry

5. What is the best thing about me?
Dave Matthews Band-Two Step

6. How is today going to be?
Astrud Gilberto--Samba de uma nota

7. What is in store for this weekend?
Kevin Shields--Are You Awake?

8. How does the world see me?
Rolling Stone--Brown Sugar (hah!)

9. What do my friends really think of me?
Snow Patrol--Chasing Cars

10. How can I make myself happy?
My Chemical Romance--Teenagers

11. What should I do with my life?
Black Lace--The Clapping Song

12. Will I ever have children?
Neutral Milk Hotel--Two headed boy pt. II

13. What is some good advice?
Rolling Stones--Has Anyone Seen my Baby

14. What do I think my current theme song is?
Andrea True Connection--More More More

15. What does everyone else think about my current life?
Stevie Wonder--Isn't She Lovely

16. What type of women/men do you like?
Nelly Furtado--Say It Right

17. Will you get married?
Bill Withers--Lovely Day

18. What should I do with my love life?
Sister Sledge--Ring My Bell

19. Where will you live?
Röyksopp--Sombre Detune

20. When I meet a guy/girl for the first time I say…
Magnetic Fields--Courtesans

21. When my parents are angry I say…
Charlie Parker & Miles Davis-- Grooving High

22. What always makes me happy?
Madonna-Take a Bow

23. What always makes you laugh?
Brendan Benson--What I'm Looking For

24. What makes you cry?
Fontana Fontaine-- Lullaby Baxter

25. What makes you angry?
Shalamar--I can make you feel good

26. What’s your biggest weakness?
Van Morrisson--Here Comes the Night

27. And your greatest achievement in life so far?
Gwen Stefani -- 4 in the morning (?!)

28. And your greatest ambition?
Magnetic Fields--Drive on Driver

29. What song sums up how you feel about the girl/guy you like?
Arctic Monkeys--I bet you look good on the dance floor

30. What’s the most important thing in your life?
Keane -- A Bad Dream

31. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
New Order--Blue Monday

32. And the worst?
????-- All Over Town

33. What was your childhood like?
Strokes---Razorblade

34. What are you thinking right now?
Gypsy Kings--Djobi Djoba

35. What will you end up doing in life?
Neil Young- Theres a World

36. What would you like to say to your friends?
Bananarama--Venus

37. What about your enemies?
Surfing USA -- Beach Boys (yeah!)

38. And what’s your final message to the world?
Sufjan Stevens--To the workers of the rock river valley...

Should should should

2008-06-29T02:17:00.001+03:00

Should write soon
But not now, my laptop screen is glaring back as I swelter in the still heat of the apartment with the lights off

Sounds Like/Looks Like...

2008-02-17T16:00:00.008+02:00

Sufjan Stevens started his musical homage to the US with Illinois and Michigan, (Come on feel the Illinoise), (The first leg of his project was actually Greeting from Michigan: The Great Lake State, but he didn't explode until Illinois)and Frank Chimero is taking a more visual-literal route in loosely personifying the States by graphically manifesting each state into the object it resembles most.

California to Chimero is an extinguished cigarette:

Frank Chimero's website to see the project underway: MakeMakeMake

I think Stevens and Chimero should collaborate on a DVD project.

(source for Chimero: coolhunting)

I've been tagged--- "Moments that took my breath away"

2008-01-30T13:04:00.000+02:00

I've been tagged by Settar to answer the question "which moments have taken my breath away"...
He answered his quiz in Turkish, but I've never written here in anything except English, so I'm not going to break my consistency.

Moments that took my breath away

Learning classical flute literally took my breath away, when I was about 13. Learning to properly use your diaphragm can do that to you. I haven't practiced in ages, partly because it makes me so dizzy.

The first time I listened to Oscar Peterson Trio, the first time I listened to Stan Getz, the first time I heard Astrud Gilberto's voice, the first time I heard Feist's voice, the first time I listened to Jeff Buckley sing Last Goodbye, Lilac Wine, Halllelujah, and many more artists that don't come up just right now.

After wishing for a baby sister around the age of 5, finding out that my mother gave birth to my baby brother took my breath away, so much so that I apparently asked if they could switch him with a girl back at the hospital (I was 6)... but he takes my breath away now, in a good way, as he is officially the wiser sibling...

My first time in Bozcaada/Tenedos took my breath away... and pretty much has every time I've been back the past three summers.

Watching the sunrise in Olympos took my breath away...

Sitting at the tip of a boat, my legs dangling against the waves, sailing with Mehmet Ali Kaptan and my family off the coast of Yalıçiftlik in Bodrum takes my breath away every time.

The Xcelerator and Supreme Scream at Knott's Berry Farm.

Any weird coincidence (running into a long-lost friend on holiday, like with my friend Caroline, who lived in İstanbul when we were both 12 and left for Switzerland, then we ran into each other a total of 3 times in Southern Turkey--different locales each time-- over the span of 5 summers) that makes me feel like the universe is acting...

Getting a long email from someone I've just been thinking about but have not had contact with for a while takes my breath away...

Realizing I've fallen in love takes my breath away...

Learning a new skill and pulling it off takes my breath away (my first crochet project, for example)

Holding my iPhone for the first time really took my breath away (thank you Koray, Asli, and Engin). It's like my first kid. Similarly, setting up my macbook took my breath away (thanks, Mom and Dad). Call me shallow but these things really have improved my life immensely.

My college roommate Andrea's long email from her new location, Tanzania, and what's she'll be doing as an intern doctor, really took my breath away.

Realizing one day that the temperature was about -27 degrees celsius in Ithaca, and that I had hiked to class feeling cold yet fine, took my breath away.

Wong Kar Wai took my breath away with In the Mood for Love and 2046. Hitchcock generally took my breath away. Also, The Departed, The Bourne Ultimatum...

Weird book and movie connections take my breath away.

Esra winning an LG HD flat screen for a lottery for our apartment really took my breath away. Our previous TV did its job well, but measured about 25 cm across.

The Getty Center took my breath away, not just by what's inside but with its architecture and gardens. Tate Modern took my breath away. Francesca Woodman's photographs took my breath away. Winogrand too. And the first time I saw anything by Cartier-Bresson, in high school...

Short stories with crazy twists at the end take my breath away.

Visiting the Google campus took my breath away. The first time I ever used Google Earth took my breath away.

This list will keep going... I may add later... but for now I part, tagging Alice Deejay and Rubadubstyle....

On a break, on a whim

2008-01-24T14:11:00.000+02:00

I need to do some serious recreating here. Since I'm on a self-imposed break and have the liberties of plenty down-time, I start now, I guess. There's never a best time to do something, I've realized.

This is a lame start but it is a start. Baby steps first.

I've revisited the iTunes shuffle quiz.

1. How am I feeling today?
Morphine-- I'm Free Now

2. Where will I get married?
Art Brut-- Moving to L.A. (creepy, specific)

3. What is my best friend’s theme song?
Oasis--Champagne Supernova (um, she does like champagne, and she has changed)

4. What was High school like?
Michael Jackson--Liberian Girl

5. What is the best thing about me?
The Klaxons--Atlantis to Interzone

6. How is today going to be?
The Boy Least Likely To--Be Gentle with Me

7. What is in store for this weekend?
advertisement voiceover for intema mutfak kitchens ("change your culinary life...")

8. How does the world see me?
Röyksopp--Circuit Breaker

9. What do my friends really think of me?
Neil Young--The Needle and the Damage Done (ouch)

10. How can I make myself happy?
The Conjunction of Drones.... --- Sufjan Stevens (really long title, existential crisis theme)

11. What should I do with my life?
Juanes--La Camisa Negra

12. Will I ever have children?
Rolling Stones--Get Off My Cloud (either I won't want them or I will and they'll get on my nerves)

13. What is some good advice?
Cansei de Ser Sexy--Let's Make Love

14. What do I think my current theme song is?
Charlie Parker & Miles Davis--Groovin High

15. What does everyone else think about my current life?
Blur--End of a Century (wow, I'm speechless, it is kind of an end of an era)

16. What type of women/men do you like?
Rolling Stones-- Street Fighting Man (again creepily specific)

17. Will you get married?
Neutral Milk Hotel--Communist Daughter (awkward answer)

18. What should I do with my love life?
Curtis Mayfield--Move On Up

19. Where will you live?
Amy Winehouse--Addicted

20. When I meet a guy/girl for the first time I say…
Röysopp--Follow My Ruin (bad news for them)

21. When my parents are angry I say…
The Fray-- How to save a life

22. What always makes me happy?
Maroon 5-- Can't Stop

23. What always makes you laugh?
Rolling Stones--Mother's Little Helper

24. What makes you cry?
Christopher Cross--Sailing

25. What makes you angry?
Haircut 100--Love Plus One

26. What’s your biggest weakness?
White Stripes--Hotel Yorba

27. And your greatest achievement in life so far?
FR David--Word Don't Come Easy

28. And your greatest ambition?
Mark Ronson feat. Nathaniel Merriweather--Stop Me (OK, I really like what they've done with the song, but the message sucks for an answer)

29. What song sums up how you feel about the girl/guy you like?
Neutral Milk Hotel--10 (instrumental)

30. What’s the most important thing in your life?
Astrud & Joao Gilberto, Jobim, Getz--Corcovado

31. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Röyksopp--What Else is There?

32. And the worst?
Jovanotti--L'ombelico del mondo

33. What was your childhood like?
Beirut--Scenic World

34. What are you thinking right now?
Maroon 5--Not Falling Apart

35. What will you end up doing in life?
Peter Bjorn & John--Young Folk

36. What would you like to say to your friends?
Bob Dylan--Like a Rolling Stone

37. What about your enemies?
Neil Young & Crazy Horse--Thrasher

38. And what’s your final message to the world?
Röyksopp--Only This Moment

Well then.

seventeen

2007-03-13T21:01:00.000+02:00

Recently I've been thinking about my favourite ages... and how 17 sticks out among the best of them.
So then I went off on a tangent and starting thinking about how many songs mention 17 or are entirely about being seventeen.
Here's my list so far:

Ladytron - "Seventeen" ('they only love you when you're seventeen, at 21 you're no fun..'
Janis Ian - "At Seventeen" ('I learned the truth at seventeen,That love was meant for beauty queens..')
Frank Sinatra - "It was a very good year" ('When I was seventeen,It was a very good year
It was a very good year for small town girls, And soft summer nights,We'd hide from the lights
On the village green, When I was seventeen')
Abba -"Dancing Queen" -(..'only seventeen'..)

Foreigner - "Seventeen" ('When you grow older, girl You'll remember I told you, girl Seventeen, you're just seventeen, Seventeen, seventeen..')

I'm so sure there's more.

'visualdna'

2007-03-09T00:41:00.000+02:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

best of the rest

2007-03-01T21:24:00.000+02:00

One great aspect about traveling and having to wait in a confined area is that it grants you guilt-free reading time. Guilt-free, because in the 'normal' flow of daily life we are always able to find something more urgent, more productive, more necessary, more tangible to do (clean up around the house, send postponed emails, take a shower, etc.) and the activity (or apparent non-activity) of enjoyable reading becomes a luxury.

I was on the plane to Frankfurt, reading a ridiculously overpriced women's magazine when I came across an article quoting a startling statistic: the average person reads only about 300 book in their lifetime. I tried to estimate how many I've read, cover-to-cover. I tried to decide whether books I read in school and college counted (because they were assigned to me, I did not actively seek them out by will). And I concluded that at my most recent rate of reading I would certainly fall below average, let alone achieve or surpass it. I had a slightly geriatric English teacher in high school who passed along 'books to read before you die' lists at the beginning of each new term; her goal for us was that we read 1000 books.
At this point I realized I actually had a book with me, the kind of book that you can start in the middle from, and draw your own chronology in --- a book of short stories and essays from various authors. Much more worthy than a magazine about skirt volumes for spring and the benefits of drinking water. So I shoved the magazine into the fillet pocket of the seat in front of me and opened the book, trying to recall which stories or essays I had read already. The last time I recalled finishing one was back in October, again on a trip, when I went to visit Altan in Seattle. In my newfound determination, I finished the whole thing (except the introduction parts, of course).
The book is from the Best American Series, a great enterprise that selects annual 'best' poetry, essays, non-fiction, short stories, and even comic strips, as well as (my favourite series title) The Best American Nonrequired Reading, edited by Dave Eggers. I was sold at "nonrequired" back in 2004 when I sent Esra that year's selection for her birthday. The 2006 edition I am so happy to say I have finished (except the intro). My selected favourites include:

"The Kidney-Shaped Stone that Moves Every Day" by H. Murakami (so graceful)
"Nadia" by J. Budnitz
"Peg" by Sam Shaw (both stories evoke similar discomforts regarding normalcy)
"Room No.12" by N. Mahfouz, because it's so disconcerting
and
"False Cognate" by J. Parker, which I'm still trying to piece together

Needless to say I recommend this to anyone who feels they have no time to read or are finishing-fanatics who don't start a book because they feel they can't finish it in a short window of time; collected stories and essays give you instant gratification and a sense of accomplishment in small, potent doses. Dave Eggers is great anyway, as a novelist and as an editor in this case. An excerpt (the back-and-forth butthole sequence) from Miranda July's You Me and Everyone You Know is also included here but I think just for the sole sake of its sheer hilarity.
It feels good to know that I have friends that will enjoy this collection as much as I have, especially those like Irmak who juggle required books and need good, clean breaks without feeling like it's a luxury.

whirlwind

2007-03-01T20:31:00.000+02:00

how do the high-level players do this? fly to different cities for meetings 2 or 3 times a week?
I just took 4 flights in the space of 36 hours and I'm still not myself yet.
Went to Cologne via Frankfurt and returned via Munich. Ugh.
So much stress --- "will I make it" being the eternal question at each port.
Will write about trip later.
Here's a brief moment in Frankfurt before switching terminals:

rehaul!

2007-02-14T15:51:00.000+02:00

I just updated Engin's site the other day.
Please check it out --- tried something much more clean and simple (no crazy rollovers) this time.

Enjoy!

lately on fuzzy radio

2007-01-30T19:35:00.001+02:00

cheese galore.

but it makes me so warm inside.

Just Jack/Writer's Block

2006-11-26T22:32:00.000+02:00

This guy is great. Better style than Mike Skinner, more fun than Audio Bullys. I like how he uses Shalamar-esque disco beats.
He is Just Jack. Watch/listen to "Writer's Block" at justjack.co.uk
And if you like, check out the remix competition...
Enjoy!!

look after me

2006-11-05T22:53:00.000+02:00

i thank life for giving me Hot Chip when i didn't even know i needed them!
you may have already heard their single, "and I was a boy from school"... people who like royksopp, the beta band and phoenix will probably enjoy Hot Chip too.

I travel light (in my dreams)

2006-10-28T20:13:00.000+03:00

So this is my last morning waking up in Olympia, WA (visiting my brother). It's been a gigantic rest for me, as his apartment and campus is tucked away amidst lots of really tall trees and the downtown area is like a sea-side resort town meets a chunk of Boston and Ithaca.

I'm flying out of Seattle to London, then hopefully to Istanbul... I have a 5 hour layover in Heathrow. I hate layovers so much. But I suppose no more than the average person; except this time I will hate it doubly as I have little funds left and virtually none to spare on shopping at the "World of Duty Free". Especially where everything is incredibly expensive. Flying here, I bought a small tuna sandwich, bottle of water and a diet coke for about 7 gbp. That's crazy! And Terminal 1 (as is 4) is so... circular. Everywhere I look there's a different Harrod's stand and each block is marked with 'the entrance to 'World of Duty Free'... But which one is the real entrance? I already have a pretty foggy sense of direction in new places (unlike my compass-like mother) so I can't landmark for crap in Heathrow. And the lighting sucks. And switching terminals from 4 to 1 and vice-versa takes about an hour. Not to mention the horrible security line (making you wait standing on really badly patterned thick carpeting, in a low-ceilinged environment where everyone just glares at each other in a snaking queue under very harsh fluorescent lighting). I don't understand why they have to do it BEFORE you change terminals, and some people are not even transit --- they're leaving the airport. I'm sure they have their reasons, some way or other.

So, perhaps I'll befriend a nice kid with a laptop.... not that I have an excellent track record of meeting and befriending strangers in airports. I'd rather not. But if I get really desperate I just might try.

But... I think the dry hair and oily yet somehow peeling face (courtesy of plane air), dehydration, red wrists (courtesy of mysteriously growing plastic bags at the terminal -- even if you don't shop), bag-juggling, terminal-switching marathons and the actualy airborne parts have majorly been worth it.

the frenzy and Beck

2006-10-05T13:10:00.000+03:00

So, Beck's new album, The Information, is being released today (I think)...
While the new tracks are highly anticipated I think what he chose to do with the cover is even more interesting: basically, there is no cover but a grid and different stickers for the fans/buyers to "make their own cover".

designobserver.com cites the Yeah Yeah Yeahs as another group who has initiated an art-album cover relationship but is this really anything new? Is it just another chain in the home-made design frenzy (which not only includes the disciples of visual design but also spans, in my opinion, DIY music sites, online hand-made design boutique economies, blogs and myspace bands...)?

this is great

2006-09-27T00:41:00.000+03:00

I have invaded my brother's iMac, which I am babysitting until he gets back at christmas.
It's good to have esra back. My mom made us omelettes and tabouleh and lots of good stuff on a whim. It's been a good day. But I'm so tired lately. I'm tired of the web too, I feel like there are a million new sites about stuff I care about sprouting up every day and I can't keep track. I need something to keep track. And de.li.ci.ous is just not cutting it. RSS feeds don't cut it either. I need something like a spider that can crawl what's out there for me and bring it back in one neat spread. Is there such a thing, I wonder?

In the meantime, though I'd used some of the gadgets separately before, I just stumbled upon FD's site (the guy who brought us the Flickr badge) and a wonderful batch of Flickr toys (currently I'm fooling around with the film postermaker) in one place: Flagrant Disregard. Go check it!

sometimes

2006-09-19T18:34:00.000+03:00

sometimes i wish i can have the ability to freeze certain clients at work, to deal with them at a more convenient time during an onslaught of other clients' demands
sometimes i wish my PC could type up and send my emails. no reading on my part required.
sometimes i wish we really did close shop at 6 pm
sometimes i wish i could film everything we all do in one day

but i can't, there's never a convenient time, I use a yellowed 600 x 800 screen PC running on XP and bogged down by various programs like Freehand and 4D, and it doesnt even have a mic to begin with, best estimate for leaving the agency is on average 8 pm, and we would really be the only people entertained by what goes on between our portable glass walls... and i think it's illegal. even if it's not it should be

vacation anyone?

stupido (try walking in my shoes)

2006-07-31T12:32:00.000+03:00

hungovers are never fun at work. especially when it's a monday morning after a solid depeche mode concert... the performance was totally worth my numbed-mind blurbs of thoughts this morning as i scrambled out of bed, still dizzy and slightly deaf, and was on my way: "i'm glad i'm not a space scientist or something. because if i were a super space scientist i'd totally botch the job today." i guess, obviously, real "super space scientists" have better sense than going to and getting soused at a concert on a sunday night. hehe

back

2006-07-17T13:52:00.000+03:00

just got back from bozcaada last night... the pictures should be up by the end of today

e lei?

2006-06-21T19:37:00.000+03:00

Your Italian Name Is...

Alisa Russo

What's Your Italian Name?

boring yet essential facts

2006-06-21T19:29:00.000+03:00

I send an average of 27 email messages per day!

I visit, on average, 20 websites per day!

I post, on average, very little here in comparison to the above numbers, per day!

feeling fuzzy

2006-06-13T18:31:00.000+03:00

It could be April or March for all I know, because I have to admit this is the first June when I’m really working a regular grind (last summer, at the conservation atelier, we used to take time off between projects to prance around). Our “real” lives revolve from one weekend to the next. We make time for friends in advance, because without a solid date we keep missing each other and it becomes hard to believe we’re all actually living and working in the same city. We manifest the cliche “This is not how I imagined it would be like”… But, but, but… good things are happening too:

Took a long-weekend roadtrip to Antalya and back with Altan and Engin to go to a wedding and made an excursion to Olympos, where we somehow managed to convince my clean freak brother to spend the night in a semi-covered treehouse. It was just like camping, except I think I prefer a simple screened tent to an open hut with electricity (attracting flies like crazy). Antalya went beyond my expectations – they have completed a major overhaul, including crazy underpasses and escalators at each pedestrian crossing, to curb traffic and generally beautified a city that used to look like 70s Turkish Cyprus. Definitely impressive. Meanwhile, Altan fell in love with bland old Isparta (especially the Davraz mountain, which rises all green and lovely on one side of the town). But there’s really nothing to do except walk around the central park, eat lots of rose-flavored chocolate and count the number of Suleyman Demirel statues)

Irmik is back in town, it’s been great to see her lovely face grace our seldom outings altogether.

We all saw Morrissey at Parkorman. It was surreal but curt and sweet. He didn’t perform enough golden oldies. But he’s still in amazing shape.

Attended my first Kristal Elma award ceremony, which gave me further doubts about whether the advertising industry is really my piece of cake… It was super anti-climactic. Yet, the agency received one award for a super sneaky bug spray ad, created by our beloved intern Cem. He hadn’t even graduated from college yet! He totally deserves his first Crystal Apple. You can see the work here (an industry pro site run by Settar). Two of my team’s accounts received certificates of accomplishment (small hurray)…

I’m easing back into project mode: making a portfolio site for a friend, should be up by the
end of this week!

The Ithaca gang started an email chain reaction, it’s been good to hear from everyone and hope that we do organize a trip to Bozcaada around August. I get one week off if I take a leave before October, and then I get two weeks after October (‘coz my first year here will be up)

I’d like to visit Yoshimi in Boston next month, so currently I’m trying to figure out if a) I can afford it and b) my boss will let me…

I wrote all this stuff so now I don’t have to write for another 3 months.
No, really, I’m kidding.

sooo much to give

2006-06-06T23:04:00.000+03:00

I have so many pictures to add to Flickr, dating back to April....
and so much to write about (they're all on post-its at the moment, waiting to become a 'real' post)

I can see from my stats that you've already given up on me because I haven't done anything here for so long... but I do have much to give! I'm making this Sunday my deadline.

my man mick

2006-04-25T12:42:00.000+03:00

dast ist cool...

from imdb:

"Sir Mick Jagger has refused to give up his room in an Austrian hotel after US President George W. Bush attempted to book it for himself. The Rolling Stones frontman is paying $6,300 a night for the luxury Royal suite at the Imperial Hotel in Vienna, which he reserved just days before Bush's assistants tried to book it for a summit meeting. The president's aides have tried to persuade Jagger, who has spoken out against the war in Iraq, to give the room up - without success. A source tells British newspaper The Sun, "White House officials had wanted to reserve the suite and all the other rooms on the first floor. But Mick and the Stones had already booked every one of them. Bush's people seemed to be under the impression that they would just hand over the suites but there was no way Mick was going to do that." The Royal suite is ranked among the top 100 best hotel rooms in the world."

Pre-Pre Fun

2006-04-07T19:44:00.000+03:00

Altan just got his iMac G5 (on loan) for the Project... and it will live with us for a few months. We welcome the latest member of the family, as seen above.

Last night was spent cuddling and discovering the wonders of this magnificent creature... the built in lens was an extra cherry on the pie, providing us with quality apply-stupid-camera-effects and perfecting pseudo emo poses time (we will probably soon have a separate blog about the Project and I will share what's going on with all):

precious words

2006-03-21T20:43:00.000+02:00

Writing late night from the office again... waiting for my turn with the mac operator to pull the RL catalogue together for the Salone fair... ate crap again for dinner... my desk looks like an over-thought-out set decoration for a crammed office TV series... my hair is frizzy and oily all at once... the agency is merging with some Russians we don't know yet....
but my lovely bought me some really nice shoes today!!! for no reason other than the fact that I liked them!! I feel spoiled.

anyway that's boring for you probably. too bad. haha.

I need to fill some space here to pull the layout back to shape.... so I'm posting a list I made a month ago when I was suffering from an especially intense bout of Sunday Night Syndrome....

some favourite words (criteria: sound and shape)

Albemarle
Bespoke
Calla
Drivel
Ephemera
Fall
Grasp
Hull
Incandescent
Javelin
Kale
Lax
Math
Nebulous
Oath
Pale
Qualm
Ruby
Saul (I know it's a name. but still a word.)
Treble
Umber
Vendetta
Wan
X?????????????????
Yoke
Zinfandel

A Muffled Shuffle

2006-03-08T20:31:00.000+02:00

I ripped this questionnaire off of irmik....

Shuffle the songs on your player to forecast the answers!

1. How does the world see me?
"New Slang" -The Shins (oh dear... but maybe valid at this point in time)

2. Will I have a happy life?
"Valse de Melody" -Serge Gainsbourg (bittersweet, the way I like it)

3. What do my friends really think of me?
"Hung Up" -Madonna (hmm... an obsessive dance freak?)

4. Do people secretly lust after me?
"Anything You Want" -Spoon (heheh)

5. How can I make myself happy?
"Diamonds from Sierra Leone" -Kanye West (oh yeah, I'm cold hearted like the Shirley Bassey sample on that track... peh)

6. What should I do with my life?
"I'm in love" -Audio Bullys (it is a priority... hmm)

7. Will I ever have children?
"How to fight loneliness" -Wilco (it appears that I won't, and will probably turn into someone's bitter aunt)

8. What is some good advice for me?
"Something Big" -Jim O'Rourke (think big? dont sweat the small stuff? cliche!)

9. How will I be remembered?
"Everyone's Gone to the Moon" -Chad & Jeremy (soothing but graphically desolate?)

10. What is my signature dancing song?
"Carey" -Joni Mitchell (never have danced to it. maybe never even listened to it...)

11. What do I think my current theme song is?
"Love Burns" -Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (quite the opposite actually)

12. What does everyone else think my current theme song is?:
"Three times a lady" -Lionel Richie (ok, I know I'm sappy sometimes but not this cheesy! right??)

13. What song will play at my funeral?
"Hotel Yorba" -White Stripes (interesting...)

14. What type of men/women do you like?
"I lost you but I found country music" -Ballboy (this is funny sad on so many levels)

15. What is tomorrow going to be like?
"Dawna" -Morphine (smooth...)

the sound (of water) and the fury (of work)

2006-03-02T13:02:00.000+02:00

hello. I've been a terrible, terrible blogger the past two months --- recyling lyrics, posting only clues as to what's been going on. I want to get back to the hang of things here but my PC at home is still kaput and I honestly do not have the time to sit and collect, then transfer ideas to my blog at work.... The largest volume of stuff that's been going on here is because of this man's designs:

Ross Lovegrove, VitrA's newest designer of bathroom ware and also recipient of the Wallpaper best bathroom design award for 2006..... The campaign launch is in April, it's an immensely exciting yet densely packed period, so until then, I will need to really grit my teeth to make time and energy for my humble web abode. Bear with me, please...

Giving In

2006-02-27T13:10:00.000+02:00

1990
Originally uploaded by Alara.

Been listening to Cat Power's new album... I'm telling you, this song grows on you like plush ivy

"The Greatest"

Once I wanted to be the greatest
No wind or waterfall could stop me
And then came the rush of the flood
The stars at night turned you to dust

Melt me down
To big black armour
Leave no trace
Of grace
Just in your honor
Lower me down
That corporate slob
Make a watch
For a space in town
For the lack of the dreds
Of my bed I've been sleeping
Lower me down
Pin me in
Secure the grounds
For the later parade

Once I wanted to be the greatest
Two faced, sad little rock
When things I couldn't explain
Any feelings
Lower me down
Pin me in
Secure the grounds
For the lack of the drugs
My faith had been sleeping
For the later parade

Once I wanted to be the greatest
No wind or water fall could stop me
And then came the rush of the flood
The stars at night turned you to dust

-Chan Marshall

banna!

2006-02-02T20:39:00.000+02:00

hey. I've been trying to get motivated to write more here, and decided to apply the "beautify your surroundings and gather your thoughts" theory to fuzzyradio. I've been switching banners like a madman in the past two days. The current one was designed by Altan, my brother. He thought the other one had legibility problems. You can see that one below.
I'm working on an extra one but for now Altan's seems to suit me just right. Thanks bro!

checkmate

2006-01-26T14:33:00.000+02:00

Today I had to take the stinky, crowded bus to work because there weren't any cabs around, thanks to the muck on the ground that's called snow. I was pleased to find I hadn't entirely lost my bus-lurch combat balancing skills, which are not dissimilar to those required for snowboarding or windsurfing. While trying to make out which stop we were approaching through the fogged windows of the bus, a rare event caught my eye: the businessman next to me, whom I gather does not normally use public transportation but was on the bus due to weather conditions, was playing chess on his handheld phone/organizer device. Every time traffic came to a halt, every time another stop was approached, he'd pull it out of his coat pocket and make his next move, daintily pressing the screen with his electronic pen. Once the bus was set back into motion, he'd put it away and stare at his shoes, appearing to contemplate the remaining game. No matter how the bus lurched and coughed, no matter how many other standing passengers were dizzily crashing into him, he unflinchingly continued his mental destination to checkmate. Watching this repetitive action put me in a trance that made my commute a little less uncomfortable and much faster...

dreariest snow

2006-01-23T17:21:00.000+02:00

monday + greyish snow does not a great time make.
I'm debating spending the night at a friend's house near the office or walking home, pretending I'm upstate or in Alaska. Except both those places would not have such filthy muck on the streets... it's not a pleasant winter wonderland, it's dreary dreadland here...

so my colleagues and i have been postponing our early release into the muck and the odyssey to our respective homes by window-shopping online. i got lost in the evil world of urban outfitters. and may i point out how lovely these look in contrast with the view from the corner room up here at the plaza:
*stuff I want but don't need. well, not all of them. but i do need a new pair of all-purpose sneakers pretty bad. my favourites are the nike tweed blazers, first in the row...

it's been more than a while...

2006-01-17T15:28:00.000+02:00

......so i'll just copy-paste some lyrics as a place holder.

"Suitcase Song"

When it says goodbye
You don't hear it sigh
Does that it mean
That it's gone far far away
Is this your day to
Buy a paper
Draw a mustache
Make the mayor a giraffe
Try and tempt fate
Get pneumonia
Recuperate with soy bologna

[chorus]
Can you hear the rain a ploppin' slowly
With a soft and soapy thud
Don't you worry about a moppin', sholy
You'll only find yourself with mud
Mayfalta una maleta
Mayfalta una maleta

When you go to bed
Lay your fuzzy head
By the nightstand
Where you turned off your phone
Nobody's home, now
Ride the subway
Make graffiti
Go to Famous Ray's
Buy ziti
Get the paper
No more artwork
Make the mayor a dartboard

(Nellie McKay)

Suspended

2005-12-13T19:37:00.000+02:00

I'm sorry for my prolonged absence here; my pc at home is mysteriously kaput and the agency has been getting the better of me the past two weeks or so.

Just dropping a little update on the radio, Haydar should be posting what we've played so far within our Best Songs of the Last Five Years countdown....
and here are my projections for 2003, to air next week. It was a hell of a year and decisions will be tough:

White Stripes
Notwist
The Shins
Calexico
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Rapture
Dizzee Rascal
The Darkness
Cat Power
Badly Drawn Boy
Damien Rice
Broken Social Scene
My Morning Jacket
Bubba Sparxxx
Postal Service
Death Cab for Cutie
The Decemberists
Josh Rouse
Rufus Wainwright

That's just the diarrhea version, no holds barred. For example, I doubt that josh rouse will make it.

'Twas all Fresh back then (2001)

2005-12-01T14:52:00.000+02:00

With the advent of the upcoming quarter-decade countdown on the radio, for which the best tracks (very subjectively selected, of course) of 2001-2005 shall be consumed each Monday throughout December, I have made my list for the first week: no order established, just the names (alphabetically ordered, ok) of people and bands that made at least one song that caused me to hum or jump with gleeful goosebumps during (or sometimes, after-the-fact) that particular part of the new millennium (also my glorious freshman-sophomore year)....

Air
The Avalanches
Badly Drawn Boy
Ben Folds Five
Beta Band
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Daft Punk
Death Cab for Cutie
DJ Krush
Dntel
Gorillaz
Ladybug Transistor
Mogwai
Outkast
Radiohead
Rufus Wainwright
Ryan Adams
The Shins
Spoon
The Strokes
The White Stripes

I'll post the particular songs once I've made some sort of selection... And it's going to be a fun battle deciding who makes it on air when we compare notes with Haydar and Eren.

disco dancin: nike or adidas??

2005-11-30T15:10:00.000+02:00

Since everyone's talking about madonna's new video, which I have to say is my partial inspiration for enrolling in hip hop dance class, I want to say something too: why is Sofia Boutella, who endorses Nike, wearing adidas gear? And dancing in the video of adidas' most well known female supporter??? maybe they're allowed to bend the rules for music... and they should, too...

I've been getting to watch a lot of TV lately, because it's about the only thing I can do without getting disoriented since I have a middle-ear infection. I was sick all last week but kept going to work since it was a critical time, but I wasn't getting any better (my doctor said my throat culture looked fine so didn't prescribe any antibiotics... I sure wish he had then.). Two night ago, I came home from work with a stuffed, aching ear and the next day went to see him again.... and yes I am suffering from what I hate/dread the most in the world. 1500 mg of antibiotics a day... i hope i'll be better enough by Sunday for class again, i think it's addictive...

the universal only out at night

2005-11-25T22:41:00.000+02:00

So there's this guy who calls himself Cobra Snake who's basic line of work is taking pictures of Urban Outfitters, vintage and Defunker-clad kids at parties in NYC and L.A. I'm not really sure what I think yet, mostly because they look like all those indie cool nightlife pics we all post on Flickr and such, but seems like he's really lodged himself into the circuit over there, with custom designed AA tshirts and guest-dj'ed events (to name a couple of them: Carlos D. and Nick from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs). It's amazing how everything looks so similar -- shrunk blazers, shrunk jeans, matted wavy hair, it's really the new normal now... But more amazing is how the same people come running back to pose 'candidly' for him around town.
You can check him out for yourself here or look at the story Paper Magazine ran on him here.

revolt!

2005-11-17T10:42:00.001+02:00

From AdAge:

WHAT BLOGS COST AMERICAN BUSINESS

In 2005, Employees Will Waste 551,000 Years Reading Them

October 24, 2005

QwikFIND ID: AAR05Y

By Bradley JohnsonBlog this: U.S. workers in 2005 will waste the equivalent of 551,000 years reading blogs.

Currently, the time employees spend reading non-work blogs is the equivalent of 2.3 million jobs.

About 35 million workers -- one in four people in the labor force -- visit blogs and on average spend 3.5 hours, or 9%, of the work week engaged with them, according to Advertising Age’s analysis. Time spent in the office on non-work blogs this year will take up the equivalent of 2.3 million jobs. Forget lunch breaks -- blog readers essentially take a daily 40-minute blog break.

me on the Web but less time on the job.

Expansion of online behavior
“Since for the most part blog readers tend to be the most engaged readers of online content,” he said, “they do not appear, at least for now, to be sacrificing time from their favorite news sites. Instead, it looks like blog usage is in addition to existing online behavior.”

Some blogs do relate to work, but deciding just how relevant they are to the employer is open to debate. For this analysis, Ad Age chose a simple score: Count all business blog traffic, half of tech and media blogs and one-fourth of political/news blogs as directly related to work.

Based on ComScore’s tally of blog categories, this suggests just 25% of blog visits directly connect to the job. Employees this year will spend 4.8 billion work hours absorbing wisdom from other blogs that may enlighten visitors but not amuse the boss.

Wasted time
Hard and detailed data on blogging time is limited, so Ad Age’s analysis is a best-guess extrapolation done by reviewing blog-related surveys and data. By Ad Age estimates:

Work time spent reading and posting to blogs this year will consume 2.2% of U.S. labor force hours.
Work time spent at blogs unrelated to work will eat up 1.65% of labor force hours.
U.S. workers this year will waste the equivalent of 551,000 years (based on a 24-hour day) or 2.3 million work years (based on a typical nearly 40-hour work week) reading blogs unrelated to the job.

There is strong evidence of workday blogging. Server traffic for Blogads, a network of sites that take ads, spikes during business hours, reflecting page views on about 900 blogs. FeedBurner, a blog technology company, also sees a jump in work-time hits.

Workday traffic patterns
“Traffic rockets at 8 a.m. EST, peaks at 5 p.m. EST and then slides downward until L.A. leaves the office,” said Blogads founder Henry Copeland. “You see the same thing in the collapse of traffic on weekends. … Bottom line: At work, people can’t watch TV or prop up their feet and read a newspaper, but they sure do read blogs.”

And they create and post to them. Technorati, a blog search engine, now tracks 19.6 million blogs, a number that has doubled about every five months for the past three years. If that growth were to continue, all 6.7 billion people on the planet will have a blog by April 2009. Imagine the work that won’t get done then.

Source:

cat power

2005-11-09T21:47:00.000+02:00

Tempo
Originally uploaded by ehaydar.

I'm really tired so I can't write that long, but I just wanted to write about seeing cat power last night at babylon.
I was so excited to get to see her play, but unfortunately the choice of venue was a bit off--- I think it would have been much better if it was a sit-down affair, maybe at Ses Tiyatrosu, like when we saw Kings of Convenience. She has such a soft voice and such minimal layering that the constant buzz of a chattering audience made me feel embarassed for her. And there were also the throngs who came just because it was cool to be there, not quite knowing what to expect, and perhaps disillusioned by babylon's advertisement -- making her sound like someone in the vein of interpol just because she's with matador. There were groups wailing that it was boring while actual diehard fans got stuck outside without tickets. So the whole affair was a little tense and anticlimactic for me... though her performance was strong and consistently beaufiul, even when i couldn't quite hear it consistenly clearly.

The choice war

2005-11-05T06:03:00.000+02:00

You're a Mod. You dig expensive things, like suits
and speed. You have a fine appreciation for the
Kinks and know that Motown started it all, and
you have fabulous style. Hey, nice hair.

You Know Yer Indie. Let's Sub-Categorize.
brought to you by

Numbers and Coincidences

2005-10-29T15:34:00.000+03:00

23 is a good number. It's a good number because it looks right, and 3 by itself is my most favourite number. Zeynep knows it's a great number too, because we recently both turned 23 on the 23rd of October. That's a double-double whammy right there.

Well, the actual coincidence I wanted to record here is that, as I just realized, on the week of my birthday, the number of photos in my stream on Flickr reached 1023. (and since I've been ultra lazy actually it's still hovering right there). 1023. 10/23. October 23. Get it? Hah. I swear I didn't plan it, it just happened. And you know what else is weird? The camera I started with, and have used for 90% of my shots on Flickr, was given to me on 10/23 of last year.
I assume that a lot of people, like me, take seemingly external coincidences as signs and confirmations that things are good, that what feels right is actually right and what should be happening...

So I'd like to think of this as a sign that 23 should be a good year, for all of us 23 year old confused people.

best of... birthday extravaganza

2005-10-25T19:10:00.000+03:00

haydi eller havaya
Originally uploaded by ehaydar.

Well im officially as old as the number in the "day" window on my passport. İ'm also, as i just found out, the same age my parents got married at.
Anyway enough math already, I just wanted to thank everyone, near and far, who helped me enjoy a really cozy and fun birthday. Having full mic control in a seedy Korean karaoke club in Sultanahmet, it turns out, was all I really was needing. Thanks everyone. I'm glad to be alive and have y'all in my life. I think I just keep getting sappier every year.

170, thanks for the music.

I was half in mind - I was half in need,
And as the rain came down - I dropped to my knees and prayed
I said "oh Heavenly thing - please cleanse my soul,
I've seen all on offer and I'm not impressed at all".

I was halfway home - I was half insane,
And every shop window I looked in just looked the same
I said send me a sign to save my life
'Cause at this moment in time there is nothing certain in
these day's of mine

Y'see it's a frightening thing when it dawns upon you
That I know as much as the day I was born
And though I wasn't asked (I might as well stay
An) promise myself each and every day - that -

When you're knocked on your back - an' your life's a flop
and when you're down on the bottom there's nothing else
but to shout to the top - shout

-Style Council

sunday night soundtrack

2005-10-16T23:09:00.000+03:00

This Sunday:

This Heart's On Fire

Sometimes they rock and roll
Sometimes they stay at home and it's just fine
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire

I am my mother's hen
and left the body in the bed all day
We don't know what to do
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire

A thousand made-up loves
What makes the sound of surf once you know you're alive?
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire

It's getting better all the time
It's getting better all the time
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire

And you're my favourite thing
tell it everywhere I go
I don't know what to do
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire

Sometimes they rock and roll
I'd rather stay at home in real life
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire

It's getting better all the time
It's getting better all the time
It's getting better all the time
It's getting better all the time

This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire
This heart's on fire

-Wolf Parade

me jane?

2005-10-16T23:02:00.000+03:00

Tarzan!

What movie Do you Belong in?

and it's now

2005-10-14T11:26:00.000+03:00

I was listening to one of those compilation cd's that some magazines give away every now and then and was taken by surprise. I actually liked a Bright Eyes song for the first time--- normally I can't stand conor oberst's shaky whiny voice but the lyrics on this one were good enough to block out his occasional whimper.

"We Are Nowhere, And It's Now"(feat. Emmylou Harris)

If you hate the taste of wine
Why do you drink it until you’re blind?
And if you swear that there’s no truth and who cares,
How come you say it like you’re right?
Why are you scared to dream of god
When it’s salvation that you want?
You see, stars that clear have been dead for years
But the idea just lives on

In our wheels that roll around
As we move over the ground
And all day it seems we’ve been in between the past and future town
We are nowhere, and it’s now
We are nowhere, and it’s now

You took a ten-minute dream in the passengers seat
While the world it was flying by
I haven’t been gone very long
But it feels like a lifetime

I’ve been sleeping so strange at night
Side effects they don’t advertise
I’ve been sleeping so strange
With a head full of pesticide

I got no plans and too much time
I feel too restless to unwind
I’m always lost in thought
As I walk a block to my favourite neon sign
Where the waitress looks concerned
But she never says a word
Just turns the jukebox on
And we hum along
And I smile back at her

And my friend comes after work
When the features start to blur
She says these bars are filled with things that kill
And you probably should have learned
Did you forget that yellow bird? How could you forget that yellow bird?

She took a small silver wreath and pinned it onto me
She said this one will bring you love
I don’t know if it’s true but I keep it for good luck

-Bright Eyes
=============================

Also, I discovered another cool magazine at the office. It's call Re. They have special issues where the entire magazine is about one person, one civilian, inside and out. It's quite stunning.
Check it: www.re-magazine.com

unofficial freelance critic of the year

2005-10-12T23:20:00.000+03:00

Ryan L. has written the most insightful, witty, delicate if not poignant album review I have ever read... and I'd like to share it because I think it's just awesome. I'd asked him about what he thought of the new Franz album, since I trust his judgment the most--- of course, this is a huge but handy bias given our tastes and sensitivities on music run so close---- and here I'd like to quote what he said. He should seriously think about moonlighting in this business. Go for it, man...

Mr. Ryan Lamare, reporting on Franz Ferdinand's latest album, from NY:

"top three picks from you could have it so much better:

1. walk away
2. the fallen
3. well that was easy

although, reconsidering, my favorite track right now is 'outsiders'
because of the great disco-y guitar riff jabs throughout. evil and a
heathen is up there as well. really, i'm going to do a major cop out and
say that a top three is too hard. no, let me think about this more
seriously. top three:

the fallen has to be there, because what a great opener it really is.
it's dylan's subterranean homesick blues played over some schwarzenegger
action movie, only you can't stop dancing to it.

walk away might have to get taken off, because while it is imminently
single-worthy (and likely their next 'take me out') the accessibility of
it distances itself from being too personable. it's the gorgeous girl you
don't really care that much about because she's a little too perfect.

i'd replace walk away with the outsiders, because it feels a little left
out, with all the blistering chord changes and dylan lyrics before it.
you forget about it for a while and then you hear it and remember why you
liked franz ferdinand in the first place. on an album of constant
changes, the fact that the song barely gets beyond its guitar jabbings
sets it apart from the rest (in a good way).

rounding out my top three would be well that was easy. to me, this song
epitomizes the record - cute, filled with a lot of twists and turns, never
taking itself too seriously, a little bit too self-aware, a disco-dylan
lovefest, and really quite good. oh, and you can't stop dancing."

and I am thinking about Poland in March!!!

giant origami

2005-10-11T00:37:00.000+03:00

I want to make giant origami, huge, larger than me and three friends, so we can sit in it. I dream of translucent papers and opaque folds, so the light could come through here and there. I could take a nap in a dark corner... and then read a magazine in another... hmm...

letter from the cobblestone evenings

2005-10-07T18:21:00.000+03:00

Some things that have been on my mind lately:

1. Ramadan & Crime

(I hate that it's prounounced RamaDAN in English--- how hard is it to say Ramazan, like it should be? The Western version sounds like it has a speech impediment.)

The month of Ramazan, when a large number of faithful Muslims fast daily from sunrise to sunset, has just begun. Besides food, those following the rules and rites of this tradition must abstain from invasive bodily procedures, sexual activity, and all sorts of crime and immoralities like lying.
In Turkey, various studies have correlated intensive religious conservatism, belief and frequent practice with those on the lower rungs of the socio-economic scale. Background studies examining the perpetration of criminal acts also highly correlated with these lower rungs.
Having basically trained as a social scientist, I do not wish to jump the gun or propose a misjudged hypothesis but I do wonder: do crime rates in Turkey, and perhaps other Muslim countries, decline significantly during the Holy Month?

Hmm...

2. Extinct Disease?

Today I read that a nursing home in Canada is in fact nursing an epidemic of Legionnaire's Disease. I thought that like the plague and syphillis, this was an extinguished illness. Or am I confusing it with leprosy?

3. Music Cure

This summer's onslaught of diversified, quality performances appears to be continuing into the fall and winter in Istanbul... So far, I've heard:

Cat Power
Nouvelle Vague (both in November)
Turin Brakes
Morrissey (oh, December, you're so far away...)

This makes me a gram less jealous of people like Irmak, Cenk and our local jet-concert-setters (you know who you are, you petite people!)

In a Nutshell

2005-10-01T12:42:00.000+03:00

I finished the book. I tried to read the last pages so very slowly, so it wouldn't have to end.
Here is the prologue, which in hindsight, does justice to some semblance of a summary than I ever could. And I usually skip prologues and quotes, but I had to read everything with this one.

"Oh not because happiness exists,
that too-hasty profit snatched from approaching loss.

But because truly being here is so much; because everything here
apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way
keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all.

...Ah, but what can we take along
into that other realm? Not the art of looking,
which is learned so slowly, and nothing that happened here. Nothing.
The sufferings, then. And, above all, the heaviness,
and the long experience of love, --just what is wholly
unsayable."

-Rilke (from The Ninth Duino Elegy)

Chicago, Time-Travel, Love Stories

2005-09-29T18:33:00.000+03:00

The primary reason I haven't written here is because I am too occupied with reading a novel. And when I'm engrossed in something I can't really think about anything else, writing-wise.

The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger, is what keeps me up late at night, struggling to keep an eye open for another page even though my body yearns for sleep. I'm eating it slowly, because it's so beautiful and I do not want it to end. People have categorized it somewhat shortsitedly as "science-fiction" or "drama" or "a poignant love story" but I think it deserves more than categorical quippings. It's not a simple love story, for a start. Imagine that you are Clare, the female lead, and you meet your husband-to-be for the first time when you are 6 years old and he is 40-something. He visits you sporadically while you are growing up, because he has a genetic illness that makes him time-travel involuntarily. You have a special friend who teaches you languages, literature, and how to kiss; but it is a secret because no one will believe you. He will disappear for two years when you reach 17. You know this because your own future self, Henry's wife in the future, has made a list of visiting dates for you.
Then, years later, you meet him in real time, and he is not yet 30. He doesn't yet have the memories of seeing your young self. But you have known him your entire life. You become a couple and the rest of the story weaves through different timelines, the exercise of free will against fate, non-existing memories, and the coexisting beauty and pain of a time-travelling lover who you sometimes see at the same time when he is at different ages. The book is written from both perspectives, like a journal. The story of Henry and Clare is amazing to me and personally touching, for reasons I haven't yet put a finger on. The best part is that Niffenegger writes with such fluidity. She knows to call a spade a spade. After a good friend raved non-stop about Chicago, and now reading about it in all its windy glory in this book, I just have to go there sometime. I've got about 80 pages to go, so until then, I bid adieu.

Sunday night, 11:03

2005-09-18T23:00:00.000+03:00

dear diary,

today I saw strange incarnations of kitchen design, nursed some tears and watched Risky Business for the sixth time in the most comfortable apartment in Istanbul with Asli and Koray. Risky Bizniz is only film I ever like Tom Cruise in. He was so neat, before he got all freaky psycho clean/goody goody/scientologist/neon teeth weirdo.
also, fall is almost completely here.

thanks asli for the flowers and the phone dial lyrics.
bonnes aventures par avion!

Well that was easy, waiting
Everything's easy now
And the days are oh so normal

But oh baby how I miss you
Oh, baby how I miss you
Oh, baby how I miss you now
Now... n-n-n-now....

I used to lock myself in your bathroom
Swallowing the Codeine kept for your back
Numb, so numb
I'd let your words come and come

Oooooh
So come
Come on, come
Come on kill me now
Kill me now
Kill me now
'Cause I'm leaving you now

That was easy, but how I miss you
That was easy, but I still miss you
That was easy, but how I miss you now
Now...n-n-n-now

I watched you clean the filth off your phone dial
Swallowing things your finger picked up
Tongue, your tongue
I'd watch your tongue licking on

Oooooh
So come
Come on tongue
Come on kill me now
Kill me now
Kill me now
'Cause I'm leaving you now

-fr frdnd

journale

2005-09-15T19:22:00.000+03:00

I heard this on the radio as I was cleaning up the kitchen and debating a job offer. I kinda liked it.

"This Is The Day" -The The

Well... you didn't wake up this morning,
'cause you didn't go to bed.
You were watching the whites of your eyes turn red!

The calendar on your wall -- IS TICKING -- the days off.

You've been reading some old letters.
You smile and think how much you've changed.
All the money in the world couldn't buy back those days.

You pull back the curtains, and the sun burns into your eyes.
You watch a plane flying across a clear blue sky.
THIS IS THE DAY -- Your life will surely change.
THIS IS THE DAY -- When things fall into place.

You could've done anything, if you'd wanted.
And all your friends and family think that you're lucky.
But the side of you they'll never see
Is when you're left alone with the memories
That hold your life together like -- GLUE

You pull back the curtains, and the sun burns into your eyes.
You watch a plane flying across a clear blue sky.
THIS IS THE DAY -- Your life will surely change.
THIS IS THE DAY -- When things fall into place.

THIS IS THE DAY -- Your life will surely change.

me gusta

2005-09-13T01:56:00.000+03:00

son zamanlarda alejandro sanz'a hastayim.

-dior homme

'tis all, folks, good night

2005-09-10T03:39:00.000+03:00

In my mind I'm going to Carolina. Can't you see the sunshine, can't you just feel the moonshine?
Ain�t it just like a friend of mine to hit me from behind? Yes, I'm going to Carolina in my mind.

Karen she's the silver sun, you best walk her way and watch it shine,
watch her watch the morning come.
A silver tear appearing now I'm crying, ain't I? I�m going to Carolina in my mind.

There ain't no doubt in no ones mind that loves the finest thing around,
whisper something soft and kind.
And hey, babe, the sky's on fire, I'm dying, ain't I? I'm going to Carolina in my mind.

In my mind I'm going to Carolina. Can't you see the sunshine, can't you just feel the moonshine?
Ain�t it just like a friend of mine to hit me from behind? Yes, I'm going to Carolina in my mind.

Dark and silent late last night, I think I might have heard the highway calling.
Geese in flight and dogs that bite.
And signs that might be omens say I�m going, going, going to Carolina in my mind.

With a holy host of others standing round me, still I'm on the dark side of the moon.
And it seems like it goes on like this forever, you must forgive me
if I'm up and in my mind I'm going to Carolina,
can't you see the sunshine can't you just feel the moonshine?
Ain�t it just like a friend of mine to hit me from behind? Yes, I'm going to Carolina in my mind.

In my mind I'm going to Carolina. Can't you see the sunshine, can't you just feel the moonshine?
Ain't it just like a friend of mine to hit me from behind? Yes, I'm going to Carolina in my mind.
Gotta make it back home again soon, gotta make it back on home again soon,
gotta make it back to Carolina soon, can't
hang around, no babe, gotta make it back home again,
gotta make it back to Carolina soon

-James Taylor, 1968

Autumn Sweater

2005-09-09T17:52:00.000+03:00

tents to the sky
Originally uploaded by Alara.

Every recent year, around this time I'd normally be travelling on a bus through upstate NY, tired from the plane, yet excited to be going back to clean notebooks and friend's couches. I'd attempt to explain the summer rituals in Turkey and listen to stories about road trips I didn't attend and escapades to places like Fire Island or Prague. My second fall not doing that anymore, it still feels odd not to be mobilized away to new moods, new classes, and singing with yoshimi again.

I am well aware that I have yet to fulfil my promise to recap on the bigger events of the daily summer life, but I'm decidedly saving that for a definitive rainy Sunday when the end of the mellow yellow season arrives and the golden brown era begins.
All I've got this time are lyrics. Sorry. But there's no better way to welcome my favourite season, autumn, than with a little simon & garfunkel.

America

"Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together. I've got some
real estate here in my bag."
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies and walked off
to look for America.

"Kathy," I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh,
Michigan seems like a dream to me now.
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw, I've come to look for America.

Laughing on the bus, playing games with the faces.
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy.
I said "Be careful, his bow tie is really a camera."

"Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat." "We smoked
the last one an hour ago."
So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine and the moon rose
over an open field.

"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping.
"I'm empty and aching and I don't know why"
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike, they've all come to look
for America.
All come to look for America, all come to look for America.

well then

2005-09-07T15:12:00.000+03:00

Katharine Hepburn
You scored 16% grit, 47% wit, 38% flair, and 14% class!

You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You
go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand
head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing
and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or
conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common
sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet.
You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the
screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who
like strong women.

Find out what kind of classic leading man you'd make by taking the
Classic Leading Man Test.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 28% on grit
You scored higher than 92% on wit
You scored higher than 53% on flair
You scored higher than 8% on class

Link:
The Classic Dames Test written by gidgetgoes on Ok Cupid

Flu & A Film

2005-08-30T14:24:00.000+03:00

I've put off writing about anything substantial for a while now but here is my public pledge to recap on the Formula 1 GP Weekend and recent, yet prematurely halted, road trip down the Aegean. Haydar and I drove (well, he drove and I was the music/money/signs master) from Istanbul to Bursa (via car ferry) to visit Bulut, who was digging up some ....lithic ruins (I want to say neo but it was something else) for about 2 hours on Saturday and then drove down to Cesme on the Aegean coast to visit Zeynep for a couple of days. Yesterday we were going to continue up the coast to Assos and drive back on Wednesday but my flu worsened and I made a jet decision to fly back to Istanbul from Izmir with Zeynep. It pained me to throw the towel in but now I'm glad I did because my head feels like a lead balloon.
Anyway I will surely write down all the details of the trip, complete with illustrations on Flickr, as soon as I get my hands on a USB cable for my camera. I keep losing those things.
In the meantime, last night, after getting home successfully from the airport and having done the usual verbal summary to the parents, I snuggled up with my new best friend, TheraFlu, and switched the TV on. I was delighted to find myself in the near-middle of a film called Diary of a Mad Housewife, on c-nbce. I urge anyone who has enjoyed Annie Hall, The Apartment (with Beau Bridges), The Graduate, Harold and Maude, or even Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie to watch it. I'm not sure if it's easy to come by, but library av collections should have it. You can read the summary etc. on IMDB anyhow; so I'm just going to note my observation that Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives) looks and actually acts a lot like Carrie Snodgress (lead of Mad Housewife)... interesting...

My nose spray awaits; my pledge to detail remains...

ichiban!

2005-08-25T16:03:00.000+03:00

I'm so happy at least someone is writing in their blog... 'cause I haven't lately, except for other people's lyrics, and Irmak certainly hasn't either.
I dedicate this post to Esin's budding career in travel writing, found right here.

She's ichiban, our man in Japan.

Cok ozledik seni.

revisit the revisited

2005-08-23T23:59:00.000+03:00

Old Friends, New Lovers

Everybody's talking crazy
This town you're hanging up on me,
Baby blue.

Its such a shame when old friends fall out,
Its such a shame when old friends fall out,
Its such a shame when old friends fall out,
Over new lovers. (Well my oh my oh my)

Broken friendships surely beckon
Why she asked me?
All because of you,
Baby blue.

Its such a shame when old friends fall out,
Its such a shame when old friends fall out,
Its such a shame when old friends fall out,
Over new lovers. (Well my oh my oh my)

Its such a shame when old friends fall out,
Its such a shame when old friends fall out,
Its such a shame when old friends fall out,
Over new lovers. (Well my oh my oh my)

-The Thrills

Goin' to the Chapel and...

2005-08-15T18:41:00.000+03:00

Originally uploaded by Alara.

After a string of holed-up-at-home Saturdays, going to a wedding at St. Antoine Church in Beyoglu was a refreshing turn of events.
But, it wasn't just anyone's wedding--- Mine and Johannes got married! Thanks to Aylin, we were always up to date with their love stories while at college. I remember when they started 'officially' dating and we met up to have a jolly good time in Bodrum a few summers ago. My ideas of weddings have always been stuffy and slightly uncomfortable, but this was the exact opposite. Maybe because it was a 'young wedding', or maybe because they're just a laid-back couple, I don't know. The church was beautiful, Mine's dress made me a fan of bridal gowns for the first time in my life, and I'm sure that most of the pedestrians outside the church were gathered round to look at the most brilliant 'getaway car' ever. And everyone just looked so relaxed and happy. In the evening, the party moved to BuzAda, a little island/club in the middle of the Bosphorus. It was good to see some people from Cornell again, too.
You can see more pictures from the wedding through my main Flickr page.

All the best to the newlyweds--- and a great little honeymoon on the boat!

i can tell you taste like the sky cause you look like rain

2005-08-12T19:57:00.000+03:00

You can see how productive and sociable I am by the fact that I am on the office on a Friday night, an office that I will shortly be leaving for good (the 19th is my announced effective-resignation date). I just haven't done that much work this week and I need to justify my weekend break. So I'm staying just a little bit longer.
In the meantime, look what I did:

Songs for every day of the week

Manic Monday --Bangles
Ruby Tuesday --Rolling Stones
Ash Wednesday --Shivaree
Thursday --Morphine
Friday, I'm in Love --The Cure (yeah, i know it's obvious. i'm lame like that)
Saturday in the Park --Chicago
Everyday is like Sundays --'Jimbo' Morrissey

I hope this will be useful to someone out there.

i like putting things together

2005-08-12T01:21:00.000+03:00

Battle of Who Could Care Less

Do you not hear me anymore
I know it’s not your thing
To care
I know it’s cool to be so bored
But it sucks me in when you’re aloof
It sucks me in, it sucks it works
I guess it’s cool to be alone

Will you never rest
Fighting the battle of who
Could care less
Every day you wake up late
Sometimes I wish I was
That way

And you think rockford files
Is cool
But there are some things
That you would change
If it were up to you
So think about your masterpiece
Watch the rockford files and
Call to see if paul can score
Some weed
Will you never rest
Fighting the battle
Of who could care less
Unearned unhappiness
That’s alright I guess

I’ve got this great idea
Why don’t we pitch into the
Franklin fucking mint
Fine pewter portraits of
General apathy and major boredom singing. . .
Whatever and ever amen.
Oh well maybe not try
Again
This should cheer you up
For sure
See I’ve got your old i.d.
And you’re all dressed up like
The cure

Will you never rest
Fighting the battle
Of who could care less
Unearned unhappiness
You’re my hero I confess

-Ben Folds

photo: c.sherman

fillers

2005-08-11T19:08:00.000+03:00

Your Summer Ride is a Beetle Convertible

Fun, funky, and a little bit euro.
You love your summers to be full of style and sun!

What's Your Summer Ride?

this is interesting:

Your Musical Tastes Match: Nicole Kidman

See her whole playlist here (iTunes required)

What Celebrity Matches Your Taste in Music?

In a Past Life...

You Were: A Ditzy Dancer.

Where You Lived: Ireland.

How You Died: The Plague.

Who Were You In a Past Life?