It's been a bit heavy on words around here lately, what with all the talk of what we'd do in the event of a disaster in Turkey and nostalgic trips down memory lane in Istanbul. Today, because it's Monday, the first day of the work week, because I'm tired and you probably are too, I'm doing away with the words and sharing instead some photos I took of my friend's gorgeous flat.
I trekked over to Sultanahmet, where she lives, and fell in love with the abundance of textures and colors and wanted to share them with you. I'm not a professional photographer, but I did my best to capture just how pretty this space was. Enjoy!
Ever since we went on a day trip to Priene, Miletus and Didyma last summer, I've been fascinated by Priene in particular. The city is just so haunting and desolate, sitting high atop a craggy hill isolated from nearby towns. The day we were there last summer, the thunderous clouds overhead added to the ambiance and I've come away from that day telling anyone going to Selcuk to definitely take a day trip to see it.
Fast forward to last fall and we accompanied a couple of our friends of ours to a photography show by an old friend of theirs. I love photography exhibitions and I especially love when the subject is Turkey. And, of course, Jeff and I simply couldn't help ourselves: we ended up walking away with one of the printed photographs.
The title of the photo is "Priene Harabeleri" or, "Priene Desolation". It's an apt title for a photo that I think captures beautifully the bleakness and the forlornness of the abandoned city's ruins.
A photographer named Aykut Erdoğdu took the photo, and one of the reasons I like his photography so much is because of its 360-degree aspect. It adds so much to the photo, so much life and artistry.
Of course, not all of Aykut's photos are quite this haunting. One of my other favorites is a 360-degree, panoramic shot of the Alsancak train station. It is super cool, but since I've never been to the train station, I didn't want to buy the photo and hang it on my wall.
After much debate, Jeff and I decided to hang "Priene Desolation" in our entryway, right above where we kick off and put on our shoes, where we can see it every day. It didn't quite fit in our salon, which is much more colorful, and we didn't want to put it in the guest room where we wouldn't see it often. So in the entryway it hangs.
This is a story of a Kurdish kilim (rug) that made its way to Turkey way back in 1995.
The kilim arrived in south-eastern Turkey from Iran and was given to our friend Umit's friend's father.
For 12 years, the kilim lay in their home where upon it people walked, lounged, ate their dinner, and drank tea.
When Umit's friend married a few years ago, the friend's father gave him the kilim as a wedding present. The kilim stayed with the newlyweds for about a year, after which the kilim was shipped to Batman as a gift to Umit.
And then, this past weekend, the kilim made its way via a 23-hour bus ride to Izmir, where it was laid out on the floor and presented as a gift to me, the most recent recipient of a rug that was probably made before I was born.
The rug is pink and blue and red and white and black and tan in some parts. It is not, by many people's estimations, "perfect."
Its tassels vary in length and the edges are slanted, maybe because the kilim was made in a barn and the rugmaker used the barn's slanted walls for guidance around the edges. Or perhaps because it was a girl's first rug and she was using it for practice.
But for a kilim made probably about 30 years ago, it is in surprisingly good shape.
The rug makes me a little bit happy, Umit told me. But I know how much you like rugs. Giving you this rug makes me happier than if I keep it and it makes you very happy, which is better than me keeping it for myself.
The rug, I know, is not mine. It never will be mine, no matter how long it remains in my possession.
It is destined to be given to someone else as a gift, whether that's in two years, five years or 13 years from now.
Turkey can be a challenging place to be a cat owner. Veterinarians are sometimes sketchy, cat food is expensive and finding a bag of decent cat litter can take me an entire afternoon sometimes.
Cat toys and accessories are almost non-existent and when you do find them, they're often pricey and were obviously designed by people who have no idea what cats like.
Take scratching posts, for example.
Scratching posts for cats here are generally about 12 inches tall -- not nearly high enough for a cat to get a good stretch -- and made of cheap rope, which tends to fall apart after a few months of rigorous cat scratching.
No matter how hard I looked or how many vets I visited, I couldn't find a single decent cat scratching post in Izmir. As a result, I almost went insane trying to have both kilims (Turkish carpets) and cats in my home.
And then, just when I thought I'd have to roll up my carpets for good, I found a solution.
And it only cost me $441.71.
Enter the Purrfect Post and its bigger, stronger cousin, the Mondo.
The two posts on the left, the Mondo and the Purrfect Post, were delivered a few weeks ago all the way from California. The third post is one we brought back from Istanbul recently. (Yes, you read that right: we actually had to go all the way to Istanbul for a rinky-dinky little cat post.)
The Mondo is a whopping 99 cm (39 inches) tall with not one, not two but THREE places for the cats to scratch: the bottom platform, the post itself and the top perch.
The Mondo, as you can see, is very loved by Frankie.
Of course, he's not the only one:
In the few weeks we've had these two posts in our house, the scratching of our carpets, rugs and sofas has gone down to nearly zero. For two weeks, I rolled up all the kilims and carpets and trained the cats to ONLY scratch their posts. With some complimentary catnip that came with the posts and lots of positive reinforcement when they scratched the post and not, say, my sofa, they very quickly learned what was up.
Now, these posts are not cheap. The two posts themselves cost $195, but the shipping -- oh, the shipping! -- almost made me faint. We paid $246 to have $195 worth of stuff shipped to us.
But was it worth it? Oh hells yeah. If you have cats and carpets, or if you live in a furnished apartment and don't want your cats destroying your landlord's furniture, these are awesome alternatives to your Ikea sofa armchair. And now my beloved Hakkari kilim is safe.
My next task: to stop Frankie "helping" me cook....
*Just so we're clear: The Purrfect Post company did not pay me to write this post and I have only done so because I really, really like these posts and wanted to tell you about them in case you too are trying to have a life with cats and kilims.
I stink at poker. I'm really, really bad at lying. I squeal when I see something I like, wrinkle my nose at something that smells bad and immediately start proclaiming my love for anything that tastes good.
I just can't help it. My tendency is to be as honest as possible, to say it straight, get it out there, let the world know how I feel.
This has led to several hilarious incidents that Jeff and I still laugh over, like the one time several years ago when I was working as a ballroom dance teacher and my colleagues and I went into a Ben & Jerry's in Philly to have ice cream.
Before I tell you the story, let me say this: I notoriously confuse the flavors Chunky Monkey -- a most disgusting combination of banana ice cream and fudge chunks and walnuts -- and Chubby Hubby -- glorious fudge-covered peanut butter-filled pretzels in vanilla ice cream with fudge and peanut butter. It is -- if you don't count Turkey Hill's Tin Roof Sundae -- The Best Ice Cream on The Planet.
What does this have to do with Turkish carpets? you ask. I'm getting there!
Anyway. So we go into the store and I order Chunky Monkey because I get confused. Don't they sound the same to you? They sound the same to me. I seriously think the people at Ben & Jerry's need to rethink this.
So the teenage girl behind the counter gives me a small cup of Chunky Monkey -- which, have I pointed this out?, is the most disgusting thing ever -- and I start going to town on this ice cream.
And I'm putting the first spoonful in my mouth and I realize, hey, wait a minute. Where's the peanut butter? There's fudge in here but there are no pretzels.
Then, is that a walnut? What the f*&k? It's banana!
Immediately, I start going apeshit.
"OH MY GOD. What IS this? This is disgusting. No seriously, it's gross."
My colleagues turn to look at me in horror. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my friend's husband back away from me.
"No seriously, you guys, I don't know what this is but it's disgusting. Like really gross. Ewwww...I can't even believe it. Are you sure this is Chunky Monkey, because it really doesn't taste like it."
The girl behind the counter asks me what I was expecting and when I tell her she says, "Oh, you wanted the Chubby Hubby."
"YES, that's it. Of course, Chubby Hubby. Isn't that what I said? What is this anyway? It's gross."
As if she didn't already know that.
So you can see how I am. It's not just with bad stuff too. It's with good stuff. I walk into a pazar (market), find something I absolutely love and think MUST HAVE THIS ITEM and immediately start squealing in delight. And then of course the price of said item goes up about 500%.
Now do you see what this has to do with carpets?
This happened right before Halloween when a friend of mine and I spent all day visiting those fake jewelry shops (a bijuteri in Turkish, I think) for a boa for my 1920s flapper costume. Don't ask -- long story. Anyway, the 12th -- 12th!! -- store we went into had one and I simply could not help myself. I squealed, I giggled in delight, I think I may have jumped up and down. My friend (Hi, Cherie!) stood by in horror. When I asked how for the price, the sales woman, whom my friend said exchanged a knowing glance with her colleague just a second earlier, said, "26 TL."
26 lira for a stinkin' boa. Needless to say, I didn't buy it.
Anyway. All of this is to say that Jeff and I are back in Diyarbakir today to visit our lovely friend Umit and I have big plans to buy a carpet. Or rather I have plans to buy a big carpet.
And I must, simply MUST keep a straight face when bargaining with the salesman. The minute your facial expression conveys any kind of pleasure or interest in something, not only do you risk only being shown items similar to it, you also jack up the price.
You see how this is very hard for me. I can't help but look at a carpet and go "OOOOO, PRETTY!!"
Last January when Jeff and I were in Diyarbakir and bought a few smaller carpets, Jeff played the straight man to my "OH MY GOD I LOVE IT" persona. Of course, having our friend Umit there, who speaks both Turkish and Kurdish, also helped a little bit. Okay, it helped a lot, which is why we haven't bought a carpet all year and have been waiting to go back to Diyarbakir so that Umit could help us again.
During all our negotiations, this is the facial expression Jeff tried to play to counter balance me:
It basically says "Yeah, I'm drinking your tea and I'm even semi-interested, but since I'm the one with the wallet, don't listen to my wife. And she sure as hell ain't buying the most expensive carpet in here."
Shopping with Umit was a real learning experience for me. I can drink the tea, I can muhabbet sohbet (chit chat) with the best of them, but I really need help in the negotiating department (see: how I bought my Birkenstocks). I'm really hoping that this weekend I can pick up some good tips.
Or at the very least, come home with an awesome carpet worthy of going "OH MY GOD I LOVE IT."
You read about it in newspapers every so often. Maybe you catch a glimpse of a short segment on the news about it. Most of what you hear about it is through the prism of international news outlets, not local ones based in Turkey, or Jordan, or Pakistan, where so-called "honor killings" actually happen.
A 2007 Turkish film now in theatres in the US attempts to tackle the issue, which is often swept under the rug here in Turkey. So when a few weeks ago I received an email from Gigantic Digital asking if I would like to preview "Mutluluk" ("Bliss" in English) for Turkish Muse before its US release, I jumped at the chance. (Here I must apologize; I intended to publish this post before the movie's US release, but in the hubbub of our move, I never got to it.)
"Bliss", directed by Abdullah Oğuz and based on the novel by Zülfü Livaneli of the same name*, is billed as "one of the first narrative films to tackle the highly charged subject of honor killings". When Meryem is found unconscious by the side of the lake, disheveled and unable to remember what happened, her family assumes that her chastity has been lost and that she has brought shame to the family. They condemn her to death, but when Meryem refuses to take her own life, the task falls to her cousin Cemal who takes her away to Istanbul to complete the deed.
So far, so good, right? Then things get murky. I must disagree with the simple statement that the film talks openly about honor killings: "Bliss" does not deal with the reality of the subject of honor killings, or the custom of murdering a woman for dirtying her family's honor. Instead, it deals with the fantasy of what the director would like them to be.
The movie disregards the other, far more common instances that provoke honor killings: when a woman stays out too late at night, when she is seen walking with a man other than a close family member, when she receives a text message from a boy at school, when she is seen talking to a boy on the street.
The film, set against some of Turkey's most beautiful vistas with admittedly raw and convincing acting, is not real. At best, it is a fantasy; at worst, it is a joke. Women threatened with honor killings usually don't make it out of their situations alive, nor do they sail off into the sunset with rich benefactors and the love of their lives.
In this sense, "Bliss" is a great movie to export to foreign audiences; it paints a glossy picture over the harsh truth about honor killings. The movie disregards, almost trivializes, every other woman's experience of being told she must kill herself because she has "sinned."
Please don't take my word for this. See the movie for yourself, then come back here and let me know what you think.
To find out where the film will play in the US, click here. The film opened in New York City on Aug. 7 and will play in San Francisco, Portland and LA, among other cities. You can also "rent" the movie online for 2.99 at Gigantic Digital.
*Please note that this review is a critique of the movie, NOT the novel, which I have not read.
Today's post is courtesy of my lovely husband, Jeff. Enjoy!
I never heard the sound of a saz before moving to Istanbul.
While I strain to remember where I was when I first heard a saz, I can only dimly recall the outline of a place somewhere in Taksim as we were hurrying off somewhere else, peeking into an empty room in a basement floor bar where a man—or was it a woman?—was sitting on a barstool perched on a red carpeted dais, surrounded by a dense framework of microphones.
The singer’s voice was ululating, moving between notes like a slow vibrato; it sounded beautiful and defeated. The sound of the saz through a microphone was heavy, wooden and low. Good players play quick and light melodies on top of heavy bassy notes, but the bass is always present, giving a heavy ground to an instrument that elicits equal parts of sadness and elation.
There are rows of houses like this in Taksim where saz players weep out tales of love lost, broken, betrayed, buried, never realized or never requited. They sit nearly emptied until a certain hour when the maudlin Türkü strains of solo saz and voice give way to a larger musical combo, to more danceable and dynamic sounds. But even as the crowds grow thicker and as waiters pour more liquor, smoky crowds still clamor to hear the heart-aching songs to which they, red faced and earnest, will croon along as they flourish an open-palmed hand into the air as if to wave in the energy of the music or whisk away their despair.
When the saz is played energetically, everyone must dance. It infects and enlivens. Dancers line up in front of the band, hold hands, move in a circle to a pattern everyone knows, while the leader on the end waves a kerchief frantically. It is both an invitation and a summons. Even the most shy stand at their tables and clap, usually with a cigarette between their fingers, singing along or shouting encouragement to the performers.
The saz player riffs and trills up and down the thin neck of the instrument, flutists double the melody, hand drummers wrap and thump, singers flirt and mingle and rouse energy from the cowd. The band whips the audience into ecstasy until it appears weightless. Then the band brings the crowd falling back to earth again. And after this uncanny encounter, this dreadful expression of joy and excitement, the spent audience, like a rider on a roller-coaster, squeals for this rush all over again.
The saz is a complex instrument and accompanies many musical genres naturally. It is a solo instrument, can accompany singers; it can be part of a small combo of musicians, or part of a large orchestra. It has a folk authenticity absent from the concert hall piano, and a grandness missing from the concert guitar. The saz is a chameleon that stands out as much as it blends in. When it is played as a solo instrument, rooms fall silent. When it rollicks and rills, it shouts out for stomping feet. There are few instruments that fit as equally and effortlessly among taverns, dance floors, concert halls, and living rooms.
I learned to love the saz for its matchless sound and for how it draws visceral effects from its listeners. It pulls our collective elation and our grief from us, sets them before us. And as we encounter our troubles and pleasures materially before ourselves, we become bound a little more tightly together.
Before setting off for Iznik last Friday, I fully intended to buy several hand-painted tiles, some for me, some for my dad. And then.... and then.... well, I am not sure what happened.
I suppose if I had to guess, I would say that before Jeff and I -- really, I should be honest here: it was just me who wanted to buy tiles -- began looking in earnest for some famous Iznik tiles, we visited the Iznik Museum, which is full of gorgeous pottery unique to the region, and that must be where I got the idea to buy pottery instead of tiles.
And so...I came away with this.....
Isn't the craftsmanship just gorgeous?
A few pieces are for me and a few are for my dad. And, granted, while it's not much, it's a nice start to a Iznik ceramic collection, don't you think?
Psst...Dad...this is the one I'm sending to you:
P.S. Also, keep tabs on Turkish Muse for a three-part series from my lovely husband, Jeff, on listening to, playing and learning about the saz....
A couple of days ago I read an article in, of all places, the New York Times about a derelict building turned museum for spray paint artists in Beyoglu. Apparently, the municipality turned over the old Banker Han building to the artists and told them to make their art there instead of, say, on the side of a real bank in Taksim.
Despite the fact that I did as the article said and phoned the crew to make sure the building was open, it in fact was not when Jeff and I showed up today. Jeff couldn't have cared less, I don't think, but I was a bit disappointed.
I didn't get to see the inside, but I'm sure it would have been cool. I really think it's a great idea for the municipality to give these artists a sanctioned space in which to do their thing. (And how progressive for Turkey too!)
Hey, you never know: maybe Istanbul could become the next Philadelphia.
Recent Comments