Saturday, August 18, 2007
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Review of a non-life, part II
Everyone knows that the heart of Turkey beats on the Bosphorus Strait, in the busy streets of Istanbul. Ah, Istanbul, Gateway to the East, Istanbul and its 10 million (10 million!) inhabitants, its Great Mosque, its Grand Bazar and its Manhattan-like area code (212).
As luck and work would have it, however, on Thursday, July 19th, I landed in the hills of Central Anatolia. Ankara, political and artificial capital and eternal home to late ruler Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was slowly falling prey to the dark. The long cab ride to the hotel didn't give me much to hope for. The mausoleum, unmistakably recognizable from the sky, even to the untrained eye, wasn't enough to make me look forward to my stay there.
I was excited, though. I wasn't there to be a tourist. I knew was about to be witness to a crucial moment in Turkey's politics.
So there I am, checking in the hotel and trying to get my laptop to function. It's 2 a.m. and I'm finally getting somewhere. I'm up early the next day to get some work done. In typical teacher's daughter fashion, I order a "Traditional Turkish Breakfast." Turkish tea (blacker and stronger than the blackest and strongest of English teas), fried eggs, bread, tomatoes, olives (olives!) and this smell... Oh sweet Baby Jesus... The smell of the goat cheese on my tray... It's more than my sleep-deprived organism and sensitive stomach can bear. As I stumble to the bathroom and shove my head down the toilet, I vow to stick to the pancakes. So much for open-mindedness.
Around noon, the city is relatively quiet under the scorching sun. As I step out for a quick break, a beautiful, sweet and almost chilling melody fills the air. It's the muezzin, calling for prayer. What a voice. Years since I had heard that. I was so little I don't even know how I could even have kept that memory. For the rest of my stay in Ankara, I'd stop and listen, every time.
I make time to visit the Mosque. At the entrance, I realize I left my scarf in the hotel room. I curse my forgetfulness and sneak in, hoping to observe and not get caught. It's about 30 seconds before the guard spots me. He walks towards me, gesturing, and drags me to a small cupboard. He chooses a pink, flowery scarf and wraps it around my head. There, woman. Now go. I go.
The Mosque is beautiful, the light flows in from all sides and the air is cool. The carpet is thick and soft under my feet. On the surrounding balconies, women are praying in small groups. Men are sitting in the main space, solitary and thoughtful. The serenity is palpable, it's all so inviting, I feel like spending the rest of the afternoon there.
But Atatürk awaits. His remains lie at the top of a hill, on military ground. Talk about worship... I won't go into it, but it does look like he both threw Turkey into modernity and traumatized it. He even "invented" a whole new alphabet...
He's been dead for 70 years, but his über-secularism is still causing mayhem in this Muslim country. He thought religion held the country back. As he put it himself:
The army still believes that it is its duty to preserve the secular principles of the Founder. In a public statement that eventually led the government to dissolve, it opposed Prime Minister Erdogan's choice for a president: a man whose wife wears a scarf in public. In a country where the military holds such political power, these early general elections turned out to be a true exercise in democracy.
And so the people spoke: they gave full legitimacy to a religion-friendly government who also made Turkey's economy one of the most attractive among emerging markets. Foreign investors applauded, civilians sang and danced as the military wavered from this giant slap in the face. A retired officer, interviewed by BBC World, called the event a "backward step."
All of this is fascinating, but have I mentioned my hamman experience? Not wanting to miss out, I let a young woman bathe me. I lay on the marble while she scrubbed me from head to toes, then soaped me up, washed my hair and rinsed me with warm water for the enormous marble sinks. She then took me to a room full of beds and I relaxed to the sound of a fountain and ate juicy pears to quench my thirst. Probably the most sensual half hour of my existence.
At Ankara's citadel, otherwise known as Ulus Kale, I bought two small kilims. I was incredibly proud of myself, until I decided to show them off and compare them to the one my colleague had bought in Istanbul. His contact there had a whole collection, all made by his grandmother, for her dowry. When she ran out of cotton, she went on with wool. It had so many colors and different threads. Mine, next to his, looked pathetic and soulless. Humiliation overcome, they are now bravely decorating my floors.
We left the hotel for the airport at 4 a.m. on Tuesday, July 24th, after a quiet evening at the bar. The barmaid, at our old timer's request, learnt how to make a Silver Bullet (Bombay Sapphire, a twist of lemon, an olive, three drops of dry Vermouth). She was also kind enough to recommend a nearby Turkish restaurant and sent us on our way with the sweetest of instructions.
As luck and work would have it, however, on Thursday, July 19th, I landed in the hills of Central Anatolia. Ankara, political and artificial capital and eternal home to late ruler Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was slowly falling prey to the dark. The long cab ride to the hotel didn't give me much to hope for. The mausoleum, unmistakably recognizable from the sky, even to the untrained eye, wasn't enough to make me look forward to my stay there.
I was excited, though. I wasn't there to be a tourist. I knew was about to be witness to a crucial moment in Turkey's politics.
So there I am, checking in the hotel and trying to get my laptop to function. It's 2 a.m. and I'm finally getting somewhere. I'm up early the next day to get some work done. In typical teacher's daughter fashion, I order a "Traditional Turkish Breakfast." Turkish tea (blacker and stronger than the blackest and strongest of English teas), fried eggs, bread, tomatoes, olives (olives!) and this smell... Oh sweet Baby Jesus... The smell of the goat cheese on my tray... It's more than my sleep-deprived organism and sensitive stomach can bear. As I stumble to the bathroom and shove my head down the toilet, I vow to stick to the pancakes. So much for open-mindedness.
Around noon, the city is relatively quiet under the scorching sun. As I step out for a quick break, a beautiful, sweet and almost chilling melody fills the air. It's the muezzin, calling for prayer. What a voice. Years since I had heard that. I was so little I don't even know how I could even have kept that memory. For the rest of my stay in Ankara, I'd stop and listen, every time.
I make time to visit the Mosque. At the entrance, I realize I left my scarf in the hotel room. I curse my forgetfulness and sneak in, hoping to observe and not get caught. It's about 30 seconds before the guard spots me. He walks towards me, gesturing, and drags me to a small cupboard. He chooses a pink, flowery scarf and wraps it around my head. There, woman. Now go. I go.
The Mosque is beautiful, the light flows in from all sides and the air is cool. The carpet is thick and soft under my feet. On the surrounding balconies, women are praying in small groups. Men are sitting in the main space, solitary and thoughtful. The serenity is palpable, it's all so inviting, I feel like spending the rest of the afternoon there.
But Atatürk awaits. His remains lie at the top of a hill, on military ground. Talk about worship... I won't go into it, but it does look like he both threw Turkey into modernity and traumatized it. He even "invented" a whole new alphabet...
He's been dead for 70 years, but his über-secularism is still causing mayhem in this Muslim country. He thought religion held the country back. As he put it himself:
The army still believes that it is its duty to preserve the secular principles of the Founder. In a public statement that eventually led the government to dissolve, it opposed Prime Minister Erdogan's choice for a president: a man whose wife wears a scarf in public. In a country where the military holds such political power, these early general elections turned out to be a true exercise in democracy.
And so the people spoke: they gave full legitimacy to a religion-friendly government who also made Turkey's economy one of the most attractive among emerging markets. Foreign investors applauded, civilians sang and danced as the military wavered from this giant slap in the face. A retired officer, interviewed by BBC World, called the event a "backward step."
All of this is fascinating, but have I mentioned my hamman experience? Not wanting to miss out, I let a young woman bathe me. I lay on the marble while she scrubbed me from head to toes, then soaped me up, washed my hair and rinsed me with warm water for the enormous marble sinks. She then took me to a room full of beds and I relaxed to the sound of a fountain and ate juicy pears to quench my thirst. Probably the most sensual half hour of my existence.
At Ankara's citadel, otherwise known as Ulus Kale, I bought two small kilims. I was incredibly proud of myself, until I decided to show them off and compare them to the one my colleague had bought in Istanbul. His contact there had a whole collection, all made by his grandmother, for her dowry. When she ran out of cotton, she went on with wool. It had so many colors and different threads. Mine, next to his, looked pathetic and soulless. Humiliation overcome, they are now bravely decorating my floors.
We left the hotel for the airport at 4 a.m. on Tuesday, July 24th, after a quiet evening at the bar. The barmaid, at our old timer's request, learnt how to make a Silver Bullet (Bombay Sapphire, a twist of lemon, an olive, three drops of dry Vermouth). She was also kind enough to recommend a nearby Turkish restaurant and sent us on our way with the sweetest of instructions.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Another point of view
It's blog-updating day. Just came across one of them well-angled pieces the NY Mag - among others - has a knack for. A couple of abstracts:
"For most of human history, erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.
"When I came of age in the seventies, it was still pretty cool to be able to offer a young man the actual presence of a naked, willing young woman. There were more young men who wanted to be with naked women than there were naked women on the market. If there was nothing actively alarming about you, you could get a pretty enthusiastic response by just showing up. Your boyfriend may have seen Playboy, but hey, you could move, you were warm, you were real.
"Our younger sisters had to compete with video porn in the eighties and nineties, when intercourse was not hot enough. Now you have to offer—or flirtatiously suggest—the lesbian scene, the ejaculate-in-the-face scene. Being naked is not enough; you have to be buff, be tan with no tan lines, have the surgically hoisted breasts and the Brazilian bikini wax—just like porn stars. (In my gym, the 40-year-old women have adult pubic hair; the twentysomethings have all been trimmed and styled.) Pornography is addictive; the baseline gets ratcheted up. By the new millennium, a vagina—which, by the way, used to have a pretty high “exchange value,” as Marxist economists would say—wasn’t enough; it barely registered on the thrill scale. All mainstream porn—and certainly the Internet—made routine use of all available female orifices."
"For most of human history, erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn.
"When I came of age in the seventies, it was still pretty cool to be able to offer a young man the actual presence of a naked, willing young woman. There were more young men who wanted to be with naked women than there were naked women on the market. If there was nothing actively alarming about you, you could get a pretty enthusiastic response by just showing up. Your boyfriend may have seen Playboy, but hey, you could move, you were warm, you were real.
"Our younger sisters had to compete with video porn in the eighties and nineties, when intercourse was not hot enough. Now you have to offer—or flirtatiously suggest—the lesbian scene, the ejaculate-in-the-face scene. Being naked is not enough; you have to be buff, be tan with no tan lines, have the surgically hoisted breasts and the Brazilian bikini wax—just like porn stars. (In my gym, the 40-year-old women have adult pubic hair; the twentysomethings have all been trimmed and styled.) Pornography is addictive; the baseline gets ratcheted up. By the new millennium, a vagina—which, by the way, used to have a pretty high “exchange value,” as Marxist economists would say—wasn’t enough; it barely registered on the thrill scale. All mainstream porn—and certainly the Internet—made routine use of all available female orifices."
Bastille day in Gent
July 14, Bastille day. Train to Gent for the week-long festival. Music, beer, fries drowning in mayo. Miss Sly Stone at the Blue Note Festival. Miss Sean Lennon. Make it up with a tango class followed by a salsa class.
Admit that when it's sunny and you're drunk... And you're making new friends, you can have reasonable fun in Belgium.
Admit that when it's sunny and you're drunk... And you're making new friends, you can have reasonable fun in Belgium.
Review of a non-life, part I
I'd promised myself I'd never mention anything about what I do for a living in this blog. But the key thing about my life these days is that I have none. Or rather, that it is too inextricably linked with work. Where to begin, where to begin.
I could start by all the chapters I skipped this year... The G8, at Heiligendamm, maybe. Let's see... A quick copy/paste and a few snapshots should do it:
June 6th:
"I arrived at the G8 location. Plane to Hamburg, then train to Rostock, where I had to get off, because all tracks to Bad Doberan - last location before Heiligendamm, where the meetings are taking place - were blocked by the protesters with branches and trees. They did the same with all the principal roads.
They are incredibly organized, but so is the police. It's so militarized around here, I can't begin to tell you how weirded out the locals are. They'd never received so much attention.
June 7th:
"This is like the war. I'm being controlled at every corner, me on my bike. After dinner, as I was heading home, I took the gravel path across the fields. 2 barrages of polizei made me stop to inspect me last night and one this morning. Light on my face, identifying myself "accreditation, passport, ja ja, letter from landlady, I am staying there, danke, guten nacht und good luck..." Very nice guys in combat costume, holding my bike while I rummage through my bag trying to find the requested documents...
And all the while, above my head as I'm pedaling myself home, helicopters with lights checking the fields. On the ground, it's all i can do to avoid frogs and toads. which by the way, are really loud animals. I even saw a rabbit.
I could start by all the chapters I skipped this year... The G8, at Heiligendamm, maybe. Let's see... A quick copy/paste and a few snapshots should do it:
June 6th:
"I arrived at the G8 location. Plane to Hamburg, then train to Rostock, where I had to get off, because all tracks to Bad Doberan - last location before Heiligendamm, where the meetings are taking place - were blocked by the protesters with branches and trees. They did the same with all the principal roads.
They are incredibly organized, but so is the police. It's so militarized around here, I can't begin to tell you how weirded out the locals are. They'd never received so much attention.
After an 80-euro cab ride (the detours are enormous), I arrived at my destination. The location is unbelievably gorgeous. Heiligendamm is part of a series of spa towns on the Baltic Sea coast, all of which became famous at the end of the 19th century when some king made it fashionable to summer here, where the views are breathtaking and the weather unpredictable.
Because all the hotels were booked, I had to find myself a guest house, located about 1.5km away from the centre where I work.
Because all the hotels were booked, I had to find myself a guest house, located about 1.5km away from the centre where I work.
My transport means is a bike. A huge group of protesters disguised as a clowns was arrested right in front of where I'm staying, as I was on my way back to the center. I cycled on a dirt road through fields of cereals to get here. It's so surreal.
Oh, and I'm drinking Africola. This is coca cola from Africa. You know. To show they'll keep their Gleneagles promises about canceling the African debt."
Oh, and I'm drinking Africola. This is coca cola from Africa. You know. To show they'll keep their Gleneagles promises about canceling the African debt."
June 7th:
"This is like the war. I'm being controlled at every corner, me on my bike. After dinner, as I was heading home, I took the gravel path across the fields. 2 barrages of polizei made me stop to inspect me last night and one this morning. Light on my face, identifying myself "accreditation, passport, ja ja, letter from landlady, I am staying there, danke, guten nacht und good luck..." Very nice guys in combat costume, holding my bike while I rummage through my bag trying to find the requested documents...
Today, Bono is giving a concert in Rostock, about 22 km away from here. We're going with the camera. I hate this Bono b'stard."
June 8th:
June 8th:
"I'm back for the last report on the G8 summit. Tech guy is unplugging all computers, we're all about to leave.
Nothing major today. The 8 leaders didn't do so good on the help for Africa, pissing off my friend Bono and a few other more capable, credible people. Putin mocked Bush and Bush dissed Putin, all very politely. Sarkozy's role was pretty much limited to announcing Bush's diarrhea to the media after the meeting he had with him this morning. And all in all, Merkel did good.
Nothing major today. The 8 leaders didn't do so good on the help for Africa, pissing off my friend Bono and a few other more capable, credible people. Putin mocked Bush and Bush dissed Putin, all very politely. Sarkozy's role was pretty much limited to announcing Bush's diarrhea to the media after the meeting he had with him this morning. And all in all, Merkel did good.
I was up at 5h45, riding down my footpath at 6h30, spent my day running around... And so I finished with a stroll on the beach, dipped my feet in the freezing cold Baltic Sea as the sun set behind a wooden pier. All idyllic, except maybe for the food. Food is crap here, and that's an understatement.
I'ma bike my ass home now. I'll be on my way tomorrow. To Brussels."
I'ma bike my ass home now. I'll be on my way tomorrow. To Brussels."
Saturday, August 4, 2007
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