Nomadic Tribe Soup

My attention span is a pinwheel. Spun around distractions, it just crab walks away from clarity. I said I will write everyday in December. I didn't. I can beat myself and pity myself and remind myself that I always screw things up as if I were my own long term partner in a tedious relationship surviving on the lowest common denominator: mutual bitterness. Alas, no. Today I feel particularly tolerant. I have a few things to say to myself. This blog, with its irrelevance, may not speak much to others. I'm not promoting products or a lifestyle. I am not giving advice or hope. I'm not an astrologer and Tarot could be a word in Tagalog. I'm here for the heck of it. I come and go as I please. Like the home I always imagined but never had, this blog is airy and there is a hammock icon on which you click, off you end up in Apotheka beach, Chios. Mais non. Because internet knows the world is full of wandering attentions, it provides knowledge in point form. 10 things you nev...

I wake up at Asli’s house on Saturday and make it to my doctor’s appointment in Fulya early in the morning. The night before I was eating chicken and rice from a minivan parked on a slope in the former slum-ghetto surrounding the north gate of Bogazici University. We were, prior to that, at a meyhane frequented by students. Six women’s who we were. Bajar, a rock band singing in Kurdish had been on stage earlier as we danced in a long halay between seats of a BU theatre. I roll the time forward to the sun on my face. Now. I’m in Ihlamur Palace. Outside it’s autumn in December. Yellow leaves dot the green grass and what’s it with the birds relentlessly chirping over traffic noise? Let my civilization be, you silly creatures! Let us be! Let us fold the earth in concrete origami and roar in our busy, busy, busy. You chirplings have nothing to do, mind you. The marble interior of this quiet four-chambered modest kasr is extraordinary. I know little about marbles, Ottoman architec...

There is a lot I can say about Vivian. Her name derives from Latin 'vivus': alive. She's blonde. She has a laughter that will melt your icy heart. Vivian will tell you everything like the world were her own private snow globe and she'll find herself out of breath and sparkly eyed at the end. I first met Vivian at the ice rink in my neighbourhood of Junction Triangle in Toronto. She was wearing what appeared to be a Russian fur cap, she knew little about skating, she nodded as I explained the basics and off she went on her own like a baby goat, agile and merry. I turned to Seçil, with whom she'd showed up, and asked "What is this ?" "Isn't she lovely?" Seçil replied. (insert Joel's cell phone pics at the ice rink here if you ever find them) I lived in two houses formerly inhabited by Vivian. The first one had a huge rooftop terrace. I remember a sleepover in Viv's queen size bed on the floor. As if through the confessional window...

There is a new residency program by the coolest fart institute of mental health and well-less-ness clinic called the normal. si bap bap du bap I signed up because I'm interested in the innovative aspects of self worth and breathing techniques and spiritual cleansing and protozoaic detox. I want to heal myself. Badly. Somewhere over the Arch de Triomph, life is so worth it you crave a credit card. Nothing's short of meaning if you dare. Tectonic movements of the third kind. If you know what I mean. I take on, for instance, small battles. I battle up and down and around the beetle bush and nobody tells me about the maze. Mais, mais 'maïs' it may be to the French, as if they have to gentrify everything. If I, too, chew pebbles in my mouth I sound very, very philosophical (à la française avec de la moutarde). Blè d'inde,  the Québécois would say instead. Their fur was more furry than the Europeans. Potatoes and lard made them strong. For when America was inve...

The simplicity with which a cat offers her head for a little pat amazes me. A cat doesn't care who you are. A cat detects the honey dripping from your tongue when you say sweet nothings to her (my friend Ebru utters demeaning words in a loving tone to make them purr). A cat inclines you-ward if she senses affection emitted by you. Love comes to them in cat-rays… The momentary exchange, their softness for your caressing hands is eternal. Anywhere, anytime. Stray cats and dogs this morning through the park, down the streets of Beşiktaş as Ayşe and I parted ways… Here is a random selection from a few encounters...

Sitting at the marina in Kalamış my feelings are far from the classic song that goes "we're here for sweet tranquility, in Kalamış, in Kalamış, ah in Kalamış." Münir Nurettin Selçuk - Kalamış (Bir Tatlı Huzur) I just had a fight with movers and fumed poisonous angst through my nose all the way here. Once seated, a chubby carrot-looking cat eased my worries and a kind man brought me a glass of freshly brewed tea. Do I love Istanbul? Suddenly, briefly, yes. But then I come to my senses. I look to my left: a series of boats sparkling white in quiet blue waters. To my right I need not look, the construction noise tells me that all these three story apartments are becoming high-rises, trees are being cut with the insouciance prerequisite for having never planted a tree or cared for a flower.  Apartments without balconies… Why should anyone live in apartments without balconies... Recently, when I took the Karaköy ferry from Kadıköy, my heart broke at the sight of...

Provocation is not the intention here. I type these words, among many an anecdote, souvenir or more docile topic to talk about. I'm in the middle of a move, mind you -sitting on a pile of clothes and cables and post-its too stuck together to evaluate one by one if they carry any importance. Movers will be at the door 7am sharp tomorrow morning. Three hours short of midnight -I must write one post a day- I take my fingertips on a little zigzagging about a painful subject matter as if it were something toward which I felt an altruistic responsibility, intellectually bien sur. I have been sexually harassed, in different forms and time periods of my life. There is no other way to say it except this dry confessional tone. I will not tell you much, suffice it to say I have invisible engravings on my body and psyche that, underneath layers of consciousness, mental activity, nature and nurture remind me of their presence at the sight of a laughing girl, the smell of a summer afternoon in...

Perhaps eight years or so ago I was sitting at a café with my friend Esra in the East Village, Manhattan. I was in midst of shaking my arms, drawing 3D abstractions in the air as my voice fluctuated between tonalities and my cheeks got red. My brother, visiting North America for the first time, arrived. "Here you are in Manhattan and you're still squeaking about your village , your village !" My village is indeed all I talk about, from my first super 8 film The Other Mother to my installation Elsewheres a decade later.  Pisi, Muğla is the origin of the world. Ombelico del Mondo. It is where I will get married between my maternal and paternal grandparents' adjoining land. It's the place of fantasy, daydreams, pseudo nostalgia (for I have never lived there actually) and actual losses. I was delighted to escape in late November to the village. My uncle took me on the back of his motorbike to our orchard. We visited the olive oil factory. I visited relatives with...

I recently sent cut-copy-paste messages to a number of my girlfriends, begging them to forgive me for having lulled them to a chain e-mail spell. Like a well-meaning Pied Piper von Facebook, I quickly picked fifteen women who would be creeped out by such correspondence but knowing that I have a knack for oddities, should excuse me. I  set out without thinking twice. I was not my cynical self. For once. I was not dismissive. With a straight face and a heart in place, I blew the dandelion puffs of love and prosperity across the internet. Day 1 - you will wake up to the biggest shock of your life. Day 2 - you will cross paths with an old friend you have missed. Day 3 - you will find yourself with a lot of money. Day 4 - your day will be perfect. Day 5 - the love of your life will kiss you. I am onto day three and can't wait to toss some cash in the air like Donald Duck. Donald Trump. Donald Sutherland in 'Fierce People'. The most pat-myself on-the-back side effect of my n...

My mother has a look on her face when she walks by herself in the park. I know cause I spy on her sometimes. I watch her watch TV. I watch her do things her way, like pouring palmfuls of water on the handle of the faucet, one palm after the other, a splash to a last soapy spot. In the past eight months I had more occasion to observe my mother than the first eighteen years of my life when I lived with her lastly. She picks flowers, always. She's a kleptomaniac of pretty things that grow on soil. No stroll ends empty handed. Lilacs now in Istanbul and before I left the house there was a tea glass on the coffee table with a sprig in it. A baby tulip on the kitchen table. Dried twigs in vases. The only time she visited me in Montreal last May she scouted for species she may not know. Together we stole from chez les neighbours if the precious was irresistible. We left a bulb with Masoud as we drove to the airport. Maman walks in tiny Chinese lady steps. She has sway. Swing. Undulati...