If I could have entered my admin page for the past few months I would have wrote about:

— Leyla Gencer’s funeral: the first time I witnessed the scattering of ashes to the Bosphorus. You would have thought it would be a cliché in this city but because there is no way out of a religious funeral in this country it rarely happens. Plus the choir singing at Dolmabahce by the sea during the funeral was heavenly and made me decide there should be a concert right at that spot, at least once in a while.

— Our trip to Holland: Staying at a flat on the red light district with prostitutes as neighbours and the incredible Hilversum: suburban gothic in the Netherlands style.

— Demonstration and march against the closing of Lambda: which is the one and only lgbtt (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual) organisation at Istanbul. The courts have decided that the organisation is against “moral values”. Since the march was from Taksim to Odakule on Istiklal street, basically on a route I walk every day, there was much to tell that could be made to bear on what I had already mentioned.

— Mine’s fortieth birthday party: the party was at a place that has just opened at Cihangir (where I live) and had a name and a theme: “Every body wants to become Mine” which meant you were supposed to come dressed like Mine and since she has a very distinctive style that she has not altered the least, in the last 20 years I have known her, this actually was not that difficult and created a very weird doppelganger effect.

— The book I read: The Stone Gods by Jeannette Winterson. Winterson is a genius; but I already knew that. Now she has gone and written a poetic and romantic novel about a subject, you know needs to be addressed, but also think is impossible to address, at least, not without becoming cliché and boring and pretentious etc: the end of the world through both war and global warming. Beautifully written wonderfully and intricately structured.

— The stand-up show of Esmeray: I finally saw the notorious stand-up show of Esmeray who is a M2F pre-opt transsexual, as part of the gay pride week festivities at the French Cultural Center. She basically tells her life that starts in a village at Kars and continues in Istanbul with the compulsory prostitution and the unexpected party politics. It was both funny and sad and thought provoking.

— The LGBTT Party at Ghetto: managed to catch one of the many parties that was thrown during the gay pride week. This one had DJ Ipek who, I have come to believe ,manages to spin out the most danceable music I have ever heard. The party was also notable for Seyhan’s outrageous costumes. I especially enjoyed the white one in which she went around the entire dance hall and looked down on people with her icy queen pose. Also of notice was Baran’s strip-tease show which was definitly the best strip-tease I have ever seen.

— The Gay Pride Parade: I refused to wear a hat since hat and eyeglasses give the impression that you are not “out and proud” but rather trying to hide and of course it was very hot so I nearly got a sun stroke. But apart from that it was FUN!!!! We screamed our hearts out and walked from Taksim to Odakule.

And the last two, which is watching Ismail Necmi’s film at his studio and the zazen session we had with two Zen master’s that came all the way from San Fransisco to our house, I will try to write as separate entries.

on endogamy or a very wierd ‘intellectual’ event

I participated in a very weird event last night. Let me try to explain what it was. Now there is this writer, songwriter, singer, scholar person called Bulent Somay who happens to be my ex-boyfriend (yes, yes once upon a time I had boyfriends as well as girlfriends. Now I am over it, so shall we move on already?) The event consisted of six different people reading excerpts from his books and Bulent singing songs that he has also written about in between the readings. Now I am aware that there is a type of event where a writer reads from his own books. At least, I know there is in other parts of the world, we don’t have that kind of tradition in Turkey. I also happen to know of events organised in memory of a dead author where various people read parts of his omnibus. I have never heard of this being done to a writer while he is alive and kicking and actually present in the same place at the same time. At least, I had never heard of it until a few months ago when one such event was organised for my friend Fatih. I didn’t go to that one and frankly had I not been invited to actually participate by reading; I doubt I would have attended this one either. I am not sure who actually attends these events: Is it just friends or do anonymous readers actually come to spend their Saturday night at an event like this. I really don’t know. What I do know is that the place was full last night, mostly with Bulent’s friends and students.
The event took place in Garaj Istnabul a multi purpose performance venue where there is a different event, performance, play, and concert every night that opened a year ago. I have been meaning to go there from day one but never found the opportunity until last night. So that was certainly one of the pluses of getting involved with this. The way to reach the venue is very entertaining: you enter a garage (literally) and go down among cars that are being washed repaired or just parked to reach a back door made of metal and when you open that you reach a back street and turn left to enter the venue. Of course you can also reach the same spot through the twisting back streets of Beyoglu but interestingly enough this route is easier to explain to those who don’t live at Beyoglu plus it is an experience, “a happening” all on its own. Although there are signs, encouraging you to move on, it is difficult to believe that you are really meant to go underground in a garage to get to the kind of event you are aiming for and there is a ‘magical’ feel to emerging on the other side to a cobblestone little street.
So who were the “readers” apart from me? First was Mehmet Ali Alabora who is an actor in television series and from what I gather quite famous although I don’t know him because I haven’t watched television for over ten years now. I do, however, know that he was one of the presenters (or are they called hosts?) at the Istanbul Film Festival opening night that I related in a previous blog entry. I am also told by Seda (love of my life) that he is related to a actor friend of ours, Ali, who is also an ex-student of mine. Anyway I guess he was the only real celebrity among us and thus he did his reading on stage. Then there was Ayse who is a very accomplished jazz pianist and one of the most intelligent people of my acquaintance. She is also one of Bulent’s ex-girlfriends. (If you already think there is way too many ex-girl friends in this just you wait as the plot thickens) Ayse was in one of her ‘fun’ moods, and when she is, she makes me laugh continuously which she proceeded to do the moment I went backstage to join her and Timucin who is another “reader” for the night. Timucin plays the percussions, though this is not his only occupation in life. He is also the husband of another one of Bulent’s ex-girlfriends, Meltem. Wait a second Meltem is in fact not an ex-girlfriend but rather an ex-wife. And to thicken the plot beyond comprehension let me tell you that Timucin is also the ex-boyfriend of Muge, who is the owner of the publishing house, which publishes Bulent’s books. (I will comment on all this in a moment but there is still more complications to come so bear with me) Another “reader” was Iskender who is Ayse’s ex-boyfriend and my ex-therapist and last but not least there was Ferda who is a famous philosophy scholar and the Foucault expert in Turkey and who to the best of my knowledge is not an ex of anyone!
If all this sounds extremely incestuous let me tell you that I do too. The only comment I have on this is that in Turkey “intellectuals” are a very rare bread and there is so few of them that when some one reaches 50 smtg like Bulent has done you end up having accumulated a lot of ‘ex’s that tend to be a panorama of the entire intellectual scene. The same is true for the gay scene, which in fact partially overlaps with the intellectual scene. This does not mean that the whole situation isn’t a field trip for a psychoanalyst. All the same, since there are those who claim to be psychoanalysts among this mess, it isn’t up to me to make the analysiss.
Bulent had chosen our excerpts with some sort of connection between the reader and the text and I read a piece on perversion and lesbianism! Despite the fact that everything about the event was weird, I have to admit that all the readers had perfect pronunciation and intonation and where nice to listen to. The best by far was Ayse who sort of performed the pieces rather than reading them and had the slightest bit of mockery in her voice throughout like she didn’t quite buy what she was reading, which I know is the case. (Back stage she asked Bulent if she could caught when she reached an argument she did not agree with and I said if that was a possibility I would have a coughing fit throughout) Since her excerpts were from articles Bulent had written about songs, whenever she came to a quotation of the lyrics, she sang rather than read and of course there is no way anyone can beat that kind of performance.
Mehmet Ali, Timucin and Ayse did their reading from the stage. Me, Iskender and Ferda sat among the audience and read from where we sat with our headset microphones and the ‘robot lights’ finding us the moment we started to speak. The whole thing was certainly an experience.
When the performance part was over I had to go away immediately to a catch the end tail of a friends birthday dinner party at Zubeyir Ocakbasi (“Ocakbasi” is a traditional meat restaurant where you go to eat, “much meat” as my friend Alisa used to say, and drink much raki, the traditional spirit, that goes to your head immediately) and this meant going from one end of Beyoglu to the other at 11.30 pm, which is always quite an experience on a Saturday night since there is a traffic jam of pedestrians!!!
The things that happened once I reached my destination, is a horse of a different colour and another blog entry altogether.

presenting a festival director

The festival opened on Friday, there was the exhibition opening cocktail party on Saturday and on Sunday there was the presentation I had to attend. After going around asking everyone what exactly I was supposed to do I learned, at the very last minute, that first I was to just say “there will be a question and answer session after the film with the films director and please join me in welcoming him blah blah” and after the film the audience members were to ask questions which I had to translate. If they failed to ask I would motivate by asking my own questions.
Basically this was a translation job and I have no idea why I was doing it. I mean it was not as if I was putting to use any of my knowledge as a film critic and scholar for it, except may be to the extent that I knew film terminology in both languages very well. The thing went smoothly.
I have translated three books in my life one fiction and two non-fiction and let me tell you that I hate translating. I find it the most tedious job in the world where you end up thinking on a sentence longer than its writer ever did and it is never worth the effort. However this kind of translation was very easy and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I must admit, especially when people referred to other directors or films, I thought someone who did not already know these names could never have been able to get what was going on let alone repeat the names, so maybe after all there is some small wisdom in making us do it, although admittedly we, film critics and scholars, are over qualified for this job.
The result: Provided there is some adequate monetary compensation, I wouldn’t mind doing all the presentations. Though I guess this would necessitate being at different places at the same time and why should the festival pay when they are getting us to do it for free? The real result: never again!
Of course I got to see my first festival film because of this presentation and this is good because if I don’t start early on I usually end up not going to any movie during the festival. I mean there was a time back in my youth when I went to four, even five, movies a day for two weeks straight. I did mention I was very fucked up in my youth, didn’t I? Well this was one of the symptoms, as far as I am concerned. But even then I had an excuse: I wrote what I saw, I was even writing a festival journal for a newspaper at one point. Plus, back then, the festival was the only opportunity to see some films. Whereas now, thanks to DVD and the downloading capabilities of the internet, there is no such animal. And yes my home theatre system beats most of the film theatres of the festival.
All of my fellow film critics still try to see as many films as possible during the festival and it seems so does the university youth (or a predictable portion of it). I knew back then, as I do now, that this is more about the allure of a social activity, ‘festivity’ actually, then the urge to see movies. And the ‘festive’ aspect holds less allure for me as time goes by. I have enough confidence to socialise with people without any pretext and am capable of organising private festivities to my own liking when I happen to get the urge. I cannot get a feeling of contentment by merely saying, “I have seen 25 films” like I used to. In fact given the unavoidable ratio: out of any 25 film 15, at least, will be crap; I would feel I have wasted precious time of my life in which I could have been doing something worthwhile. Let me not get carried away with the ‘getting old’ shit however.
The film was called “The Speed of Life” and I had chosen to present its director for 3 reasons: a) it was an American independent movie and this usually means a predictably nice little film about eccentric characters. b) American independent directors are usually people that are exactly like you and me, with whom you can have a decent conversation, even become friends with, as I have learned from my experience with Bill Morrison c) the film was shot using a myriad of formats ranging from high 8 to VHS d) the film had won the queer lion award at the Venice film festival. The last meant that the director might be gay but it turned out he wasn’t and actually it is quite a bit of a stretch to call this a queer film.
It was, however, a pleasant movie and I enjoyed it a lot. However, since it was shown in ‘digibeta format’, I would have watched it in way better conditions, if I had watched it at home. The director Ed Radtke turned out to be a very easy going and entertaining chap whom I am happy to have known, we went to grab a drink after the session and had a nice little chat. So, my belief that American independent directors are cool people, has been strengthened.

opening night of the istanbul film festival

To pick up exactly where I left in my last entry:
First we got on the tram to Kabatas and took a taksi which let us out near ‘the open air theatre’ which in theory is sort of the back door of where we were thrying to reach since by claming a set of stairs you get there. However in practice the stairs were closed due to some sort of construction going on god knows what. Istanbul is a city of perpetual construction especially pavements and roads keep being constructed all over again (it is NOT maintenance it is destructing the whole thing and rebuilding from scratch every year) which meant, with a great many people who thought they were being street wise by taking the back door, we had to walk the entire bloc to reach the front entrance, thank god I don’t wear high heels like many of our fellow commuters had done.
Anyway the press with their cameras were lining the entrance and we made a dive inside. The first person we saw was the head of the film festival Azize who of course is also the hostess of the event. She was wearing this beige lace affair and looked surprisingly fresh for someone who must been living a hectic life that was about to get worse.
Then we saw Selim who is a member of the grand jury this year and also has an exhibition within the festival whose opening was the next day and which I hope will be able to relate as well. We had to go inside pretty quickly since unlike Selim and a happy few our seats had no numbers and we had to find a place to sit if we hoped to see anything on stage. We managed to find a place at the middle though quite up at the back.
We saw Ozelm and Didem whom I know since I was a kid from Aktur Bodrum the place I used to spend all my summers when I was a kid. Many, many years later Ozlem became a MA student of mine. Didem is her sister and I saw that she was very pregnant. Since the baby was going to be a Gemini we chatted about this sign. Ozlem said Didem should have known better since their mom was a Gemini and I said I understand them completely since mine is too. Never pass an opportunity to complain about your mother is my motto even if it is only through horoscope signs.
Then I saw Muge who is the owner of a prestigious publishing house: Metis who had come with Fatmagul a famous feminist scholar. I saw Ertan who is a journalist I know from when I used to work for Radical, a daily leftish newspaper and whom nowadays almost single-handedly does all the work of the arts page including a gossip column. True to form he asked me if it was true that I was scripting a new “law” for film critics to adhere to and I answered in the affirmative by displaying my surprise that he had heard.
Then the ‘event’ itself started. It is not much of an event really. I mean it surprisingly resembles our very own SIYAD awards with Eczacibasi, the patron of art whose money sponsors the entire festival, replacing Atilla Dorsay, the doyen of film critics in Turkey. There is the life time achievement awards, there is the photos of the prominent cinema people who died the previous year, there is the music etc. The structure is the same.
I wonder what will happen when our great Yesilcam (Turkish Hollywood although this is a thing of the past here that no longer exists) stars all die out. These are the people that get the life time achievement awards and bring a touch of sparkle to these events, there is not a single actor that is even remotely comparable to them in star quality. In this particular instance the awards were given by Turkan Soray to Ekrem Bora, Ediz Hun and Izzet Gunay. And one last award was given to Claudia Cardinale. In short the event was a rhapsody of nostalgia and I suspect this is to please Eczacibasi who seems to be inviting all the old stars of his youth in a row each year.
Then there was a break before the opening film and we went outside having no intention of returning. The place is not a film theatre and does not provide the best viewing conditions. Plus we were hungry as it happens in these events that start too early to eat and end too late to eat.
And that’s when the socialising started. We saw Umit, a director friend who also happens to be Gencay’s ex boyfriend. We saw Selen an actress and singer friend of ours, who desperately wants to be a star. We saw Bige who looked like a star. We saw Hasmet, my only friend from university that I am still friends with whose documentary film will be screened at the festival, we saw Nilgun, a journalist friend I know from back when I used to work at Cumhuriyet. We saw Gulum, an ex student who works at the festival but is actually a good actress that has yet to make a break. We saw Ovgu, a fellow film critic and scholar. We saw Volga an ex-student who turned out to be quite a character actor. We saw Ferhat another ex-student who is about to move to Japan and become a father, not necessarily in that order.
Then we made a decision worthy of applause and decided to join Bige and Banu who were going to have dinner at Borsa restaurant, a very fancy meat restaurant, which is under the same roof as Lutfu Kirdar. All the award winners and jury members and what not were also going there for the festival’s official dinner, so not only the food but also the ‘view’, was quite good. Banu and Bige were wonderful dinner companions and we ended up having a much better time then we had bargained for. After dinner there were two parties to pick and choose from: the festival party at Karakoy Liman, would have all the celebrities but would be suitably boring and then there was the gay party for the exhibition at Tonic which would be fun since, let’s admit it, gays know how to party better than anyone. But then we had each other, Seda and I, and we were already content and entertained and much preferred to go home for a little private entertaining of our own.

Opening of the lgbtt exhibition

First we (me and Seda, love of my life) had to go to Karakoy where the tiny alternative gallery Hafriyat is located to attend the opening of the lambda (the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual organisation of Istanbul) exhibition, then we had to attend the opening night of The Istanbul Film Festival.
This was a bit of a tricky business in terms of transportation. Interestingly Karakoy is walking distance from our house and even Lutfu Kirdar, the place where the festival was to open, can be reached on foot from our house, though admittedly, a longer walk then to the gallery. I must have mentioned in a previous entry how centrally our house is situated. However to get from Karakoy to Lutfi Kirdar in time, especially during rush hour, is another business altogether. Especially since you had to consider the fact as the festival was going to be broadcasted live on the national television, you had to be there on time or you wouldn’t be able to get in. We didn’t have a plan, we only knew we couldn’t say long at the exhibition.
We had a bit of a problem getting dressed. This is what occasionally happens with two women living together. Even if you are going to just wear jeans and shirt you might end up agitating each other and turning the whole thing into a big deal but we managed to go out in time and walked down to Karakoy.
The gallery is on a street that is jammed with traffic at that hour and because it is tiny most of the people were out on the pavement. So it was a weird picture: the exhibition people crowded on the pavement drinking from plastic cubs while commuters crowded in buses looked down on them.
Plus there was a performance happening, a part of which, was also on the pavement. The performance was by ‘Ciplak Ayaklar Kumpanyasi’, which translates as ‘Naked Feet Company’. There was one man, with literally naked feet, sitting on the pavement with a bucket on his head and a gismo that sent drops of water on the bucket. (I believe this is what is known as Chinese torture) There was a woman in the same situation right inside the gallery and one on the upper floor.
The place inside, as well as out on the pavement, was packed full with people and inside it was quite claustrophobic. In fact I believe the situation inside the bus on the street and that inside the gallery quite mirrored one another and we shared the experience of claustrophobia with the performers under their buckets. Since it was a huge problem even to move, we very soon realised, we won’t be looking at the artwork and decided not to try and that we would come back some other time for it.
Actually people were, for the most part, ignoring the performers as well as the the other works and I was reminded of some of Maria Abromovich’s performances and how she was rescued, from near death, by attentive spectators. No such luck for our performers if they happened to have any medical problems.
The first friend we saw was Inanc who directed us towards Aykan, Gencay, Cicek and Bawer. They were all eating penis shaped ginger cookies, which I believe must be some sort of edible art. Bawer introduced me to a woman saying, “this is Aykan’s mother and she is teaching us how to eat a penis”. The woman gave me a cookie and said they are quite nice; I took one saying “not that I would know”. It turned out she was indeed Aykan’s mother. Aykan is the curator of the exhibition and has one work exhibited as well, though we never got to see it.
Since it was impossible to move around and since Cicek was leaving already we didn’t stay long and joined her, thinking we might as well start our journey towards our other appointment. As we walked, we met another friend Zeynep, who was just arriving unaware of what kind of crowd awaited her at the gallery.

old friends

Yesterday I finally met with Mine and Erel, a meeting that became a possibility months ago and was in fact mentioned in my very first blog entry. I met Mine and Erel 20 years ago when we were all working at Gunes daily newspaper. We were the same age, it was our very first job and we were very young, in fact, still university students. Now Mine writes novels as well as non-fiction books, Erel is the owner and editor in chef of the hippest fashion magazine in the country and well you know about me. Erel also has a 14-year-old daughter which kind makes you feel old. Of course when you meet with old friends the feeling of becoming old also turns into one of the main themes of the evening.
It was not a reunion in the classical sense. It is not as if I hadn’t seen them since back then. In fact, since we live in the same part of town, I come across Mine quite frequently and exchange news. (I related one such occasion in a previous blog entry) And I bump into Erel at openings and cocktail parties and what not. (which I have also related in a blog entry) It is more that we had never actually set a date and a place to sit and talk with each other for 20 years and that was what we did.
Interestingly, the very same morning, I set a date to meet with another very old friend: Andre. He was a fellow postgraduate student when I was doing my MA at Canterbury, UK some 15 years ago and we haven’t seen each other since then. Actually I hadn’t even heard from him until last year, when we reconnected, over the net. This morning I wrote him a mail informing him that I will be coming to Amsterdam at the end of May and in return he said he just learned that he will be a member of the FIPRESCI jury at the Istanbul Film Festival and will be arriving here on the 12th of April. So I will very soon meet with him as well.
The fact is, I enjoy feeling old, especially when the feeling is provoked by old friends. I enjoy the feeling that I have come along way and have not lost my friends along the way.

birthday party 38-2: presents

It is now a proven fact that to write, “to be continued” is a jinx, and I can never continue if I was foolish enough to say it. I put the birthday photos on facebook and they created quite a stir and many comments so instead of writing things about it on my blog I ended up reading and writing on facebook. As they say an image is worth how many words was it?

In order to break the jinx I will be very vain and list all the presents I was given on my birthday, rather than go in detail about who came and what happened.

Banu, who was once a postgraduate student of mine (a “mature student” as the incredibly stupid phrase goes, which is meant to ‘oh so very delicately’ convey the fact that the person in question is older than you might expect for a student. In Banu’s case it meant she had spent her life earning shit loads of money and was now determined to spend it on things that gave her pleasure: writing an MA thesis on film being one and travelling around the world being the other, which she is now in the process of doing) gave me a rainbow maker, which when adjusted to your window, is supposed to cast rainbows in to your room. I have yet to check it out, but it seems quite an ingenious little device with a solar panel and a crystal and all that.

Ceren who is another old student (and no one would ever accuse her of being mature:) gave me what she referred to as “the hypertext par excellence” though I would rather call it “the coffee-table book par excellence”. The title of the book is “Pick Me Up” and its cover is made up of extremely bright colours, with a 3-d effect that scream “pick me up” all over again. The subtitle: ‘stuff you need to know’, sort of tells you all you need to know about the book and as you might have guessed already none of the stuff inside has anything to do with knowledge of the necessary kind. To give an indication, there are pages entitled “Who on Earth was Columbus? We Cornered His Ghost to Find Out” and “Why is the Roman Empire Like McDonald’s?” the answer to this being: “Both are (or were) set on world domination (of sorts)” I am sure you get the picture. It is fun and stupid and a perfect gift!

But as far as books go Harun’s present has a special significance: a beautifully illustrated 1916 edition of Longfellow’s Evangeline would have been significant on its own right but it came attached with this unbelievable story: Harun, it turns out, bought the book five years ago for my birthday but it coincided with the time when he was quitting his job at the university and in all the hassle this entailed he could not give it to me. Then he forgot all about it until two nights ago when he was talking to a friend at home about what he should buy me as a present while the friend in question was roaming through his library. The friend promptly took out the Evangeline Harun had brought for me five years ago and thus the book finally ended up in my hands.

I had yet another book as a present from Selim a fellow film scholar, although it was sent by Esen, a designer friend of mine who could not make it to the party, and sent a book she designed instead. The book is actually a work of art by the artist Leyla Gediz and is called K-141 Kursk, after the Russian submarine that sunk in 2000. The one that became famous because the authorities just left the soldiers to die in it refusing to launch a rescue mission. Leyla Gediz looked at a photo of one of these soldiers, then made a drawing of him, from memory. Then for 118 days (the number of soldiers in the submarine), every day, she drew him again from memory. The result is recorded in the book and apart from anything else it is a very interesting case on memory distortion.

So these were the presents dedicated to my intellectual persona. There were also presents to satisfy the crazy in me. Gencay once again outdid everyone in this respect and gave me a t-shirt that writes ‘eat pussy’ underneath what is the universal traffic sign indicating a restaurant, with fork and knife and plate with the addition of a little cat on the plate. There is no way I could describe it and do it justice you simply have to see it and laugh. More importantly he hand painted it! There is a story behind this one as well: On facebook I saw a friend’s photo with the exact same t-shirt and commented on it indicating how much I adore the t-shirt and asking where I could find it. The answer was that the photo was taken five years ago and she had brought it from Holland. Being on facebook the entire exchange was of course public and did not escape Gencay who proceeded to replicate the t-shirt and got it ready for my birthday. How nice is that??? Of course I ended up putting it on and it is on me in most of the photos of that night.

Now that I have mentioned hand-made presents I have to take the time to salute Gozde who made an oil- on -canvas painting for me: a naked female butt, in front of a purple wall, holding a black whip. Actually she had claimed it was in exchange for me helping her out with her Phd thesis but since, my birthday was when she finally let me see it ,I believe it ended up being a birthday present. I am yet to bring the painting back home since it hasn’t dried! It is so nice to have friends that can make their presents rather than buy them!

Another piece of neat clothing I got was from Feride who happens to be the actress who has portrayed one of my favourite characters in the history of Turkish film: a very-angry-punk-butch in “Iki Genc Kiz” by Kutlug Ataman (who you might know more as a Turner prize winning contemporary artist rather than a Turkish film director and you won’t be wrong) However Feride doesn’t see herself as an actress and would not appreciate this description of her self. She is currently a film critic and if hse were ever to be involved in practical side of cinema I assume she would prefer to do that as a director not an actor. What she gave me was a bright purple tie with a sexy cartoon girl on it carrying a sign that says “school sucks” I put it on immediately (well actually I first gave it to Hakan, so he can tie it for me, since I have no idea how to go about doing that and although I have never once in my life seen Hakan with a tie I know the knowledge is ingrained into men at a very young age) I am yet to wear it to school but the idea of having it on during a lecture is very appealing.

As far as clothing as presents go Faith was, once again, over the top. Fatih is a film scholar and film critic and a short story writer. However, for me, before all that, he is the very best translator in Turkey and has translated people like Borges and Nabakov, as well as, books like American Psycho. He is also partly responsible for the jinx I mentioned since, although everyone knows him as a shameless exhibitionist, he told me not to write about some of the things that happened at the Rainbow Party. And this certainly contributed to my inability to continue relating what I had started! And this censorship plea comes from the man whose present to me was: two pairs of matching lace underwear. This also means that he is the only person who gave Seda (love of my life) a present on my birthday, which is kind of neat. Accompanying the underwear was a candle in the shape of a wine bottle. Kind of obvious what we are supposed to be doing with that one.

Hande, another ex-student who is nowadays working her ass off at a production company which happens to be situated at the building right across my house, so I can actually watch her sweating away, gave me a beautiful enamel brooch with a bear in a dress is dancing with a boy: a picture out of some fairy tale that still manages to look kinky.

In fact it was only with the addition of these presents that I finally completed my costume for the night. I had a pair of wonderful jeans on, a present by Seda (love of my life) and a frilly, lacy, very Goth looking black shirt I had brought from Camden Town. Once I wore the pink ‘eat pussy’ t-shirt under it, leaving the front of it open and pinned my brooche to it and wore the purple tie on top of it all I was looking really good. So much so that Milen, who came at the very end of the night since she had audaciously gone to another party first, told my costume was unbelievably good, and since she has an MA in fashion and not only designs, but also actually tailors very groovy clothes, is more than just a compliment.

Birthday party 38-1: how and where

Wednesday was my birthday and last night I had a birthday party. There has been times when I had birthday parties at my house and times when I simply invited my friends to a restaurant or a bar or a club. There was even this one time when I had my birthday at my girlfriend Seda’s (love of my love) club. At the time she was not my girlfriend, but we were already in love by then, although neither of us admitted it yet. She had rented a striper for me and gave me a book called ‘desire’, so I guess everything was already very obvious, but it still took us a while before we got there. All the same last night was the first time I had a private party at a club closed to random customers for my birthday.

To explain how this happened let me rewind. It all started last Saturday. Seda was at Edirne (another city!) and Gencay came over to cheer me up in my girlfriends absence. We first cooked, then had diner and chatted throughout which brought us to the subject of my immanent birthday. Gencay decided I simply had to have a birthday party. I claimed it was too late to organise. I also refused to do it at home and spend my birth”day” preparing for the birth”night”. But we made a list of people I would like to invite and Gencay promised to take on all the necessary work. Of course I ended up arranging the club but there would never have been the party if it wasn’t for Gencay’s insistence so I am very grateful.

As to the venue: A fellow film critic and a fellow member of the governing board of SIYAD (Turkish Film Critics Association) Deniz, owns a club at Beyoglu that is in fact quite fashionable. It is called DIRTY and clubbers know it well. All the same Thursday’s are slow nights for clubs. They make most of their profit on Friday’s and Saturday’s when there is an entrance fee. But they also open on Wednesday’s, the only midweek night when there is action. However since they open up on Wednesday they keep it open on Thursday, although they know it will be a slow night. Anyway I knew that a party would be welcome for Deniz on Thursday, which meant guaranteed clientele. So I called and he agreed. Then I called Cenk who is not only a great DJ but also someone who wants to start doing this seriously and hopefully profesionaly. So I thought it would be a great opportunity for him to try it out and would guarantee that we would have very good music. Thanks to Facebook, invitations could be sent out easily and Gencay made one of his legendary photoshop collage pictures for the invitation: a photo of me imposed on “The Godfather” film poster seamlessly and the name of the film changed to “Godmather”. There was quite a bit of scandal when two of my friends, Cem and Feride turned up at the club on Wednesday, which was my actual birthday and had to go back. But apart from that I believe it was the best night out I ever had.

Let me elaborate on that: I love dancing but usually hate the places one has to go to dance. Since I quit smoking one and a half years ago it is unbearable to try and breath in a closed place where everyone is smoking. I usually don’t like the music or the music system and the combination makes my head ache. I don’t like the hours you have to keep in order to dance. Such places only start to kick after midnight more like around one in the morning and continue until four or five. It has been years since I could stay out that late. Two in the morning is my limit and if I rarely exceed this limit it is definitely not at a club, but at home engaged in heated discussions on some obscure topic with a few friends. And most importantly I rarely like the kind of crowd in such places. The type of people that regularly club are not the type of people I feel at home with. And these places get so crowded your dancing space is limited to elbow length and can’t really freely move and dance to your hearts content.

Yesterday however there was something around 50 people in a space made for 150 people and this made ample space for any kind of dance move. It also meant you could breath since the place wasn’t filled with smoke. The party started around 21.30 and ended at 02.00 as pre arranged and announced on the invitation. More to the point every single person in the club was a dear friend. Also it contained a very high concentration of gay and lesbians more than you can find anywhere outside a gay club. There was even a foreign photographer who was in Istanbul to shoot photos for a project on “sexual minorities” who took the party as an opportunity to work on this very project.

It is time to move on to a list of everyone who was there and the presents they gave me and the events of the evening but I have to take a break. To be continued.

preapering for the siyad awards

OK I admit life overtakes me quite a bit. I wrote the below entry Monday afternoon just before I went to attend the SIYAD (Turkish Film Critics Association) Award ceremony which was going to be broadcasted live and where I had to go on stage to give an award. However I didn’t even have time to post it let alone write a new entry about the ceremony itself. What I did instead was to write a comment about the huge arguments the awards created for the Sunday supplement of the daily newspaper Radikal where my very old friend Nilgun is an editor. Actually I don’t know if Nilgun will be able to find a place for it. All I know is that a blog entry would not have sufficed for this purpose. So here is what I wrote on the afternoon of the 3rd of March:

Already had a hectic day. I started of by going to the gym and if I had known the day was going to be like this I would have postponed it to another day. Anyway, there I saw Bahadir, who is a famous cartoonist. I have known him for ages, from the times I worked at Gunes daily newspaper with Bahadir’s, now wife, Mine. I have already mentioned Mine on this blog, she is the one who writes novels. Anyhow he told me, he and Mine are going to Kathmandu tomorrow. Mine is going to observe and eventually write a book on a group of Turkish hippies who went over there during the 60s and stayed. I am not sure if the book will be on and about this group or if Mine is merely going to use her observations to write a novel. She writes in both genres so it is difficult to be sure. Anyway when I went out of the gym, which is situated at Taksim square (overlooking Taksim square actually) and started walking on Istiklal street towards Beyoglu, who did I happen upon? None other than Mine! We decided that the moment she is back, her, me, and Erel will meet. If there is anyone who has read my very first blog entry, they will know that I had met Erel at the opening gala of the !f independent film festival and made the same promise to her. Let’s see when we will actually meet, accidentally somewhere at Beyoglu, more likely than not.

Then things became complicated. I had to drop by the SIYAD (Turkish film critics association) headquarters to get some invitations for tonight’s big event but no one answered the door, which is not so curious, since most likely every one is at the venue where the event will take place busy with the preparations. Since the headquarters is very near my house (15 minutes walk) I didn’t mind. I came home, ate lunch, which consisted of a self-made tuna and avocado sandwich, then I saw the message from Gencay, asking if I could arrange an additional invitation, since a guy he has been interested in for some time (entirely my doing but that’s another story) wanted to go with him if there was. Actually he already had an invitation and had already promised Inanc he would go with him and had every inclination to dump Inanc if there were no invitations, Inanc being merely his heterosexual friend while the other is a date potential. I said I’ll do smtg.

Then the phone rang and it was Gulengul she wanted to know if there was an invitation since she was thinking of coming. Then she said Cenk was being very gay and putting suits on and off trying to decide what to wear and generally making Gulengul nervous. She on the other hand was claming that film critics usually go around in jeans and t-shirts with cigarette burns in them. The observation is very accurate and I ensured Gulengul a nice shirt on her jeans would be sufficient although there would be people in formal wear as well. Then we gossiped about Cenk and Gencay the details of which I have no intention of disclosing. All I will say is I have decided that I will from now on refrain from giving my opinion to any gay man when they start there endless speculations on who to date and who not to date and whether they should date and what not. I will patiently listen and nod and that is all. I will not get entangled in this mess nor be seen anywhere near the cross fire. Gulengul thought this decision to be very wise.

However then she started asking me questions I had no answer for like will we party after the ceremony, when exactly does this start, aren’t you supposed to be the deputy head of this association, do I need to go higher to get answers etc. Gulengul has a reason for asking so many questions. If she is to leave her baby girl (elfe whom I already wrote an entry about) she has to make the most of it. she can’t just go to the ceremony she has to drink party everything the one and only night a month she goes out. So I called the head of the association Mozer (another very old friend) to ask him where to get invitations etc. he said I should call the headquarters and the moment there is somebody there, go get it. if this doesn’t work, I should give the names of the people to the guy at the door! (this is a classic I have to write about as a separate entry one day) So I called and they said they would be there for half an hour so I had to rush back out. Then just as I entered the damn place, my mobile rang and it was Cenk who had called to ask, surprise surprise, if there were additional invitations!. Thank god this is the kind of event you worry might not be full so its not a big deal to keep on providing invitations if only I didn’t have to run around Beyoglu to get them.

Then I went to my hairdresser (I already told you about him because of Alisa) and told him: “I actually love the way my hair looks at this very moment however I have this thing tonight and everyone says I have to get my hair done and I hate my hair done but … as long as I don’t end up looking like my mom”. Now that it is done I can assure you that I look nothing like her but now I have to get dressed. We (Seda –love of my life- and me) will be meeting with Gencay, Emrecan, Inanc, Cenk, Gulengul and who ever Cenk is bringing at six in front of AKM (Ataturk Cultural Center) where hopefully there will be buses to take us to the venue. So I have to rush.

Gay day at !f and blog-phobia 2

Yesterday was the gay day at !f International Independent Film Festival. I have already written about this festival’s opening night. I have not seen a single film at the festival after that. After 20 years of festival going and with the advent of DVD and Dvix technologies I have finally learn to limit my festival activities to the side events rather than the film going itself and this is regarded as a scandal by many of my colleagues. I could do the 4-5 even 6 films a day thing when I was young. There is no way I can do it now. Therefore for me !f was, from the start, about yesterday. First there was a video activism workshop organised by lambda (THE lesbian, gay, transvestite and transsexual organisation at Istanbul), which would last until sixish. Then at night there was the Rainbow Party! And there is so much to tell about both the events. After all this is exactly the type of thing this blog is supposed to be about.

However before going on to relate it all I have to pause to muse at yet another form of blog-phobia. There are those who come to these events that are in the closet. Even being out the closet does not necessarily mean you want you activities at a party reported. When I first told I wanted to start a blog to my dearest friend Kutlu and his dearest boyfriend Ziad they told me of a blog that became quite popular for a time. I can’t remember which country it was from I think it was somewhere in the middle-east. Anyway the guy told all about the gay seen and became widely read but it turns out he lost all his friends and therefore had to nothing to write about before long. At the time I said I’ll send everything I write to you and you guys decide what is suitable and not be my censors. This idea was turned down on the grounds that it was too much responsibility. Again here there is a bit of an exaggeration going on. I think the reality is not so much that it is too much responsibility but rather too boring and too time-consuming and in fact a not so subtle strategy designed to make sure at least two of my friends always read my blog.

Therefore I will start with the less incriminating video activism event and save the more lewd details of the Rainbow Party for later. I might in the interim call some people up and ask if they mind my writing. The workshop was to be held at The Hall which is a very old building that was once an Armenian church, I believe, recently turned into a night club. I am not much of a clubber. In fact my ex- girlfriend Sevil who has managed one and owned another very popular club at one time would tell you I am hopeless. Despite the fact I have already been to The Hall before this occasion although it is a relatively new place. This was with Seda (love of my life), Gencay, and Inanc and we went to see what was announced as “a fetish performance” but turned out to be a man in a latex stockings and corset lip-synching to boring German pop songs without even moving!

Anyhow architecturally the place is very beautiful. It is located at the ‘back streets of Beyoglu’: this is a phrase used to imply all sorts of lewd stuff though in the case of The Hall it merely means it is located on a street where transsexual prostitutes also live. And the very fact that The Hall has opened means the street is long on its way to gentrification. In fact I have been told that the transsexuals are already being harassed because of it. Although many argue it is not the Hall but the huge shopping mall that is in construction around the corner that is the real cause of gentrification. Inside, The Hall, has two separate halls where tow separate events and parties can coexist without in any way hindering each other. When we reached the door with Seda we happened upon Gencay and Inanc who had also just arrived. I was surprised at our timing but Gencay said it was inevitable that our rhythms have become in tuned because we spend so much time together and that he knows he will start having his periods the same time as we do. Gencay, being a gay man and all, this doesn’t seem much likely but the statement proves that hanging out with us has made Gencay start to believe that he is a lesbian.

I haven’t even begun to tell the event yet and now I have to rush out again, to go to a studio to talk about the best director category of the Turkish Film Critics Association SIYAD, as I had promised earlier this week. To be continued.