My day started with a visa appointment at 08.00 at the Netherlands consulate. Thankfully the consulate is at Beyoglu on a small cul-de-sac off Istiklal, which means, its walking distance from our house. Beyoglu is where the night life thrives so it is always very weird to walk through it early in the morning. Most of the shops on Istiklal had not opened yet and it was quite empty. We (Seda and me) breakfast at Lebon, which is an ‘old school’ patisserie where service is done by very polite old man who have been doing this for ages and make you feel welcome and relaxed and it has delicious pastries fresh from the oven in the morning.
Then we went through the ordeal of visa application. The point of the entire process is designed to make it so difficult and humiliating that you will think twice before you ever want to go to the country in question ever again. Even better it is designed to make you give up during the very process deeming it not worth it. But of course I have done this so many times, at so many consulates, that I can do it without getting bothered, though I am not sure this callous attitude is something to be proud of.
Then as is the case every Tuesday I went to Santral in a taxi with Gozde, Bulent and Iskender. Iskender and Bulent teach courses that start at 11.00, while mine starts at 12.00, and Gozde comes to listen in on my lectures. We arrive around 10.30 and have a coffee and a nice chat before we go our separate ways.
After Bulent and Iskender had gone I got a phone call from Efe who was my student last year and directed me in the cameo role of a vampire last week. He said they were about to screen the film and asked me if I would like to join. So off we went with Gozde to see the short mocumentary about contemporary vampire culture in Istanbul. The film was hilarious and I laughed heartily throughout. Very witty and perfectly acted, it even contained a critique of the ethics of documentary filmmaking, the way all mocumentaries should. Then came my own lecture, which lasted three hours. After the lecture I went to Otto with Gozde. Otto is a very hip Italian restaurant, which for some reason is located inside the campus. We had risotto (my favourite dish) and homemade pasta, while Gozde convinced me that we should go to Galerist. Galerist is a gallery located in one of the most beautiful buildings on Istiklal called Misir Apartmani (which literally translates as the Egypt Building). Gozde failed to remember the name and the artist of the exhibition that had started there but assured me that it was something I would like to go to. So go we did. We ended walking up the fabulous staircase, since the lift seemed to be stuck on the seventh floor.
It turns out it was a Juergen Teller exhibition called Nurnberg. The photographs were great but few in numbers and frankly I am not convinced that they should be printed as small as they had been. It was more of a ‘teaser’ to an exhibition than an exhibition proper. My favourite photo was “Kristen lifting skirt” and the accompanying “Mein Schloss”. I loved the entire “Liliy” series as well. But can’t say I enjoyed the humour behind the self-portraits.
Walking back to Cihangir where both me and Gozde live we went past “Mor”, which is a little jewellery shop that I frequent a lot. In fact I buy all my rings and necklaces from there. I had both a necklace last mount but a bead had fallen off and since we were passing by and I had the necklace on, we popped in. I left the necklace there to be repaired. It felt wierd to go in a shop and leave an accessory behind.
Quite exhausted, I spent the evening watching the third season of “Desperate Housewives” on DVD, with Seda (love of my life). Tomorrow I have two meetings I have to attend and at night I am going to the Kaki King concert. Gencay thinks it will be like a night at “The Planet”. For those of you who do not watch “The L Word”, “The Planet” is the lesbian café/bar/club in that TV series. Of course that’s just wishful thinking on his part. Just because the performer is a lesbian will not turn the event into a lesbian night. In fact it is a concert organised by the Turkish Rolling Stone. Yesim who works for the magazine, and who is a dear friend and a fellow film critic, has left my name at the door so I don’t have to worry about getting tickets. I hope I will find time to tell you about the concert tomorrow.
Posts Tagged ‘Beyoglu
a busy spring day
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.
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.
After the SIYAD (Turkish Film Critics Association) Awards on Monday night when we came back to Taksim square and finally ate something after six hours of hunger, at midnight, at the famous dinner Bambi, which happens to have the same name as the famous Disney character, we (Seda –love of my life – and me) wanted to go home and crash since both of us had to lecture in the morning. Cenk and his friend who spent the night assuming the imaginary personas of Carlo and Bruno, the foreign producers who came to Istanbul to sniff out some lucrative talent to exploit, wanted to go to the after party at the club Dirty which is owned by Deniz, a (actually I should say ‘the’) fellow member of the governing board of SIYAD.
However being sad people who live on the Asian side of the Bosporus they were not quite sure where the club is. So I started to describe: “You know Yesilcam street? It is the street on which both Emek and Sinepop cinemas are located the one where there is that huge construction sight at the moment? Well on the opposite side of that street, is a street that has the Garanti gallery on one corner and a shop that sells Converses on the other corner. Thats the street you should enter. It’s a very short street with uninviting bars on the left and the Majestic cinema’s entrance on the right. Whenyou reach the end turn right. The new street you have thus entered is a ‘cul de sac’ that ends with the back door of the Atlas cinema it is the door from which you exit the cinema when the films are over. It is also the street where Yeni Melek is situated: surely you must have gone to some concerts there.” I would have gone on, although I am sure they had got the picture by then, just for the fun of it. However Cenk interrupted and said “did you loose your virginity on this street or what?”
This is the question that has motivated me to write this entry. I was not aware that the information I was giving was anything special. I would have thought anyone who did not live on the other side of Bosporus would have as easily given the same amount of detail. But Cenk’s question made me realise that this is not quite true that after all not a lot of people passed that street 3 times already that day like I had. Of course I did not loose my virginity on that street, at least not literally. However I have spent a considerable amount of my life at and around Beyoglu. I know every side street that branches off of Istiklal street like the back of my hand. 20 years ago I used to spent a lot of time drinking in the various bars and pubs and what nots. (I no longer drink) Now that I live around, I do my shopping and meet people at its cafes and of course I go to galleries and cinemas around here. Most importantly, however, I walk from one place to another in the entire vicinity every day withouth exception: Istiklal, Taksim, Galata, Taepebasi, Tarlabasi, cihangir etc. because, Cihangir where I live, is in the Beyoglu municipality and my adily needs and transactions make it necessary for me to walk about. For instance, on the very street that I tried to describe to Cenk, is situated the SIYAD headquarters. In short I know every nook and cranny around Beyoglu since I have had some occasion to know over the years, even if the occasion in question was never the loosing of my virginity.
However this doesn’t strike me as a specific knowledge. Beyoglu after all is the centre of the entire city everyone has occasion to come there. Everyone I know, seems to know Beyoglu as much as I do. But at choice moments I realise this is not so true and Cenk’s comment made one such moment. Yes every one knows Istiklal street but not every one knows the side streets and especially the short cuts and the easiest roots to get from one place to the other. In fact since Istiklal street is a place to promenade nearly everyone takes the longer roots and never learns there are shorter versions of the same journey.
This brings me to the second reason for this entry. On Tuesday night with a group of SIYAD members I had dinner with the Mayor of Beyoglu. Although I am aware that this seems to hold some news value, I am not interested in that side of it. The mayor, although very young for the office, is a typical politician whose urge for rhetoric is mostly boring. There was eight film critics at the table and every one started asking their questions by referring to how long they have known Beyoglu, how well they know it and how much they love it etc. Alin (a dear, dear friend whom I genuinely love and believe is one of the very few journalist left who actually make an adorable job out of it) even had the opportunity to refer to the legendary old times of Beyoglu, the time of her grandmother, since not only her but even her grandmother was born in Istanbul which is a very rare thing in deed. However I soon realised that I was the only person at the table who actually lived at Beyoglu. Consequently I was the only member of the Mayor’s constituency. I barely talked during the dinner and merely listened. But when we were about to go and the Mayor asked if we need to be dropped off anywhere, I couldn’t pass the opportunity to say, “I live within walking distance”. The mayor’s eyes lit up and we had a little chat about Cihangir and the new park that just opened there.
I don’t think I ever say “I love Beyoglu” because I think “well, duh, who doesn’t”. I never say to myself “I know this place” because, again, who doesn’t. And I certainly don’t say “I belong here” or “this is my home” because the whole point of Beyoglu seems to be that it is a place that one visits and only those who ‘don’t belong’ live. It is where you go to entertain, to engage in cultural activates, to find blind dates and one night stands, even to work but after the hub and hustle you go back to your quite homes. As the mayor himself called it, Beyoglu is a free zone, which is in its connotations the very opposite of the concept of home. But after these two incidents got me thinking, I realised I love this place precisely because, only a free zone can I call home.
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.
Recent Comments