So it’s the first of May and the weather outside is beautiful, a perfect spring morning. I am sitting in my study with the windows open and listening to the birds chirping as I write. The peaceful quite is shattered every now and then with the sound of a helicopter overhead or the sound of police sirens in the distance.
I live very near Taksim Square: 10 minutes rapid walk, 15 minutes maximum if you really take it slow. Taksim Square is closed down and the entire police force of the city, plus some from the neighbouring cities, is there en masse. They are “defending” the Square from the workers who want to reach it. To the best of my knowledge pepper gas and water have prevented them from doing so until now. However my knowledge is very limited since I do not have a television. I check the internet for news updates every now and then. A lot of my friends intended to join the demonstration attempt and I am worried.
It is weird to be so close and so far away but it would have felt even weirder to sit so close and watch the events from television. Despite everything, this is exactly the kind of time when I am happy that I don’t have access to TV. Officially today is not a holiday however the entire city is closed down, no ferries, no schools, no one going to work. Seda is watching “Desperate Housewives” on DVD and I am reading Patrick Califia’s book: “Speaking Sex to Power”. I am aware that this seems a form of escapism and I also know friends who would consider our activities of this morning a scandal.
I am not going to go into detail about the reasons behind my determination not be caught up in what is obviously a deliberate attempt to build tension to the point of catastrophe. Or how I regard being glued to the TV, learning what’s going on around the corner from the dubious news, as the worst form of escapism, a flight into paralysing anxiety, a form of vampirism. Nor do I feel the need to elaborate on why I think there is no point in joining the demonstrators unless you are part of an organisation and my belief that only organised forms of resistance has any meaning. These are prickly subjects that create never-ending arguments, which in the end are futile. Suffice to say that this is the first time I have let a news item become the subject of my blog, although I was tempted a while ago, when Pippa Bacca was raped and murdered. I have a strong urge to think and express my thoughts on things when they are not the pressing news item and when there is not too much emotion involved. So I hope to come back to elaborate on such points when people will seem to have forgotten all about them and 38 years of life has given me ample evidence that forget they will and sooner rather than later.
Posts Tagged ‘blogging
things to come
I keep on receiving complaints that it has been ages since my last blog entry. I really haven’t got hold of the rhythm of this thing yet and don’t know if I should (or for that matter could) be writing every two days or once a week or whenever I feel like it.
This week, at least, the answer is: whenever I can find a quiet moment to myself. The week started of with a day of meetings. On Monday I had my first meeting at nine and went from one meeting to the next until 18.30. The week will end with the opening of the lambda (the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual organization in Istanbul) exhibition, followed by, the opening gala of the Istanbul Film Festival.
The week doesn’t end there and there is yet another exhibition opening I need to attend to on Saturday, since this exhibition, entitled “L’aventura Reedited” bears the signature of two of my friends Selim Eyuboglu and Esen Karol.
On Sunday I have to go on stage before a screening at the festival to present the films director ask him a few questions, do all this in English AND translate the dialogue to Turkish for the benefit of those who do not know English.
I do not believe in doing a job that should have been done by an expert and translation is certainly an expertise. However this festival, which is huge - too huge for its own good, really - prefers to get the most out of you whenever possible. I remember distinctly how back in 1999 I was one of the jury members for the national competition and had to translate the entire jury session as well as participate in, what turned out to be, one of the most heated jury debates I have ever encountered. This is what we call “ala Turca” and no doubt I am contributing to this by periodically accepting to do it. When I refuse, this doesn’t get my point across, at all. Whatever I might say, they simply decide, “I am being difficult”. So I alternate between years when I am being “difficult” and years when I finally relent and nothing changes because this how things are done in this country.
In any case the weekend promises many blog entries if only I have the time to write.
I was supposed to write the lgbtt workshop at !f, The rainbow party, the TV studio event for SIYAD (Turkish film critics association). I also wanted to write the night I watched the Oscar ceremony until six in the morning with my two gay friends Gencay and Cenk. However life overwhelmed things happened one after another with no time in between to write. Especially late nights three nights in a row shook my system and left me staggering to regain my balance the whole week.
I was confident I could keep up the job of posting on this blog at least every other day because I am not a very social person. I take care not to pack my days with events and I hate to party till I drop and when I do party it is never more than once a week. Alas things piled up and I got crushed. Now I can’t seem to pick up the thread. I might not have attempted if my dear friend Gulengul hadn’t motivated me by writing a long comment to one of my entries. How should I restart? Should I go back and write the events that I thought I would or should I just skip them and go on. I don’t know. This entry is meant to be a form of flexing my muscles, trying to get back into form.
So let me start by relating what I am doing right now. Obviously I am blogging. Behind me Seda (love of my life) is playing a stupid game on Facebook and simultaneously chatting with Cicek, a dear friend of ours. Gencay who spent the night at our place is reading an article, I wrote ages ago, on Star Wars. We just had breakfast, which consisted of whole grain bread, white cheese (also known as feta cheese), black olive paste, honey, pineapple, green tree and P.J Harvey. Now we are all drinking coffee. We are taking it easy and in half an hour we will go to the organic farmers market for our weekly shopping. We plan to meet Cicek and then Seda and I will go to the gym. The weather outside is sunny and clear: the best kind of spring weather.
Seda just decided we should watch a music video directed by Spike Jones for the song ‘Praise You’ by Fat Boy Slim and it is hilarious. I didn’t know we had this in our house and I really don’t know what prompted her to make us watch it. Now we are about to watch the wonderful music video in which Chrisopher Walken dances like crazy. I adore Cristopher Walken and on this high note leave you to it.
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.
After snow craze
Yesterday was a hectic day. Spring term started so I went all the way to Alibeykoy (the end of the Golden Horn) to the university, to first meet with my course contact person (otherwise known as the CCP) who is also an ex-student, Pinar, then to lecture for 3 hours. I was hoping secretly that most students wouldn’t turn up because they tend to do that on the first day of term and especially when the weather conditions promise traffic jams. Alas they were all present so lecture I did. It is difficult to go back into the rhythm of it after a two - month break.
Then I met with Alisa (my film scholar friend who lives at London and whom I mentioned in a pervious entry concerning her stance against blogging) who is at Istanbul for a week and wanted to go to the hairdresser who cuts my hair as well as Seda’s and he is good. After years and years of long hair I finally got it cut short. The decision came after I sat through four seasons of “The L Word” watching brilliant haircuts. Of course Seda had already gone to the hairdresser in question and everyone including me had adored her hair. So now Alisa wanted to go as well. The hairdresser is on the same street as we live so we met there and asked if he was available he told us to come back in half an hour so we went back to my house and had a chat.
One of the topics was blogging. Alisa once again told me she couldn’t understand the urge. I asked if she understand the urge to keep a dairy. She said: “yes but you keep your dairy under your pillow, you don’t show it don’t to anybody”. I answered: “yes but that’s dangerously close to repressing I don’t want to get overly theoretical but the more your inner thoughts become a part of the symbolic system the better for you”. You see I am very much into psychoanalysis whereas Alisa isn’t so all I have done is giving an explanation that she won’t really understand!
However what I found really interesting was her explanation that she stopped reading a friends blog because she realised “I would like him better if I did not read it”. I found the declaration extremely striking when she first said it and since then I have realised why. If you like someone on the condition that you turn a blind eye to what he himself wants you to know, then you end up likening someone who is most definitely not that person but an imaginary construct of your own. I for one would never feel so desperate to be liked that I am willing to be someone else (or taken to be someone else) for the privilege. Both parties are better off without any liking on any body’s part. This seems to me very close to saying “I will like him better if I don’t know him better” which very much reminds me of precisely the urge to ‘pass’. To pass as straight while you are gay to pas as “white Turk’ while you are in fact Kurd etc. To deny yourself believing you will be ‘liked’ by more people if you do so. More to the point it reminds me of those condescending people who are gracious enough to be my friend if and only if I don’t point out to them that I am a lesbian. So I always knew there was a connection between blogging and coming out that is why the name of the blog is “out and about” but the more I think of it the more related they become.
Anyhow I couldn’t wait until Alisa’s hair was done because I had to rush to a board of directors meeting of SIYAD, (The Turkish Film Critics Association of Turkey). I am the deputy chair of this association. We talked about the election that is to be held on Thursday and the award ceremony on the 3rd of March as well as the events to be held during the upcoming Istanbul Film Festival, I promised to moderate a panel at the festival called “Turkish Cinema Inside Out”, which consists of foreign and Turkish film critics talking about contemporary Turkish cinema. I also promised to go to a studio this Saturday where they will shoot me talking about the nominees for the best director category, which will be shown during the award ceremony.
I wonder how Alisa’s hair turned out.
This morning I had a bit of slow time to counter the dashing about yesterday and went back to “Tipping The velvet”. It turns out the novel is even better than I thought, not just a lesbian romance but a lot of queer sex as well. Nan the protagonist is now earning her living as a male prostitute just like Shane from “The L Word”, we are told once did. And now that I have mentioned it I have to go back to reading it.
blog-phobia
I didn’t want to get self-reflexive right away but it is inevitable.
First of all let me tell you that I am doing something illegal by blogging at wordpress since it has been banned here in Turkey. I won’t bother to go into the details. Someone in one blog among thousands of its likes on wordpress supposedly insulted some big shot who proceeded to sue, won and therefore the entire wordpress access has been denied to the entire country. When you try to enter a page saying access is illegal pops up. Of course for those who know it is not at all difficult to go around which I did obviously. But most won’t know or could not be bothered. So I have elected to write on a place where most of my fellow countrymen won’t be able to read. I am not saying I did that on purpose as a kind of twisted “privacy setting’ I am just saying this must mean smtg. As no doubt deciding to write in English, which is neither my mother tongue, nor a language I can claim to have fully mastered. These are all ways in which I both write and don’t write.
Why? Well I am 38 which means all this is not as natural as it is to someone younger as Douglas Adam’s once said any technology that was around when you were born is natural, anything that came when you were 20 is exciting and new and anything that came when you are older than 20 is against the natural order of things. However this is an evasive answer and if it sufficed I would never have started blogging in the first place.
let’s try smtg else. My friend Alisa thinks bloging is self-indulgent, exhibitionistic and narcissistic. Although her area of expertise is documentaries and she likes what is known as “the first person documentary”, she sees no documentary value in blogging what so ever. Now me and alisa seldom agree on anything and never it seems enjoy the same things (weird friendship? not at all!). However I am aware that in this case as in many she represents an important part of my world (the world of intellectuals). Which means I am blogging knowing full well how it seems to people around me.
Then there is this chitchat that is quite in fashion nowadays about the celebrities like Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears and how it must be extremely difficult to put yourself out there as a target of so much negative energy. Showing yourself to the world always has an aspect of taking of your armour and becoming vulnerable. But not as much as hiding in the shadows, and trying to become inconspicuous even invisible, as anyone trying to “pass”, would attest.
Which of course brings me to the psychoanalytic reasons of blog-phobia. My paranoid mother’s biggest dread in the world has always been the written word. I cannot even begin to count the number of times I have watched her methodically tear scarps of paper into microscopic bits before they are thrown into the dustbin, scraps of paper that more likely then not contained nothing more incriminating than the grocery list. In fact she tried to avoid committing anything to paper whenever she could. Think what she would think about bloging if she could grasp the concept. (need I bother to tell you she dismisses the entire concept of computers on principle) so no need to wonder why I am not using my “mother tongue”.
But the problem with all of the above: the ban, the intellectual criticism, the fear of becoming a magnet of negative energy and paranoia pure and simple is that they are all exaggerated and they actually buy the claim that you are reaching (or reaching out to) the entire world. More likely no one will read or only a few friends even a few secret admirers but in the end all acts of self-disclosure are pretty much about things that are more interesting for you than they are for others. I know for a fact that what my mom achieves with all this paranoia is to cling on to the belief that her life is smtg that would interest millions of people that people are willing to go through her trash just so they can have a glimpse of her private life.
When you blog the biggest risk you take is to see how unimportant you really are.
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