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.

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.

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.