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Month June 2016

Entries 4 Total

The Bride of the Sun

Jun 27, ’16 11:08 AM

Behind his back people called him misfortunate but the king didn’t mind because his seven daughters filled his heart with joy. In all other matters he was bold, rational and determined, but with his seven daughters he took his time to guide them gently. He had found suitable husbands for them and saw them married off one by one.

But when the time came for his youngest daughter to find a husband he was in trouble. Suitors arrived to the castle gates, banners waiving, horns blaring, only to be turned away by the princess. The king was beside himself with worry.

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She had seen her sisters married off to princes that appeared beautiful, wealthy or kind only to find out that the men they married had serious flaws,

One sister married a beautiful prince who turned out to be insufferably vain.

Another married an honest prince who over time gave away his land and titles.

The next sister married awealthy prince, cruel to his subjects.

A kind prince, with an empty head.

A wise prince who spends no time in the bedroom.

A sensual prince with countless mistresses

And a devoted prince who made her sister stand up on a column to be admired by him alone. Day in day out.

All had qualities that were charming from a certain distance, but up close seemed more a burden than anything.

She could not fall in love for fear that her love would transform into someone beastly or mewing and weak.

She would wait for a prince who was as he seemed.

Tonight I’ve watched
The moon and then the Pleiades go down
The night is now half-gone; youth goes; I am
in bed alone
-Sappho
Midnight Poem (Trans. Mary Barnard)

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      In search of perfect love.

      The youngest daughter of a king sees faults in the men her sisters marry

      She sets off to find perfect love

      The mother of the Sun accepts her on one condition: she may not look at the sun’s face

      But she cannot bare never having seeing him

      Mother suggests a trick, see him through the water glass

      The sun sees her looking and throws her out

      She watches him from afar until her feet become rooted in the ground.

    She is a sunflower.
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Ads from the Future

Jun 27, ’16 11:06 AM

I flew from JFK airport recently and these ads were in the Jetway. I’ve seen them before but never taken photos. I find the messages so disturbing, as if they are out of a dystopian novel.
AB_ads

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Istanbul’s Walled Neighborhoods

Jun 27, ’16 10:54 AM

Walking through New York City recently I was struck by how quickly the neighborhoods changed. I think we walked south on Bowery from Chris’ school, the Cooper Union, in the East Village. Block by block we made it through Little Italy and Chinatown, and a few less well branded, transitional neighborhoods. The variation of the character of the streets was so fast and so distinct. Every few blocks could see I was in a new place. I’ve been to NYC a bunch over my life, walking some of the same streets. This observation was so strong because I’d traveled there from Istanbul.

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Of course Istanbul has distinct neighborhoods, there is no doubt that the twisting pathways that make up Eminönü have a much different character to İstiklal Avenue, a wide boulevard with a cable car track running down it. But you have to walk a lot longer distance in Istanbul to notice the shift in neighborhoods. Maybe it’s my foreignness but I don’t see abrupt shifts of character as clearly as in my home country. I returned to Istanbul with this question on my mind, what makes this difference?

I was glad to read then this short essay on Istanbul’s 1000 or so walled neighborhoods, called site (like see-tay). Like tiny cities all to themselves., complex of high-rise apartment buildings offices and restaurants, wrapped around a green space.

From the domestic garden, to the local mosque, to a district’s central Külliye, Ottoman life was often framed by singular pieces of architecture. As opposed to our binary understanding of inside and outside or private and public, social relationships were defined by the walls that form a community.

Read more here. Microcities as Megaprojects

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Save the Van Cats

Jun 27, ’16 10:51 AM

Some background on a little coincidence.

When I was in Haiti volunteering with Clowns Without Borders I made an interview with the logistician for the French group. I was his translator and I don’t know French very well at all. At some point he said, “vingt-quatre,” and I translated it as van cat and talked a little nonsense about what we do with the van cats.

Imagine my surprise when this headline showed up in my Turkey news feed: TURKEY SAVES VAN CATS FROM EXTINCTION. Van cats are real! They come from Van, they have different colored eyes, and they are being saved from extinction!

“The Van cat has to be fully white, with one eye turquoise blue and the other amber. The roundness of its face and the length of its tail are very important.”

Van cat is seen at the Cat House Center in the eastern city of Van, Turkey, 19 January 2006.

“The Van Cats Research Center, established by Van’s Yuzuncu Yil University in 1992, has played a key role in saving the species from extinction. The number of purebred Van cats at the center has increased from 30 in 1992 to 144 in 2014. The cats have been issued ID cards and the university has banned them from being sold or given away as presents.”

There is a really boring youtube video explaining how important Van cats are, longwindedly describing the plight of the cats disappearing from Van. People kill the ones that don’t have two colored eyes, the ones that do have the two colored eyes? Tourists kidnap them. I don’t blame them.

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