"Hüzün"...from Orhan Pamuk's "Istanbul"

So here it is: the best passage i've read so far in Orhan Pamuk's glorious book. Here he lays out a case for defining the pervasive sense of melancholy hanging around this city, born from the sheer weight of history and the transient nature of civilization's heights.... I love hearing about how different languages conceive of melancholy, or hurt, or pain, or loss. The poetry of a place emerges when you contemplate how it's people define hurt....



“We might call this confused, hazy state melancholy, or perhaps we should call it by its Turkish name, hüzün, which denotes a melancholy that is communal rather than private. Offering no clarity, veiling reality instead, hüzün brings us comfort, softening the view like the condensation on a window when a teakettle has been spouting steam on a winter’s day. Steamed-up windows make me feel hüzün, and I still love getting up and walking over to those windows to trace words on them with my finger. As I shape words and figures on the steamy window, the hüzün inside me dissipates and I can relax; after I have done all my writing and drawing, I can erase it all with the back of my hand and look outside.
But the view itself can bring its own hüzün …”


Orhan Pamuk
Istanbul - Memories and the City
From Another House Cihangir

...reminds me a bit of the Portuguese concept of Saudade... which, according to Wikipedia, "is a Portuguese and Galician word for a feeling of nostalgic longing for something or someone that one was fond of and which is lost. It often carries a fatalist tone and a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might really never return. Saudade has been described as a "vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist ... a turning towards the past or towards the future".A stronger form of saudade may be felt towards people and things whose whereabouts are unknown, such as a lost lover, or a family member who has gone missing..."

unforgettable cab conversation #2

...we pay the guy up front and flee, stumbling to the curb hastily as he pulls away in a huff...

Gathered on the pavement in front of the Grand Bazaar, we take a moment to collect ourselves. Chris's eyes are glazed over.
"I haven't had a cab experience in this country that's been right," he says. Nicolas nods agreement. I can only shake my head in disbelief at the winding, circuitous hell ride our cabbie had just led us on to get to the Grand Bazaar. It takes real balls to start reversing in stagnant traffic on a one-way street, beset with pedestrians, motor bikes, buses, and lawless renegade cabbies in a hurry to get twenty feet further...
Chris is still a bit shell-shocked. "Every five minutes it seems like you're about to die." He's right, of course. Numerous imminent collisions had peppered our eventful ride from the hotel.
Nicolas speaks, in his gloriously refined francophile English. "Did you see the bus yesterday? It got hit twice on the way to the museum yesterday, and the one left a huge black mark on the side."
I had seen the mark, and had felt the brakes jerk, and had heard the crunch of impact. In the driver's defense, it was an impossible route up a steep alley-width cobblestone road, filled with other vehicles. But Nicolas was right. I grew up in Bangladesh, amidst rickshaws and tempos, and Chris Chiu has spent countless years in Bangkok dealing with doped up Thai tuk tuk drivers...but neither one of us was really prepared for cabbies in this city. I hereby concede that Istanbul's cabbies rank right up there with the world's best when it comes to endangering their own lives, committing blatant acts of disregard for the flow of traffic, and scaring the living snot out of their passengers. props, folks... a dubious distinction, to be sure...

stray kitten blues

this city is overrun with stray cats...homeless...in packs...feral & scampering amidst the aqueducts...





















i run with strange litters, baby,
i got mongrel in my mojo walk...
i run with strange litters, baby...
we got mongrel in the way we walk...
we were born to chase a living
in the shadows that we stalk...

i run with strays and tomcats, baby
holdin' down corners with my crew
i run with strays and tomcats, baby
holdin' down corners with my crew
we claim this ground as ours
so you better just be passin' through...

Night @ the Archeological Museum

Earth Hour 2009 - THIS IS WHY I LOVE MY JOB

This campaign started with our friends in Leo Burnett Sydney in 2007...Now it's reached 1 billion people. Watch the whole case, it's a master class in how to move, activate, inform, and empower people...all for a cause that impacts all of us...

Melody Aflam "Titanic"

One of the best cinema ads we saw yesterday, from our friends in Leo Burnett Cairo. This campaign is designed to promote Egyptian movies, and these pieces run amongst the previews before screenings of today's big Hollywood movies. I love this work... there are four or five others that are just as good, but all of them are hilarious, well crafted, and very entertaining....

evening thoughts

sitting surrounded by smugglers trading formulas
on an airy rooftop veranda
comparing notes on the virtues of human propaganda
as platters of spiced meat circulate
I sort through mixed company as the work marinates,
Ruminating on the restless horizon of moving lights
Soaking in the romanticized allure of unfamiliar sights
Feta overtones & olives everywhere
Paired honey pastries & plates of salad to spare
My head spins from sleepless strain
Stumbling through conversations with familiar refrains
Refracted amongst my elders and peers
My job is to listen as they steer us towards safer harbors,
Through strategic doors
Every idea is a portal to art that shifts scenes
Every brand is just a shared dream
All of us function as gears in this machine
Scheming with separate skill sets
To construct a better team…

I AM LISTENING TO ISTANBUL

written by Orhan Veli Kanik , a famous Turkish poet, in 1966







I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed;
At first there blows a gentle breeze
And the leaves on the trees
Softly flutter or sway;
Out there, far away,
The bells of water carriers incessantly ring;
I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.

I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed;
Then suddenly birds fly by,
Flocks of birds, high up, in a hue and cry
While nets are drawn in the fishing grounds
And a woman's feet begin to dabble in the water.
I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.

I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.
The Grand Bazaar is serene and cool,
A hubbub at the hub of the market,
Mosque yards are brimful of pigeons,
At the docks while hammers bang and clang
Spring winds bear the smell of sweat;
I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.

I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed;
Still giddy since bygone bacchanals,
A seaside mansion with dingy boathouses is fast asleep,
Amid the din and drone of southern winds, reposed,
I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.

I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.
Now a dainty girl walks by on the sidewalk:
Cusswords, tunes and songs, malapert remarks;
Something falls on the ground out of her hand,
It's a rose I guess.
I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.

I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed;
A bird flutters round your skirt;
I know your brow is moist with sweat
And your lips are wet.
A silver moon rises beyond the pine trees:
I can sense it all in your heart's throbbing.
I am listening to Istanbul, intent, my eyes closed.

Perspectives: Angela Carter

“The kind of power mothers have is enormous. Take the skyline of Istanbul - enormous breasts, pathetic little willies, a final revenge on Islam. I was so scared I had to crouch in the bottom of the boat when I saw it.”
Angela Carter
"In the late 1980s Carter's writings occupied a central position within debates about feminist pluralism and post-modernism. In her novels Carter dramatized how the old orders of the Western world were breaking down. "I am the pure product of an advanced, industrialized, post-imperialist country in decline,'' she wrote."

Kronenbourg 1664

Saw a fantastic campaign from Leo Burnett Moscow for Kronenbourg 1664 beer, which was constructed around the fact that you can build a pinhole camera out of the 1664 beer can. They then gave the beer-can camera to a famous photographer, and created a whole campaign around it. Gotta love it...

Get Well Soon...

...absent during this week's deliberations is our good friend Sergio Rodriguez, Leo Burnett Milan's resident creative guru, who is recovering from what sounds like a horrendous motorcycle accident earlier this summer. Sergio is an inimitable style icon and a bottomless reservoir of class and beauty, and he is sorely missed. Sending you best wishes from everyone here for a speedy recovery... hope to see you soon, amigo...


(picture from Bahia, Brazil, November 2007...)

Perspectives: Jamal Mahjoub

On Istanbul:
"This city is trying to soak up anything that comes to it. This is a task we all face somehow: settling the contradictions and paradoxes inside. … Stuck between an increasingly neoliberal Europe on one side and an East torn by war and despair, with economic and political deadlock on the other side, İstanbul is a metaphor of odds for our current states of mind. ... This city ... still has a lot to tell about its experiences engraved with blood on its soil.”

Jamal Mahjoub
Sudanese-British writer
"...Born in the Sudan but educated in England and now living in Denmark, Mahjoub straddles many zones of identification and uses High Modernist novel techniques to produce narratives that poignantly critique colonialism..."

...thoughts from the water...

surrounded by old wood houses with decrepit facades
examining the weary detritus of accumulated Gods
Asia & Europe both spitting distance away
Freight ships & lush yachts passing through high traffic bays
Byzantium ghosts
High castle walls on both coasts
A boundless array of millennia-old stones
Exquisite tile work coloring shapely domes…
This sea…surrounded on all sides…
By blue eyed Muslims interspersed between worlds
Sunkissed madonnas rocking Desdemona curls
Swarthy smooth sweet talkers
Hoary old Romani skinwalkers
crusty oud players canvassing scales on every street
lingering clouds of kebab smoke coloring the heat
almond traces & judas trees
headscarf faces & cypress leaves
a city knee deep in travelers and thieves
ambivalent about what it ought to believe…

A handful of pics from the Bosphorus Cruise

Pops, LB/Mumbai


























































Mitsushi Abe (aka Abesan), Beacon Tokyo

































































Yasar Akbas, LB/Istanbul















Selin Kir & Sibel Buyutezcan, our righteous hostesses and resident cat herders from LB/Istanbul

from Orhan Pamuk's "Istanbul"

“To see the cypress trees, the dark woods in the valleys, the empty and neglected yalis, and the old weathered ships with their rusty hues and mysterious cargoes, to see-as only those who have spent their lives on these shores can-the poetry of the Bosphorus ships and yalis, to discard historical grievances and enjoy it as fully as a child, to long to know more about this world, to understand it-this is the awkward surrender to uncertainty that a fifty-year-old writer has come to know as a pleasure. Whenever I find myself talking of the beauty and poetry of the Bosphorus and Istanbul’s dark streets, a voice inside me warns against exaggeration, a tendency perhaps motivated by a wish to not acknowledge the lack of beauty in my own life. If I see my city as beautiful and bewitching, then my life must be so too. A good many writers of earlier generations fell into this habit when writing about Istanbul: Even as they extol the city’s beauty, entrancing me with their stories, I am reminded they no longer live in the place they describe, preferring the modern comforts of western cities. From these predecessors I learned that the right to heap immoderate lyrical praise on Istanbul’s beauties belongs only to those who no longer live there, and not without some guilt” for the writer who talks of the city’s ruins and melancholy is never unaware of the ghostly light that shines down on his life. To be caught up in the beauties of the city and the Bosphorus is to be reminded of the difference between one’s own wretched life and the happy triumphs of the past.”

Orhan Pamuk
Istanbul - Memories and the City
From “Exploring the Bosphorus”

Videos from the Bosphorus Cruise

Here's two 360 degree clips from the deck of the boat we were on.... what a view, eh?

I'm On A Boat!

Here's the original Saturday Night Live video that all my drunk friends think is so funny. I heard north siders in bars singing this all summer, and it usually wasn't pretty. Ironic pseudo-ghetto pose notwithstanding, the autotuning by itself is just preposterous on multiple levels. NSFW.

I think T-Pain's live performance of it, the second video below, makes it all clear. He plays it once, all the white people in his crowd go nuts, and then his posse decides that the spectacle is so funny, that they're going to play it AGAIN... on second thought, maybe it is kind of funny...the spectacle...

Sons of the Conquerors - Interview with Hugh Pope

...been meaning to write a post about Kemal Ataturk, the founder of Turkey's
Republic and its first President... but I don't think that will be today, as after a long day of work, we're headed to a group dinner on a boat around the Bosphorus.... :-) so in lieu of a bio of Ataturk, here's something I found on his site, an interesting interview with Hugh Pope about his book "Sons of the Conquerors - the Rise of the Turkic world"... Click on his name for the full interview...

HUGH POPE: Thank you, Joanne, for that generous introduction. The first question I should ask is, is there a Turkic world? We invented it fifteen years ago, when I had no idea that it existed. Even when preparing this book, it took me about two weeks working with a cartographer in Wales to find the right framework for what should and should not be in the Turkic world.

When I went to Turkey in 1987, it was like going to the end of the universe. No one could understand why I had gone. Some people thought I was betraying Western civilization by settling in such a country. But above all, what we forget is that the Iron Curtain, which divided East and West Europe, had an extension across the Black Sea, through Caucasus and Central Asia, and between the Soviet Union and China. That Iron Curtain divided the Turkic peoples. It kept them uneducated. Their countries were not on the path of progress.

In those days, I first became aware that the people that we thought of as the Muslims of the Soviet Union spoke languages that were still closely related to the language of Turkey. We became very aware of this in 1990, with "Black January" in Azerbaijan, and suddenly the Turkish television stations were full of Azeris phoning in from houses in Baku, in a language that we could understand. It was astonishing. No one had been aware that that connection had lived on. One of the most interesting plane trips I took was the first-ever direct flight between Istanbul and Baku...

Coca-Cola

Watched some Coke ads today from around the world. We talk a lot about brand essence in these meetings, and some of these sessions are master classes of sorts. Here's three of my favorite Coke ads... one from 1971, one from 2009, and then a viral from 2006-7ish that's just silly and cute...

Favorite VW Ads

Watched a lot of car ads today. Mostly forgettable. American cars are in a process of redefinition, and the industry has transformed into....??? We wait and watch. Good messages are coming out of Detroit from companies suddenly thinking smarter and moving forward. But I sure would love to be moved by a car ad for an American brand that isn't pumping John Mellencamp in the background or regurgitating predictable product shots....car ads I do love? Well, I'm a big fan of Volkswagen's communication over the years. Here's last year's "Night Driving" out of the UK, featuring a poem by Dylan Thomas. The couple after that have always made me laugh...







and then there's these, the first of which was banned in some countries, but appeals to the sense of humor that certain subversives cultivate... The second is a viral...

Flag Flying

Mercan Dede

from Orhan Pamuk's "Istanbul"

“To be traveling through the middle of a city as great, historic, and forlorn as Istanbul, and yet to feel the freedom of the open sea-that is the thrill of a trip along the Bosphorus. Pushed along by its strong currents, invigorated by the sea air that bears no trace of the dirt, smoke, and noise of the crowded city that surrounds it, the traveler begins to feel that, in spite of everything, this is still a place in which he can enjoy solitude and find freedom.”

Orhan Pamuk
Istanbul - Memories and the City
From “Exploring the Bosphorus”


Photo by Ara Guler

Waterfront

Farid always knows the best spots.

Cab Window Architectural Tour

On the way back to the hotel, I took a couple of hasty photos out the cab window. There quite an array of ancient architectural styles overlapping on every city street, with Byzantine, Gothic, and Ottoman buildings living side by side together, in various states of dilapidation and decay. All of it looks gorgeous, though, framing the modern inhabitants of this city against epochs of history long since disappeared. But echoes of those times are but still set in stone, and the city's skyline is punctuated with domes, minarets, modern construction, and all kinds of remnants too enduring to tear down. It's quite a vista...

Tea at the Water's Edge

A late afternoon tea at the water's edge. They brought us cheese straw, olives, spiced walnuts, and a complementary tray of strawberries and chocolate. These people know how to live...

Grand Bazaar

...so we finished setting up our meeting room really early, and after three hours of high-paced, efficient unpacking and testing, we called it quits for the day... Seeing as how it was still quite early, we promptly headed off to Istanbul's famed Grand Bazaar to see just what kind of wares are available to purchase in this city of artisans and craftsmen...

...the place was inspiring, sprawling, crowded, and packed to the gills with all kinds of beautiful goods... The old architecture made some of the stalls almost seem like caves, and the ornate painted ceilings and elaborate tile work really gives the hallways and shops character...

Unforgettable Cab Conversation #1

On the way to the Grand Bazaar, in a crowded cab with Jen Skidgel, Rosalie Geier and myself, the inimitable Farid Chehab felt compelled to share this little gem of a story with us... As we drove past a particularly fetching view of the Bosphorus, Farid turns to us and asks, in his cheeriest voice, "have you heard of how they punished unfaithful women in this city in the old days?" None of us had, and so Farid, with a twinkle in his eye, explains.

'When a woman was unfaithful to her husband, they would take her, and put her in a bag." His eyes gleamed. "With cats."
"Cats?!" Rosalie's interest is piqued.
"Yes," Farid continued. "Then they would toss the bag into the Bosphorus." Rosalie and Jennifer are not amused, their eyebrows furrowed and mouths agape. "When the sack hits the water, the cats go crazy," Farid continues, pantomiming the cat motions with his hands clawed.
"That's terrible," Jennifer says, shaking her head. "What do they do with unfaithful women now?"
Farid turns to her and smiles, his mischevious eyes alight. "Now there are no more unfaithful women."

He returns his gaze to the window, and a few moments later, breaks into heartfelt song... "We are the world...we are the children..."

It's good to see all my favorite characters in fine form. ;-) Should be a fun week. lol.

Perspectives: Abir Zaki

On Istanbul:

"Full of contradictions, outstandingly chaotic but all its features are born along the banks of an unhurriedly flowing river. … One that effortlessly blends the old with the new, the East with the West, the earthly with the spiritual; although the mix of identities is a cliché, one cannot escape the thought for even a single minute, with its urban cliché. A city that symbolizes everything inspiring about mystery and sincerity."

Abir Zaki - "She has a Master of Science in Education in learning difficulties from NY in United States and a Bachelor degree in English language and literature from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
She Published her first poetry book Poetic Aroma in Sep. 2004, and her second book Wings of Freedom will be published in 2009."

Turkish Hip Hop

Ceza feat. Tech N9ne - Dark Places

...strange video...needless violence, strategically placed bboys throwing down windmills and stalls, racial overtones, lyrics I don't understand, and a predictable script...or in other words, like a lot of hip hop from anywhere... but the video is dark and intriguing, the MCs clearly have skills, some of the choreographed battle take downs are pretty sick, and in my humble opinion, international hip hop feels less commercialized than the scene stateside...but maybe that's just me...hell, i don't even understand what the MCs are talking about, so I must be one of those wanker critics offering up unsolicited opinions on things they can't produce themselves... (it's the affliction of everyone's who's ever seen fit to comment on a YouTube clip...)

The Golden Horn

Constantinople engraving by William Miller after T Allom (1847)

Orientalism

While contemplating Turkey, I'm reminded of the work of Edward Said's monumental book "Orientalism", which among other things, documents how people bring preconceived notions into their perspectives on the Middle East. I know I'm bringing baggage to this crossroads, and I'm well aware of the supreme effort of will it takes to maintain any kind of objectivity about what you're seeing while you're traveling. Here's a link regarding Said's core argument , and a video where the late professor explains the framework by which the West struggles to comprehend the East. He's a very provocative thinker who stirs up a lot of complex reactions amongst both friends and opponents... But we all harbor stereotypes in the recesses of our minds, and it's helpful every now and then to remind ourselves how and why those stereotypes exist...

Doublemoon Records

If you've never heard any sounds of the groundbreaking Turkish record label, Doublemoon, you're missing out. The sounds emanating from this city are unique. Last night as I drifted towards midnight a pulsing techno beat could be heard outside my hotel window, beneath ululating voices and funky balkan horn sections. I'll try to post a lot of music over the course of the week, from amazing artists like Baba Zula and Mercan Dede, and other folks I've had the pleasure of discovering primarily through the largesse of my good friend DJ Warp, aka Brian Keigher, one of the city of Chicago's most valuable employees, and a program director of Chicago's annual World Music Fest...

Jetlag Cure #1

Bebek Almond Paste

...there was a tiny baggie of Bebek Almond Paste included in the welcome pack in our hotel rooms... yum!

here's a brief history of Marzipan aka "almond sugarcraft"...

from Orhan Pamuk's "Istanbul"

“Still, the melancholy of this dying culture was all around us. Great as the desire to westernize and modernize might have been, the more desperate wish was probably to be rid of all the bitter memories of the fallen empire, rather as a spurned lover throws away his lost beloved’s clothes, possessions, and photographs. But as nothing, western or local, came to fill the void, the great drive to westernize amounted mostly to the erasure of the past; the effect on culture was reductive and stunting, leading families like mine, otherwise glad of republican progress, to furnish their houses like museums. That which I would later know as pervasive melancholy and mystery, I felt in childhood as boredom and gloom, a deadening tedium I identified with the “alaturka” music to which my grandmother tapped her slippered feet. I escaped this state by cultivating dreams.”

Orhan Pamuk
Istanbul - Memories and the City
From “The Destruction of the Pashas’ Mansions: A Sad Tour of the Streets”

Turkish Vocab for the day

...this is gonna take practice...

Yes – Evet (eh-vet)
No – Hayir (h’eye’-uhr)
Thank You – Tesekkur Ederim (the-shek-kewr eh-deh-reem)
Good Morning - Gunaydin (gewn’eye’-duhn)
Good Evening – iyi aksamlar (ee-yee ak-sham-lar)

Ara Guler's Photography

Ara Guler, masterful photographer of Istanbul.
from www.lesartsturcs.com

"...Stressing that photography is a spell which captures a moment in time for future generations, Ara Güler explains his love of Istanbul and the albums's objective in his "Postword," replacing the usual foreword:

Times have changed, life has changed... It was going to change, it had to change, and so it did... Because they never knew the former city and cannot imagine it, the new generation today thinks that this is Istanbul, that Istanbul was always like this. When they look at an old photograph, they are astounded. ‘Where is that?’ they ask, because hardly anywhere still looks the same, if it still exists at all. [These photographs] are impressions left on my, of a world, lost or gone, in which I lived....I have tried to gather the truths of a life which is either over or dying anyway. "

Perspectives: Ali Ahmad Said Asbar (aka Adonis)

"İstanbul is an organic meeting point where man and landscape mingle … and which has everything it takes to be a matchless capital of culture. Among all cities that used to serve as capitals before, capitals of the present day and the capitals of the future, I deem İstanbul to be one of the most significant of the latter. It is not only a project of objective and organic expansion, but [İstanbul] it's in a position which this project is ... put into practice."
- Syrian Poet & Essaying Ali Ahmad Said Asbar (writing under the pen name Adonis)

arrivals

...a Twenty dollar stamp-sized visa plastered into my passport...
...a fruitless expensive exchange with an engineer from tech support...
..no bars on my cell phone, no Becky in my bed,
ghosts and crossed wires swimming in a cloud around my head
jeglagged and zombified
mind swimming through a body clock override
i stand staring at a view i've wondered about for years
Asia and Europe intersect here
the woman i love a world away
caught somewhere behind me when i lost a day
in the air
this is where i begin to transform
into a writing machine hired to perform
i listen and transcribe
process and refine
until collectively everyone's words
distill down to mine...

down the rabbit hole i descend again
every crossroads is a crucible filled with hustlers and friends...