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Showing posts from March, 2006

it's april fools day

and i'm successfully fooling myself.
why don't you do right? -jessica rabbit

whatever makes us happy

there are certain situations i find myself anticipating an exception i believe i deserve so well. but i'm not the only one. we all want an exception. this is the reason lottery companies make money. deep down inside we know we are prone to the disease or the accident, subject to the rule, choiceless against the ordinary life awaiting round the corner. but still: we hold on to our belief that the gods may look away for a second and grant us a moment of exception. we might be the special guy or girl who gets away with being human yet exceptional. we live for the moment of daily miracle.
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...and the legendary cetin sisters... from the nardis night. we have general a rule for self-portraits that goes, the picture taker never looks right. this one seems to have broken the rule.  
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and this one's from our gig (valentines day). i know it's hard to tell. i played around with it a little. i like the reversal effect. i like the texture on the background. photography never ceases to enchant me. 
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upon hearing the click sound that picasa here makes, i will finish producing a caption and publish my picture that i hope properly manifests my love for the retro look. it's been taken on a sunday breakfast, so don't judge. please?

days of our lives

talking about spring and how it cleared up the remnants of paranoid winter, shed a new light to everything, and stretched daytime into evening ( those blue-purplish early-evening skies ) is uplifting . or am i talking about all these because i'm uplifted? in any case, spring is here, it seems ( being cautious with judgements is a consequence of growing up, and i guess, istanbul weather too ). my boss is planting a dozen flowers in our garden (yeah i'm lucky to be working in a nisantasi apartment/office that has a garden). eylem and i met yesterday to celebrate daylight saving time, which translates into our world as, ' enjoy the unbelievable weather outdoors after work '. soon it will be windows open except for sleeping and time out, and the atmosphere will have a superdorm-y feeling around it, 'superdorm weather ' gulin said the other day ( and i had it as a silent thought ), like when it's almost summer and the cool air seeps in through the windo

quote

Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season? -robert frost, reluctance

what's it all about?

What's it all about, Alfie? Is it just for the moment we live? What's it all about when you sort it out, Alfie? Are we meant to take more than we give or are we meant to be kind? And if only fools are kind, Alfie, then I guess it's wise to be cruel. And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie, what will you lend on an old golden rule? As sure as I believe there's a heaven above, Alfie, I know there's something much more, something even non-believers can believe in. I believe in love, Alfie. Without true love we just exist, Alfie. Until you find the love you've missed you're nothing, Alfie. When you walk let your heart lead the way and you'll find love any day, Alfie, Alfie.

tori's shoes

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look i'm standing naked before you don't you want more than my sex? i can scream as loud as your last one but i can't claim innocence. oh god, could it be the weather? oh god, why am i here? if love isn't forever and it's not the weather hand me my leather. -figure they're tight, unlike my fancy ones. injury found its identical twin: neck hurts. now what was the word, was it race, was it rain? either way and any way, was something the bosphorus lights blinking at me in their safe oblivion will never understand. (they were here first. sinking feeling. what did you say? that you only meant well? well of course you did.) what was i thinking? that love would come through? will love come through?-
all the things we are said she i agree

sorry about the ceaselessness of posting activity but

i just had a superdorm moment: my desk that resembles the ones at superdorm in a way, the computer on my right, mp3s, turkish coffee both as a taste and smell, reading a business-related article that cuneyt yuksel might have handed out.

those were the days;

some might say. i say these are the days. believe it or not.
i want the sense of lightness that a good experience brings. nothing heavy. not wanting the moment back. the feeling of having inhaled and exhaled with no difficulty. having been a part of the flow. -but then again sometimes- i obsess over one little moment of happiness, and even if it's just a tiny one, i chase after it in my mind and believe i'll take back that moment if i keep running after it. and sometimes it's best to forget. sometimes you need prudence, indifference, detachment. to say 'i passed the test'. in quiet preparation to be able to say, 'i want to see mountains again, mountains, Gandalf'.

stage fright

an interesting part of being on the stage lies in the dichotomy of being both the servant and the goddess. the entertainer is a servant to the audience, serving them a good time, and if they really like the service, they end up worshipping the entertainer. first you have to be this humble servant and then the queen. it must be difficult to accomodate both in one personality package. this is not about myself though. i consider myself an observer to the dynamics of stage.

on whisper not and benny golson

it is probably my favorite song in the whole world. and it's a special song for me, what with the demo i recorded, hence the small-scale recognition. i went to nardis with the thought and scheme that benny golson would appreciate the song's meaning for me and maybe let me perform the song with him, but being the "yeah whatever" person he is, he didn't. when you're 76 and put songs like 'whisper not' and 'along came betty' behind you, a young girl who comes up to you and says she loves one of your songs more than any other song might not be a subject of interest. i'll try to understand that. in the meantime, i would like to state that it was one of the high points of my life to listen to that song live, from the maker. 'sing low, sing clear, sweet words in my ear, not a whisper of despair but love's own prayer' 'our harmony was lost but you forgave, i forgot'.

ps

got my new boots!
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yesilkoy sahili de guzel bir yer. sand. light blue. red. headrush. pazardan aklimda kalanlar.

carnaval de lune

it's rainy here. on the radio buckshot lefongue says "another day, staring out of my window". i'm not, i'm sitting at my desk trying to concentrate, on anything really, and i can't. if it wasn't for this song, i would be walking out the door right now. is this true? well, it's the lunar eclipse today. anything can happen. how the rest of the day went: i walked out that door, later in the day. went to reasurans and stopped by sami to ask for a good song to make me feel better. he was fretting over daily stuff too. sure enough, i came back, socks wet. we might go to gramafon for bilal&neset ruacan's birthday gig. gulin and baris just stopped by my office. might hang out with them at taps after work. might just go home and read. surely more could have happened.

someone i know

He takes everything so lightly, everything like a feather, lands on his palm, and he watches them land slowly, with casually open hands and then if a wind blows, who cares, they fly away. So soothing, he is.

an older version of me

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this place i'm smiling with brandon must be the galata tower. i had a gig at kemanci the night before, and despite the complete lack of sleep, i had walked around all day with brandon and kevin. i remember going to topkapi and sultanahmet. was a fun day. one night we were in superdorm and it was a summer night, windows wide open, and a huge moth had come in, to do its crazy dance around the florescent light and to make me scream, and someone was trying to chase it while brandon kept saying "kupek! kupek!", out of a confusion between "kopek" and "bocek" my imagination could never have come up with. i got back in touch with brandon just recently. he's one of the sweetest people you can ever meet. my heading also reminds me of this song from pulp that i love: "a bad cover version of love is not the real thing" -how the brain hops from thought to thought like on a tree.

forget about the boots-

i want that antique watch. the one i found in that little street in balik pazari. it's one-of-a-kind. there's nothing like it. i will never find anything that resembles it, ever again. made for me. meant to be. life without it is just not right. meet the obsessive me when my heart is set on something.
telepopmusik - yesterday was a lie

get gone

So many things leaking in my life right now. First of all, my boots. Then my determination, resolve, risk-lover attitude, clarity. Most of all, clarity, i guess, is leaking. My belief in my own potential. Life has left me pretty wounded and bitter it seems. Maybe that explains my frozen stance. I can’t act on my own needs and motives. I’m too used to going through the motions. So much that anything asking for more invokes confusion and paralysis. This thing inside me. Gnawing at the edges of my stomach and squeezing my heart with cold steely fingers. I want it gone.
“Yüzeye yakın ol ama derinde yüz.” Bu atasözünü ben yazmisim zamaninda. Bir rock barda olmak istedim su anda ve bira gibi aptal bir seyle sarhos olup muzigin icinde kendimi kaybetmek, sabaha bulmak. You’re so sweet diye bir sarki calarken.

ilkerin partisi

ilker pek ortalarda gorunmedi, onur gürültücü bir hal aldi, sahir cok gec olmadan sizdi, odaya gidenler onu uyurken gördüler ben dj makamimdan pek ayrilamadim, gülin cok dansetti, esra ve sezinle birlikte özlem, sena, baris ve gencay terasta ilginc hareketler yapiyorlardi, cihan karanfilli sigarasini icti andac sürekli "sorry" calmami istedi, kemal diye bir cocuk müzigin kontrolünü ele gecirmeye calisti, pek basaramadi. ben bütün bunlar icin fazla ayiktim ama eglendim.

music is our blanket on a sunday picnic

sunday was sentimental. family situations are always somewhat sentimental and both real and unreal at the same time. maybe it's not hard to believe that i come from a family where singing all through the evening is nothing but natural. grandma and i start out with a classical turkish piece. then my aunt joins in with her beautiful voice and there's no stopping us. i still find it unbelievable that while sitting and talking or watching tv may be the common thing to do for other people, we start singing when we are together, in my aunt's kitchen, on a sunday evening.
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it's a beautiful day:) meaning: lots of singing from the day before awesome breakfast through the morning and oh how the sun shines.

home

cozy. colorful. highly personal. at the expense of advertising an obsession with the past. the lair of attachments and detachments. a place to dance around when one feels like it. happiness. a place to worship loneliness. indifference. where one can always find some sort of good food. sometimes no food is good food. afternoon light seeps in, every single day. happy to receive. come on in.