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ONLY BE ISTANBULITE
Only-Be Istanbulite
The Turkish Passion of Antonio Gala
The Spanish writer Antonio Gala is a great novelist internationally recognized that seamlessly works several genres such as novels, plays or poetry. But one of his most famous and beloved by the public novels is “The Turk Passion ” classified as erotic fiction. The main plot of the book is a story of love and passion between a young Spanish woman, Desideria Olives, and a fiery Turkish man, Yaman. They meet on a trip the wife is having with her husband to the beautiful and exotic country of Turkey. Desideria was bored with her ??marriage and lived a life that she had ever desired, so she does not hesitate being seduced by a man who captivated her from the start. He was the tour guide of the whole group, including the husband of the lady, but she did not care and nothing stopped her nor her ability to explore love and sex with the Turk. In the novel each of the sexual acts of the new couple are explained with extreme detail and how passion seizes them builds in crescendo, especially in Desideria Oliván seeking a getaway from the miserable life led with her husband in Huesca. This interesting story is told as if it were read from the intimate diaries of the protagonist, and this increases the readers curiosity the who cannot stop reading the adventure. In 1994, Vicente Aranda filmed this novel of love and sex, but fans of the book say the film does not faithfully reflect the wonder of the novel. d.b To live through the letters, a story of passion like that of...
The possible partition of Istanbul
Part of the fascination that subjugates visiting Istanbul invariably comes from the transformations throughout its rich history. On the primitive Zoni or Byzantium a new Rome was built in 330 by Emperor Constantine´s decision on the eastern end of the Roman Empire, thus appearing on the world map a city of prodigious qualities called Constantinople that was the capital of the Empire on 395 , the year the division thereof into two parts after the death of Theodosius. The eastern part led to the Byzantine Empire, a prolongation of the Roman Empire that extended into a world of Greek cultural environment throughout the Middle Ages, being its capital, Constantinople, one of the most dazzling qualified tendentious and barbaric cities of the dark millennium. Its legendary fall at the hands of the Turks in 1453 has not only been used for centuries as a chronological milestone marking the transition to a new era. It also sparked a new transformation in the city, which was renamed Istanbul, capital of the powerful Ottoman Empire until shortly after the end of the first world war. Since then, Istanbul is not Turkey´s political capital but has remained long the most important and populated city in an era marked by a political regime defined by its Republican and secular character. This however might not remain the same if the the Turkish prime minister and former mayor of Istanbul, Tayyip Erdogan Reccep wins the elections as one of the great strengths of his electoral program is the division of the city in two different cities on each continent, by creating in less than twelve years of...
Encyclopedia of Istanbul
Few places in the world have given us so much literature throughout time as Istanbul, the ancient capital of Byzantium. Of all the books that inspired the city, perhaps the most unique is the huge project of writing an encyclopedia of Istanbul, the first encyclopedia of the world on a city, conceived in 1944 by the Turkish writer and city lover Re?at Koçu Ekrem (1905-1975). It was a massive project which combined in an unforgettable way literature and history through a seductive mix of strange stories, interesting facts, accurate information and almanac material, creating a wonderful tapestry in which he emphasized the image of a city that invited you into a journey of fantasy and longing. Koçu spent his entire childhood witnessing the gradual disintegration of the Ottoman state and the condemnation of Turkey to poverty of which it would take decades to recover from. This painful decline of the city probably conditioned the melancholy and bitter tone of his writings although if he thought that Istanbul was the only thing that consoled him from feeling defeated in life. In the encyclopedia, there is a sensual tour of homoeroticism where visual recreation of the beauty of the bodies of the young boys that roam the streets is present. Memorable episodes were collected as the feat of the balancing acrobat that due to the the celebrations of the circumcision of Prince Mustafa in the eighteenth century crossed the Golden Horn on a wire stretched between the masts of two ships. Or stories like the creation of a cemetery of executioners in the meadows of Karyagdi as they were not being...
İhsan Kemal Karaburçak at the Pera Museum in Istanbul
Until the 3rd of June, the Istanbul Pera Museum is exhibiting the highly original work of Turkish painter ?hsan Kemal Karaburçak. The show, which is called Retrospectives of Isham, brings together the best of the artist´s work from between 1968-1970. The exhibition, commissioned by historian and advisor to the Istanbul Pera Museum, Semra Germaner, is a compilation of pieces from private and public collections, presenting a complete body of Karaburçak´s work, which was supressed for years due to its alienation from the art elites and cultures of Turkey. In association with the retrospective, the Museum has edited a brilliant catalogue, written by Akoyunlu Ersoz Begur and Primavera Tania, which has an interesting cardboard cover design, and colour illustrations. Texts are in English and Turkish. ?hsan Kemal Karaburçak was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1898. His entrance into painting came about in 1930, when he enrolled in the Paris École Universelle. His work in the telegraph and post services enabled him to organise his life around painting, converting a small room in his home into a studio. Throughout his development in painting, Karaburçak remained distant from the key art movements of the 20th century – despite the fact that his work demonstrated surrealist and naif styles, and was often evocative of Picasso, with the artist himself as having been inspired by Cezanne, and the precision of Matisse. Karaburçak made portraits in oil on canvas, using strong, defined brushstrokes – such as in Otoporte (1944). Imagery included morse code and geometric elements, whilst his more ´naif´ work of landscapes and small city scenes were more simplistic, and colourful. His independence and...
PJ Harvey: Distant songs of Gallipoli
One of the great British disasters during the First World War was the Gallipoli battle, during which, after the apparently successful landing of the French and British troops, there remained atrapados in the Helles cape. As well as a considerable loss of war ships, it was estimated that the human loss in the the British army had reached a quarter of a million, with around 50,000 soldier´s lives lost. The disaster then had inevitable political repercussions, bringing about the disgrace of Winston Churchill, who had been the main promotor of the campaign, and a legendary ´national hero´ status to General Atatürk who would be the founder, and first president of the modern Turkish republic. During the Gallipoli battle, as with other battles since the beginning of time, there manifested that sense of the individual being transcended, and becoming a collective experience; as if the soldiers had had mutual dreams, perhaps nightmares too, which they all felt simultaneously. A quality of dream, trench, and mist is what marks the latest album from PJ Harvey, Let England Shake, which is a kind of critical exploration of Englishness, through historical look at wars and their vestiges; destruction near and far, in which the United Kingdom has played a part. Three songs on the record refer directly to the Gallipoli massacre, whilst another refers more generally to the devastation caused by the Great War – or rather the latter revision of the event. There is no clear critical message, and much of the richness of the album is in its ambiguity, and the freedom given to the listener to draw their own conclusions....
Beauty Eurasia 2011 in Istanbul
Between 16 and 18 June some of the leading manufacturers of beauty products will be attending Beauty Eurasia, a trade fair that is being held in the Tuyap Exhibition Centre in Istanbul. The trade fair will bring together 400 producers from 40 countries. They will be exhibiting the most sophisticated perfumes, creams, make up and beauty products. Who doesn’t like to be considered beautiful, attractive and seductive? This is the question upon which the beauty industry bases its success; an industry that has been around for as long as humans have walked the Earth. According to the worldview of the Egyptians, beauty and physical harmony were integral to their wellbeing and played an essential part in pleasing their creator-god. Their god cried when seeing the loveliness of his people and his tears watered the Earth. This need to be attractive led the Egyptians to develop their knowledge about the plants, animals and minerals which could help them maintain their health and beauty. The paint that the men and women used around their eyes was made with lead sulphide, obtained from galena, or antimony sulphide, which came from antimonite. As well as increasing a person’s sex appeal, this makeup was an excellent fly repellent, and was also useful in preventing eye disease and lessening the impact of the sun’s rays. Peeling was achieved by the Egyptians by mixing alabaster dust with red natron sediment, salt from Lower Egypt and honey, and then applying the mixture to their face and body before washing it off with pure water. The war against ageing led them to develop products from herbs, minerals and...
The Magic Shirts at the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul
Between the Golden Horn and the Marmara Sea, with an incredible view of the Bosforo, sits the Topkapi Palace http://www.topkapisarayi.gov.tr/. Built by order of the Sultan Mehmed II a few years after the final collapse of the Byzantium, it was the centre of administration for the Ottoman empire for the following four centuries – until 1853, and the Christian era, when the Sultan Abdulmecid decreed that the headquarters move to the modern Dolmabahçe Palace. Today, the Topkapi Palace is a museum dedicated to those far away glory years of the Ottoman Empire, and which houses some of the most magnificent treasures in the world. Visitors who wander the vast and winding spaces are often grateful for a tourist guide to show them the Pearl room for example, which holds the Topkapi head, embellished with precious stones, gold and emeralds – or the room which displays the famous Indio-Turkish throne from the 18th century. But one thing we would advise you not to miss out on is the extraordinary collection of talismanic shirts, made famous recently thanks to the publication in Istanbul of Hülya Tezcan´s Las Camisas Mágicas del Palacio de Topkapi. In Turkish culture, great importance has always been placed on magical practice – whether aesthetic or ritual – as a lesson for the future, from coffee, to the summoning of the omnipresent Turkish eye, or nazar to cast curses. Tezcan´s book speaks of the power of the talismanic tops to make the fighter invisible in battle, to protect from evil, to maintain good health and aid fertility. The latter was the case with the powerful Sultana Nurbanu –...
Istanbul Sapphire Tower
Orhan Pamuk, when commenting on the 48 engravings of the wonderful unforgettable book by Antoine-Ignace Melling Voyagge pittoresque de Constantinople et des rives du Bosphore (Paris, 1819), notes that the images give him “the impression of having no heart and no end, like a Chinese writing roll or camera movements in some cinemascope films”. This feeling inevitably takes him to childhood, as it is how the child Pamuk perceived Istanbul. This feeling is intensified by the presence in the prints of landscapes similar to those he knew in his early years, before the hauntingly beautiful hills, slopes and streams of the Bosphorus were covered by ugly apartment blocks in the second half of the twentieth century. His overall impression is that Melling’s images have aroused from a sort of timeless paradise to mingle with their current life, in a movement of the soul not very different from what resonates in the words of writer Samoa Albert Hanover when he writes that for him the Middle Ages is an essentially young, vibrant and gloomy period because it was like this when he studied it, being in a great part his medieval memory the memory of his own youth and vice versa. Pamuk also notes that in Melling’s engravings, which refer sometimes to the Iranian miniatures, do not miss architectural details out of reach of the Eastern painters such as the Leandro or Üskürdar towers views from Pera gardens or the Topkapi Palace painted across the windows of a cafe in Tophane. These towers were then some of the tallest buildings in the city and so remained for decades, until the...
Paradise Lost in Istanbul
On until the 24th July at the Istanbul Modern Museum is exhibition Paradise Lost, in which 19 contemporary artists explore the eternal conflict between nature and the technological world. Through digital videos made by the artists, a dialogue is developed about an uncertain future of nature, and the role of art in sustainability. The Istanbul Modern Museum, with co-operation from the Department of Education, is opening the show to schools, offering interactive discussion workshops which aim to encourage awareness of the concept of nature in a post-modern society. The interesting interactive programme aims to create communication between people of different ages and generations, and teach them about the uses of different digital medias, and the role of technology in contemporary art. Amongst the artists participating in the show is acclaimed North American Doug Aitken, whose work encompasses both photography and sculpture. Born in California in 1968, he is one of the most influential digital artists of the States. Since 1990, he´s created numerous interesting installations, in which he uses multiple screens to challenge the idea of a linear narrative. His themes mainly question the use of nature, and his works are ambitious and high-impact – such as Sonic Aitken Pavilionin the wooded area of Inhotim in Brazil, in which sounds of the earth were audible through noise sensors installed a mile deep into the ground. Aitken´s conceptual work has a startling poetic beauty which is always highly conscious of our role in nature. Native Bulgarian Ergin Çavu?o?lu will be another of the selected members of the debate, whose digital works confront the notion of space and place in order...
