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I've been fascinated by the Zen belief that most important decisions are to be made within 7 breaths. Of course this rich historical Philosophy is not urging us to rush our decisions. Rather, what it contends is that our first reaction to important decisions, which happen in 7 breaths, are usually the ones that we make and spend the rest of our long decision process for convincing ourselves of. This is not some magic happening in our brains, or attributing some metaphysical importance to our instincts. The decision that we make in the first seven breaths are actually the manifestation of our long time thoughts that have been "boiling" for a long time.  What I have experienced in the last few years is that songs or everything related to songs are excellent facilitators of becoming aware of such decisions that we have made but not were aware of. When I think of few important decisions I've taken in the last few years are all associated with a song that made everything...

It must be nice to disappear, to have a vanishing act... To always be looking forward and never looking back... How nice it is to disappear, Float into a mist, With a young lady on your arm... From his The Raven album. And here is the touching ending of the best article after Lou Reed: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/10/lou-reed-gardenia-and-snowflake.html " In the 1971 anthology “No One Waved Good-bye: A Casualty Report on Rock and Roll” (edited by Robert Somma), Reed wrote, anent his job, “It simply requires a very secure ego to allow yourself to be loved for what you do rather than who you are, and an even larger one to realize you are what you do. The singer has a soul but feels he isn’t loved off stage. Or, perhaps worse, feels he shines only on stage and off is wilted, a shell as common as the garden gardenia. But we are all common as snowflakes, aren’t we?” That was Lou, gardenia and snowflake, so many varieties of common as to be...

My latest posts have not been cheerful, to say the least. Over at Pharyngula there is a BBC short of Caribbean Monkeys -yes, the ones that populate the legendary Monkey Island, which have acquired a taste for alcohol. It is both relieving and sad to see how similar the mankind is to monkeys. It is relieving from the perspective of mankind. At least I can explain some of our foolish behaviour with the Stone-Age brains we have and share with apes. It is sad from the monkeys' perspective, that I use their species to explain the low-intelligence behaviour of their ape cousins Homo Sapiens. The video I added above is a must-watch. So, if the monkeys got a taste for it, maybe Lou Reed was right. There is a power in positive drinking: Talking of Lou Reed and animals, if you happen to be in Sydney, and have a house pet, make sure you don't miss the Vivid festival curated by Lou Reed and his wife. They will be giving a concert just for the pets. Here is the ( link to the articl...

"We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it." Bob Dylan - Visions of Johanna "Forget your perfect offering, There is a crack, a crack in everything, That's how the light gets in. " Leonard Cohen - The Anthem "And nothing's forever not even five minutes When you're headed for the finish line" Lou Reed - Finish Line "Savaslar birbirine benzer, Kazanan olmaz, Kazandigini sanma, Kaybettiklerine bak biraz" "All wars are alike, There is no victor, Don't think you've won, On your losses should you ponder. " Bülent Ortacgil - Biraz Umut Ver "Ölümle yasami ayiran o cizgi, Siyahla beyazi ayiramaz ki" "That line separating death and life, Cannot separate black and white." Besiktas Supporters - Football Chant

The Boy and The Girl fall in love. The Girl leaves the boy. The Boy is angry, and dreams of the Tirl suffering to ease his pain. An archetypal love story, which found its way into the repertoire of many singer/song-writers. Three of my favorites' approach to the story shows a lot about their character. First, the Boss. Bruce Springsteen's 1980 album River contains one of his best songs Point Blank. The hero sees his old lover on the streets and she doesn't say hi. The boss writes her a song how she is becoming just another lost soul of the society. He is sad for her, and sings her one the best lines in pop music history describing the sad nature of human condition: "Do you still say your prayers little darlin' do you go to bed at night Prayin' that tomorrow, everything will be alright But tomorrow's fall in number in number one by one You wake up and you're dying you don't even know what from" Lou Reed on the other side is certain that Sally ...

"Far away, far away, Are not all lovely things far away? As far at least lies that valley, as the bedridden sun in the luminous east, The paralyzed mountains, the sickly river... Are not all things lovely far away, Are not all things lovely far away? Edgar Allen Poe - Valley of Unrest" Fall wakens the secret explorer in me. I have this urge to go to some beautiful place far away. This picture of Torres del Paine National Park in Chile and the Edgar Allan Poe Poem, which Lou Reed covered in his Raven Album describe my feelings these days perfectly.

I'm a city soul. I lived in big cities all my life, and hated my only camping adventure -though it might have had to do with the 2 drunk guys snoring in my tent. Still I feel the urge to leave it all behind go to somewhere secluded. Its not that I am having a bad time, I am lovin' it to live in a city. It's just that the idea of being alone, and feeling the utter beauty of nature, and act as if all of it were made for me is very very tempting. Just like Lou Reed, the poet of the post-modern metropolitan male, says in his song Modern Dance: So maybe I should go to Tanganyika where the rivers run, down mountains tall and steep or go to India to study chants and lose romance to a mantra's dance So if I had the chance to go right now, these would have been my choices: 1- Patagonia, Argentina 2- Shetland Islands, Scotland 3- Rural Iceland 4- Kamcahtka, Russia

Lou Reed did not mention which day his perfect day was. I always thought it was a Sunday, maybe because from time to time Sundays give me the joy worth a month. These Sundays are usually during the F1 season, so this last Sunday was somewhat an exception. I started the day watching Besiktas basketball team beating the basketball giants Efes Pilsen for the second time in the season, clinching the leadership in the normal season and securing a 1-0 start to a possible play-off match up. We have shown that we can beat any team in our good das with our supporters. Next week we have an important game with Galatasaray, who lost to a low placed team this week, and have to win away in order to start a play-off match-up 0-0. They will have the supporter advantage, I hope we’ll repeat the game we played last week against Hapoel Jerusalem, which we won by 20 points. Here is a video of our players chanting with our supporters after the game: Then I went on watching the football derby a...

June 26 and June 27 in Berlin this year will see two historic events for those interested in art-rock. On June 26 Lou Reed, who came to fame with Velvet Underground, will perform his most dark, and his best solo album Berlin - a fact I deny, my favorite is Metal Machine Music for its musical ingenuity and braveness - in Berlin with a large ensemble of musicians. For this album he worked with the eclectic producer Bob Ezrin, who is know best for his work with Pink Floyd in their Album "The Wall", and as a result the album was very symphonic. I don't wanna miss this album played in the lovely city that it was dedicated to. Here is a longer version of the title song, from Reed's first album: The next day, prominent noise-avantgarde rock band Sonic Youth will be performing their seminal album Daydream Nation . I have found a fan video to my favorite song of the album Providence, about which I had commented on my musical blog : The eerie telephone talk reminds me of God...