title, what title?

I am not sure if I posted this video before, but rarely does a song affect me this strongly. Here is Glosoli by Sigur Ros:

This 1995 music video by Radiohead is the best music video I've watched. Until a few days ago, the memories of this great video were lingering in my mind, but I was not able to recall the name of the song. Thanks to Wikipedia I have prevailed over visual "Ohrwurm". Here it is, Just by Radiohead. My other all-time favorite is the Alexander Rutterford , video of my favorite IDM band Autechre's Gantz Graf: Lastly I couldn't have possibly left the famous Chris Cunningham video to Aphex Twin's great song Come to Daddy:

"All I can do is be me, Whoever that is. Bob Dylan" The trailer of the new Dylan movie " I Am Not There " opens up with this prophetic sentence by Dylan. This sentence made it clear to me, why I felt like Dylan has written something about everything. That "whoever that is" coupled with the title of one of the best biographical accounts I watched " No Direction Home " , by Scorsese, tells you of a soul looking for home, not finding it and changing on the way, and writing about it on the way. He has been everyone on his search, that's how he can sing about everyone. I was introduced to Dylan by my sister , Desire album, and baptized by Thuan . After that he has become a sort of an addiction to me. "Blonde on Blonde" has become my personal best album, and "I Want You" my personal best song. So the news of semi-biographical movie shot in Dylan's imaginative style comes to me as a great news. Whats more interesting is the ...

In the western media our current prime minister -and ex poetry reader- Tayyip Erdogan is depicted as a re-born democrat who suffered under the opressive secular elite. Though I agree on the second part, that the secularism in Turkey is opressive, I do not believe Erdogan is a re-born democrat. Recently, Bekir Coskun, a prominent opposition journalist wrote on his column that the president-to-be Abdullah Gül will not be his president, and accused Gül -like many in the opposition- of having a fundamentalist agenda. Erdogan, in an TV Interview a day later told Coskun should give up his Turkish nationality and leave the country. This kind of "join us or leave us" is more reminiscent of authoritarian dictators, and must send shivers down the spines of every Turkish citizen who is dreaming of a freer and more modern Turkey. If you are interested in my personal opinion, I believe everyone, including the politicians have the right -and must- change as the times go by. However Abdulla...

No matter what I am doing the night I always get in the party mood with hip-hop. These days my favorite pre-party tune is Stronger by Kanye West, which is a collaboration with one of my favorite bands Daft Punk. Two years ago it was Nasty Girl by Biggie and Friends: Hope they help getting in the party mood on this lovely August saturday!

"Is there anyone in there?" A shrill female voice broke the the dead hours of the night. It was brighter than the hot and sticky summer day that the dreadful night followed. The deep monotonic humming of the generators powering the huge flood-lights that turned the dead night into dead day mixed with the incessant humming of the cicadas, remaining true to their local name -the august bug. Hundreds of people waiting anxiously did not hear this humming, they did not hear anything for the first time in their life. They refused to hear, they refused to see, and they refused to let their heart beat until an answer came from inside of the ugly thing, which only a very trained eye could recognize as a 8 story apartment... I was sitting hypnotized in front of a TV thousand kilometers away and did not feel a thing for the first time in my life. I refused to feel alive, until that lady who shouted through a hole in the wall of that toppled in building gave a positive sign, a sign of ...

BBC's Europe Editor Mark Mardell has written a delicious piece on Turkish cuisine . These lines watered my mouth and made me look even more forward to my Turkish Trip: "Diced tomatoes and cucumber in a pomegranate sauce. Watercress in yoghurt, smoky aubergine puree. A tangy lamb stew. Juicy kebabs. Flaky, puffed-up balloons of sesame-sprinkled bread. Like the Platonic lemon of Cizre they all tasted complex, full not just of flavour, but of flavours." Interested can read a series of entries leading to the landslide election of 22 July on his blog. Another interesting news from the blogosphere comes from the Economist's Euro Blog . As you might know, France and her President Sarkozy are horribly anti-Turkish. Yet, Sarkozy might be lifting the referendum clause for new members to EU in order to make more room for diplomatic maneuver. Well this does not mean that he will turn pro-Turkish, and might mean that France will be more intrusive in the membership talks. But this...

Here is a neat site . What DailyLit does is simple and elegant. If you are one of those like me who cannot find the time they would like to have for reading, Daily Lit parses online books that are public (The Divine Comedy, The Communist Manifesto, The Prince, The Paradise Lost and more) into daily digests and sends to your e-mail. You can set the period, and the time of the e-mails. Great idea, well execution.

This is the view looking outside my office window. It is the end of July, 15 degrees raining and windy. Before coming to Berlin my friend Steph warned me about the weather, and I told her over and over how much I loved the bad weather. I still do, but not in summer. I seriously gotta escape for a week for something like this: Thank God, I am flying on Friday for a week of good food, good weather, family and friends...

My dear friend Ozan was here for the weekend. Among other " finer things " we have talked about Battlestar Galactica, and it's cute star Kara Thrace. I'd like to dedicate the following song to Kara, who visits me in my dreams, until the new Battlestar Galactice Direct-to-DVD Movie Razor comes to the screens.

Secimler hakkindaki dusuncelerimi Ozan ile paylastigim politika blogumda bulabilirsiniz: http://turkiyeninsorunlari.blogspot.com/2007/07/secimler-ardindan.html

I am summarizing my thoughts about the results of this historical election in Turkey and will post them on my Turkish political blog, with a summary on here. Until then I find this song by Leonard Cohen, the great thinker-poet-songwriter, very relevant. As if there is one thing that the elections showed is that "knowing means nothing, without thinking and doing..."

Che or Feyyaz by Zeki Demirkubuz source: http://www.radikal.com.tr/ek_haber.php?ek=r2&haberno=5807 translation: Ahmet C. Toker It was years ago. One night I visited my parents, whom I had not seen for a long time. We shared the room with my brother, who was about 12 years old at that time. Feeling out of place, I woke up with the morning prayer. Not to wake the household I did not get up and stayed in my bed, waiting silently... Out of boredom, I started examining my brothers room, which once belonged to me, and thinking about the years, my memories and my youth which I spent here in this very room. Nothing much had changed after me. An old table on the corner, two portable beds facing each other, an Isparta carpet as old as me on the floor, and teenage photos of mine and Che's on the wall, with the paint scrapping off... The only difference were the half sitting half standing Besiktas footballers in their striped black and white jerseys, gazing at me out of a seemingly large p...

I hate odd years. There is no football during summer. Even though national football is by no ways a replacement for my insatiable love -Besiktas not, football- it keeps my mind busy. And on odd years like this one my longing for that beautiful black and white jerseys peaks around August. I start reading articles about Besiktas, watch videos of old games and Pascal Nouma in an attempt to sooth the pain of longing in my hearth. I will post an article about Che Guevarra and Feyyaz Ucar by Zeki Demirkubuz , the internationally acclaimed director of Innocence , in Turkish. If I find the time I will translate it into English over the weekend. Che does not need any introduction. Feyyaz was the part of the legendary Metin-Ali-Feyyaz forward trio of the legendary Besiktas squad of my childhood who won 3 league championships in a streak, one without a single defeat. He was the playboy of the three... So let this text commemorate those days when the playboy football players were decent blokes li...

I am not a vegetable fan. As a matter of fact the number of vegetables I eat is shorter then 10 items. They are either too soft, or too thick, or too tasteless or too grassy. Artichoke however stands out in my mind as one of the most elegant and delicious things that mother earth has given the mankind. Its as if it's firmness, consistency, juiciness, flavor and texture has been optimized both independently and jointly. My favorite way of eating it is the Turkish "Zeytinyagli Enginar" which can be translated dully as "Artichoke with Olive Oil": The quality and the taste of olive oil is a very important factor. So for an artichoke lover cooking it with another type of oil would be a serious insult. And some artichoke lovers can take it to extreme ends. Caravaggio, or Michalengelo Merissi da Carravagio, who is considered to be by some the father of modern painting, -and also my favorite painter, for rescuing the world of painting from the disturbing and artificia...

I suggest Clash on Broadway to everyone. It is a 3 disk collection, filled with all the best songs of The Clash, worth buying. Up to now I was attracted to punk for its * Simplicity - Especially Ramones * Wit - Ramones and Sex Pistol * naiveness - Undertones * Raw Power - Stooges * I-don't-give-a-fuck-attitude - Sex Pistols but not its political tone. Clash has showed me punk can be great while being dead serious about politics, and being more complex than riffs and beats. The Carribean beats spilling out of the bass line is living proof how immigration made London a great town... The song that is an example of this Jamaican flair is The Guns of Brixton that also has very sharp lyrics: "When they kick out your front door How you gonna come? With your hands on your head Or on the trigger of your gun When the law break in How you gonna go? Shot down on the pavement Or waiting in death row" I will post not the original Clash version, because I really want people to buy this ...

I've been reading into libertarianism and related philosophies like objectivism and anarcho-capitalism . More I read into them, more justified get my feelings against the idea of a "state". As a matter of fact this clause in the ISIL webpage explanation for libertarianism summarizes my feelings about the role of the state, the individual and the laws exactly: " The genius of America was that our government was created as a protector of our fundamental human rights. America's founders well understood that government's immense power can be used to destroy as well as to protect; that when government uses force against its own peaceful citizens, it becomes just another criminal gang. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights were designed to protect us from government . " To those interested in this topic, I would suggest them watching this brief animation about philosophy of liberty . For an advanced coverage I can refer those interested to the article in St...

Even though some critics look down upon the term "intertextuality" as some tend to use it, quoting: "simply use it as a stylish way of talking about allusion and influence” [1] I love the notion that ones understanding of texts, music, paintings or any other form of beauty and brilliance being transformed by other forms of beauty and brilliance. I watched Goodfellas yesterday and was overwhelmed with joy when I spotted two great allusions to my favorite film of all time, Taxi Driver . I will not mention those references explicitly here and leave the pleasure to those who love Scorsese and/or De Niro. Instead I will post two of the most beautiful parts from these great movies... First one is from Taxi Driver, and in my humble opinion is one of the greatest depictions of adoration of beauty in movie history. I might be biased, as Cybill Shepherd was my childhood idol in Moonlightning . The second one is the climax of Goodfellas, for those who didn't watch it I'd s...

I went on exploring the West-End District. Byres Road is definitely the hip part of this district with many pubs restaurants and bars on the sides. However the hidden secret is definitely the Ashton Lane, which is parallel to byres road. In a distance of 500 meters I counted 3 clubs, 3 live music bars 4 restaurants and a cinema. I was there only on afternoon but I bet it is a very nice during the night. My other discovery on the West-End is the Kelvin River Walkway. A great way to experience West Glasgow would be starting out on the Kelvin Hall subway station, walking up the Byres road, eating on Ashton Lane, checking out if there is a chamber music concert in the Botanical Gardens at the intersection of Byres and Great Western, walking down River Kelvin Walkway, all the way down to Gibson Street which is full of student cafees, giving a break there, continue walking down the river to reach Kelvingrove Park, to "drink sangria in the park, and when it gets dark" not to go home...

I'm in Glasgow for a conference, and arrived on Friday to check out the nightlife in the second city of the empire. My impression after 2 days is very very positive. I must admit I've had the most friendliest clubbing experience in my life with everyone from the bouncers to the drunk guys on the street being extra polite. The music was not all that great, but the lovely Scottish girls compensate for that. In order not to forget the places I've been to and be helpful to those who might visit Glasgow (which is something I definitely recommend), I've decided to create a quick guide to Glasgow nightlife. All the locations mentioned in this guide are also shown on this Google Map I prepared. Basics: Timing: As far as I could observe Glasgownians start the night early in a pub around 6 (maybe earlier), move onto a restaurant/bar or restaurant/club about 8. The restaurants close on 10 pm sharp. They move on to clubs around 12. Types of Locations: Of course pubs. There are al...