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Happy Towel Day

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Festivities continue

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A bright side of being a Dylan fan is his tremendous artistic output means you can always make new discoveries. Here is a song that appeared in the soundtrack of Wonder Boys, which was awarded an Oscar in 2000. Not that he cared...

Dylan turns 70

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Let us celebrate our modern p(r)o(ph)ets 70th birthday with the songs of two of his admirers, David Bowie and Syd Barrett. Though Syd Barret might have pulled a Dylan on Dylan. You gave your heart to every bedsit room At least a picture on my wall And you sat behind a million pair of eyes And told them how they saw Then we lost your train of thought The paintings are all your own While troubles are rising We'd rather be scared Together than alone I'm a poet, Don't you know it? And the wind you can blow it. Cause I am Mr. Dylan, the King, And I am free as a bird on the wing.

Meanwhile in another part of the galaxy...Habemus Philosophiae Doctor!

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After waiting 4 Months for my defense, and another 2 months for the University to issue my Urkunde, I may declare with joy: Habemus Philosophiae Doctor! Those interested, may read the abstract on: http://opus.kobv.de/tuberlin/volltexte/2011/3000/pdf/toker_ahmet.pdf

Hunched over a typewriter, you'd call it painting in a cave

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When a great musician saw the potential of vinyl long plays in distributing music cheaply and efficiently, he remarked something in the line of "I can't imagine all the crap that will be produced and sold under the name of music." Unfortunately, I cannot recall who made this remark. But history proved he was right. However, the technological improvements that started with LPs had an effect not only on the quality of the music. Even timeless compositions such as Mahler's Sixth or Stravinsky's Agon had to suffer. Trying to get rid of the musical Whiggist in me, I sometimes imagine myself listening to the compositions as someone who lived around the time they were first composed. This Gedankenexperiment showed me that LPs and mp3s stole from us something that I call the "wow efect."  Imagine your favorite composition, or the song. Imagine you heard it for the first time, when a orchestra or the band came to your town, and you were struck by the composition ...

The Curious Case of Sogus

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Our search for locating the ultimate Turkish street food , söğüş (read soe -gh -ues) in Istanbul started online after reading this post on Istanbuleats . The address given there is Kalyoncu Kulluk caddesi. Don't start typing it in your GPS software now. Cause the municipalities in Istanbul change names of the streets faster than any software. The name of the street on which Muammer Usta's sogus stand  is located has a new name now. Don't ask me what the new name is, since it's relatively hard to find your way by looking at street names around Taksim. Best way to find it is to look for the entrance of the Balık Pazarı (Fishermans Market) on Istiklal caddesi. Then walk to the end of the end of the street, asking where Asmaaltı cafe is in case you -like us- are not able to follow a straight line. Left of the cafe, there is a very modest stand, which ,according to its owner Muammer Usta, is the mother of all sogus stands. Sogus is served on paper towels. Don't ...

From Queen to Japan

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This one goes out to all the Japanese people who've lost loved ones to the black daemon of the ocean, who are now shivering in the cold under radioactive clouds. And those around us who will take some lessons.. "Shizukana yo ini, Hikario tomoshi, Itoshiki oshieo idaki... In the quiet of the night Let our candles always burn, Let us never lose the lessons we have learned."

Democracy is coming ...

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Democracy is the mother of all buzzwords. From totalitarian regimes calling themselves the real democrats (German Democratic Republic, Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea) to the so called advanced democracies such as US, where the wealthy are simply rewriting rules for themselves (1), or Germany, where the state recklessly lets the police attack peaceful protesters who are protesting the construction in their own city(2), the word democracy is used to whitewash practices that are directly contrary to what the democracy supposed to mean. Add to this the dangerous Western (mostly American) international relations rhetoric, that democracy is a panacea that would magically cure all the worlds problems. Although it is not logical, and perhaps not ethical, to choose any other form of government over democracy, it is certainly not realistic to believe democracy is a solution to any problem. In my humble opinion, it is only a tool, or a mere set of practices, that lets people solve probl...

Deli İbrahim'in Ardından

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Adına yaraşır bir hareket yapmış Deli İbrahim. 40 Yaşına değin oynar derken, bir maç sonrası ikinci kez İbrahim Toraman ile didiştiği, kavgaya giriştiği için erken veda etti sol kanatta terlettiği o güzelim formaya. Yolu açık olsun, ve şu naçizane dizeler kendini bana sonradan sevdiren bu büyük Beşiktaş'lıya gelsin: Padisah Deli Ibrahim Dün gece siir gibiydin Ibrahim, Birak biz seni yine de DELI bilelim.   Barcelona, Cimbom ve Fener, Bu uc mac bize yetsin. Cünkü ben seni basini kaldirmadan, Sol kanatta kosarken sevdim. actoker - 23 Kasım 2009

Who Cares If you Listen? We did...

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Milton Babbit would have been a perfect hate figure for the Tee Party supporters in USA, had he published his famous essay "Who cares if you listen?" today. He was arguing that the lack of laymen listeners appreciation of advanced music which was -quoting Babbitt- "made by/for/to specialists," something inevitable, even welcome. He refuted the populistic call for truce between popular and specialist music "There is no such thing as 'serious' and 'popular' music." There is only 'good' and 'bad' music." with this: As a public service, let me offer those who still patiently await the revelation of the criteria of Absolute Good an alternative criterion which possesses, at least, the virtue of immediate and irrefutable applicability: "There is no such thing as 'serious' and 'popular' music. There is only music whose title begins with the letter 'X,' and music whose title does not." He wa...

Kardesimsin Hrant

Katillerin ve azmettiricilerin aramizda dolastigi bu acili günde izleyin, izlettirin:

A Tribe Called Quest - Classical Hip Hop

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I am a late comer to the hip hop music. I am not talking about the over-commercialized, and in some sense travesty of a music modern hip hop. I am talking about hip hop back in the days when music was used to carry a message and the aesthetic understanding of a culture. My favorite these days is "A Tribe Called Quest". Just like I expect from a true classic, their debut album "People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm" sounds as if was made a few years back. This is IMHO due to its timeless qualities. Here are two of my favorites: The Luck of Lucien (The Frenchman) Youthful Expression

Hepimiz Emenike'yiz ya da Türkiye'de Irkcilik Yoktur Vol. 7

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Okan Bayülgen son programinda Afrika'li futbol emekcisi Emenike'yi deri rengi yüzünden daha iyi bir hayat bulmak icin göcmek zorunda kalan diger Afrika'li kardeslerine benzeterek, bununla da yetinmeyerek Emenike'ye bir esya gibi "bu" diyerek hem Emenike'ye hem Afrikali göcmenlere igrenc irkci bir saldirida bulunmus. Olayin videosunu en asagidaki baglantidan seyredebilirsiniz. Her iki ucu da bildiginiz maddeye batmis bir soz etmis Okan Bayülgen. Deri rengi yüzünden isini yapan bir insani yaftalayip asagilamak degnegin bir yani. Yaftalarken kullandigi terim ise esasinda kafasindaki irkciligi  aciga cikaran diger bir diskili yani. Insan'in dogdugu kenti, topraklari, arkadaslarini, ailesini, evini, sevgilisini, cocuklarini onlara daha iyi bir hayat verebilmek icin terk etmesinde asagilanacak birsey olmadigi gibi, bu insanlari asagilamak goc yollarinda cok cileler ceken insanlarin acilarina duyarsizligi gösteriyor. Umarim biran önce bu saygisizliginin far...

Best of German Food - Vol. 1

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It is a terrible and wrong cliché to wrap up the entire German cuisine within the combination of "sauerkraut, potatoes and bratwurst". It is as accurate as the idea that all that Italians eat are pizza and pasta. After spending 5 years in the gastronomic capital of Germany, I'll try to write about some German delicacies when I find the time. First I will start by attacking the cliché itself. "Leber- und Blutwurst mit Rotkohl und Bratkartoffeln" is a dish that demonstrates how good the wurst-kraut-potato combination can be. !!WARNING: Otto von Bismarck famously likened sausage-making to law-making. If you like sausages or the laws, you better stay away from the actual making process. Skip to the end of the WARNING if you like sausages. Leberwurst is a cooked sausage of bacon-liver-pork, flavored with spices. The one pictured above has other offal parts as well. German blood sausage - Blutwurst-  is made out of blood and pork skin. Spanish blood sausage...

Astrology is...

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... bullshit. And Susan Miller is a charlatan. Meet Susan Miller. According to the one of the most serious Turkish news portal -arguably-, she's a world famous astrologist. She visited Turkey, and made the prophecy that something incredible was to happen on 21. December 2010. Considering the rate with which big news stories are fabricated/happen in Turkey, a more interesting prophecy would have been that there would be nothing serious on that day. But lets leave this aside. This vague prophecy, that something big will happen in Turkey on 21. December made the mainstream news. Result? I guess you knew, just as I did, what the result would be on the day she made the prophecy. I still didn't want this to go unnoticed. Links to this post: http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/id/25159026/

Best commentary on Wikileaks so far

A Taiwanese TV station is famous for producing video animations of the top news almost instantly. This one about the Wikileaks is among the best commentaries on Wikileaks I came across:

Those who doubt and those who believe

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"-You unbeliever, You, who dared to doubt the Son of God, You are sentenced, You must now feel his blood, His flesh and his gut." He, who dared to doubt the Son of God, Has his fingers in that sacred cut, And the unbeliever, the doubter, At this holy sight,he cannot look at. "-Their eyes, their eyes, Of those without the courage to doubt, Are so vicious, and are filled with doubt, My trembling fingers, It's what they are looking at, And not the Son of God " I went to the Gemäldegalerie 2 weeks ago. I was lucky to experience four more Caravaggio paintings, since there was a Caravvagio exhibition. The painting that touched me the most was "The Incredulity of Saint Thomas." The story is like this:After the resurrection of the Christ, Thomas the Apostle doubts that Christ was raised from the death. Christ makes him touch his still open crucification wounds, to convince him. For me what is shining out of this painting is not the inc...

Kinski der Große

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Die deutsche Sprache hat einen schlechten Ruf unter deren, die die nicht verstehen oder sprechen können. Während Französisch als die Sprache der Liebe gilt, gilt Deutsch in der türkischen Popkultur als die Sprache der Pornofilmen. "Hans, Du bist meine Lokomotive" ist ein Witz unter den türkischen Männern, die ihre sexuelle Aufklärung den deutschen Softpornofilmen schulden. Und die, die diese Filmen nicht gesehen haben, meinen, Deutsch sei sehr schreiend. Dank meiner ziemlich vorzeitigen Begegnung mit der deutschen Sprache durch Die Toten Hosen teilte ich diese Meinungen nie. Als ich nach Deutschland kam und versuchte diese Sprache zu lernen, merkte ich wie lebendig und spielerisch ich sie fand. Ich beneidete damals die kleine Kinder um ihre rollende R's. Dann habe ich die deutsche Hörbücher entdeckt, die mich faszinierten. Aber nichts hätte mich auf das Gedicht "Lästerzungen," gelesen von Klaus Kinski, vorbereiten können... Meine Interesse an Klaus Kinski ...

Erster Schneefall

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Nein, dies ist nicht das Bild meines Autos. Dies ist das Bild des ersten Schneefalls in Berlin, etwas das ich jedes Jahr in großer Aufregung erwarte. Dieses Jahr kam er früh. Ich bin hoffnungsvoll auf einen weißen Dezember!

I want the world to stop

Glasgow is one of the favorite cities I've visited. Certainly it is the city with the most polite and helpful inhabitants. Another reason behind my fondness for Glasgow is its vibrant music scene. Mogwai and Belle and Sebastian are my favorites, while other Glasgowian acts include Travis, Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys. I think Belle and Sebastian holds a special place in contemporary pop music, at least as far as I can follow. Their music for me represents a balanced mix of Dylanesque/Reedian song-writing and minimal pop music sensibilities. Furthermore, I get the feeling that they belong to a small group of bands who respect their fans, by respecting their music. They recently published a new album, whose live performance can be watched in its entirety in the following online video: The first song they perform in the video, "I want the world to stop" is the strongest song in the album. My first impression of the album is that it represents a mediocre album i...