title, what title?

The song that kicked open Bruce Springsteen's mind (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRu66l3QI_U ) finally has an official video (link: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/11/bob-dylan-rolling-stone-video/ ). And what a video it is! Created by the digital Agency Interlude this is an interactive TV with 16 channels, with all the people on the screen are singing Like a Rolling stone. Having an award winning film director as a son can come handy sometimes (link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Dylan ). I love the fact that one of the channels is History Channel with Pawn Stars on it. If you want to share my joy do watch this video (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32NWr5RKDRg ) Dylan was many things over the years. Among the many faces he had, the one I associate the most is his Existentialist era (i.m.h.o.). After Visions of Johanna, like a Rolling Stone is his most iconic from this era. A world where everyone is singing Like a Rolling Stone reminded me of another ...

2:50-3:10, pure bliss. Use with caution.

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...

"So we go inside and we gravely read the stones All those people, all those lives Where are they now? With loves, and hates And passions just like mine They were born And then they lived And then they died It seems so unfair I want to cry Cemetry Gates - The Smiths " 15.10.2013 - Pompeii (*) Link to Youtube Video

Gezi olaylarından birgün önce ntvmsnbc.com'daki değişim ile ilgili bir yazı yazmıştım (link: http://actoker.blogspot.com/2013/05/someday-that-day-may-never-come.html ). Uzun süredir girmediğim siteye yeniden girdim. Kendi sunucusu ile iligili bir haberi sunuş şekilleri bu siteye bir daha girmememe kararı aldıracak kadar mide bulandırıcıydı. Yetiş ya Solanas (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEIJVKM5YFk )!

http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/nsu-prozess-ismail-yozgat-ueber-den-tod-seines-sohnes-halit-a-925642.html Dass die Autorin es für nötig hält, diesen Satz am Anfang ihres Artikels zu äußern, spricht viel darüber, warum diese ekelhaften Taten immer noch in Deutschland stattfinden können: Das Unfasslichste im Leben von Eltern ist der Tod des eigenen Kindes. Diese Wahrheit gilt für alle Menschen, gleich welcher Herkunft, welcher Hautfarbe und Nationalität und welchen Alters. Schade, dass es immer noch viele anständige, Spiegel lesende Leute gibt, die daran erinnert werden müssen, dass es unerfassliche Weh tut, wenn ein Mensch sein Kind verliert...  

First time I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez, it stroke a chord in me. It was as if the person I wanted to be in secret was out there doing the talking for me. When I first read Kafka, I felt that Kafka was to Garcia Marques, what Garcia Marquez to me. It would be a stretch to take this one step further with Robert Walser and Kafka, but it is no secret that Kafka read out Walser loud and laughed his guts out, and the first few pages of Geschwister Tänner struck a chord in me too. His life story is very interesting and sad at the same time. He spent a great deal of time in Weimarer Berlin, sitting in the Cafés and Bars, meticulously observed and wrote about the "creative" types there, something that I wish I had the time for when I was in Berlin. One time he went to a private school to become a butler. In the end, he was sent to the mental hospital, where he devised his own writing style and wrote what the experts now call his Micrographs, that contain stories fittin...

Ahmet Atakan nasıl öldü? Ahmet Atakan nasıl öldü? Ahmet Atakan nasıl öldü? Bam Güm Gırrrççççç Ahmet Atakan nasıl öldü? Sokakta öldü Omur iliği koptu da öldü Genel bir beden travması peydah oldu da öldü Beyni kanadı da öldü Kulağından kana kana kan akıta akıta öldü Ahmet Atakan nasıl öldü? Ahmet Atakan nasıl öldü? Ahmet Atakan nasıl öldü? Bam Güm Gırçççççç Ahmet Atakan nasıl öldü? 177 boyunda ya 65 ya 70 kilo ağırlığında Kumral saç buğday ten ve çükü sünnetli öldü Ahmet Atakan nasıl öldü? Ahmet Atakan nasıl öldü? Ahmet Atakan nasıl öldü? Bam Güm Gırçççççç Ahmet Atakan nasıl öldü? "Kahpe polis al sana solar panel" Çevrecinin hası polise hem de Solar panel atarken öldü (¿ müş mü yoksa ? ) Ahmet Atakan nasıl öldü? Ahmet Atakan nasıl öldü? Ahmet Atakan nasıl öldü? Bam Güm Gırçççççç Ahmet Atakan nasıl öldü? Hiç omur iliğiniz koptu mu sizin? Benim koptu Anne ben gittim Ben, Hayırsızın, Rüyalarımda, Bü-yük a-dam öl-düm Ahmet Atakan n...

I've came across this list of best albums of 2013 courtesy of my sister: http://thequietus.com/articles/12672-quietus-albums-of-the-year-so-far-2013 My favorite has been so far this strange mix of Neo-folkish Post-rock with a slight touch of Second Qave Norwegian Black Metal (self-parody intended) http://stararzeka.bandcamp.com/album/cie-chmury-nad-ukrytym-polem-cd-instant-classic

Gezi Direnişi sırasında en çok merak ettiğim şeylerden biri, geceleri Fransız ihtilalini yaşadığımız Ihlamurdere Cadde'sinin, Süleyman Seba Yokuşu'nun ertesi sabah işe geldiğimde nasıl bir anda -sağlı sollu park eden Çevik Kuvvet otobüsleri hariç- eski hallerine döndüğü olmuştu.  Direniş sokak bazında durulduktan sonra bir ara tüm duvarları kaplayan duvar yazılarının silinme hızı da buna eklenince partilerden bağımsız otoritenin olanları unutturmak için ortak çıkarları olduğunu yeniden hatırladım: UNUT-MA-LI-SI-NIZ! Bu nedenle arada bir karşıma çıkan, silmeyi unuttukları duvar yazıları beni çok mutlu ediyor. Keşke spreyleri, boyaları, matbaayı icat etmemiş olsak, yazıları çıkmayacak şekilde duvarlara çivi ile çekişle yazıyor olsak diyorum, Pompei'nin duvar yazılarını hatırlayarak - Durmayın internette aratın: " Hic ego puellas multas futui ". Akaretler'le Ihlamur'u bağlayan o dik yokuştaki buldum bu duvar yazısını. Göğü İzleme Durağı olarak...

Gregor Samsa bir sabah rahatsızlık verici rüyalarından uyandığında, kendini yatağında ucube bir haşereye dönüşmüş halde buldu... Die Verwandlung - Franz Kafka Dün gece alkışlarla Halaskargazi caddesinden Taksim'e yürümeye çalışan 10.000'lerce vatandaşını iki yönden sıkıştırarak üzerlerine kaçacak yer bırakmadan gaz sıkan bu devlet, bu hükümet, bu adalet, bu asayiş, bu medya beni bir Rüya'dan uyandırdı: Bu firavun ve yalakalarının gözünde hepimiz birer Gregor Samsa'yız. Bu da 4 sene öncesinden: http://actoker.blogspot.com/2009/04/guns-of-besiktas.html

Genelkurmay'ın direktifi ile Mehmet Ali Birant'ı servis haberlerle bir anda terörist ilan eden basından ne kadar midem kalktıysa alkol yasaklarının gündemde olduğu günlerde aşağıdaki haberi ( http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/id/25445738 ) manşet geçen NTV de o kadar midemi kaldırdı: Birisi içki masasında bir cinayeti itiraf ediyor. Ne suç işlenirken, ne azmettirilirken içki yok işin içinde. 4 Milyarlık Galataport ihalesini 700 milyon dolara alan bir holdingin haber portalı ise bu haberin Türkiye'ye sunduğu en önemli 8 haberden biri olduğunu düşünüyor. Aklıma ne geldi: VITO CORLEONE (after Bonasera kisses his hand) Some day, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me. But uh, until that day -- accept this justice as a gift on my daughter's wedding day.

Contrary to what creationists want you to think ( Banana: The Atheists' Nightmare ), the delicious starch cubes once looked like this: Thanks to a thousand years of best Genetic Modification by small farmers, the seeds were gone. As a result, all the bananas you eat are more or less the fruits of the same plants, which have been asexually produced over and over again. I came across a similar case of wild origins of a well-known European plant in my recent visit to Erzurum. Favorite of pie-makers across the western world, Rhubarb looks clean and nicely shaped like this: Virtually unknown in western Turkey, the wild cousin, or perhaps ancestor of Rhubarb is known as Işgın in Eastern Turkey: To close the this curious circle, the Wild Rhubarb is known as the Mountain Banana in Eastern Turkey.

This ( http://life.nationalpost.com/2013/05/18/mireille-silcoff-baz-luhrmanns-great-gatsby-and-the-schlock-of-the-new/ ) is the most fitting review in my opinion of the movie otherwise known as Luhrman's Great Gatsby, or as Mireille Silcoff calls it aptly: a book which has, over the years, seemed to subtly presage the state of America in a slightly different way every decade; a book which Luhrmann has here reduced to the depth of blingy video game. For a more respectful homage to F. Scott Fitzgerald and cinema here's The Ballad of a Thin Man from I'm Not There with Cate Blanchete as Dylan:

And all began the year Hip hop went commercial.  This was Hip hop before that bling bling sh*t got a hold:

Or in other words: Allegro energico, ma non troppo. First movement of Mahler's 6. Simply my favorite piece of music. 

German Music has a tradition of hitting the perfect balance between disillusionment, cynicism and that weird hope that follows from realizing that it does not matter all that much. Perhaps this goes back to Nietzsche, I am not sure. Jetzt! was a seminal German Indie-Rock band that linked historically the experimental revolution of the Neue Deutsche Welle  and the Hamburger Indie-Rock revival of the 90s. Geographically it linked the jingle-jangle sound of the British music to German Music. The song "Kommst du mit in den Alltag" has recently became my 30-year-old blues anthem. Since I could not find any English translations of the lyrics, I thought I'd better share this German gem with English speakers: once you told me, you'd leave this city, the life in the city, just made you weary, you were never there, where your dreams are, you may not yet know where, but here are they not for sure... Is this all, what life has to offer: Care to join the dullness...

Left, Sarphan Finance Park Hotel, Istanbul. Right Ryugyong Hotel, Pyong Yang, North Korea. It doesn't get any uglier than this, does it?

Endüstriyel kesim tesislerinde boğazı kesilip kanı akıtalarak ölüme terke edilen, daha düne kadar süt emen hayat dolu bir kuzunun 500 gramı için Turkcell bir bedel biçmiş bile: 24 dakika konuşma http://www.sahinsucuklari.com.tr/tr/kurumsal/tr/kurumsal/duyurular/41/41.aspx

Ne yazık ki bir kadın olarak dünyaya gelmediğim için hiçbir zaman Mustafa Kemal'i onlar kadar sevme fırsatım olmayacak.