Thursday, August 13, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Jokes from The Sublime Object of Ideology (S.Zizek, Verso:1989 /Zizek'in İdeolojinin Yüce Nesnesi'nden fıkralar
"Moskova'da bir sanat sergisinde, Lenin'in zevcesi Nadezhda Kruopskaya'nın genç bir Komsomol üyesiyle yatakta bir fotoğrafı asılıdır. Fotoğrafın ismi 'Lenin Varşova'da'dır. Şaşkın bir ziyaretçi bir rehbere sorar: 'Peki Lenin nerede?' Rehber sessiz ama vakur, cevap verir: 'Lenin Varşova'da.'
* * * * *
"A conscript tries to evade military service by pretending to be mad. His symptom is that he compulsively checks all the paper he can lay his hands on, constantly repeating: 'That is not it!' He is sent to the military psychiatrist, in whose office he also examines all the papers lying around, including those in the wastepapaper basket, repeating all the time: 'That is not it!'The psychiatrist, finally convinced that he is really mad, gives him a written warrant releasing him from military service. The conscript casts a look at it and says cheerfully: 'That is it!' (pg. 180)
"Askere çağrılmış bir genç, askerden kaçmak için deli taklidi yapmaya girişir. Belirtisi, kompülsif bir şekilde eline geçirebildiği tüm kağıt parçalarını inceleyip, 'Bu değil!' olacaktır. Askeriyenin psikiyatristine sevk edilir; orada da çöpte bulunanlar dahil gördüğü tüm kağıt parçalarını inceler ve devamlı tekrar eder: 'Bu değil!' Psikiyatrist eninde sonunda adamın deli olduğuna kanaat getirir ve ona 'askerliğe elverişli değildir' belgesini verir. Genç adam belgeye bir bakar ve neşeyle, 'İşte bu!' der."
* * * *
"How does a man from Montenegro masturbate? He digs a hole in the ground, puts his member in it and waits for the earthquake."
"Karadağlı bir adam nasıl mastürbasyon yapar? Yerde bir delik açar, içine organını sokar ve depremi bekler."
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Bir analist olacak candostuma...
Syntax and Sociology
Now humor me. As I was putting my daughter to bed, an idea popped up among the now mantra-like lullaby singing. One of the differences in syntax between Turkish and English concerns the position of the relative clause/sıfat-ilgi tümceciği in relation to the subject/özne. While the relative clause usually comes after the subject followed by the action it is performing through the verb in English whereas in Turkish, the clause comes before the subject, turning it into a full-blown adjective that describes it. Moreover in English, relative clauses are usually separated by the main sentence by use of punctuation, especially the comma. In Turkish though they are –again usually- attached to the subject, which waits patiently for the moment in speech to arrive at the verb-al action it sought out to perform in the first place. In English the subject and the verb announces their presence up front, foregrounding the do-er of the action and underlining what there is to be done. The image of the mighty individual, pronouncing its voluntariness and intention to take action towards the world comes to mind. On the other hand the Turkish subject is able to perform its action only after the elements relating to the subject are fully expressed.
Consider these sentences:
TR: Gönderdiğin çiçekler için teşekkür ederim.
ENG: (I) Thank you for the flowers (that/, which) you’ve sent me.
This may sound simplistic, as my attempt here is not to go into linguistic conundrums. However, as a (perhaps too big a) generalization, I think I can posit the relevance of a socio-cultural trait in this linguistic rule. In my opinion, the Turkish language/culture tries to foreground modesty, and even to a significant extent, submission to a higher authority in its usage of language. Perhaps this is why sentences with passive constructions are much favored. The subject of the action is enshrouded, blurred, and the actual verb and what it does to the world takes precedence. This idea resonates fully with Islamic precepts that foregrounds Allah’s will before everything individuals do. The word Islam itself means, “to surrender.” Therefore the subject, though possessing free will, still is under partial (or full, I still am not quite clear on this-this is I think one of the many doctrinal difficulties of Islam) control of Allah. The same goes for the submission to higher authorities. Consider the sacred position of the Caliphate or the Sultan, which can be easily found in collections of folk tales like the Tutiname, or the 1001 Nights. Now on the contrary, I think it is safe to say that Western Capitalist culture foregrounds the individual as a free agent, whose actions are mostly based on their own intentions (this is of course much challenged since the 19th century onwards). In language use, in contrast to Turkish, English favors the use of active sentence constructions too, positing the defined/implied subject in the beginning of most sentences, clearly delineating who does what. Surrendering to Christ is also present in mostly secularized Continental and Anglo-American culture, however this surrendering I think is very different than the one in Islam, which is a concept too large to discuss in this particular piece. In any case, the said process of secularization is also an interesting point of inquiry.
Take the courtly love tradition, or even the great masters of Continental literature like Dante. Today it is no secret that both these examples are hugely indebted to Ummayad-Andalusian Islam. Sufi masters of the period posit Allah as the Beloved, which can never be reached, maybe only glimpsed at, but “married to” through death. Now consider Dante’s Beatrice in La Vita Nuova, or the way the troubadours shifted these, sometimes almost erotic metaphors onto their understanding of the lover (the Knight for example), or the loved (the Princess in peril for example). There is an excellent book by Robert Briffaut on this subject if anyone is interested (The Troubadours, 1965: IUP). In this sense, the Beloved is transposed onto a mortal agent, though the fact that the Princess/Lover (as in Dante’s Beatrice) is not to be reached, although she remains a Muse for life of the agent. So, what happens then? In comes an action that again foregrounds the agent’s conscious intention towards an action that has the possibility of changing the situation to their own, worldly advantage: The slaying of the Dragon… In this way, Continental troubadour poetry not only secularizes the religious imagery employed by the Sufis, but also posits smack in the middle, an event that requires full, external action based on the agent’s intent to an endeavor in the world, whose consequences are physical…
I know all this sounds too simplistic, but neither is this a dissertation nor am I a scholar. The point is that both languages reflect and affect their own cultural evolution.
There is also the position and function of the author in both languages that helps this argument but I shouldn’t get carried further away. At least, not for now.
All criticism (negative or positive) are welcome.
Monday, January 05, 2009
letter to a father of a daughter
kiss her much, cuddle her frequently; make sure she knows she is loved...
don't sweat sleepless nights and long drawn out crying sessions, those will be the true moments of human existence, you will be tackling everything bu the credit crunch, thank god for that! besides we need less and less sleep as we get older... so consider it as a training session for those long nights when you're 70 and are having attacks of nostalgia...
imagine talking to her about condoms when she brings in her first horribly pubescent young man into the house, gets drunk or high for the first time; when she gets the first existential anxieties and consider yourself lucky for having the experience necessary to console her...
loveherloveherloveher
take her out often to meet the butcher, the grocer, the local video store et al. make sure she sees as many people from different walks of life as possible.
readreadread to her, they become zombiefied through tv as they grow, no matter how educational the program on tv may be...
loveherloveherloveher... if you really, truly love her, the rest will come as easy as pie. and since once you have her in your life, the opposite won't be possible, so you are set my friend, don't worry about a thing!
Friday, July 18, 2008
Arrrgh, once again
So-so poem from 2 years ago which I found in my computer
And so you sprinkle
Down the hills in existing
Like flakes freeze
So dense you choke
First cry then whack
In q-tips your heart doth lie
I come out all teased
With angelic upbringing
When some do say, in life
One cries incessantly, I
Look out of necessity
To brighter days underfriend
Ship on a glade wave tosses
Futures and means
Dressing my salad never was heard
As eloquent as dream
Flesh of my flesh
Blood of my blood
This is what i should
Have done in your
Name
Drape a wall
Dig my hole
Wait to clasp
The flowers that dropped after
Your name
really not good, but in tribute to the occasion it was written for, I leave it be, as if it were a haiku that's written on the wind.
Reading and Cognition
I think everyone will agree that the recent generations of human beings are endowed with certain perceptual peculiarities that are distinct to this age. Again probably most people will agree that the presence of television and visual media, the proliferation of computers and the web are changing children’s ways of spending leisure time. We hear more and more about the harmful effects of over-exposure to TV or the computer monitor, running parallel with the declining rate of reading in children. In addition to this, it is somewhat perplexing to notice that Turkey is right after the States in the world's highest rate in TV viewing. Considering the fact that my generation didn’t get to see a color TV or multiple channels until the mid-80’s, I remember my childhood as a more extraverted time of activity, where we spent most of our time outside with neighbors kids, inventing all sorts of different games ranging from tag to charades, from makeshift magic shows to making puppets and backdrops to produce a shadow-play for the parents and other kids. Other than that, being outside-bound for fun had other advantages as well. We were able to make friends with the community much easier, doing errands for the house like picking up groceries, running to the “bakkal” and so on. My mother felt relatively safe when I would wander out for a chore, as she knew that everyone around knew me and whose child I was. Mostly due to TV and household entertainment, as well as limited playgrounds in our urban environment, I think it is safe to say that today parents are less reluctant to let their children interact with the grocer, the butcher or the baker. These days, especially in big cities, living your childhood in healthy activity is becoming more and more difficult, as buildings get bigger and bigger, and playgrounds and parks get smaller and smaller. I can’t deny that safety has become another big concern, but outside of Istanbul, Turkey I believe, is still a safe place.
Coming from a reading-oriented family, one of my ambitions in child rearing is to pass along the same love of reading that my parents engendered in me. Reading was a huge part of my childhood. After having spent hours devouring the beautiful children’s books my mother had brought from the States, I still get a familiar tingle every-time I hear a Dr. Seuss rhyme today and the images that accompany my favorite books come back to me in 3D pictures that waltz along my mind. My mother tells me that I enjoyed her reading to me so much, she would, out of fatigue, have to record her voice onto tapes and play them back to me just so I could hear my favorite book over and over again. Of course, when there is not a lot of TV around, one might say, it is easier to kill time with books. However, I believe the issue is a bit more complex.
Years ago when I was a teacher, I remember a British educational scientist giving a seminar on how TV is harmful to children, especially in those between 0-3 years of age. Moreover, the worst harm, he claimed, was caused by commercials (which actually resonates with many parents’ complaints about their children’s TV habits). How this harm takes place is still not totally clear among the scientific community but there are some indications that point to a neural development that lacks a semantic complexity, due to an over-saturation of images emitted in high frequency intervals. The child tries to make sense of the images that are projected, but when the images are too many and too frequent, a causal relationship becomes more difficult to achieve. Hence the zombified look that children have when watching the image bombardments TV commercials produce. Consider how one minute there's an explosion on the screen, stars burst into the air, then a disembodied stick of ice-cream drifts towards the viewer with, say a dancing lion on it. Things happen so fast that the baby is not able to attach meaning or a relationship between the sequences of images. Now this may seem far-fetched at first but it seems to me no coincidence that baby channels like Baby TV or Babyfirst emit programs that change scenes slowly, almost as if they try to let the baby take in the scene with all its detail and cognitively absorbe it. A recent study states that babies perceive color in the pre-linguistic part of the brain (the right hemisphere) and that adults perceive the same colors in the linguistic part (the left hemisphere). If this is true, then a healthy transition from pre-linguistic to linguistic perception is an essential component in the child’s cognitive development in later years. In fact, what the seminar speaker suggested was that over-exposure to TV inevitably creates potential attention-deficit disorder, and a lack of concentration needed to finish a book as the children reared on TV are so used to passively watching the colorful lights whereby the imagination is stifled and meaning can not be generated due to a lack of time for neural synapses to form.
Does this mean reading is dead? I definitely do not think so, as I witness with my child that although we do show her TV, she is much more interested in reading, as long as one of us is with her. Now, when I ask her if she wants to read a book she rushes into her bedroom in her clumsy toddler trot, grabs her favorite book (“Good Night Gorilla”) and returns holding the book out to me and uttering her favorite syllable, “boua”. Then she sits next to me with her arm draped along my leg, watching my fingers as I trace the action depicted in the words, and she joins me in emitting the animal noises that are on the pages, turning to me for approval, and cheering when I nod and smile. In other words, interaction still seems an important element in a child’s cognitive development and I believe no Sesame Street character will ever take the place of mom or dad, as long as we don’t let it.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Two Poems With A Funny Moon
YOUR FUNERAL, MY TRIAL
I am a crooked man
And I've walked a crooked mile
Night, the shameless widow
Doffed her weeds, in a pile
The stars all winked at me
They shamed a child
Your funeral, my trial
A thousand Marys lured me
To feathered beds and fields of clover
Bird with crooked wing cast
It's wicked shadow over
A bauble moon did mock
And trinket stars did smile
Your funeral, my trial
Here I am, little lamb...
Let all the bells in whoredom ring
All the crooked bitches that she was
(Mongers of pain)
Saw the moon
Become a fang
Your funeral, my trial
- Nick Cave (from the album of the same name)
ABOVE THE DOCK
Above the quiet dock in mid night,
Tangled in the tall mast's corded height,
Hangs the moon. What seemed so far away
Is but a child's balloon, forgotten after play.
- T. E. Hulme (from Collected Poetical Works, 1912)
Thursday, July 03, 2008
A Bold Claim
Then again, psychoanalysis at times can use the example of the pupil that asks a zen master whether or not the tao exists and the master whacks him hard with his walking stick.
The same way my dad once responded when I was telling him about Lacan's mirror stage: "..sometimes guys like this need a good slap to come back to earth!" (whacking motion with right hand accompanies).
There is...
For a brief moment,
a waltzing scent of hospital spotlessness,
tinges the visitors with despair.
Waiting is for those who care,
Tubular insertions, jugular manipulations
and many other actions that trigger tremors under the skin,
cease to, in a day or so, to dig in.
There is something totalitarian about
hospitals and doctors that care,
one bars one's entrance to the underworld
although one might have in pocket the fare
...
Monday, June 30, 2008
Secularism and Religion - 2
Secularism and Religion
These days in Turkey one argument reigns supreme... It permeates every level of high/low culture and finds an expression from the most sophisticated to the most vulgar of mouths, transcending all boundaries of caste, color and creed. It is an argument that has been the scourge of this nation ever since it has been formed: The relationship between religion and secularism is the argument, and the gist stems from the simple, misguided and misinterpreted formula of how these two concepts are completely exclusionary, meaning you either have one or the other. You're either a secularist, or you're deeply religious. There seems to be no compromise between these two camps and although a huge majority feels left out in the debate, the argument rages on in the same vein. To some extent this is understandable and in the following lines, I'll try to elucidate why.
Secularism in this country has always been a western import, and bears the mark of an evolution of Christianity more than anything. It may look like the rise of secularism happens to the expense of Christianity, but the coming of secularism is, in my opinion, for a part, due to the historical changes that Christianity has undergone since its inception. I turn to Gianni Vattimo's collaborative work with Richard Rorty, The Future of Religion (ed. Santiago Zabala, CUP: NY, 2005) in which Vattimo (a Catholic Scholar by the way, not an atheist) claims that "secularization...is the constitutive trait of authentic religious experience." (35) Whoa! From where I stand (Turkey, Middle East, Islam), this argument is blatantly blasphemous. How can the exclusion of religious rules (Sharia) from the public sphere be in anyway connected to religious experience. According to Vattimo though, the western postmodern conception of textuality and historicity has rendered the understanding that Nietszche's call to God's death is similar to the death of Christ on the cross. In both instances, religion is primarily taken out of the hands of God, or a supreme authority and has been placed under human responsibility. God has been killed by the Church by usurping the religious experience from the people, and Christ has died in order for humans to take control of their religious destiny, to carry the responsibility of the Gospel that God has given to them. This responsibility for Vattimo, or the only transcendental signified the Scriptures have to offer, is the notion of charity and love. The practice of this responsibility can only occur in a secular public sphere where different interpretations on the same text(s) have to be in constant interchange without degenerating into a power struggle. For this, we need a religiousness that is non-metaphysical says Vattimo. That is, one that accepts that each text is historically significant in its mode of creation but not exclusionary of others when measured up to a metaphysical Truth.
Now this is all nice and well, and Vattimo, I believe, demonstrates a very reasonable and sophisticated branch of postmodern thought, without falling into the mish-mash of culturally relativistic US counterparts. But just like his insistence on the historicity of Scripture and religion, Vattimo demonstrates an interpretation of religious thought that is deeply rooted in the western metaphysical and philosophical tradition that is, alas, quite absent in Turkey. Here is the problem. Secularism in the western sense does strike an Islamic scholar as blasphemous since the Qur'an's ontological basis of being God's direct Word, delivered through Mohammad is unchallengeable to begin with. Therefore all may be text but the Qur'an is simply not just a text. The second point is that Islam stresses the importance of the meaning in re-ligio (to be re-united) more as a private matter than Christianity does. Every creature wishes to be re-united with the sacred Source it has sprung from so by default, this world serves as an intermediary stage, a stage where the flow is seemingly suspended for the creature to relocate the Source and reconnect to it (Bataille expresses this in a most succinct manner by claiming that "religion is the search for a lost intimacy"). Thus the public sphere is an impediment in a way, and it has to be re-organized so the search for the Source can be facilitated. One may ask whether the Islamic republics of our day are achieving it, and most of us will respond as no; however, that doesn't necessarily cancel out the efficacy of Sharia, as many Muslim scholars will claim that the perfect Islamic state hasn't arrived yet, in a way pointing to an utopian strain.
Thus, Turkey is seemingly at a divide that at the moment looks unbridgeable, however, just the fact that we live this divide in our daily life, shows that some sort of discussion is present and hopefully will lead to a compromise on two sides as time goes on. In my opinion, religion is useful in its preserving and delivering of tradition in the form of metaphors that may change over time but that do point to an inherent human understanding of its relationship with the whole, whatever that whole may be, thus has to be preserved in some form or another. Neither banning it nor letting it roam rampant in the hands of ecclesiastical authorities (!) is the only solution.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Houllebecq et moi
Fransız yazar Houllebecq'in romanlarıyla bundan 6 sene evvel Les Particules Elementaires'le tanıştım ve romanı bitirene kadar elimden bırakmadım diyebilirim. O sene özellikle Fransa'da ama bütün Avrupa'da bir nevi itirafçı edebiyat diyebileceğim (Rousseau akla geliyor) bir yönde bir sürü ürün verildi. Aklımda kalan en önemlisi otobiyografik bir roman olan (nasıl oluyor denecek ama kadın yapmış işte) La Vie Sexuelle de Catherine M.
Öyle görünüyür ki Avrupa kültürel dünyası o sırada olgunluk ürünleri veren 68 kuşağından insanlarla doluydu ve bütün bu insanlar, zamanında cinsellikleri konusunda eyleme döktükleri samimiyeti şimdi de geriye dönüp bakmak için kullanıyorlardı. Hatıralar, maceralar okuyunca müthiş ama akabinde gelinen noktaya hiçbiri olumlu yaklaşamıyordu. Hepsi, eninde sonunda başta istemedikleri zengin, ailesiz ve yaşlı kimliklerine teker teker oturuyorlardı ama hiç olmazsa bununla yüzleşip hesaplaşacak ve gerektiğinde kendilerini yerebilecek kadar olgundular.
Houllebecq de böyle. Romanları tabii ki kurmaca ama ele alınan karakterler ve yaşayıp düşündükleri öylesine benzer ki, zeitgeist ı iyi yakalamış bir yazardan çok kendi dertlerine okuru ortak edyormuş hissi veriyor. Bunda yanlış birşey yok, aksine bence yeni bir edebi tarzın tohumlarını ekiyor belki de (Erje Ayden, Bukowski, Beatler vs. den etkilenmiş olabilir.) Houllebecq'in kendine, işine, toplumuna ve insanlara yabancılaşmış bireyleri paranın satın alabildiği veya zamanın onlara sunduğu bütün nimetlerden ölesiye yararlanıp sonra garip bir buruklukla kabuklarına çekilen tipler. Ama intihar edecek haysiyete de sahip değiller. Berbat addedikleri hayatı parayla renklendiriyorlar ama nafile (Burada da Martin Amis akla geliyor doğrusu ama H.'nin karakterleri daha basit daha insancıl)... Houllebecq'in hiç bahsetmediği Tanrı ve metafizik eksikliği, daha doğrusu inanç eksikliği sırıtıyor yokluklarıyla(bu tabii benim yorumum). Öte yandan Houllebecq'in insanlığın sefilliğine dair saptamaları o kadar doğru ve çağımıza uygun ki, okur, yine romanlarda yazılmasa da insan türünün aciz ve zavallılığı karşısında derin bir acıma ve sevgi uyandırmadan geçemiyor; zaten bu yüzden usta bir yazar Houllebecq. Özellikle AVrupa medeniyetinin her anlamda girdiği varoluşsal çıkmazı hiç entelektüelize etmeden müthiş bir şekilde açık ediyor. Seks bu yüzden sürekli gündemde, türümüzün hiç değişmeden kalan belki tek özelliğinden biri, ve hayatımızı yönlendiren temel aktörlerden biri libido. Libido ve onun insana etkileri, bir medeniyetin, tüm ilerleme zırvalarına rağmen hala aslında henüz fazla olgunlaşmamış insanoğuyla uğraştığını hatırlatıyor mütevazılığa bir çağrıyla (medeniyet, bastırma -repression- sayesinde gelişir der Freud)
Bu aşırı derecede kendini tekrar eden konu ve konuklar romanları değersiz kılmıyor ama itirafçı edebiyat dediğim tuhaf amorf bir alan sokuyor eserlerini. Motif diyemeyeceğimiz kadar sık kullandığı konu ve eylemler bir süre sonra H.'nin kendisine atf etmemi sağlıyor anlatılanları. Sanki karakterleri birleştir ortaya Michel çıkacak.
Şiirlerini okuyup aynı şeyleri orada gördüğüm zaman analizimden artık emin olduğumu düşündüm. Yanlış anlaşılmasın tekrarı yermiyorum sadece kurmaca olamayacak kadar sık tekrarlıyor kendini demek istiyorum. Bu da monotoni yaratan tekrardan farklı bir ontolojik boyut.
Bu da bizi H.'nin başarısının sebeplerine getiriyor:
1. Post-postmodern roman belki de böyle hızlı okunabilen (okur arttırır), bir çok ilgi uyandırıcı mevzuyu dahil edip tribünlere oynayan (seksin her türlüsü -erekte eden cinsten, uyuşturucu, rakınrol), ama self-help kitapları kadar da kendine psikanalizle uğraşan karakterlerle hem edebiyat hem de cep romanı tadında bir tür olarak oluşmakta belki de. Ölümcül uzunlukta sanatsal tasvirler yok, ama ufak, sessiz bir iki cümleyle veya tanımla bir anda verilen bir mesajın olduğunu ve üstelik bunun derinden verildiğini hissediyorsunuz; öte yandan, uzatılmış bir grup seks sahnesini okurken uyarılabiliyorsunuz. Yani edebi zevki almasını beceriyorsunuz bir de üstüne kırmızı noktalıymışçasına muzipçe okuyorsunuz kitaplarını...
2. H. aynı zamanda az bilinen rock starlığıyla tam günümüz medyasının bayılacağı bir kişilik, dolayısıyla pompalanıyor ve akabinde gerçekten satıyor. Benim düşüncem, aynı romandaki karakterleri gibi H. başarıyı buruk bir gülümsemeyle karşılayıp milyon eurolar dolmaya başlayınca da yaptırdığı bol odalı malikanesine kurulup devrimci geçmişinin kendisinde yarattığı sızıyı sakinleştiriciler ve alkolle geçirmeye çalışabilir iyice yaşlanınca. Ancak eğer edebiyat, yazarlarının nevrozlarını koşturduğu pistlerse belki de romanları sayesinde kafasındakilerden kurtulup karakterlerinin yapamadığını yapip Avrupa insanının kendini bulduğu kısır döngüden çıkacak. ne bileyim aslında uyduruyorum işte:)!
peki bu kısır döngü ne? Ya da H.'nin elinde nasıl gösteriliyor? Daha önce de belirttiğim gibi H.'nin romanları tam tanımlamıyor ama büyük etkenlerden biri Marx tarzı yabancılaşma (yine romanlarda adı konmasa da) Marx'ın tanımladığı yabancılaşmanın dört hali (başka yazı konusu) hep ama hep karakterlerin hayatında görülebilir. Çare komünist/sosyalist devrim mi? Houllebecq'in karakterleri 68 kuşağı devrimci pratiklerine rağmen turbo-kapitalist dünyamızın oluşumunu seyrederek gitgide politik anlamda, kötümser, çekingen ve apolitik olmuşlar zaten. Ya da güzel bir kadının vücudunu her tür devrime yeğleyecek insanlar.
Bir ikinci etken roman karakterlerinde hiç bir zaman olmayan inanç ve din faktörü. hatta kurumsal dinin içyüzünü öylesine iyi çözümlemiş ki... Islam'in yayılmasıyla ilgili bir-iki sayfası var ki, orijinalliği için olmasa da, sinikliği ve Swiftvari sarkazmiyla tadından yenmiyor. Metafizik ise ancak quantum fiziği seviyesinde ve tabii ki seküler bir düşünce yönelimi olarak kendine yer bulabiiyor sadece.
Çok sağlam bir yazar Houllebecq. İleride klasik olarak okunur mu bilmem ama yazarın çok ta umurunda olacağını sanmıyorum... şiddetle tavsiye ediyorum eserlerini.
p.s. adamımızın resimdeki hali ve elindeki sigaranın hali de cuk oturuyor romanlarındaki karakterlere...
I don't know if he will be read 200 years from now but he certainly rides the zeitgeist here and now!
La présence subtile, interstitielle de Dieu
A disparu.
Nous flottons maintenant dans un espace désert
Et nos corps sont a nu.
Flottant, dans la froideur d’un parking de banlieue
En face du centre commercial
Nous orientons nos torses par des mouvements souples
Vers les couples du samedi matin
Chargés d’enfants, chargés d’efforts,
Et leurs enfants se disputent en hurlant des images de
Goldorak.
THE IMMATERIALS
The subtle and interstitial presence of the Lord
Has disappeared.
We now float in a deserted space
And our bodies are naked.
Floating, in the freeze of a suburban parking lot
Across the shopping mall
We guide our torsos in supple movements
Towards the Sunday morning couples
Loaded with children, laden with effort,
And their children fight, yelling scenes from
Goldorak.
- Michel Houllebecq (from La Poursuite de la Bonheur/The Pursuit of Happiness)
translated by m.e.
image: Goldorak
Monday, May 19, 2008
Where is the World Going To ?! :))
Peter Thiel Makes Down Payment on Libertarian Ocean Colonies
From Wired News 19 / 05 / 2008
Tired of the United States and the other 190-odd nations on Earth?
If a small team of Silicon Valley millionaires get their way, in a few years, you could have a new option for global citizenship: A permanent, quasi-sovereign nation floating in international waters.
With a $500,000 donation from PayPal founder Peter Thiel, a Google engineer and a former Sun Microsystems programmer have launched The Seasteading Institute, an organization dedicated to creating experimental ocean communities "with diverse social, political, and legal systems."
"Decades from now, those looking back at the start of the century will understand that Seasteading was an obvious step towards encouraging the development of more efficient, practical public-sector models around the world," Thiel said in a statement.
It might sound like the setting for the videogame Bioshock, but the institute isn't playing around: It plans to splash a prototype into the San Francisco Bay within the next two years, the first step toward establishing deep-water city-states, or what it calls "seasteads" -- homesteads on the high seas.
Within the pantheon of would-be utopian communities, there's a particularly rich history of people trying to live outside the nation-state paradigm out in the ocean. The most ambitious was Marshall Savage's Aquarius Project, which aimed at nothing less than the colonization of the universe. There was also Las Vegas millionaire Michael Oliver's attempt to create a new island country, the Republic of Minerva, by dredging the shallow waters near Tonga. And the Freedom Ship was to be a mile-long portable country costing about $10 billion to construct.
None of these projects has succeeded, a fact that The Seasteading Institute's founders, Google's Patri Friedman and the semi-retired Wayne Gramlich, are keenly aware of throughout the 300-page book they've written about seasteading.
Instead of starting with a grand scheme worthy of a James Bond villain, the Institute is bringing an entrepreneurial, DIY mentality to creating oceanic city-states.
"There's a history of a lot of crazy people trying this sort of thing, and the idea is to do it in a way that's not crazy," said Joe Lonsdale, the institute's chairman and a principal at Clarium Capital Management, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund.
The seasteaders want to build their first prototype for a few million dollars, by scaling down and modifying an existing off-shore oil rig design known as a "spar platform."
In essence, the seastead would consist of a reinforced concrete tube with external ballasts at the bottom that could be filled with air or water to raise or lower the living platform on top.
The spar design helps offshore platforms better withstand the onslaught of powerful ocean waves by minimizing the amount of structure that is exposed to their energy.
"You have very little cross-sectional interaction with waves [with] the spar design," Gramlich said.
The primary living space, about 300 square feet per person, would be inside the tube, but the duo envisions the top platform holding buildings, gardens, solar panels, wind turbines and (of course) satellites for internet access.
To some extent, they believe the outfittings for the seastead will be dependent on the business model, say aquaculture or tourism, that will support it and the number of people aboard.
"We're not trying to pick the one strategy because we think there will be multiple people who want one for multiple reasons," Gramlich said.
Dan Donovan, a long-time spokesman for Dominion, an energy company that operated Gulf of Mexico-based gas rigs, including Devils Tower, the world's deepest spar structure, said the group's plan wasn't too far-fetched. His company's off-shore rigs, which are much larger than the institute's planned seasteads, provided long-term housing for its workers.
"They were sort of like mobile homes. We could move them from one place to another," Donovan said. "People did live on them."
But even the institute members admit that their plans aren't far enough along to stand up to rigorous engineering scrutiny. Some engineers, Gramlich said, have been skeptical of their plan, particularly their desire to do it on the cheap.
"We have some legitimate doubting Thomases out there," Gramlich said.
But if the idea turns out to be just crazy enough that it works, Friedman, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, envisions transforming the way that government functions.
"My dad and grandfather were happy arguing their ideas and were happy influencing people through the world of ideas," Friedman said. "I see a real need for people to go out and do something and show by example."
True to his libertarian leanings, Friedman looks at the situation in market terms: the institute's modular spar platforms, he argues, would allow for the creation of far cheaper new countries out on the high-seas, driving innovation.
"Government is an industry with a really high barrier to entry," he said. "You basically need to win an election or a revolution to try a new one. That's a ridiculous barrier to entry. And it's got enormous customer lock-in. People complain about their cellphone plans that are like two years, but think of the effort that it takes to change your citizenship."
Friedman estimates that it would cost a few hundred million dollars to build a seastead for a few thousand people. With costs that low, Friedman can see constellations of cities springing up, giving people a variety of governmental choices. If misguided policies arose, citizens could simply motor to a new nation.
"You can change your government without having to leave your house," he said.
Of course, one major role of government is to provide security, which would seem to be an issue on the open sea. But Friedman's not worried about defense beyond simple firearms because he thinks pirates will lack the financial incentive to attack the seasteads.
"More sophisticated pirates will take entire container ships that have tens of millions of dollars of cargo and 10 crew [members]," he said. "On a seastead, there's a much different crew-to-movable assets ratio."
In fact, his only worry is that a government will try to come calling and force their jurisdiction upon them. Toward that end, they are planning to fly a "flag of convenience" from a country that sells them, like Panama, to provide them with protection from national navies.
"If you're not flying a flag … any country can do whatever they want to you," he said.
Even if their big idea doesn't end up panning out, their story should live on in internet lore for confirming the dream that two guys with a blog and a love of Ayn Rand can land half a million dollars to pursue their dream, no matter how off-kilter or off-grid it might seem.
"Everything changed when we got the funding," Friedman said. "Before that, it was two guys with some ideas writing a book and blogging about their ideas.... Now that we've got some funding, it's something I plan to make a full-time job out of."
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Today...
I watched a few hundred policemen run down my street chasing maybe 150 young men and women, cowering from tear gas. Another usual day in Turkey? In this fascist police-state of ours, cops are nothing but a threat. I do not know a single person who trusts them. Most people don't go to them for help when necessary, as there is always a possibility they will charge you with something and you'll end up worse than when you came for them.
I am not for organized struggle... Maybe it's cowardice but crowds do not make me feel empowered or liberated. I try to stick to my political principles in my own sphere. With my daughter, my wife, my friends. I am not sure that the people in the crowds are practicing what they may be preaching, my choice is to try to do that in my daily life, hoping I may change things bit by very small bit.
However, there is no justification for what happened here today. No one should be chased down a street by robocops with shotguns. I am at a loss for words... Really.
I had the urge to document the whole thing by going out with a camera; then looked at my wife and child. They weren't pleased with my idea, needless to say. Especially not after we had to close the window to block the tear gas. Not sure what to do, I suddenly remembered a whole list of chores I had to do with state offices and grandparents, and knowing most people are staying at home, minding their business, I took this as an opportunity to handle stuff in an Istanbul without traffic.
Am I a coward? Perhaps, but when I saw my centenarian grandfather's face light up when I came to surprise him, I really wondered if I had paid some sort of dues to somewhere, I don't know where though... joy is so short lived and so infrequent in this world; it s a shame what we have created in the name of civilization. Or maybe Buddha and Schopenhauer and Jesus Christ were right. Maybe one has to recognize that all is suffering, in order to know non-suffering. Maybe when thinking of the suffering of the masses, one should look at a babies' face for momentary relief. Not for forgetting the former, but to re-kindle the hope that humans are, in the end, incredibly beautiful creatures, and can do beautiful things for the world. Like Bukowski, I can easily stay away from individual humans for days on end but am terribly in love with the race. Humans are hideously mesmerizing, like Kafka's giant bug. Disgust and awe in one. Desperation and hope at the same time. Sorrow and infinite love bundled in the same experience. One can go on with these binaries. Maybe the Tao is silent and noisy as well.
At moments like these I also like to daydream about my imaginary anarchist commune where money doesn't exist, where we are off the grid and self-sufficient, where all are truly equal and eventually I move to fantasies in having the farmers nearby our commune start trading with us without money and how we might spread a different understanding of life, bit by little bit. Not impossible I think, in fact more probable than overthrowing the state. Power corrupts, no matter who is involved with it. No masters no slaves, no representatives, i don't trust anyone who professes to help me through politics. As Jack Nicholson says to the Martians in Mars Attacks: "Why can't we all just get along?" Then ZAPPP!:)
Today's attack was no surprise to anyone. However, i think it really showed how the present administration is full of fools. Again, I'm sorry and feel shame.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Re: Control
Recently I watched the film "Control" that narrates the life and suicide of Ian Curtis from Joy Division. Ultimately a tragic story, Curtis' depression, caused by multiple reasons some under his control and some not, was depicted so beautifully that I felt like screaming to the screen: "Can't somebody just give him some Prozac or some SSRI?" After all, they were pumping him with carbamazepine for his epilepsy, surely they could've heard the poor soul out... Finally as he committed suicide I was astounded to hear my friend comment on how selfish an act it was, how idiotic Ian Curtis had been. After all, he was leaving so many people behind... At first a sensible argument that can be brought in from many sides, I found this to be somewhat unemphatic, coming from my friend who was himself prescribed anti-depressants before for his depression. I wondered "why would many people regard another's internal pain with so much reference to the outside's welfare?" When you think about it, everyone always gets left behind some way or another. People come, people go. You come, you go; why do we not wonder more among us, after the suicide has happened, what was it that we DIDN'T DO, that could've helped him? Although most suicides don't place the blame on others, why is it that we are so eager to push the blame on the person who actually suffered and even go as far to play the victim (How could he do this to me?etc.)
why, when the matter is suicide along with metal illness are we so reluctant to stare at the patient with unsympathy? Anti-depressants's are last centuries wonder drug and they re prescribed to anyone who may feel slightly "blue" so there is a loss of credibility on the part of psychiatry, fair enough, however this doesn't make mental illness an un-reality. In fact viewing it this way, it is easy to dismiss illnesses of the mind as meagre caprices, but severe cases do exist and if anything, in their cure can we see the advantages of psychiatry. the stigma that comes along with mental illness doesn't really make things easier. As the patient stumbles deeper into "abnormality", the "normal" ones wallow in their acceptance by this hideously crooked establishment we call society. It is sad to see, even in pharmacies in Turkey, where a simple bandaid purchase is greeted with a "geçmiş olsun", the purchase of pshychiatric drugs are given to the customer with a silent sense of distaste. These two attitudes are exactly the same, and woe be to the utterer to really know the deepest pits of depression, mania, and psychosis. All this stems from the centuries' old cultural discourse of marginalizing the mad. Today, we see a new development in viewing these diseases. Not as an abnormal functioning of the brain but a sort of individually unique defense mechanism of some morbid "normality" the subject is asked to adjust to. In fact, to carry this theory even further, one would assume that the most psychopathic among us, are those who have no problems in blending in with what society offers. Needless to say, I guess most sensible people would rather not be "normalized" to, say, Hitler Germany. So, although it is easy to look down upon someone who suffers for no apparent external reason ("s/he should get on with life just like we do" for example), to do this with a view of the patient spreading misfortune and black bile to others as if it were a cancer cell in society that infects it, is equally damaging to society. For I shouldn't need to remind anyone, but progress in arts, sciences, religions are all laid out by the prodigious and prophetic madpeople of our world. It is the "normals" who usurp and degenerate their vision...
Monday, March 24, 2008
Freak-folk again
This is just a note of appreciation for all the following musicians who have brought back my youth of singing and playing the guitar for long long nights, accompanied by great friends, candles, cheap beer & wine, but most of all, a hippie spirit that is (nowadays) individual though still providing such communal feelings of tenderness, unblemished love, a juvenile sense of rebellion toned down from actual action but able to place a smile on the face and a willingness to sing along. It is significant that for the most part these musicians start of doing everything by themselves. Locked in a cabin recording for days, etc. Contradictory in terms of their earlier inspirations but definitely fitting with the zeitgeist.
The quieter the better guys, roll on!!! : Iron & Wine, Tunng, Songs: Ohia, Ben Iver, Wilco, Caribou... Nick Drake must be happy in the grave! Thanks for taking/bringing me back/forward!!!
Friday, March 21, 2008
Saint Genet...
...was what Sartre called Genet. His lop-sided but definitely un-hypocritical subversive morality and his almost religiously sticking with it surely were among the reasons for being called so. Am reading these days his magnum opus Journal du Voleur and have to say am bedazzled at the literary skill but also his daring candidness in reporting his delinquent escapades that have lasted for years in the streets, ports, cities of Europe: Barcelona, Anvers, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Krakow... He describes his instances of theft like pieces in an art exhibition, emblazoning the memorable moments of the act with pieces of introspection. Most importantly though, in my opinion, is Genet's descriptions of his many lovers. Now I am not gay and I sure don't get disgusted etc from reading about gays and St. Genet in this regard, I believe is the ultimate king. I do not think I have ever read instances of male homo-erotic behavior that resonate so well as timeless renderings of the erotic in the male of the species. Genet's lovers are not sublimated, or if they are, they are sublimated in the way sex is treated in his plays Les Negres, or Le Balcon , as an invitation to partake in an earthy power play. Furthermore his lovers take on descriptive beauty in the context of and through objects, settings and tiny details whose connections to beauty are so far removed than commodified ideas of love and eroticism that they take on the characteristics of an admirable yet uncanny expressionist painting. The wearing of a wrist watch and the twitch of a wrist, a wrinkle in the brow, the way a belt holds up a pair of trousers, the touch of a pair of eye lashes onto the lovers' neck, and the interminable instances of violence make up the erotic world of Genet. Genet loves domination though not in a purely masochistic way; when the possibility arises he is more than happy to take the position of top so to speak, and candidly reports his anomaly as just another instant in his sexuality, which is considered as ever-changing, although one thing is constant: his disgust of women. It is as if Genet's motif of theft is also present in his amorous liaisons. He wants to both be ravaged and have his identity stolen by the lover, just like he steals from others less powerful than he is. As he chases a lover of his devoted to him out of the room he closes his eyelids and tends to examining the myriad of shapes that appear on the black eyelids, completely forgetting the pain he might be causing just like he doesn't mind the pain that is caused to him by his mean lovers: It is the rule of the game, in fact that is what he expects from his lover. For Genet masculinity is almost always linked with the beauty of violence which is like an aura that resonates more strongly in his chosen lovers.
Thieving for objects, both inanimate and human, Genet seems to be touching on the remarkable role that objects have in our lives. How we might think we made them but in fact they re-make themselves by penetrating our worlds and make us something more than what we were without them.
Which brings us to the poem of the day:) This is Las Cosas by Jorge Luis Borges
El bastón, las monedas, el llavero,
La dócil cerradura, las tardías
Notas que no leerán los pocos días
Que me quedan, los naipes y el tablero,
Un libro y en sus páginas la ajada
Violeta, monumento de una tarde
Sin duda inolvidable y ya olvidada,
El rojo espejo occidental en que arde
Una ilusoria aurora. ¡Cuántas cosas,
Láminas, umbrales, atlas, copas, clavos,
Nos sirven como tácitos esclavos,
Ciegas y extrañamente sigilosas!
Durarán más allá de nuestro olvido;
No sabrán nunca que nos hemos ido.
Things
My cane, my pocketchange, this ring of keys
The obedient lock, the belated notes
The few days left to me will not find time
To read, the deck of cards, the tabletop,
A book and crushed in its pages the withered
Violet, monument to an afternoon
Undoubtedly unforgettable, now forgotten
The mirror in the west where a red sunrise
Blazes its illusion. How many things,
Files, doorsills, atlases,wine glasses, nails
Serve us like slaves who never say a word
Blind and so mysteriously reserved.
They will endure beyond our vanishing;
And they will never know that we have gone.
Translated by Stephen Kessler
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