i'm not sure i should be writing this

Yesterday was Nevruz. Or Newroz. Depending on your ethno-cultural-political standpoint. It's "the w problem," a small reminder of the larger "Kurdish problem" in Turkey. Here we had an outdoor concert to celebrate Nevruz. The Turkish flag was prominently displayed behind the stage, where Black Sea music was followed by a grungy rock band. It didn't mean much to me until some background reading gave me the context of the holiday. An ancient pagan festival of spring celebrated all over the region- Iran, Georgia, Central Asia, and other countries- it was banned in Turkey until a few years ago, because the Kurds were celebrating it as an expression of their separate cultural identity and political goals. So now it's a Turkish holiday! Problem solved. You can read about it on the Turkish Ministry of Culture website, with the Turkish spelling Nevruz, where many different spellings and origins for the holiday are mentioned, except the Kurdish ones. Or you can read about it from the Kurdish point of view if you google their spelling "newroz." There seem to be lots of interesting stories to be learned in Turkey. What's most interesting is an estimated 30% of the Turkish population are ethnic Kurds and I haven't met ANY that I know of. Seems like it's the kind of thing you keep to yourself. What baffles me is that all over the world, governments are not able to identify the basic mechanics of cause and effect. Oppression of an impulse intensifies and gives strength to that impulse. Don't they get it? If they had just let the Kurds have their own cultural identity within Turkey all this time there wouldn't be a "Kurdish problem" now. And why is everyone so obsessed with having their own state anyway? They'd still disagree. We'd have to keep breaking into smaller and smaller states to maintain this ideal of purity and sameness these nationalist impulses are built on, until eventually each person becomes a nation of one. And even then, trying to remain hardline can have disastrous results.

undeniable

This band is cool, this album rocks, and how cool is this album cover? If you don't think they are cool, well, I don't understand you.

virtual people

Perusing the internet is much like what I imagine it must be like to trawl a great river on the banks of a wise old city, you find all kinds of garbage. And you also get a chance to gawk at the detritus of lives of people you will never meet. Take this character I recently came across. So much time. So much enthusiasm. And such a mysterious voice in the ether- just who is this guy writing for? If you are a gamer who doesn't know how to make hot chocolate, or are too lazy to read directions for a simple board game, or perhaps a precocious toddler who wants to know exactly how to pour juice into a cup, this might be what you're looking for:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/14602/shawn_grover.html

Looking over it more carefully I now realize that this guy has secreted a kernel of humor under his majestic cloak of geekdom. Thus that ineffable quality of geek-cool is born.

black sea enlightenment

I have learned a lot from my students in the past week or so, and, being the generous soul that I am, I'm sharing some of these wise trinkets with you. Did you know...

I, yes me, am America.

"We know the so-called Armenian genocide never happened." So, no need to talk about that anymore.

In Turkish, as in English, the word for "bill" is also a name.

Please be aware that certain TV programs, especially chat shows and soap operas, can corrupt your morals!

And, to close on a positive note: "Love and peace are the enemy of war, and if we all love each other there will be no more war."

And this is the way darkness and light, humor and despair, play upon the dreamy waters of the Black Sea.

tea for twelve

I recently attended a dinner party at the home of one of my colleagues. It was different from any dinner party I've ever been to before, and not only because everyone was speaking Turkish and I only had the most general sense of what was going on. For most of the evening, I focused intently on the words and gestures and reactions from people, and kept a running commentary in my mind, along the lines of someone's ill. what a shame, is it someone i know? probably not. is it serious? i have no idea.... something about a film. iran. ok... and? why does she keep saying banana? maybe it's not banana.

The evening began for me as all the guests set off in a cavalcade, children pressing their faces to back windows and waving, adults in the front smiling and waving back, to our hostess' house on the other side of town.

We arrived and left our shoes outside the door. You can always see when your neighbors have guests in Turkey, because there's a pile of shoes by the front door. Or sometimes only a single pair of men's dress shoes with a pointy, slight curled toe, which for some reason I always imagine becoming animate and tapping up to me, heel-toe, heel-toe. Creepy.

Anyway, we were welcomed in, kissed, given slippers, and seated in the living room. I realized that I was the only one wearing jeans, then excused myself to myself, thinking hammily, hey I'm American. Most of the women had made an effort; some had makeup, some had straightened their hair, except for one of the wives, who covers her hair and was dressed simply. The mothers were called at one point to round up their children, and serve them, and settle them in the kitchen, while the table was laid for the adults in the dining room. I stayed in the living room with the men. Being neither a mother, nor a man, I felt vaguely uncategorizable.

Dinner was served once the children were secured. It consisted of various platters: cheese pastries, walnut bread, fruit cake, lentil-cakes, zucchini with yogurt, sweet carrot balls, and glasses of hot tea. Everyone ate slowly and chattered away, while the hostess barely ate but urged more food on all of us and refilled our tea-glasses ceaselessly. After we'd finished, we stayed at the table drinking more cups of tea, talking (or listening), and eating baklava. Later the hostess brought out a remarkable paste she uses as a cleaning product, explaining its benefits to the women of the table, and passing it around for everyone to smell. Yes, it's true.

Some got up to smoke off the balcony. Conversation never faltered for a moment. People joked and laughed, and I smiled, having not a clue what was so funny. Occasionally someone offered to translate a little snippet of the conversation for me. After we had had a chance to digest a bit, a huge bowl of fruit appeared, and everyone set to peeling and cutting apples, oranges, and kiwis on little plates with little knives. The children had finished their meal and were causing a general ruckus by this time. After the fruit, the hostess offered us each a few drops of refreshing lemon cologne for our hands. I was exhausted from so much food and focused listening. Around midnight, the head of the department announced, well friends, it's late, let's go. So we all got up and filed out.

I got a ride home with the head of department and his family, who are all painfully quiet and unfailingly polite, and somehow always leave me without a thing to say. It's his wife who covers her head; they're a conservative family. The children are very quiet and well-behaved. So we drove in silence, and as the car rolled up and down the hills around the city, the radio incongruously tuned to a house station- "Saturday night disco!"- I felt that truly refreshing sensation of finding yourself an incongruous object in your surroundings, of finding the terrain of your own life unfamiliar and inexplicable. I love it when that happens.