Unexpectedly and cheerfully, I woke up for the 4th morning in a row to sunlight and the noises of the ducks from the canal. A couple of video calls with my parents and they were happy to see my new surroundings. So was I. I didn't mind that it took me a couple of hours to get up, take a shower, have breakfast, read some news, organise and leave the flat. I cycled by the canal, bought myself a nail clipper, a suede shoe protector spray and headed up north towards where I lived a couple of years ago for a few months. Back there, when I had first moved in, it also felt right, and there was a lot of sunlight. What followed thereafter had impacts on where I am now.

I thought for a moment that I saw an image of London that didn't resemble anything of the sort I have ever seen here before. A row of new developments, but taller than they usually are (a mini-scale of Manhattan tall residences), in Dutch-like bright shades of yellow and red, lined up in a crooked street, resembling that of an ancient Roman city, bending towards the right as an inclining railroad tracks disappear into the linear perspective, at the end of which my eyes all but could miss the glamorous Emirates Stadium of the Arsenal Football Club. I was heading my way up to the Market Estate Project, a collaboration of 60-some artists who displayed their interpretation of the last remnants of a 1960's modern housing-estate that is going to be demolished in the next few weeks. But before I made it to the exhibition, I was drawn but what I had just seen. I cycled into what I then realised was a dead-end street, only to realise that, there was yet another one architectural feature, a house reminiscent of a Western European rural architectural features in the midst of a row of Victorian houses with a secured gate and a cobblestone pavement entrance with a wild garden on the back of it. Astonished as I was, I made my way towards that street where the colourful new developments led the way to the stadium (and, to my disappointment, they were nothing other than another fancy new development): It was 3 PM, I was cycling slowly through a crowd of Arsenal fans, it smelled of meatball grill mixed with ongoing chants for an industry that drags millions behind itself, and yet there I was, wheeling slowly but resolute towards a childhood memory. I was an Arsenal fan for that moment.

The Market Estate Project was the first highlight of the day. As the sun started hiding behind the clouds and the gloom settled in and out, I realised this was the estate, at a flat of which I had dinner with my friends O. and F. last July on an unexpected invitation last year. It was an apalling summer's evening with around 10 C of cold and heavy rain which got me soaking wet. Now, I was sitting in the courtyard with O. and the sun had shown itself again and before seeing the actual displays of the project, we were catching up with the recent developments in our lives. That was the first time in the day when I said "this is why..."... We've filled ourselves with some cakes and brownies, and warmed up with tea while one of the live bands was playing one of D.'s favourite songs that she had shared with me some time ago. Market Estate Project was a memoir, but looked determinately towards the future as memories from my recent history were coming right at me. I enjoyed it.

After about 3 hours later, I beat the cold of the dying day with a cup of tea and a fast ride through the northern suburbs towards Stoke Newington. Another one of those evenings and I did not mind having some Turkish food on my own on a restaurant that I never tried before. As I gazed through the other tables filled up by couples and groups, I felt the uneasy comfort of biding my time at a place where I could almost feel familiar. The familiarity was what T. was looking for when she called me and said she had arrived at the pub where everyone going to A.'s house was eventually going to meet. Soon after, me, T., M., N. and D2 were waiting for the signal to move to A.'s. Boy, was he surprised and he seemed to enjoy every bit of the unexpected fright.

Some things just started not feeling quite right. The last time I was there, I also felt a bit alienated, probably mostly by the fact that I did not mind being in my own corner and yet felt at ease. It was not particularly the same this time. Somehow, the feeling that I did not have a corner of my own, and if I happened to try and have one, it would mean that I was being antisocial started kicking in. Although I felt like the contrary and, as opposed to the last time, did not even want to have my own corner, it just grew more and more uncomfortable that I somehow could not fit in. Realising this was the first step to feeling that it was a selfish thought process. D2 reminded me of AC K. Added to the fact that I dreamt about him, amongst my other best friends in a weird dream the other night, and that I also dribbled and took a few shots with a basketball for the first time since god knows how long (and boy, did I love to play basketball in high school!) and that we'd frequently play with AC K; D2 did in deed seem to embody some of the characters AC K had, in what feels like a finely balanced introvertedness that can come out rather sharp but at times very entertaining to those alert. That did not necessarily provide any comfort to my own surrounding.

In the end, A. looked happy for all that matters. I was happy to be part of this. And this was the peak of my self-interested thought process. Maybe I cannot help but shape my behaviour mainly around such thinking and that does not necessarily mean I'm only selfish. I just realised that it is more frequent around here that I am confronted with this and where I look to find the immediate support from people that I would like to consider as friends, I just see walls between myself and them. "Who put them up?" is not the main question here. This is when I first said "this is why not..."...

I'm looking forward to the football tomorrow. I want to run as much as I can, provide my teammates and myself with the most I can and score some goals and let it out. Does trying to be part of a team also sound like a self-motivated action? I don't know the answer to this, but I know that "it is why..." that I can end a nice weekend with all that I did today and football tomorrow and "it is why not..." that I do not even know if those around me tonight and tomorrow alike will judge me for who I am and that I am not even sure whether they would ever bother considering me close to them.

Posted by ömer at 00:11 0 comments

Labels: London

Friday, February 05, 2010
You are a Londoner if:

1. You smell the fresh smell of burning coal whilst cycling through the detached neighbourhoods of South London and remember the fresh smell of burning coal you smelled when you travelled for hundreds of miles across the cities in your home country (and especially if you use 'miles' in stead of 'kilometers' in this sentence).

2. You know where and what St. Helen's is and why the bankers go there after the financial crisis.

3. You know not to state your ethnicity when the police is taking down a record because you know that it will be used to generate criminological intelligence which they will use against certain ethnicities to discriminate them.

4. You leave the stinky smell of the attractive East and cycle all the way through the City on a fine Sunday afternoon to play football in Chelsea with all-investment-banker squad of your friends who live in West London in between the smells of lavender and 5 cm. upper-hand of high heels.

5. You feel you are in your childhood memories' Mediterranean/Middle Eastern summer resort where the small edge between the cobblestone pavement and the sidewalk is bent at a lower spherical level than the rest of the road.

6. You go home at the end of a long work and drink-out day and still feel lonely and still find the excuse to blame it on the grey weather.

7. You can appreciate all deep fried bacon, sausage, beans, fried bread and others for breakfast.

There is a lot more, but already for the better or worse, I feel like I am almost one.

Posted by ömer at 22:31 4 comments

Labels: London

Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Dinner table lay-out

This is not about the lay-out or design of a dinner table. This is about some dinner, and some lay-out or form of some streets in London, or in my thoughts.

A.k. does not eat meat. Whether out of politeness or sincere appreciation of the smell, he seemed to have been impressed by the lamb. R.s. did make all the food as well as preparing the dinner table. S. had a long trip earlier and seemed to be quite tired. She was on her usual go during the dinner conversation, though. We were to discuss possible collaboration opportunities between our 'centre' and an institute at the NYU that earned a new grant. Everyone was going to bring in ideas about their current occupation and where they see themselves in a few years time and how this could all contribute to a potential work that would come out from the collective work (or a merger of their individual works) of the people.

I knew I did not have much to say when it would be my turn. I did learn a lot of what others were doing, though, as well as getting more detailed information on what my colleagues have been working on. At some instances, I was working hard on grabbing a fruit out of my fruit salad with my spoon without making too much noise not to interrupt anyone. I only had to deal with what was on my plate, the wine was being poured down somehow.

At one point I was looking at the shape of a piece of lamb meat and thinking of continuity and randomness in shape and form of things. If they had asked me at that moment of what I was thinking I could have easily come up with the following, which I developed on my way back home after the dinner:

"I am thinking of the about how the mystery behind street lay-outs of this city differs for me than those of in Istanbul. As I walk even around in the avenues which I walked before in London, I always see streets that I have never walked into. They may be completely new, or I may have seen them before. However, I've never discovered them. I now understand why: In Istanbul, I would walk into almost any street I pass by. The reason is that there is a bigger curiosity in every street. Because I can never see the 'end' of the street, regardless of how you define an 'end'. For me, it means where my point of view, that is aligned with the road on the street, whether be it paved or unpaved, a dirt road or an asphalt-road, gets interrupted. There may be a building that intervenes into my vista, or the street may be turning to right or left, or there may be a hill going up or down, so my view would always be cut before I reach my natural limit of my sight. Then, because of that curiosity, I would go in and discover that street. This is due to the topographical diversity of Istanbul as well as its historical and architectural heritage.

In London, it is not the same, thanks to the fact that many of the streets are created in a grid-pattern where you can see how the street stretches to the extent of your sight. It just goes straight ahead, except for the minority of the streets in the historical parts of the city shaped by Roman architecture and city-planning. The rest is just flat. Added to it is the usual gray and misty weather so your vista is even more limited and you already know what the rest of the street is like. Therefore you don't walk into it. But at that moment, another curiosity kicks in. In fact, there is a funny dilemma, or a dichotomy. The sheer fact that the streets in Istanbul are more crooked and interesting make the city overall a more mysterious place, but because I have discovered much of that mystery, there is few left for me. However, in London, because I don't tend to go into every street because of their similar patterns, there remains a greater amount of mystery for me. And at that point, I start to go into smaller-scale details that I might have not done otherwise:

I look at the differences of elements and how they are aligned in different streets. The size of a park and whether it is on the right or the left hand-side, and how many residential places it would correspond proportionally to its size in the street it is located. What are the proportions of social-housing to a detached housing in this street? Where do the older type of terraced or detached housing stop and social housing begin on the same street? And even if these are streets in the same neighbourhood with similar typologies, then I would start to zoom even more to start thinking about what sort of stories are taking place in the households on a particular street. To be fair, I would do the same in Istanbul, but not out of necessity, but out of already established curiosity. However, here in London, that curiosity could be my only tool of differentiating between different locations even within the same neighbourhood..."

Maybe, this could have been my answer, but my response was actually much shorter and straightforward:
"I have not really been focused on academic research for over a year now and I do not know where I see myself in 5 years". I did talk about recent interests in migration policies and socio-political implications of different spatial configuration of different migrant groups but that did not evolve into a discussion that other people brought up into the table. Well, I wasn't intending to lie or make up a story anyways.

My whole existence there, as well as what was going around was a big story in itself. I guess at this point, it may even be relevant to reveal that R and S are damn world-famous sociologists. And the dinner was delicious and wine was good.

Posted by ömer at 01:13 0 comments

Labels: Architecture, London

Wednesday, September 09, 2009
queen anne winked at me...

or so I thought. but it did not matter. then i turned left, walked through the square, and in between the modern bricked animated building on the left, and the modern glass and steel building on the right, the dome of the st. paul's shone through the moon light. the clouds waned away. then i walked through an alley way. england pushed forward down the left flank, the croatian defense struggled. they were the first people in the last 15 minutes, voices of whom i could not hear, figures of which i could not choose. the blue light disappeared and i was gresham street. king street met guildhall and there stood noone but a beautiful silence of the City in a breezy autumn right. coleman street leads to Great Swan Alley, only if you can follow your feet. the wind will fill your light red jacket, a row of desktop computers in well-lit, empty office buildings will keep you warm, because you are away from their cold. he looked puzzled in front of the 2 Copthall Avenue, the fluorescent moonlight blue did enough to draw him near and i was bemused by the building behind. abundance of redeveloped office space, a masoleum of ivory loneliness. turned right on the end of the street to greet tower 42. moorgate runs a few late evening cabs, a guaranteed same day delivery of bonds and equities to their studio homes up in the north. they are all going home, but i have just arrived to one. swerve through austin friars and in through pinnar's passage. let them go their way, the suits on the x axis, and the tower spines on the y axis. just take a lonely walk, an unexpected one, through the City, on any evening or a dull Sunday. sit on the stairs of the cathedral, love London, and send my regards to queen anne.

Posted by ömer at 23:51 0 comments

Labels: London, walking

Monday, August 10, 2009
2 wheels on 3D

Regent's Canal. For some reason, I tend to believe, is one of the more underrated features of London. It is beautiful to walk along it, even more so to cycle alongside it. You can see the changing city-scape of London from one end to the another whilst being close to the water at all times, a feature you will always miss if you are from a city like Istanbul.

Another summer's evening... A fine one, maybe a rare one in London's sake, as you rarely get 3 dry days in a row. This time, on my own. Just practicing the usual: rolling down the hills, taking care of the narrow pavement when a pedestrian comes across, bowing my head when a low arch happens to be own my way, and whistling for attention (because my bike bell is broken) each time I cycle through an overhead or a bridge that overshadows the canal. The scenery is as pretty as it can be. A Monday evening, by far the calmest evening on a London day, with a few passers by and lovers strolling down the canal, with virtually the rest of the way left for wanderers like me to take the most out of.

Housing estates of multiple storeys rise and sink on my left as the new developments by the canalside show their timber framing in elegance on the right hand side. Some textile workshops and abandoned factories go on a window-display, as I pay attention to roll down on my 2 wheels, a little tipsy, and shooting up to the stars.

Feeling joyful and happy, a rare notion for a London evening, recalling the last call of the pints at the bar with the pub quiz, of which I was only able to guess a few Oasis songs that made #1, that was the Question number 8. As my Danes stroll onto their usual 7th round of drinks in their Scandanivian style, I head home, passing by shiny road workers down through City Road, confronted by numerous churches, whose existence I only appreciate, and send a salute to their mid 2nd millenia glamour, and as soon as I find the Regent's Canal connection on my way, I make my way down into it.

K. had crashed my bike into a wall here severly injuring herself, only to fix the broken parts of my bike to make it even better than what it was when I gave it to her last year. As she is now ordering a new pint for herself with A., S., T., A2. and R. around, I think of sweet D. with whom I was just meandering through the same routes last night, making a short stop at a lovely pub for a burger and a beer before heading home.

The canal, presenting its unique opportunity to experience a different perspective of London, is a strong feature that reminds of the a lot that you can take out of this city... Well, only if it's not raining again as it usually does. And for rest, likes of D. and others make it an experience that one rarely appreciates, but should give its worthwhile justice.

Posted by ömer at 23:17 0 comments

Labels: London

Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Mark was looking down...

Mark was sitting awkwardly on his usual spot. Today he had a bit of a crumble on his fair hair. He was looking down more often than he usually does. He seemed uneasy to look up to the eyes of people passing by. He did not even say "hi', nor did he give the comforting feeling of "I'll look after your bike, don't worry". He was indifferent. It was fair. People were usually indifferent to Mark.

The Afr0-Caribbean guy walked in through the door as I was trying to pick up the mozzarella I had dropped on the floor. Hunger was getting to me and I was a bit dizzy by then. By the time I was at the mushrooms basket on the veggie shelves, the Afro-Caribbean went back on the street to collect some more rubbish. He did not look quite happy neither. Was it the weather?

It was a warm spring's night. Overcast as usual but warm, not as good as it was on the weekend. Possibly the strong headwind had them bow their heads? The guys in the local shop were on verbal abuse towards a drunken or a natural-born-tipsy lady. They were usually accommodating towards Mark and the Afro-Caribbean, though. Mark had a shelter under the tree from which he watched the knee-level cruelty.

I don't know the real name of Mark. I just made it up. I probably call him Mark now, because he clearly marks the spot where you can pass by him everyday. He does not ask for much, he is usually taken care of in one way or another. If anything, Mark has his place in this world. I didn't want to call the Afro-Caribbean guy anything, this has got nothing to do with any racial prejudice. He was a ruthless wanderer. Him and Mark were only a couple from the ruthless face of London, and of the warm ruthlesness that mixed so well with the warm spring breeze that touched my legs as Mark looked down once more. At knee-level.

Posted by ömer at 01:27 4 comments

Labels: London

Saturday, May 23, 2009
A Londoner moment

I have repeatedly been claiming that London is not one of the cities I feel myself completely attached to, like I do with Istanbul, Berlin or New York even, recently. However, today, I felt once again that I have somewhat become a Londoner in the last 2 years. It was not an instant of someone asking me directions and I could say it right away, no, I've been having them quite often. It was a much unexpected situation.

I was riding my bicycle from the LSE, where I work, towards Bermondsey, to attend the screening of the docu-drama "The Age of Stupid" held on a boat near a wharf, one of these converted agglomerations by the beautiful Thames riverside, where used to stand large warehouses and shipping facilities. D. had invited me to this event, held by the new ecomonics foundation. I am hoping to write on another entry about my complicated feelings and thoughts over the whole 'green' issue as well as issues of reformation and revolution... However, let me go back to my mini-story here.

I decided to cycle from the north side of the river and take the atmospheric Tower Bridge to cross over the river. It is always a joy to walk over Tower Bridge, but cycling on it is another experience. Thanks to the nice weather and long summer days, I was to have a really nice view passing over it, too. Only a few minutes before I would turn into the bridge 2 cabs almost crashed into each other in front of me, making one maneuver right in front of me, causing me a full stop, followed by a huge truck that could not anticipate my stop and passed my unprotected vehicle and self right at my ear level. After recovering from the shock, I noticed the huge queue of cars before the bridge.

As I switftly rode past the cars, I realised that the bridge was open to allow possibly for a ship to pass and people, cars, and bicycles alike have all stacked on each side of the open bridge. Just by when I got to the bridge the platform closed, the barrier between them lifted and cyclists, in front of all the cars, started pedalling through the bridge. The cars, ever impatient, started taking over some cycles, pedestrians walking on and running away from all vehicles, and tourists taking picture of all of this mess.... And there I was, in the middle of it, cycling through it as this happens every day. I saw so many tourists being so excited about this. Polish tourists (or residents alike) who never dreamt of setting a foot in London years and years ago, Italian kids as they pop up from everywhere, an Indian descent or a south American wanderer. Everyone was taking pictures of what looked like a Tour de France, or a mayhem of cars-cycles, or a mass protest, rolling down Tower Bridge, whilst the sun was setting in the west, over London Bridge, and dying beams of it reflected through the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf in the east.

Unfortunately I do not have any pictures, as I was being taken pictures of. But at that moment, in the middle of all this excitement, I was milly enjoying being observed, keeping my cool and perfect timing of getting on the bridge and trying to make it to my desired place on time. I was like a proper Londoner for that instance, and I have to admit, I liked it.

Posted by ömer at 02:46 0 comments

Labels: London

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Greenaway's True Cinema Definition?

Back in February 2007, on a visit to Berlin, I had come across a public talk given by the British filmmaker Peter Greenaway. A Turkish blog entry for the event is available at the following link.
For the non-Turkish speakers, the following summary should suffice for the purpose of this entry:

Greenaway gave a lecture to a full house at the Audimax of the Humboldt University in Berlin on 9 February 2007. He was surprised to see a big auditorium packed as that fine, cold Friday evening was also the opening night for Berlinale 2007. He delivered a speech he has been delivering for a while around the world, about why he thinks 'cinema has died' and there was need for a new definition for cinema. He summarised the 4 major "betrayal" characters of cinema that resulted in the 'death of it' as such:

1. Betrayal of the text
2. Betrayal of the frame (the spatial dimension)
3. Betrayal of the actor
4. Betrayal of the camera angles.

Basically, he was saying that, cinema was too much constrained by the inflexibility of the written text, the limitations of the frame, the inability of the actors to convey a potrait independent of their real-life personalities, and the limitations of capturing wide perspectives due to quasi-static attributes of camera angles.

The way forward for the cinema's new definition was in interactivity. The Tulse Luper Suitcases series he has produced in the last few years was his own way of trying this interactivity. I have to admit I could never get what he meant, maybe due to watching only bits of the T.L. Suitcases series, but I leave that up to film experts. In conclusion, a Renaissance painterly-art fetishist Greenaway has believed that there has never been a filmmaker who ever did 'real cinema', only those like Eisenstein came close to it.

I would like to divert the attention here now to an event held by the Future Cinema, a creative group who "creates large scale cinematic experiences, fusing feature film with music, theatre and live performance". One of these events is called Secret Cinema, where the audience is sent SMS/email alerts a day prior to a film screening event that is to be held at a secret location in the UK.

Future Cinema has recently held a special screening of Watchmen by the SE1 club under the railway arches of London Bridge. I was not lucky enough to get myself a ticket, but you can watch the reviews, some videos and pictures of the event at the following links provided...

Could this be the new definiton of the cinematic experience Greenaway was talking about a few years ago? Maybe little wonder it comes from the UK...

London to Copenhagen

A beautiful summer's evening in London. After a pub's affair for World Cup with S., I cycle back home through the usual route with Billie Holiday in my ears. Usual yet unusual... High Holborn's there the same way, so is the City, but something isn't or rather ought not be. Yet, still there, that's the Foundry at the edge of Great Eastern Street and Old Street. The haven for many who passed through here, now a subject of complete demolition to make way to a new fancy hotel the neighbourhood community don't want. Maybe the international agency of leather suit travelers want it. Since Monday, locals have been sitting-in in front of the building to avoid destruction. So far, a 48 hours of success. And tonight, as I pass by, on a nice summer's evening, they've put up a torn up clothing against the wall as a screen and are screening a documentary on Ungarnshuset in Copenhagen.

A familiar language on the screen. The frozen and the warm streets of Scandinavia over the short time of life I spent there. As I stop by to watch, more and more do so and we add up. It was a warm summer's day I left Denmark 4 years ago. There was the smell of warmth and friendship in the air and the World Cup fever around the corner...

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