çukurcuma times

Piç Destanı

noreply@blogger.com (Çukurcuma Times) — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 15:39:49 +0000

Piç Destanı

Sinemaya çocukluktan beri merakım olsa da bu daha çok TV’de film izlemekten çok öteye gidememiştir. Çocukluk anılarımda birçok sinemaya gidiş sahnesi olsa da bunda düzenli bir sinema alışkanlığı yoktur. Sinemaya ilk düzenli gidişim 1996’da başlar. O dönemden sonra sinemadan başka bir etkinliği olmayan sıkıcı şehrim Balıkesir’de her hafta en az bir kez filme girme alışkanlığı edindim. Bunun en büyük iki etkeni vardı: Sinema Dergisi ve okul arkadaşım Niyazi.

Niyazi liseyi okumak için küçük bir kasabadan Balıkesir’e gelmişti ve yurtta kalıyordu. Yurt ortamı çok gürültülüydü. Tüm koğuş karate kursuna gidiyordu ve “ranzaların üstünden uçan adamlardan” bahsediyordu. Üzerine karate yapan adam sesi eklenince yurtta vakit geçirmek ergen bir erkek için fena halde çekilmez bir hal alıyordu. Niyazi kurtuluşu sinemaya girmekte bulmuştu. Kafasını bir an olsun dinlendirebiliyor, yurtta bulamadığı karanlık ve huzurlu ortamı sinemada buluyordu. Yağmurdan kaçarken, uykusu gelirken kurtuluşu hep sinemada bulmuştu ve düzenli olarak sinemaya gidiyordu. Hemen hemen her filme.

1996 yılında ilk sinema dergisini aldığımda aynı zamanda Niyazi ile daha yakın arkadaş olmaya başlamıştım ve bir sene boyunca beraber birçok filme gittik. Ta ki Niyazi yurt hayatından iyice bıkıp kendi deyimiyle “küçük kasabasında kral olmaya” karar verdiği 1997 yazına kadar.

Niyazi ile birçok sinema anım olsa en akılda kalanı bizim “Piç Destanı” dediğimiz hikâyeydi. Hikâye anlatısı o kadar tuttu ki üç Fenerbahçelinin çıkardığı (ben, sigara serbest olana kadar bir daha sinemaya girmem diyen arkadaşım Ilgar ve Niyazi) “Galatasaray ve Diğer Haşeratlar” adlı dergide de resimleştirilerek ölümsüzleşti.

Bir gün Niyazi ile okuldan kaçıp sinemaya gitmeye karar veriyoruz ama internet olmadığından ya haftalık sinema bülteninden veyahut fiziksel olarak sinema salonuna ulaşarak vizyondan haberin olması gerekiyor. Biz de şans eseri o hafta bülten olmadığından direkt sinemaya ulaştık. 1996 yılı sonları. Vizyonda gitmediğimiz tek heyecan verici gibi duran film Red Kit: Daltonların Peşinde.

Salon bomboş. Sadece biz varız. Üstelik Şan Sineması’nın 6-7 salonundan en büyüğü Şehir Salonu’nda gösterimde. Film başlıyor. O da ne? Bu düpedüz yıllarca çizgi romanını ezberlediğimiz Daltonların Peşinde hikâyesi. Defalarca aynı çizgi film TV’lerde gösterilmişti ayrıca. Bu defalarca izlediğimiz hikâyeyi aynı çizimlerle tekrar sinemaya sokmak tam bir skandal. Tamamen kandırılıyoruz. Soygun!

Ama Şan Sineması’nda çözüm her zaman hazır. Daha önceki “kuzenlere ihanet” hikâyesinde de bahsetmiştim, salonların çıkış kapıları birbirlerine denk geliyor ve bir kapıdan çıkıp diğer salona girerseniz kimse sizi fark etmiyor. Çünkü bilet kesen görevliler tamamen farklı bir yerde. Bu yüzden bir bilete gecelere kadar film izlemek mümkün.

Çaktırmadan salonu terkediyoruz. Şimdi devasa salon bomboş ve Red Kit filmi boş koltuklara oynuyor. Başka bir salona girip bir iki kişinin izlediği romantik komedide şansımızı deniyoruz.

Bir süre sonra arkamızdan ergen sesi duyuyoruz:

“Heyy, diğer filmi bırakıp buraya gelemezsiniz. Çıkın buradan!”

İşte kraldan çok kralcı yeni bir eleman. Herkes huzur içinde film izliyor ve biri tekerleğe çomak sokuyor.

Niyazi refleksle koşmaya başlıyor ve ben de takip ediyorum. Bundan sonra sinemanın 6-7 salonunda açılan kapılar, kapanan kapılar. Tekrar Red Kit filmi, aksiyon filminin oynadığı bir salon ve belki bir bilimkurgu. Salonlara girip çıkıyoruz ve arkamızdan da Piç lakabı verdiğimiz yeni ergen çalışan:

“Durun, defolun buradan, hırsızlar!”

Sinema merdivenlerinden yukarı tırmanıyor, aşağı iniyor, açılan kapılar… Elinde iğrenç bir fenerle peşinizden gelen piç.

Aksiyon esnasında Niyazi’yi kaybediyorum. Tek başımayım. Bir bilimkurgu filmine denk geliyorum. Film çok gürültülü. Saklanmak için iyi bir yer. En arka koltuğa oturuyorum. 2-3 dakika huzur buluyorum.

Ama Niyazi nerede?

Filme dalmaya başlıyorum. Sonra perdenin hemen yanındaki kapı açılıyor. Ve Piç orada. El fenerini koltuklarda oturanlara tutuyor. Fener tek tek insanların suratında ilerliyor. Piç tüm salonların huzurunu kaçırmaya yemin etmişti.

Fener yavaşça yukarı sıralara doğru geliyordu. Benim için son çok yakındı. Seyirciler homurdanmaya başlamıştı: “Hey hey, ne yapıyorsun?” Sıra bana geleceğini bildiğimde usulca aşağıya doğru süzülmeye karar verdim.

Fener uzak köşedeki koltuğa geldiğinde Niyazi’nin beyaz, kireç gibi suratını gördüm. Fener Niyazi’nin yüzünde patladı ve Niyazi vahşi kedi gibi anında koltuktan zıplayıp merdivenlerden yukarı doğru koşmaya başladı.

Niyazi’nin koştuğunu görünce refleksle peşinden koştum ve kendimi ele verdim.

Tekrar aksiyon.

Kapıdan çıkarak koridorlara vardık ve en sonunda Niyazi soluklanmak için durdu. Koridordaki merdivenlerin köşesinde “şşşt” işareti yaparak pusu kurdu.

Güm güm güm, Piç’in koşma sesleri geliyor. El feneri kendinden önce beliriyor.

Niyazi çelmeyi çakıyor Piç’e. Piç merdivenlerden aşağı yuvarlanıyor.

İş artık iyice ciddileştiğinden gülerek sinemayı terk ediyoruz.

Daha sonraki hafta Niyazi arkadaşlarıyla sinemaya geldiğinde Piç kendisini tanımış, film arasında Piç’i tartaklamışlar. Okula heyecanla “Piç’in intikamını aldım! Piç’in intikamını aldım!” diye koşarak mutlu haberi vermişti.

Aslında bize, 80’lerde Türk televizyonunda çok popüler olan bir komedi türünün canlı versiyonunu yaşatmıştı: kapı farsı.

Bu filmlerin sonlarına doğru bütün karakterler aynı anda koşturmaya başlar, odalar ve kapılar birbirine girer, yanlış anlamalar zincirleme büyür ve final tam bir kaosa dönüşürdü. Pembe Panter, What’s New Pussycat? ve A Shot in the Dark gibi filmlerde özellikle otel odalarında geçen, giderek absürtleşen kapı ve oda kovalamacaları bu türün en güzel örneklerindendi. Odanın içine dalan bir at gibi tamamen absürt unsurlar bile bu kaosun parçası olabilirdi. Giderek hızlanan müzik temposu da bu komedilerin alametifarikasıydı.

Türk halkı bu “kapı farsı” komedilerine sinemada, hatta tiyatroda istisnasız bayılırdı. Ablamla televizyonda bu tip filmleri gözlerimizden yaş gelene kadar güle güle izlerdik.

Piç bize bir Balıkesir öğle sonrasında bu kapı farsı komedisini canlı olarak yaşattığı için teşekkür ederim.

Teşekkürler, Piç.

The Bastard Epic — Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Çukurcuma Times) — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 09:55:18 +0000

From that point on, it became a full-blown chase through the six or seven screens of the cinema: doors opening and closing, staircases, corridors. We went back into the Lucky Luke screen, then into Twister, that ridiculous movie where a tornado seemed to be destroying everything in its path, then perhaps another movie.

We were running in and out of screens, with the teenage employee we would later nickname “the Bastard” chasing after us.

“Stop! Get the hell out of here! Thieves!”

Up the stairs, down the stairs, doors opening and closing, that dreaded flashlight in his hand as he chased us through the cinema.

During the chaos, I lost Niyazi.

I was on my own.

I stumbled into a screen where a science-fiction movie was playing, probably Keanu Reeves’s Chain Reaction. I remember Morgan Freeman being incredibly serious, but I’m not completely sure. The movie was very loud.

It was a good place to hide.

I sat in the very back row.

For two or three minutes, I was finally at peace.

But where was Niyazi?

I was starting to get absorbed in the movie.

Then the door right beside the screen opened.

The Bastard was there.

He started sweeping his flashlight across the audience, checking the faces one by one.

“Hey! Hey! What are you doing?” several people shouted from their seats.

The Bastard seemed determined to disturb every single screen in the cinema.

The flashlight was slowly making its way toward the upper rows. I knew my turn was coming, so I decided to quietly slip downward.

My end was very near.

The flashlight continued moving from face to face. Eventually, it reached the seats in the far corner and landed directly on Niyazi’s face.

Niyazi instantly jumped out of his seat like a wild cat and started running up the stairs.

When I saw Niyazi running, I instinctively ran after him and gave myself away.

The action started all over again.

We went through a door and reached the corridors. Finally, Niyazi stopped at the corner of a staircase to catch his breath. He put his finger to his lips and signaled me to be quiet.

We set up an ambush.

Thump.

We could hear the Bastard running toward us.

The flashlight appeared before he did.

As he came past us, Niyazi stuck out his leg and tripped him.

The Bastard went tumbling down the stairs.

Things had now become a little too serious, so we left the cinema laughing.

The following week, when Niyazi came to the cinema with his friends, the Bastard recognized him.

They roughed him up during the intermission.

The next day, Niyazi came running into school, bursting with excitement:

“I got revenge on the Bastard! I got revenge on the Bastard!”

He was delivering the good news.

In fact, without realizing it, we had stumbled into a live-action version of a type of comedy that had been hugely popular on Turkish television in the 1980s: the door farce.

Toward the end of these movies, all the characters would start running at the same time. Rooms and doors would become hopelessly tangled, misunderstandings would spiral out of control, and the finale would descend into complete chaos.

The Pink Panther, What’s New Pussycat?, and A Shot in the Dark were full of these increasingly absurd chases through hotel rooms, corridors, and doors. Even something as absurd as a horse suddenly barging into a room could become part of the chaos. The increasingly frantic pace of the music was another trademark of the genre.

My sister and I would watch these kinds of movies on television, laughing so hard that tears would stream down our faces.

And then, one afternoon in Balıkesir, we somehow ended up inside one.

The Bastard gave us a real-life door farce, running through the six or seven screens of Şan Cinema.

Thank you, Bastard.

You ruined an afternoon for us and gave us an unforgettable story in return

The Bastard Epic — Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Çukurcuma Times) — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 09:54:15 +0000

Although I had been fascinated by movies since childhood, that fascination had never really gone much further than watching films on TV. I have many childhood memories of going to the cinema, but I never developed a regular habit of it. My first real cinema-going routine began in 1996. From then on, in my boring hometown of Balıkesir, where there was hardly anything to do besides going to the cinema, I developed the habit of seeing at least one movie every week.

There were two main reasons for this. The first was Sinema Dergisi, which I started buying in September 1996. The cover of that first issue, featuring Isabelle Adjani, is still vivid in my memory.

The second was my school friend Niyazi.

Niyazi had come to Balıkesir from a small town to attend high school and was staying in a dormitory. The dorm was incredibly noisy. Everyone was taking karate classes and he was constantly talking about “men flying over bunk beds.” Add the sounds of people practicing karate to that, and spending time there became pretty unbearable for a teenage boy.

Niyazi had found his escape in the cinema. He could clear his head there, finding the darkness and peace he couldn’t find in the dorm. Whether he was escaping the rain or simply feeling sleepy, he always found his way to the cinema.

When I bought my first issue of Sinema Dergisi, Niyazi and I had also started becoming closer friends. For about a year, we went to many movies together, until the summer of 1997, when Niyazi finally got fed up with dorm life and, in his own words, decided to “become king in his small town.”

I have many cinema memories with Niyazi, but the most memorable one was the story we called “The Bastard Epic.”

The story became such a hit that it was immortalized in drawings in Galatasaray ve Diğer Haşeratlar (Galatasaray and Other Vermins), a handmade magazine—or zine—published by three Fenerbahçe supporters: me, my friend Ilgar, who used to say, “I’m never going into a cinema again until smoking is allowed,” and Niyazi. We made seven issues during high school.

One day, Niyazi and I decided to skip school and go to the cinema. There was no internet back then, so to find out what was showing, you either had to get hold of the weekly cinema bulletin or physically go to the cinema. That week, by sheer coincidence, there was no bulletin, so we went directly to Şan Cinema.

It was late 1996.

The only movie on the schedule that looked remotely exciting was probably Red Kit: Daltonlara Karşı (Lucky Luke: The Ballad of the Daltons).

The auditorium was completely empty. It was just the two of us. And, of all the six or seven screens at Şan Cinema, it was showing in the biggest one, the City Hall.

The movie started.

And then—

What the hell?

It was The Ballad of the Daltons, a cartoon we had practically memorized from television!

We had watched this exact cartoon countless times on TV. And now they had simply put the very same cartoon on the big screen, frame for frame.

It was a complete scandal.

We had been totally conned.

A robbery!

But at Şan Cinema, there was always a solution.

As I mentioned in my earlier story, “The Betrayal of the Cousins,” the exits of the different screens lined up with one another. If you walked out of one screen and entered another through one of those doors, nobody noticed, because the ticket checkers were stationed somewhere completely different. So with a single ticket, it was possible to watch movies until late at night.

We quietly slipped out.

Now the enormous auditorium was completely empty, with Lucky Luke playing to rows of vacant seats.

We entered another screen. There were only one or two people watching a romantic comedy, probably Kevin Costner’s Tin Cup.

Ah, I always found Rene Russo so sexy.

But this was hardly the time for that.

After a while, we heard an adolescent voice behind us:

“Hey! You can’t leave the other movie and come in here. Get out!”

Here was a new kid who was more royalist than the king himself.

Everyone was peacefully watching their movie, and this guy had decided to throw a wrench into the works.

Niyazi instinctively started running.

I followed him.

Gömeç’s Very First Horror Nights

noreply@blogger.com (Çukurcuma Times) — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 13:32:44 +0000

My intention was to bring the magic of cinema to Gömeç, a small holiday town in Balıkesir. Every summer, all my cousins would come to Gömeç for their holidays too. Some came from other cities, others from Germany.

I had my first experiences with film screenings at home during the VCD craze. I would bring DivX CDs I had bought in Istanbul and show them here. My intention was to shock this innocent group of cousins, who were around 10 to 12 years old. And the lucky film that night was Evil Dead II.

They hadn’t seen the first Evil Dead, but the second one was scarier. So why watch the first one when there was a scarier one?

I put the film on and locked the door so nobody could escape. By the tenth minute, screams and crying had already filled the room. They started banging on the door. I couldn’t take the pressure any longer and opened it.

That summer, thanks to Fahir Amca, one of the social figures in our neighborhood, we started going to the small villages around Gömeç and organizing film screenings. Seeing the sparkle in the children’s eyes as they watched the films had really excited me. So I decided to start organizing screenings in our own neighborhood as well.

Every evening, we projected a film onto a wall and watched it together from the other side of the street. The children would ride their bicycles around the neighborhood announcing the film. People would sit on the grass to watch, bringing their own cushions and chairs from home.

After showing popular films like Star Wars and E.T. and winning the support of the neighborhood, I naturally started pushing my luck with more challenging films. As a result, the number of viewers gradually started to decline.

So we decided to start showing horror films during the late-night screenings. The first one was Braindead, one of the bloodiest films ever made and one of Peter Jackson’s early films.

My cousin Tufan, whom I had traumatized during the Evil Dead II screening, must have found the idea of traumatizing other people quite convincing. During one of the bloodiest scenes in the film, he somehow got hold of a huge axe, jumped into the middle of the audience and started trying to scare everyone.

The crowd scattered, screaming and completely terrified.

The next day, complaints started pouring in from the whole neighborhood. Complaints along the lines of, “Our children are having nightmares because of these films,” eventually reached my mother.

So the film screenings went back to more mainstream territory, with Finding Nemo and Shaolin Soccer. Shaolin Soccer was such a huge hit that we ended up showing it five more times.

Smoking, Sex Films and Flying Batteries: Memories of Turkish Cinemas

noreply@blogger.com (Çukurcuma Times) — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 12:52:47 +0000

The ban on smoking in Turkish cinemas in 1996 came as a shock to many people. One of my close friends from high school even protested by saying, “I’m not going back to the cinema until smoking is allowed again.” His protest lasted until The English Patient, the 1997 film I mentioned in my previous piece. We went to a daytime screening, and there was literally nobody else there, so thankfully there was no trouble.

The first film where I actually smoked in a cinema after the ban was Character, the 1997 Dutch film that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. I went to see it with a close friend, and we were so drunk that we understood absolutely nothing. At some point, I lit a cigarette. Instead of putting it out, I threw it onto the row in front of me. Unfortunately, the still-burning cigarette landed on the back of the neck of the man sitting in front of us.

He came over and asked, “Did you throw that?”

“No, I didn’t,” I replied.

There was a moment of silence, and then he simply went back to his seat.

The strange thing is that my ability to remember film character names is actually terrible. I’m much better at remembering faces than names. So the fact that, despite going into this movie absolutely shit-faced, I can still remember the names of two of its characters is genuinely shocking to me: Dreverhaven and Katadreuffe. Two incredibly difficult names, too.

It’s one of those completely useless but oddly funny details that somehow gets permanently stuck in the human brain.

After this disgusting little story from my teenage years, my greatest cinema-smoking memory, of course, comes from the Emek Cinema era.

Emek Cinema had been one of the most important cinemas in the city during the 1980s, but by the 1990s it had failed to keep up with the competition and had started showing double bills of sex films. It had also turned its lower floor into a huge arcade called Game City, poisoning the youth of Balıkesir from two different directions at once. And apparently that still wasn’t enough: at night, during derby games, they would show the matches inside the cinema.

Smoking, alcohol — everything was allowed.

So many people smoked inside the cinema that — and I suspect the figure was close to 100 percent — we could barely see the screen through the cigarette smoke. When we went outside during halftime, we were so out of breath that it felt like we had just spent five minutes underwater. Our eyes were bright red, and our clothes absolutely reeked of smoke.

It was an old-fashioned cinema, with the entrance leading into two separate sections. During Fenerbahçe-Galatasaray matches, the Fenerbahçe fans sat on the left and the Galatasaray fans on the right.

I’ll never forget one particular night. My friend Kemal had been collecting all his dead Walkman batteries for months, specifically so he could throw them at the Galatasaray fans during a derby at Emek Cinema.

Once the match started, the lights went down and the cigarette smoke grew even thicker. The whole place began to feel like the infamous 1977 New York blackout — except this one involved football fans and flying batteries.

Kemal, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, would pull batteries out of his plastic bag and fire them toward the Galatasaray side like bullets.

“Ahh! Uhhh! Orospu çocuğu! Kim lan o? Lan şerefsiz!”
(roughly: “Motherfucker! Who the hell was that? You bastard!”)

Every time we heard the shouting from the other side, we would burst into laughter. With a cigarette hanging from his mouth, Kemal looked like some kind of underground left-wing militant.

But we paid dearly for his little operation.

The Galatasaray supporters, having figured out what was happening, started throwing whatever liquid they could get their hands on at us — Coke, water, beer, and, worst of all, hot tea. Things quickly became frightening, and our side started throwing liquids back.

Then, at exactly the right moment, a crucial goal-scoring opportunity — followed immediately by a goal — saved the situation. Everyone suddenly forgot about the flying batteries and flying drinks and turned their attention back to the match.

1981: Most Violent Year

noreply@blogger.com (Çukurcuma Times) — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 18:00:37 +0000

1981 is considered the year with the highest number of murders in New York City. The film A Most Violent Year, which portrays the events of 1981, reflects this reality. The late 1970s and early 1980s turned New York’s turmoil into a laboratory for filmmakers. At the same time, the city became a cultural laboratory amidst this chaos. The explosion of punk rock (e.g., Ramones, Blondie), the emergence of hip hop culture from the Bronx (led by figures like DJ Kool Herc), and the widespread graffiti art on the streets transformed New York into a global cultural capital. Breakdancing also emerged from the streets and gained worldwide recognition during this period. Given the interconnectedness of graffiti, breakdancing, and hip hop culture, it is no surprise that New York was considered the “capital” of these movements.

The city’s physical and visual “ugliness” perfectly complemented the narratives of the films of that era. Graffiti-covered trains, trash-filled streets, and neon-lit, dangerous neighborhoods enhanced the atmosphere of these films. Abel Ferrara emerged as one of the foremost directors capturing New York’s chaotic and dangerous atmosphere in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Ferrara, known for his low-budget, gritty, and stylized films, succeeded in blending the city’s crime-ridden, corrupt, and chaotic nature with cinematic realism. During this period, Ferrara directed three major films:

Driller Killer (1979)

Ms .45 (1981)

Fear City (1984)

Rotten NYPD movies

noreply@blogger.com (Çukurcuma Times) — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 17:58:29 +0000

During the trip to Mexico City, a guy I met told me never to trust the police. From that moment on, all my control mechanisms broke down. Because if we can’t trust the police, who can we trust? This atmosphere of distrust, just like in the Wild West, 70s NYC or Prohibition Era is tailor-made for cinema.

Movies about corruption within the NYPD always catch my attention. Of course, this isn’t really a distinct genre—because an incorruptible NYC cop is practically a myth. It brings to mind the idea that the real news isn’t “dog bites man” but “man bites dog.” With that in mind, we place Serpico at the top of the list, as it tells the story of one man trying to do his job honorably amidst all the corruption and decay within the New York Police Department.

These films feature grim and dark depictions of New York City in the background. Informants, pimps, drug dealers colluding with the police, and prostitutes subjected to every form of abuse by corrupt cops populate this bleak cinematic landscape. Here you have a striking portrait of New York at its grittiest.

Alongside dirty cops, we see systemic corruption spreading to every level. Police precincts are rife with corruption and violence. Bribery and the “blue wall” culture (the oath of silence among police officers to protect one another) are the cornerstone of these narratives. Here is my curated list about the rotten New York Police Department (NYPD):

Serpico (1973)

Prince of the City (1981)

Bad Lieutenant (1992)

Cop Land (1997)

Honorable mention: French Connection (1971)

Subway Movies

noreply@blogger.com (Çukurcuma Times) — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 17:57:14 +0000

In the 1970s and 80s, subways were truly home to the “underground” culture of cities. However, increased regulation, commercialization, and digitalization have caused this culture to shift to other spaces. Today, subways have become more sterile and orderly, losing that unique, chaotic, and creative energy they once had. Surveillance cameras in stations, and even smoke detectors that react to a single cigarette, have made subways more boring and purely functional.

That’s why a subway scene in a film set in the 1970s offers countless images of counterculture: graffiti-covered trains, street musicians performing, and a stunning variety of posters promoting independent art, music, or protests. Nowadays, all the posters and advertisements in subways have been taken over by large corporations. As a result, when we watch a subway scene in a modern-day film, we find very little that connects to the spirit of the times or the essence of counterculture.

Additionally, the fact that subcultures and art movements have shifted from physical spaces to digital platforms like TikTok has become the third biggest reason for this decline, after security regulations and the pressure of capitalism.

With that in mind, here are my three favorite subway films.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

The Warriors (1979)

The Subway (1985) — my all-time favourite metro movie.

Honorable Mentions: Collateral (2004), The American Friend (1977)

English Patient

noreply@blogger.com (Çukurcuma Times) — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 10:34:41 +0000

The ’90s have a very important place in my life, and I probably talk about my memories of the ’90s more than anything else. There is only one answer to this, and that is mathematics. My personal theory is that people born in the first half of a decade — 1981 in my case — have more distinct memories of the first and even the earliest memorable years of their childhood. At the beginning of 1990, I was nine, and by the end of the ’90s I was nineteen, so I was able to fit the ’90s into my childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. But someone born in 1986 was between 4 and 14 during the ’90s, while they could only establish their real memory timeline in the 2000s, covering the ages of 14 to 24. Even then, they would have left their childhood memories behind in the ’90s.

Does any of this actually matter? No, not at all. It just means that if you like grouping and categorizing things, you can adapt to popular culture more quickly. But separating popular culture into decades is sometimes impossible anyway. Being able to distinguish the late ’70s from the early ’80s in cinema or music is almost a specialist skill. The same is true of the late ’80s and early ’90s. So the theory I presented above has no real validity.

I have many cinema memories from the ’90s, but even though nothing particularly major or dramatic happened, I can’t forget the day I went to see The English Patient. It was the beginning of summer, and it was very hot in Balıkesir. An unbearable kind of heat. We were skipping school, climbing over the wall and escaping from our school, which was six kilometers from the city center. It was hot, there was absolutely no shade beside the highway. Sunglasses weren’t fashionable, and neither was drinking water; besides, there was no water around anyway.

We finally reached Şan Cinema in the city center, where The English Patient, with all its Oscars, was playing. The film is a World War II and love story set in North Africa. Since we had spent hours walking under the Balıkesir sun, the air-conditioned cinema felt like an oasis in the desert. At the same time, it strengthened our connection with the film.

The film is very long; it conveys a sense of emptiness beautifully. If the young people of the ’60s had Lawrence of Arabia, we had The English Patient. Long, grand, dramatic. The second golden age of Hollywood.

After the film, we were under its spell for hours.

Silence.

films whose value had gone unrecognized

noreply@blogger.com (Çukurcuma Times) — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 13:49:39 +0000

Back in the 1990s, I used to buy every monthly issue of Sinema magazine and keep them all. In one issue, I came across a list of “films whose value had gone unrecognized.” Back then, the word underrated hadn’t yet reached our little town—or at least it wasn’t being thrown around the way it is today.

Now, whether it’s cinema, football, literature, or food criticism, there are two words you can hardly avoid: overrated and underrated. Everything apparently has to be ranked, and everything has to be either over or under. We can no longer resist scoring restaurants, footballers, wines, or even potential romantic partners.

But rating films is just as absurd as trying to rate Mozart’s Requiem or Newton’s laws of motion.

When I first saw that list of overlooked films, I had heard of almost none of them. Two titles, however, immediately caught my attention. The problem was that I couldn’t even find bootleg DVDs of either film anywhere.

The first was Capricorn One (1977), a conspiracy thriller about NASA’s first manned mission to Mars being canceled because of a technical problem. Rather than lose its funding and reputation, NASA stages the entire Mars landing in a television studio and broadcasts it to the world as if it were real.

The second was The President’s Analyst, one of the rare leading roles for one of my favorite actors, James Coburn. It’s a political black comedy about Dr. Sidney Schaefer, who is hired as the personal psychiatrist to the President of the United States. As he becomes burdened with the President’s deepest secrets, Schaefer descends into paranoia. Before long, his privileged access to classified information makes him the target of both American and foreign intelligence agencies.

For some reason, this week that old Sinema magazine article suddenly came back to me. I finally watched both films.

So, thank you once again to the legendary Sinema magazine, which managed to enrich my film life even thirteen years after it ceased publication.

The Traitor Who Sold Out His Cousins for a Couple of Erotic Scenes

noreply@blogger.com (Çukurcuma Times) — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 13:00:00 +0000

January, 1996.

My cousins Şahan, 14, and Yunus, 8, had come from Istanbul to spend their winter break with us in Balıkesir. They wanted to see only one film:

Mortal Kombat.

Back then, Hollywood was churning out low-budget adaptations of video games. Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter… now it was Mortal Kombat’s turn.

It wasn’t really my thing.

I didn’t own a Commodore or a PC. The only video games I knew came from smoky arcade halls: Final Fight, which everyone called “Haggar,” and Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, known simply as “Mustafa.” That was about the extent of my gaming knowledge.

It was a typical Balıkesir winter.

Freezing cold.

Pouring with rain.

We took our seats in Şan Cinema.

The trailers began.

Then Demi Moore appeared.

The Scarlet Letter.

At the time I had the biggest crush on her. I used to cut her photos out of newspapers and keep them in a folder. The trailer even showed her nipples.

I remember thinking,

“We should have come to this instead.”

But fate had other plans.

Mortal Kombat started.

It was dreadful.

Nothing but noise.

I didn’t recognise a single character, while my cousins were beside themselves with excitement. Every time a new fighter appeared, they jabbed me in the ribs.

“Look! It’s him!”

I had no idea who “him” was.

After about forty-five minutes, I’d had enough.

I quietly slipped out of the auditorium.

One of the best things about Şan Cinema was that its six screens were connected. You could sneak out of one film and into another without anyone noticing.

Find The Scarlet Letter.

After wandering into the wrong theatres once or twice, I finally found it.

Only…

I’d walked in halfway through.

The forbidden romance was already over.

Every erotic scene I’d been hoping to see had already happened.

All that was left was the witch hunt.

Blood.

Threats.

Revenge.

Tears.

Serves me right.

I’d escaped Mortal Kombat only to end up in an even more boring film—and I’d missed the only scenes I actually wanted to see.

Defeated, I went back to Mortal Kombat.

I opened the door.

Something was wrong.

The whole audience had changed.

The seats where my cousins had been sitting were now occupied by complete strangers.

And the movie…

had started from the beginning again.

Shock after shock.

I’d failed to finish either movie.

And somehow, I was watching the first half of Mortal Kombat for the second time.

Then panic hit me.

“Where are Şahan and Yunus?”

“They don’t know the way home.”

“My mum is going to kill me.”

“How do you lose two kids in a cinema?”

My brain completely shut down.

I sprinted out of the auditorium, ran down the stairs and burst through the exit doors.

And there they were.

Standing outside the cinema.

In the freezing cold.

In the pouring rain.

They’d been waiting for me ever since their film ended.

They hadn’t moved an inch.

I wanted the ground to swallow me whole.

It remains one of the shortest—and heaviest—moments of guilt I’ve ever experienced.

In the end, I didn’t get to watch Mortal Kombat.

I didn’t get to see Demi Moore either.

All I earned was a title I’ll probably carry for life:

The traitor who sold out his little cousins for a couple of erotic scenes.

Fat City

noreply@blogger.com (Çukurcuma Times) — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 21:58:26 +0000

I think boxing is the sport best suited to cinema, and there are many reasons why. We can start with a simple question: Why are there so few great football movies?

The first reason is that football is played eleven against eleven. In a game with so many players, the number of possible matchups and interactions is virtually endless. Possession constantly changes hands, and every player is continuously interacting with different opponents and teammates. As a result, it is much harder for the audience to focus their emotional attention on a single character. Naturally, this reduces dramatic intensity. In boxing, by contrast, the number of central figures is reduced to two—and, at the moment of a knockout, effectively to one. That concentration makes the drama far more intense.

One reason basketball is more cinematic than football is that there are only five players on each side. More importantly, basketball offers dramatic moments almost constantly. Dunks, blocks, three-pointers, and buzzer-beaters—shots released before the clock expires that count after time runs out—keep the tension alive throughout the game. Even large deficits can be overturned, making basketball dramatically stronger than football in many respects.

Boxing, however, operates on an entirely different level. Every second is filled with punches thrown and punches avoided. The possibility of a knockout is always present. The ring itself, the trainer’s dramatic role, the bell that starts each round, the blood, and even the possibility of a towel being thrown into the ring are all inherently cinematic elements. Together, they make boxing almost unrivaled as a sport for film.

It is no coincidence, then, that the history of cinema is filled with legendary boxing films. If you placed boxing movies on one side of a scale and every other sports film on the other, boxing would either outweigh them all or, at the very least, keep the scale perfectly balanced.

This week I watched John Huston’s 1972 film Fat City. Although Huston came from a wealthy family, he was capable of telling remarkably authentic working-class stories. Having grown up reading John Steinbeck, Fat City gave me, for the first time, the feeling that I was watching a Steinbeck novel unfold on screen. This story of working-class life in Northern California deeply moved me.

In The Grapes of Wrath, In Dubious Battle, and Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck portrays migrant and seasonal farm workers. Jack London, although primarily known for writing about different segments of the working class, also devoted several novels and short stories to California’s rural laborers and agricultural workers.

Today, roughly one in every three workers worldwide is employed in agriculture. During the first half of the twentieth century, agricultural laborers made up an even larger share of the global workforce. Yet despite being one of the largest working populations in the world, farm workers have never received the attention they deserve in cinema.

A Jangada Pedra

noreply@blogger.com (Çukurcuma Times) — Sat, 13 Jan 2024 11:25:00 +0000

Prefácio:

A seguir, um curto conto inspirado no livro "Jangada de Pedra" de José Saramago. O romance tratava da inexplicável separação da Península Ibérica do continente, sendo arrastada ao longo do Atlântico.

Antes da península de Constantinopla perder a sua forma de cabeça de águia, após os tempos em que os ensopados de mexilhões eram vendidos nos restaurantes de Beyoğlu...

Aquele que primeiro ouviu o primeiro estrondo vindo do plantio de alface em Yedikule foi conhecido como o Ulubatlı Hasan da ilha flutuante. Não era um simples estrondo... "Todos os cães do muro latiram ao mesmo tempo", disse Ulubatlı. Não subestime os cães do muro... Se reunires todos os cães de rua da Europa (incluindo os gregos), eles não serão assim tantos. Um matilha diferente em cada porta... O gangue de Silivrikapı não deixa passar os mendigos, a de Belgradkapı late aos bêbados e agarra os mendigos. O gangue de Sulukulekapı é amiga dos ciganos. Eles são o único gangue no mundo que não ladra ao ver um urso. Tratam as dançarinas como se fossem ursos de rua. Ulubatlı olhou na direção do estrondo. No final do seu jardim, havia uma grande racha que percorria todo o muro. Parecia que um novo Chifre de Ouro havia surgido, conectando-o ao mar de Mármara com o Chifre de Ouro. Um Chifre de Ouro dentro do Chifre de Ouro! Ele agradeceu pelas suas alfaces não terem sido danificadas. Caso contrário, o povo de Istambul não saberia o que fazer sem alfaces.

Enquanto isso, em Beyoğlu, a situação era muito pior. Dentro do muro, ao contrário da racha desenhada com caneta no campo, ela avançava ziguezagueando entre os prédios, às vezes dividindo os prédios ao meio. Aqui, os gatos entraram em pânico, um saltador que escapou de Cihangir para Çukurcuma criou um pequeno tumulto na rua. Felizmente, ninguém caiu na racha. Os ursos dançarinos de Taksim, infelizmente, não puderam participar dessa aventura. De qualquer forma, alguns dos seus irmãos ainda não começaram o expediente em Sulukule e não perderão a diversão.

Suriçi e Galata nadavam como um navio de pedra no Mar de Mármara. A cabeça de águia de Sıraselviler olhando para baixo a partir de um penhasco de 100 metros numa rua de Beyoğlu ficou tonta, seguida por um rolar na racha. O seu corpo foi encontrado do outro lado do Bósforo, em Çengelköy. Este grande evento sobrenatural teve apenas uma baixa confirmada pelos testemunhos da época. A perda espiritual foi grande. A Igreja de Aya Triada foi dividida ao meio, a Praça Taksim, mais de uma praça, tornou-se algo semelhante a um bloco de cimento nas proximidades de Yenikapı, destruindo a silhueta da cidade com a cabeça de águia. Assumiu mesmo o título de local de suicídio mais popular de Istambul, tirando-o das pontes. O número de corpos coletados entre a doca e o lado asiático ultrapassou 100 no Ano Novo.

As histórias das ilhas flutuantes no Mar de Mármara eram bastante comuns até o incidente da "grande fricção" no Estreito de Dardanelos. Apenas algumas histórias de bêbados trotskistas que pulavam no mar, incapazes de se afastar da casa de Trotski em Büyükada. A "grande fricção" foi contada de diferentes maneiras pelos contemporâneos anos depois. Alguns diziam que era um rangido de uma grande porta, enquanto outros mencionavam um som cem mil vezes mais alto do que o gemido de um violino. Os cientistas estavam mais inclinados à teoria do gemido do violino. Devido ao atrito, o Estreito agora é aproximadamente dez quilómetros mais largo.

Acreditando que as ilhas se estavam a mover em direção à Europa, alguns espertos de Çanakkale saltaram para o mar em pânico "estamos a ir para a África". Entre os que saltaram, havia até mesmo um cigano com dois ursos. Esses ursos invadiram os lixos de dentro da muralha. Um deles saqueou as alfaces dos campos de Yedikule. O outro atacou o naco de cordeiro nas mãos do cuidador do leão no parque Gülhane. Nesse momento, o leão fugiu. Um pequeno pânico espalhou-se pela cidade. Esse leão fugitivo causaria grandes problemas aos moradores da cidade mais tarde. Felizmente, a mudança repentina de direção de Constantinopla fez com que as pessoas se esquecessem o incidente. Agora, sem obstáculos, ela poderia alcançar os países francos.

Depois de passar pela Sicília, Galata de repente fez uma manobra rápida para o norte. Ela deixou Istambul sozinha. O pontão de Galata ficou separado ao meio. Pelikan Yaşar, que morava no meio da ponte, seguiu os seus instintos e foi para o lado de Eminönü. Ela não erraria nos seus instintos. Ela correu de reino em reino na cidade onde mil peixes valiam algum dinheiro até o dia em que morresse

Com o tempo, as intenções de Galata ficaram claras. Ela queria se encontrar, se misturar com a sua irmã gémea, Génova, em Itália. O encontro foi grandioso. Além de suas famosas colinas, a cidade tinha agora colinas de bordéis; prostitutas sobre prostitutas de rua; bordéis sobre bordéis; cais sobre cais adicionado. Os Genoveses, que começavam o dia com focaccia, agora adicionavam simit ao menu. Café por chá, corochianato por raki. Mas a maior excitação foi quando a torre de Galata, a mais bela estrutura histórica de Génova, foi integrada à silhueta da cidade. Muitos Genoveses que testemunharam este momento não conseguiram conter as lágrimas. Até ao final dos anos 80, a cidade não teve outro dia tão emocionante. Embora houvesse alguns conflitos entre os bordéis no início, a visita do bordel Sericaia com os seus bolos e bolos do bordel central de Génova, dissolveu as diferenças. Até mesmo uma festa com dançarinas foi organizada no banho turco de Kılıçalipaşa. Graças à união, a cidade, que se tornou a líder em termos de número de banhos turcos, mesquitas, prostitutas, gatos de rua e cães por quilómetro quadrado, passou a desprezar a Itália. E com razão. A sua cultura culinária se tornou-se tão rica que as donas de casa que cozinhavam menos de quatro pratos no almoço eram criticadas. "Hoje temos apenas uma sobremesa?" Os Genoveses, que não sabiam o que era baklava até ontem, agora não podiam viver sem baklava e kazandibi. "Eu considero perdido o dia que não como şöbiyet". "Quero uma senhora que saiba fazer bem şekerpare, daquele tipo que se dissolve na boca."

Suriçi, continuava a sua jornada a toda a velocidade, conseguiu atravessar o Estreito de Gibraltar com muito menos atrito do que em Gallipoli. Não houve oficialmente um caso de aperto de perna aqui??. No estreito? perto de Cádiz, alguns espanhóis loucos saltaram para dentro da muralha, mas não houve muito ganho em termos de diversidade cultural. Apenas um aumento no número de bêbados.

Istambul agora estava no Atlântico. Manhãs de neblina, céu claro à tarde, brisa fresca, cheiro de iodo no ar. Istambul, que perdeu o seu Bósforo, ganhou outro Bósforo. Os que não comiam anchovas ficaram surpresos ao ver as enormes sardinhas. Pescadores que durante anos não sabiam nada sobre atum, choravam agora de alegria. Pelikan Yaşar? Ela comia tanto peixe que agora comia apenas as partes mais gordurosas, dando o resto como gorjeta aos gatos de rua. Para onde quer que ela fosse, era seguida por um bando de gatos de rua . Os ursos abandonados, por outro lado, rejeitaram o excesso de peixe e estabeleceram residência na costa de Balat, intimidando os pescadores.

Lisboa começou a aparecer lentamente através das brumas. Saramago disse "um grande silêncio murmurante apenas" para Lisboa. Orhan Pamuk, claramente influenciado por ele em “O Livro Negro”, afirmou que a emoção comum entre Lisboa e Istambul era a melancolia, sem se preocupar com as colinas, as ruas íngremes e os elétricos. Garcia Marquez, um dos autores que mais impressionou Saramago, descreveu a bela cidade como a "maior aldeia do mundo", sem saber que essa descrição é usada com mais frequência para Istambul.

Eis um momento histórico... Duas cidades com sete colinas estão-se a unir. Pronto, agora temos catorze colinas. Os declives de Lisboa não eram suficientes, e agora temos a subida da Mahmutpasa também. Os lisboetas estão a celebrar, a mais bonita igreja da Europa é agora deles. Daqui para frente, a sua única preocupação é se devem comer pastel de nata ou börek ao pequeno-almoço. Meu caro, hoje à noite, depois do bar, devemos comer midye dolma ou bifana? Devemos beber rakı em Kumkapı ou caipirinha no Bairro Alto? Deveríamos entristecer-nos a ouvir fado ou curtir uma boa sessão de música clássica turca, a fasılla? Onde você compras as tuas especiarias? No mercado ou no Bazar do Egito? Hoje devemos contemplar o Atlântico do Adamastor ou de Sarayburnu? Ahah, meu caro, todos estão a elogiar Berlim ultimamente, parece que não viram as catorze colinas de Lisboa... Este ano, a Páscoa e o Ramadão coincidem no mesmo dia. Descobri um restaurante novo que faz içli köfte, mas com bacalhau por dentro. Vinho verde com lakerda é uma boa combinação ou seria melhor com midye dolma? Encontrei um excelente fabricante de lahmacun, e as sericaias são igualmente boas. Eles tocam fado com ud e kanun. Vamos afundar no fundo do copo de rakı esta noite. Quando o expediente acaba, esse tipo vai para Barrio Alto. Vamos lá, "pisi pisi"... Ei, vendedor de "bozaa"... Ei, vendedor de "simit".... Não entendi, qual desses é o gato de Istambul e qual é o gato de Lisboa? Os gatos de Lisboa não entendem a linguagem dos gatos de Istambul... Este ano, os fadistas que se apresentaram nos concertos de Gülhane após Müslüm Baba disseram que nunca viram uma plateia tão animada em toda a sua vida... A navalha não tem nada a ver connosco. Um leão atacou o fadista que cantava em Gülhane Park... Ursos tomaram posse das bacalhaus dos pescadores no mercado. No Ramiro, o dono do bar, será que têm mexilhões pilaki? O presidente da associação de confeiteiros de Lisboa lançou fogo contra aqueles que fazem menemen. Venda de menemen de manhã deve ser proibida! O sindicato dos baklavas de Istambul pede um cessar-fogo. Os ratos de Lisboa estão a passar os dias mais difíceis da sua história! Ah, esses curdos são piores do que tudo, jogam os seus filhos na rua. Eles escrevem, escrevem! Os torcedores do Galatasaray de Génova enviaram uma carta de advertência à UEFA. Não confiem nos imitadores de Lisboa. O Cimbom, que deixou o seu inimigo favorito do outro lado do Bósforo, está a visitar as águias do Benfica no estádio da Luz! Não pode haver duas equipas de águias numa mesma cidade! Não pode haver duas juntas militares! Perdemos o rumo, irmão, sobre qual paxá ouvir... O novo presidente da câmara da cidade das quatorze colinas anunciou que fará uma cópia exata do Sami Yen*. Bem, se é assim, do outro lado do Bósforo, vamos construir o estádio do Fener. Já que temos a ponte, está feito, agora temos o Bósforo sem a Torre de Leandro, que diabo! Enquanto Unkapanı se enche de cantores de voz rouca vindos do Alentejo para se tornarem famosos, lá em cima, nos andares superiores, Amália Rodrigues e Zeki Müren estão a gravar um dueto... O álbum estará pronto para o próximo verão...

Conflito entre os castanheiros de Lisboa e os de Istambul... Irmãos, irmãos, acalmem-se, diz o vendedor de xarope de raiz de alcaçuz. Não provoquemos os fabricantes de ginjinha? Estamos todos no mesmo barco... Sahlep... Peixe... Ah, uma mulher vendedora ambulante... Ei, esses tipos são piores que os curdos, cheiram a peixe podre. Allahuekber... Allahuekber! Oito séculos depois, os muçulmanos estão fazendo a ablução novamente, a olhar para o rio Tejo. A "Alfama, como o Islão te assenta bem..."... E os gatos ficam ainda melhores. Agora, nas escadas de São Crispim**, não há apenas umcão. Dezenas deles estão a proteger o bairro. Nenhum moçambicano pode passar por aqui. Raimundo Silva está surpreso... Os cães de Istambul também são muito gordinhos! Ó deuses dos cães, onde estavam antes?

Escadas de São Crispim

Escadas de São Crispim... "Vamos fazer o 'Alabros***' de novo? Vamos pegar os pelos das orelhas também? Quer chá, irmão, ou bagaço? O que achou do jogo Belenenses - Karagümrük?" Pá! Uma bofetada na nuca do aprendiz. "Não coloque mais esse trapo A Bola na minha loja! Eles são inimigos do Besiktas. Na verdade, desde que chegaram a Lisboa, as coisas têm corrido muito bem para eles. Aqui, temos cinco vezes mais bêbados do que em Istambul. Além disso, todos eles já estão caídos no chão antes mesmo do meio-dia. À noite, carregam os nossos turcos até casa. Oh, que maravilha. Não temos olhos para os ganhos deles, claro. Mas esta é a época dos carregadores de peso".

* estadio de Galatarasay

**Saramago menciona o cão na escadaria de São Crispim no seu livro “História do Cerco de Lisboa”

***estilo de corte de cabelo

Istanbul Hamam Guide: Mihrimah Sultan

noreply@blogger.com (Okan) — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 09:53:00 +0000

When we were kids, the matches we played on sloping and rough terrains had their own slang. However, this slang varied from city to city, neighborhood to neighborhood. For instance, while one neighborhood might refer to a nutmeg as "apış," the neighboring area playing for free on the concrete pitches of the city center might call it "namus" (honorable). Don't turn up your nose at the term "concrete pitch." The flat surface of these pitches was considered more acceptable than the uneven terrains reminiscent of Ali Sami Yen's "potato field" in the 90s.

Some pitches were so sloped that you could win a match 10-0 in the first half and lose 20-10 in the second half (the half ends at twenty, or if the opponent is weak, the game ends with a ten-point lead). If the match dragged on too long, the "winner takes all" approach was adopted. Note that the "golden goal" had not yet been invented in professional football at that time. Being both a goalkeeper and a player was frowned upon, and due to the "three corners, one penalty" rule, Turkish footballers with weak aerial control skills were raised. Another ritual in neighborhood football occurred during player selection. Various methods, differing from one neighborhood to another, were used in player selection. Some preferred tick-tack-toe, emphasizing agility, while others chose hop-skip, focusing on jumping ability (I probably don't need to explain the content of hop-skip and tick-tack-toe).

In modern football, the equivalent of a shot hitting the goalpost or just passing it on a dirt field was hitting a stone on top. Since we didn't have football fields with goalposts like German youngsters, the stones we lined up to serve as goalposts could sometimes be so thick that there would be at least 15-20 arguments about whether a shot hit the "stone" or the "goal." In these stone or not arguments, proud players would eventually give up claiming their rights, even if the position was an obvious goal, saying, "Okay, let it be hamam money" (meaning, "okay, let it be bath entrance fee"). What does this "hamam money" mean? Before reading Orhan Yılmazkaya's book "Turkish Bath," I had two theses on this subject.

In the spirit of neighborhood slang, it had a sexual connotation. Sending a message to the opposing side like, "We will beat you so badly that you will have to take a ritual bath after the match. This will be the entrance fee to the bath" or making a reference to the modest tip left for the attendant while leaving the bath.

Cleanliness, sweating, relieving back pain, and health benefits were among the dozens of positive features of the hamam, yet it was surprising that Turkish had so many negative associations for this term.

In our Istanbul Bath Guide, we talked about the Balat Baths (you can read it here). This time, we will talk about the Mihrimah Sultan Bath in Edirnekapı, going uphill from Balat. This structure, built by Mimar Sinan, was constructed in 1562 as a double bath.

We enter the bath accompanied by the cold looks of attendants and tellaks. Despite strictly adhering to the rules mentioned in the previous bath etiquette article (you can read it here), the impolite attitudes we face are bothering us. One of the staff throws blue plastic slippers in front of us, saying, "Take off your shoes!" After reluctantly putting on the slippers, we are handed shorts instead of the traditional peshtemal. Just as we are about to say, "We have figured out the tradition of baths. Our back will never touch the ground again," a brand new bath reveals itself with various quirks.

We climb the stairs. The attendant says, "There is a two-person room over there. Undress in there." While thinking, "Where did a two-person room come from?" my friend takes the initiative, grabs the saz (stringed musical instrument), and objects. After putting on our shorts and moving to the warm section, we find the bath's temperature to be fantastic. Unlike touristy baths, it's not freezing. The central heated stone (göbek taşı) is like hell. The inside is clean and well-maintained. The tellaks do their job with care. While dozing off on the stone in peace, a sudden noise erupts. The tellak's voice echoes in the dome, "Those going into the pool, come in! The pool is closing!"

You are as happy as children. Why shorts instead of peshtemal becomes clear now. The pool section is entered through the door on the side. The water in the pool is quite lukewarm. Water sprays like a jacuzzi from the sides. Inside, half of fifteen teenagers are engaged in a wrestling match, while the other half is competing in diving styles. Noise, splashing water, a child who lost in the wrestling match and fell on my neck, and the strong smell of chlorine make us observe for ten minutes and then leave. Of course, we don't neglect to make a water joke to ensure the ritual is complete. But apparently, we've aged like the elders doing stretching exercises. Just as we are about to start sweating, we leave the sweating task to the sauna. However, fifteen teenagers enter the tiny sauna with us, each holding basins filled with water.

Just as we are about to start sweating, they begin throwing water at each other with the basins. This is followed by a wrestling match. Wrestling in the sauna, a real endurance test. Turkish Triathlon. Although patience is infinite for the youth, the noise from water pranks and wrestling matches, and the strong smell of kerosene finally wear down the patience of the attendant. He storms the sauna (is storming the sauna even a phrase? How ugly). Collecting their basins, he scolds, "Get the hell out, go to the pool. You've made it all wet here." After all the commotion, we spend five more minutes washing and return to the cold section. We drink our sodas. Fotomaç is in front of us.

The headline "Lucescu on the way to Fenerbahçe" brings joy. "Financial crisis in Galatasaray." Laughter. "Mustafa Pektemek injured again." Chuckles. When the attendant dries us with a towel, we burst into laughter.

It's time for the bill. Bathing is 25, soda is 2. Total is 27 TL*. The attendant at the door says, "Hey, tips!" Oh no, another tradition! Leaving a modest tip is demanded not by looks but by words for the first time. Nasrettin Hodja's "hamam money" joke comes to mind.

Hoca hasn't been to the bath for a long time. Intending to have a proper bath, he heads to the bath. Who recognizes Nasreddin Hodja from the bath attendants? Are they enjoying daylight, or are they leaving the house? Seeing a disheveled man, they haven't paid much attention. Despite having the copper of the basin they gave him, the pestemal they held was old. After finishing his business and leaving, Hodja leaves a coin for the attendant. The bathhouse attendants see him off like a boss, but without a proper welcome, what's the use of a proper farewell? The next week, Hodja goes to the bath again. This time they treat Hodja like a king. They provide flawless service and show impeccable respect. Hodja is cleaned and groomed, and when leaving, he leaves a coin for the attendant again. He doesn't forget to say:

"Don't get me wrong, kids. I already paid for today last week; this coin is for last week's fee!"**

Reluctantly, we leave a modest tip. Hoping to receive good treatment next time, we leave the immaculate bath behind. We visit the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque and then Sulukule's ugly buildings. We head to Kebapçı Emin Usta's place. Emin Usta is from Birecik. There are many celebrity pictures on the wall of the venue. When he points to Ibrahim Tatlıses, my friend says, "Even the soup restaurant at Esenler Bus Terminal has a picture of İbo," stifling my joy.

Before the kebab, we get a mashed appetizer. Very delicious. The ayran is homemade and served in a jug. It goes so well after the bath. The kebabs arrive. The Urfa kebab is quite juicy. The tail fat has added flavor. The kebab is spicy, but it doesn't upset the stomach. The accompanying oily pita is exquisite. It's challenging to find a better one in Istanbul. The portion costs 17 TL. I pick at my friend's lamb shish. It's so tender. Full points. After the bath, what a delightful feast this is. On the opposite side of the road, there is a Karagümrükspor match. If they hadn't received a spectator ban this week, we could have turned it into a pleasure trilogy. Anyway, another time. Immediately next to the kebab shop, we buy yogurt from Eriş Dairy products, and my friend buys buffalo cream from Ülke. The destination is back to Balat.

* Massage is 20 TL.

Running Themed Books

noreply@blogger.com (Okan) — Thu, 11 Jan 2024 22:31:00 +0000

Probably around the age of 15 or 16, I am like dynamite. I can ruin someone's day with my heavy pranks at any moment. Or I think, "Ah, if someone played a prank on me so I could get my revenge fifty times." Holding a simit and a Hisar ayran in my hands, I am lurking in the schoolyard. My classmate is smiling at me from a distance. I'm not responding, thinking, "This guy never smiles for no reason." I turn my head to the kids playing basketball. I don't like these basketball snobs. They get all excited by dunking into shorter hoops with a soccer ball. On the other side, the newcomers are playing soccer with a basketball. Soccer with a soccer ball, basketball with a basketball. What a terrible school! A few seconds later, an object hits my face with a loud smack. The pain of a ball hitting your face in cold weather is three times worse. Most of the ayran in my hand spills onto my jacket. I lift my head. My friend starts running away. He is so sure that I'll take revenge. I chug the remaining ayran at the bottom of the bottle. With my mouth full of ayran, I start running. In a short time, I reduce the distance between us. However, my friend, trying not to lose the ball with clumsy right-back moves, tries to mislead me by zigzagging left and right. I am struggling to breathe as I am running. But just like I run fast, I am also durable. Eventually, I think he'll give up. We reach the area with gazebos in front of the school. Everyone is watching us as if watching a chase between a gazelle and a cheetah on TV. Since my mouth is full of ayran, I can only breathe through my nose. It's getting harder to breathe as I get tired. But I am as determined as ever. He will give up eventually, I say to myself. Passing through the crowd of friends, some say, "Come on, catch him, Okan," while others try to trip me. I manage to dodge the tackles by jumping. Now, I am struggling to breathe so much that my nose makes piston-like sounds from working overtime. A moment ago, when they were large holes, now they stick together. I want to open my mouth. Take a deep breath. But almost there. The thick nape of my opponent is within touching distance. I reach out my hand. I grab his jacket and pour the ayran in my mouth all over his clothes. "Revenge," I say to myself. The most beautiful pleasures in the world.

When I was 16, although I ran like a storm, three years ago, I had no idea how to run. In fact, I would describe myself as a slow runner. Tonguç, the sports ambassador of our neighborhood, and his friends organized an Olympics when we were in elementary school. They held a mini marathon around the neighborhood for the junior category, and I won first place.* However, since there were only three participants in the race, even at that age, I did not consider it a success. I had failed miserably in other sports of the Olympics, such as shot put with giant stones and long jump on the sand hills in front of the construction site.

*(In the senior marathon, a chain reaction accident occurred when the leading runner stumbled and fell onto the watermelons on the side of the road. The incident was exaggerated with my contribution and talked about for years.)

One night, while eating watermelon on the balcony, I saw Tonguç practicing speed downstairs. He started running slowly for a short distance and then accelerated towards the end. He continued like this for about an hour. The next day, when he started training, I went down to him. I imitated his movements. I watched the 100m finals of the 91 and 93 World Championships, which he recorded, repeatedly. I tried to run by lifting my knees like Linford Christie, raised my hands at the angle he held, and then started running fast all of a sudden. I extended my arm as I became faster, and thanks to adolescence, when my arm and leg suddenly grew, my speed increased exponentially within a year. I was not witnessing this athletic "eureka" moment for the first time.

I am going to elementary school. I have a classmate named Önder. While we are playing with the ball in physical education, he is hanging out with the girls. After a while, a TV series called "Flash" premieres. Flash's biggest feature is being extremely fast. So fast that he goes from one end of the city to the other in seconds. Önder is so impressed by this series that he is filled with the desire to run. He wants to run very fast. He runs. Suddenly, he becomes eager, just like Forrest Gump. He runs home. He runs with a bag from the grocery store. He goes running while playing tag. Run, Önder, Run! He starts playing soccer. He even succeeds and rises to Balıkesirspor.

But luckily, if there were a list of those who discovered the runner inside them, Emil Zatopek, the great Czechoslovak athlete and winner of the 48 and 52 Olympics in the five and ten thousand meters, would be at the top. Jean Echenoz, in his book "Running," tells the melancholic life story of the Czech locomotive, who became an Olympic champion by chance from working in a shoe factory, falling out of favor with the Communist Party, and being forced to work in uranium mines, with a sad but equally enchanting language. For example, the author describes Emil's reluctantly participated in his first race ordered by his superior like this:

So, Emil's first race he participated in becomes a nine-kilometer run organized by the Wehrmacht (the name given to the German army during the Hitler era) in Brno. In this race, a team of athletic, lively, arrogant, perfectly equipped, all of them in the style of übermensch, meets a ragged group of Czechs hungry, dilapidated, bewildered looking country boys, or dirty-bearded amateur football hooligans. Emil doesn't participate in this race willingly, but he's a serious kid, he dedicates himself to the race, does his best. Unaware and by angering the Aryans excessively, he finishes second, and a local club coach becomes interested in him. "You run strangely, but you're not running badly," he tells him. "You do run strangely, insistently emphasizing with an expression of disbelief, but I mean, you're not running badly. Emil hears only the second sentence with absent-mindedness. When his friends determine that, although he runs strangely, he is not running badly, they want him to come again and run with them, but he refuses. He loves running, just like us sometimes, but that's it.

Stone Boat 3

noreply@blogger.com (Okan) — Thu, 11 Jan 2024 22:20:00 +0000

It had been years since Istanbul had detached itself from the mainland. Galata had first dallied with Genoa and was later forcibly wedded to Lisbon. Despite the passing of years, it still reminisced about its love affair with Genoa.

Mesut had been a Galata native for ten generations. Today, he was participating in the school's best writing competition. He was not stressed at all, as he could write much better than his closest competitor. Before the competition, Campo Ourique or Cihangir neighborhood's milk children, accompanied by their mothers, further boosted his morale when he saw them.. He had forgotten his pencil sharpener at home, but it wasn't really necessary. With his thick-tipped pen, he was bound to come first. Confident in himself, he had seen the writings of girls from affluent neighborhoods before. They were all boring, written in a flawless symmetrical order, as if bambi had been handed a pen. A non-singing bambi(ceylan in turkish). Any sensible jury would approve of his victory.

While waiting at the school by the Tejo River before the competition, a cat approached him. It was evident from its beauty that it was of Istanbul origin. Unfortunately, Lisbon cats were quite ugly and timid. Leftists didn't like this expression. "Long live the brotherhood of cats." Naturally, he said, "Come here, kitty." All cats spoke Turkish. It was a strange system, much like everyone understanding English in the Star Wars universe. However, Turkish-speaking cats had found their place in the list of twenty-seventh on the irrefutable evidence list of the existence of God, just after the segmenting of the orange and before the fact that no snowflake resembled another. I won't provide more details since everyone knows the winner of the ranking.

Playing with the cat took so long that he realized too late that all the contestants had entered the classrooms. When he rushed inside, he remembered his eraser and pencil sharpener, forgotten at home. He couldn't ask anyone for an eraser. This was Lisbon. Shouting things like, "Does anyone have 0.7 lead?" meant only showing weakness. He had to stand tall. After all, half an hour later, he would be the best Muslim, and even the best human, writer in Lisbon. The seats were already taken. Most of the front rows were occupied by rich girls, so he stayed near the back. He spotted a Mozambican kid from the loser Alfama Vocational School at the back, with whom he could practice the art of calligraphy.

The competition began. The Mozambican was a full-blown copier. He tried to copy what he wrote exactly. But imitating Mesut's right-leaning writing style was as difficult as pulling a trick. The Mozambican had lost all sense of shame. Things were getting worse. Since it wasn't appropriate to cover the exam paper with his hand, he decided that doodling from the back row was the most logical option. He casually tossed the cover from the second row in front. Out of the corner of his eye, he checked the girl's paper. She was writing so perfectly that he suddenly felt nauseous. He swallowed his vomit and turned her straight, well-proportioned letters into rough copies with uneven teksir(old fashioned low quality turkish paper). Rich brats couldn't stand teksir imperfections. They would be as bewildered as snobs playing soccer in a potato field. But he couldn't concentrate. The girl's writing was so perfect and, at the same time, so irritating!

Troubled by his gaze, the Portuguese teacher, "in debt to the devil's fart," called him "four eyes" suspecting him of cheating. Although making fun of people's appearance was considered shameful in Western Europe, assimilation had taken place in this regard, just like in Turkish-speaking cats. "Look straight ahead. I won't warn you again. Otherwise, I'll turn your mouth and nose into a Saturday market." Beating was another form of Turkish assimilation in school. Omer Seyfettin's story was part of Lisbon's National Education curriculum. His story "Ant" had been banned last year due to the psychological disturbance it caused to Portuguese milk children.

The exam was over. The gang of unpleasant girls, of course, handed in their papers last. The only sentence to describe Mesut's legendary writing style, leaning to the right and saluting the art of calligraphy, was: "Flawed but showy." The results would be posted in Praça de Figueira square next week. Going from Galata to there was a real hassle. But it would be worth it because the prize for the first place was significant. He would have the right to eat unlimited (actually not unlimited, with a maximum of 4 per day) nata pastries at Pasteis de Belem for a year. Now, he wouldn't be overshadowed by his friend, who had the right to unlimited entry to Beyoglu Dilbazlar Cinema.

To learn the competition results early, he had to cross the walls of the Mouraria Trade High School. Mouraria, like Galata, was a steep neighborhood, so the inside of the wall was two meters, and the outside was five meters. Only after jumping did Mesut realize this. Arriving, he made a sharp jump to the middle of the street, retiring his knees two years early, smashing the stall of the Mardinian selling stuffed mussels, and not stopping his speed.

Here he was in the square. "Alfama Alfama Alfama"... The minibus driver was screaming. Men selling simits above their heads, women selling fish above their heads. It was a chaotic place. While approaching the place where the results were posted with difficulty, he once again drifted into fantasies. "The best Muslim writer in Lisbon," "Mesut, the young talent bringing a new breath to calligraphy," "the kid whispering to teksir." But what's this! The top three places were occupied by flawless girl writings from affluent neighborhoods. Each one was as boring as the other. They hadn't dared to lean even slightly to the right. Leaning to the left? He wouldn't dare to do that himself. They were all as if they had come out of a typewriter. In fact, it was worse. The tips of their pens were so sharp that they had punctured the teksir in some places. He saw his name next to the honorable mention award. What on earth was an honorable mention? Is it like the winner of the winners? Something like the universe beauty, perhaps? An honorable mention wouldn't be appropriate for Mesut, the king of teksirs He entered the pastry shop next door. He ordered two nata pastries. After all, he wouldn't have to pay for nata for a year.

Okan Benli

Stone Boat 2

noreply@blogger.com (Okan) — Thu, 11 Jan 2024 21:57:00 +0000

Pelikan Yaşar found himself in good spirits. Neither the mullet nor the sardine shortage bothered him. However, when he looked across the strait, the absence of the Galata Tower saddened Yaşar. In times of boredom, he used to take a stroll and return, savoring the leftover chicken pilaf from the Karaköy dessert shops. He missed the roaming simit sellers on the bridge. Life couldn't revolve solely around fish. One gets accustomed to the good things quickly. Life is beautiful for you, Yaşar. He detested this phrase. How could they know what he had been through? He couldn't say it. His life had been abundant. He was the luckiest pelican in the world. The people of Istanbul, lovers of animals and foreigners alike, held him in high regard. Occasionally, he would charm them, make them laugh. He constantly fooled the naive people of Istanbul. Swallowing fish with a show, concluding it with a flap of his wings. The poor clerk would spend half his monthly salary to witness these absurd antics. He never understood the bird-loving sentiment. He had heard they organized a market for birds in Edirnekapı just for the birds. He couldn't go that far. He feared someone vigilant might come and dethrone him if he moved. The area in front of the New Mosque was a haven for bird feed. He wouldn't bother with wheat or corn; he called it bird junk food. His arch-enemies were the alert seagulls. A few crows were there too, but they were part of the deal, extracting bread from rocks, diving into the Atlantic for sardines. He had a rivalry with crows. Sometimes, he would snatch a few stale bagels from the simit sellers, but the cunning crows were ever watchful, occasionally stealing a bagel from his beak. Lately, he struggled to lift his tail. He had become quite fat. The crows were agile, not as much as him, but smart. He despised cats. If given the authority, he would exterminate them all. A wild cat in the middle of Europe, what era are we in? He had non-aggression treaties with dogs; after all, a dog wouldn't bite a dog. These days, there was a bear inflation. It annoyed him, of course. He couldn't tolerate a smarter creature than himself. Moreover, fish lovers irritated his nerves. "Go eat fish, watermelon! You eat every crap anyway. Look, there's a pear seller over there. Last night, around three, he vaguely saw a lion devouring the intestines of a skinny tourist, growling and feasting. He couldn't convince anyone of his story, even though it was true. Yaşar was losing his mind. How old was he? Probably seventy or eighty. Look at this. Am I a tortoise? There was a crow around here claiming to have seen Mustafa Kemal. He used to chase me a lot when I was a child, he said. His mother's name was Zübeyde. Couldn't figure it out. Crows can't be trusted. Salazar is an ugly guy. Look at our Mustafa Kemal. No, I didn't like this land of Portugal. People are weird. I haven't seen a beautiful girl since I arrived. Ah, damn, I'm getting sentimental. My Fenerbahçe is nowhere to be found. Lefter was his favorite player. Pass it to Lefter! He was a quality guy, throwing lüfer every time he passed by. Damn, what happened to lüfer! It hasn't entered our mouths for months. What's that! Is that the Galata Tower in the distance? Hanging out with these drunk fishermen a lot these days. If only I could rub my eyes. Bear, brother, bear, brother. Is that Galata shimmering in the distance? Am I the only one talking here? Should I fly over and make a commotion?"

The departure of Galata from Genoa was as melancholic as its arrival in Lisbon was jubilant. The spirits of Lisbonites soared so high that they swiftly contemplated parting ways with Portugal. In the second week of this departure, tanks rolled through the city. Rap, rap, rap... Except for a couple of Kurds throwing Molotov cocktails at the tanks, there was no resistance whatsoever. What's happening to you, for heaven's sake! Let's not engage in separatism here. From Algarve to Braga, Portugal is a whole. One language, one religion, one flag... Well, not entirely. The consequences will touch us. The capital is moving back to Coimbra. A demotion... Writing, writing! The trampled honor of the fourteen-peaked city! Lisbon's Galatasaray fans sent a warning to UEFA. Do not trust the imitations of Genoese. The people of Lisbon gained Istiklal Avenue. Perfume used to waft from this avenue; now it smells Mozambican, for God's sake! The shopkeepers on Rua Da Prata threw their cash registers in front of the parliament. We're hungry! Shopkeepers looted Istiklal Avenue. Turks burned down Salazar's house. They really burned it, I swear. The most beautiful scenes in the world. Shopkeepers attacking shopkeepers. Another September 6-7. Tanks are patrolling Istiklal Avenue... Rap, rap, rap...

Writing, writing... In the evening edition of Tercüman... In the streets of Alfama, the intestines of two German tourists were found disemboweled. Since being rescued by a nameless lion from the bear, he had been consistently on a natural diet. He usually went out to hunt at night. He loved the narrow streets. Setting up an ambush was easy. That's why he preferred Alfama mostly. Hunting tourists was quite easy. Besides, their meat was much tastier. A few times, he hunted around Çarşamba and Draman, but he didn't like the taste of what he ate. It was okay; at least he had taken revenge on the people of Istanbul. Old German tourists were his favorites. They were plump, and their bones broke easily. After thirty difficult years in Gülhane, he had almost no teeth left in his mouth. He was tired of lamb meat. But he couldn't stand Arabesque music the most. The never-ending Gülhane concerts still invaded his dreams. He would wake up at night, drenched in sweat, with a chorus of a thousand violins. He had waited so long for Sabuha... He should stay away from the inner city as much as possible. Once, he accidentally passed by Unkapanı. It felt like he was drowning. Hakkı Bulut, Ferdi Tayfur... Especially that Burhan Çaçan, wasn't he something? He liked Müslüm Baba. He was a friend to the poor. He had thrown himself off a cliff a few times. God bless him. It was early in the morning. There he was. A wandering German tourist. Staring at the sky, a dumb Nazi. As if there were no Nazis in Germany... It was the perfect time... Roaaarrr!!! Help... Shut up, Kraut! Phoosh...

The second round of the Fair Cities Cup... Galatasaray against Lisbon, paired with Fenerbahçe. Galatasaray fans are sobbing loudly. Their favorite enemies have come to Sami Yen. The president kept his word, built the stadium. The European Conqueror, roaring against Sporting last week. But today, they're playing like ghosts on the field. The legs of the entire team are trembling. Not like a bedpost, but more like a vertical one. Fener loves Sami Yen... Writing, writing... A Bola writes in the evening edition... Tragedy at Sami Yen. Fotospor headline: Sex in Sami Yen...

Pelikan Yaşar is still unhappy. He reached his tower. The bridge is exactly where it should be. If you say simitci, there are plenty. He eats three servings of chicken pilaf every night. This crappy sardine can't hold a candle to lüfer. Shamelessly, they even organize a festival for it. These Lisbonites are quite suburban. Oh, if only I were in Istanbul right now! Throwing corn at the New Mosque is for the birds! The mosque behind you, you bastard. Dog's son. Hush... Pelikan Yaşar has been around for too long. Telli Turna Bektaş, is that so? What a humble boy. A boy from Kadırga... Moreover, he has such a beautiful color. Like a young mouth. Look at those legs. Ballet-like, mashaallah... Look at Yaşar, on the other hand. The Adile Naşit of birds. Look at the ass, look at the ass. Come on, eat a bit less. People are hungry, hungry. Ugh, this Yaşar stinks of rotten fish... Screw this bird from the bridge... It's blocking the traffic. Drive over it. Yallah... Someone should plug it into Gülhane Zoo...

Here comes Ferdi Tayfur singing, "I have no peace left!!!"*

*Huzurum kalmadı!

Stone Boat

noreply@blogger.com (Okan) — Thu, 11 Jan 2024 21:50:00 +0000

Preface:

In the realms of magical realism, where the ordinary meets the extraordinary, a tale unfolds, inspired by Saramago's "Stone Boat." This narrative weaves through the enigmatic journey of the Iberian Peninsula, breaking free from the mainland, traversing the vast expanse of the Atlantic.

In the epochs preceding the alteration of the eagle-headed silhouette of the Constantinople Peninsula, during the eras when mussel-infused tirit echoed in Beyoğlu's eateries...

Mention is made of the gardener who planted his lettuce in Yedikule, the first to hear the elusive crackle. The Ulubatlı Hasan of the floating isle... Not a mere crackle, mind you. "Simultaneously, all the guardian dogs atop the walls howled," declares Ulubatlı. Never underestimate these wall dogs. Even if you were to gather all the street dogs in Europe (including the Greek ones), their collective howling would not compare. Each gate had its own enigmatic clan—Silivrikapı's gang resisted beggars, Belgradkapı's lot barked at the intoxicated, a unique clique for each door. Sulukulekapı harbored a kinship with the Gypsies, the sole canine gang in the world that failed to bark when confronted by bears. They treated the dancing bears akin to street cats. Ulubatlı gazed toward the origin of the crackle. A colossal crevice unfolded at the end of his garden, as if a new Golden Horn emerged, melding the Sea of Marmara with a golden horn. A Golden Horn within the Golden Horn! He offered gratitude that his lettuce remained untouched. Otherwise, what would the residents of Istanbul do without their verdant companions?

In Beyoğlu, the situation metamorphosed into an ethereal manifestation. Inside the walls, weaving through the gardens, intermittently slicing through buildings in a surreal dance. Here, it wasn't just the dogs, but the cats that succumbed to a state of enchantment. A handful of intrepid souls, leaping from Cihangir to Çukurcuma, orchestrated a minuscule spectacle on the streets. Fortuitously, none descended into the chasm. Regrettably, the gyrating bears of Taksim remained mere spectators, unable to partake in this otherworldly journey. Nevertheless, assurance emanated from their counterparts in Sulukule, yet to commence their nocturnal revelries, ensuring they wouldn't miss the unfolding magic and surreal excitement of this extraordinary tale.

Inner City and Galata, floating like a stone ship in the Sea of Marmara. The head of a simit vendor, peering down from the cliff on Sıraselviler Avenue, spun, eventually tumbling into the crevice. His corpse was found all the way in Çengelköy, on the other side of the Bosphorus. This grand supernatural event, perhaps a miracle, had only this one casualty. The spiritual loss, however, was immense. The Aya Triada Church was cleaved in half, Taksim Square, rather than a square, morphed into a concrete block near Yenikapı, destroying the eagle-headed silhouette that the inner city despised. It even stole the title of Istanbul's most popular suicide spot from the bridges. The number of bodies collected from the sea after jumping from the square to the Anatolian side exceeded a hundred on New Year's Eve.

The tales of the floating islands in the Sea of Marmara were quite ordinary until the "great friction" incident in the Dardanelles. Only the stories of a few Trotskyists, who couldn't bring themselves to venture far from Trotsky's house on Büyükada and jumped into the sea, were mentioned before. The "great friction," however, was recounted differently by witnesses of that era. Some described it as a loud door creak, while others insisted it was a sound akin to a hundred thousand times the screeching of a violin. Scientists, on the other hand, looked more favorably upon the theory of the violin sound. Thanks to the friction, the strait is now approximately ten kilometers wider.

Certain alert Çanakkale locals, now convinced that the islands were advancing toward Europe, managed to jump and reach the islands. During this time, only two people ended up hospitalized, having trapped their feet between the ferry and the dock, but no lives were lost. Istanbul residents were accustomed to stories of people getting their feet stuck between the ferry and the dock, so the newspapers didn't give much attention to this news. Many of the Çanakkale Gypsies managed to step onto the islands, and a dozen of them even came with their bears. The inner city, at the moment, has become the land with the highest concentration of bears per square kilometer after Yellowstone National Park. Currently, it leads in the number of cats per square kilometer and ranks fourth in the number of dogs.

As the islands advanced below the Aegean Sea, uplifting the spirits of the Istanbulites by tearing off a piece of Lesvos island, the abundance of uzo in the vicinity of Galata led to a rise in law enforcement issues. The Istanbul press dubbed it as a continuation of the unbeatable series against the Greeks. However, until reaching the Mediterranean, the patriotic aspirations of those who sought to detach a piece from Crete or Rhodes were thwarted, only managing to take along an unsightly barren rock named Kardak.* This final event, the straw that broke the camel's back, resonated so strongly in mainland Greece that it led to the downfall of the unlucky socialist government, blamed as usual for the lost land.

The city of Istanbul made such a swift entry into the Mediterranean that some alert Çanakkale locals trying to reach Europe panicked and jumped into the sea, fearing that they were heading towards Africa. Among the jumpers was a Gypsy who owned two bears. These bears wreaked havoc on the city's garbage. One raided the lettuces in the Yedikule gardens, while the other attacked the lamb leg in the hands of the lion keeper in Gülhane Park. In the meantime, the lion escaped. A small panic enveloped the city. Little did they know that this runaway lion would bring great troubles to the city dwellers later. Fortunately, Istanbul's sharp maneuver redirected its course to the west, making everyone forget about the incident. Now, with no obstacles ahead, it could reach the Frankish countries.

After crossing Sicily, Galata performed a sudden mystical maneuver, veering northward with an otherworldly grace. Istanbul was left behind as the Galata Bridge magically split into two distinct paths with a resonant ethereal hum. Pelican Yaşar, dwelling in the midst of this magical transformation, intuited a calling from his instincts, prompting him to traverse to the Eminönü side. Trusting his instincts would prove true, he embarked on a fantastical journey in a city where the worth of a fish transcended mere currency, venturing through realms touched by the surreal.

Over time, Galata's intention became clear. It wanted to meet and mingle with its twin in Italy, Genoa. The reunion was quite glamorous. More slopes arrived in the city known for its slopes; brothels on top of brothels; street whores to prostitutes; more gambling dens to existing gambling dens; and quays were added to quays. The menu of Genoese, who spent their mornings with focaccia, now included simit. Espresso was replaced with tea, and corochianato was replaced with raki. But the greatest excitement was the placement of the Galata Tower, the most beautiful structure in Genoa's history, in the city's skyline. Many Genoese witnesses couldn't hold back their tears. Until the late 80s, when the city lost the final of the fair city competition to Barcelona, it did not experience another emotional day like this. Although there was initially friction among the brothels, the visit of Zürafa Street brothel to the Genoa Central brothel with dolmas and pastries melted the ice. Even a belly dancer entertainment was organized at the Kılıçalipaşa Hammam. Thanks to the union, Genoa, which became a city with the most hammams, mosques, whores, street cats, and dogs in Europe, began to dislike Italy. And it had a point. The culinary culture became so rich that housewives who prepared less than four dishes for the evening meal were criticized. "Is there only one type of dessert today?" Genoese locals, who knew nothing about baklava until yesterday, couldn't live without baklava and kazandibi anymore. "I consider every day without şöbiyet a loss." "I want a lady who knows how to make şekerpare, the kind that melts in the mouth."

Meanwhile, Suriçi, continuing at full speed, managed to pass through the Strait of Gibraltar with much less friction than Gelibolu. There was no official leg-squeezing incident here. In the friction near Cadiz, a few eccentric Spaniards may have slipped into the city, but there was not much gain in terms of cultural diversity. Only an increase in the current number of drunkards occurred.

The city of Istanbul was now in the Atlantic. Foggy mornings, clear skies in the afternoon, cool breeze, and the scent of pure iodine. Istanbul, having lost its Bosphorus, gained another strait. Those who opposed the practice of traveling without lüfer(typical Istanbul fish) were left agape upon seeing the colossal sardines. For years, fishermen who knew nothing about tuna or swordfish now wept tears of joy. As for Pelikan Yaşar? He consumed so much fish that he now resembled a brown bear, only eating the fattiest parts and generously giving the rest to street cats. Yaşar, wherever he went, was followed by a pack of street cats. Stray bears, unimpressed by the abundance of fish, had taken over Balat's shores, extorting fishermen.

As the city moved rapidly into the Atlantic, the silhouette of the head city of Lusitania gradually appeared. Saramago remarked that Lisbon was a place of "murmuring profound silence," while Orhan Pamuk, deeply influenced by him in "The Black Book," suggested that the shared emotion between Lisbon and Istanbul was melancholy, without the hills, slopes, and trams. Garcia Marquez, another writer who influenced Saramago greatly, referred to the beautiful city as the "world's largest village," completely unaware that this description was more often used for Istanbul.

Here is a historic moment... Two cities with seven hills are merging. There you have it, now it's fourteen hills for you. As if the hills of Lisbon weren't enough, there's also the Mahmutpaşa slope. Lisbonites are celebrating; Europe's most beautiful church and mosque are now theirs. From now on, their only concern is whether to have nata or börek for breakfast... My dear, tonight, after leaving the bar, should we have stuffed mussels or bifana? Should we have rakı in Kumkapı or caipirinha in Barrio Alto? Should we indulge in the melancholy of Fado, or is it better with a classical serenade? Where do you get your spices? From the market or the Egyptian Bazaar? Should we watch the Atlantic from Adamastor or from Sarayburnu? Hahha, my dear, everyone is praising Berlin these days; it seems they haven't seen Lisbon with its fourteen hills... This year, Easter and Ramadan coincide on the same day... I found a new restaurant; they make içli köfte, but they put bacalhau inside. Is it better with Vinho Verde or lakerda, or perhaps stuffed mussels? An excellent lahmacuncu, and the sericaia is equally beautiful. They play Fado with oud and kanun. Let's hit the bottom of the rakı tonight. When the workday ends, this guy goes to Barrio Alto. Come here, my kitty... Hey. Booozaaaa... Mr. simit seller... I don't understand; which one is Istanbul, which one is the seagull of Lisbon... Lisbon's cats don't understand anything about street cats... This year, the Fado singers who took the stage after Müslüm Baba**at the Gülhane concerts said they had never seen such an enthusiastic audience in their lives... This has nothing to do with a razor, dear. In Gülhane Park, a lion attacked the Fado singer who was singing... Bears confiscated the murex from the fishermen in the market. Are there stuffed mussels at Ramiro's beerhouse? The president of Lisbon's pastry chefs' association erupted against the makers of menemen. Let's ban the sale of menemen in the morning! A ceasefire appeal from Istanbul's baklava makers. Lisbon's rats are going through the hardest days in history! Oh, these Kurds are worse than we thought! Mozambicans are giving birth and throwing their children into the streets. They are writing, writing! Genoese Galatasaray fans sent a warning to UEFA. Don't trust Lisbon imitators. Cimbom, leaving its favorite enemy on the other side of the Bosphorus, is visiting Benfica's eagles at the Luz Stadium! There can't be two teams with eagles in one city! There can't be two military coups! Brother, we've lost our way on which pasha to listen to... The new mayor of the city with fourteen hills announced that he will make an exact copy of Sami Yen***. Well, then, let's build Fenerbahçe's stadium on the other side of the Bosphorus. The bridge is already there. There you go, we have a Strait without a Tower. Without the Maiden's Tower, what kind of Strait is this! In front of Unkapanı, as hoarse-voiced singers come from Alentejo to become famous, upstairs, a duet between Amália Rodrigues and Zeki Müren is being recorded... The album will be ready for next summer.

Lisbon chestnut vendors clashed with Istanbul chestnut vendors. "Brothers, let it pass," says the licorice sherbet vendor. Do we ever taunt the ginjinha sellers? We are all on the same boat... Sardiiineee... Oh, can a woman be a mobile vendor? These guys are worse than Kurds, they smell like rotten fish. Allahu Akbar.... Allahuuu Ekber! Eight centuries later, Muslims are once again performing ablutions while looking at the Tejo... Alfama, how beautifully Islam suits you. Cats suit you even more. Now, at the Sao Crispim stairs****, there isn't just one dog. Dozens are guarding the neighborhood. Not a single Mozambican can pass through here... Raimundo Silva is bewildered. Istanbul dogs are quite well-fed! Oh, the god of dogs! Where have you been before...

Sao Crispim Stairs

"Shall we make alabros***** again? Should we catch the ear hairs too? Would you like some tea, my friend, or perhaps bagaço? What about the Belenenses-Karagümrük match?" Çattt! A slap lands on the apprentice's nape. "Don't bring that A Bola rag into this shop again! They're enemies of Beşiktaş. A porter with a basket passes by the shop. "Since they came to Lisbon, their business has thrived. Here, there are five times more drunken porters than in Istanbul. Moreover, they're all sprawled on the ground before noon. By evening, they're carrying Turkish tourists. Oh, how great. We don't covet others' earnings, of course. But it's the era of the porters."

*In the 90s, a war almost broke out between the Turks and the Greeks because of this small rock.

**turkish arabesque singer(always sad music)

*** samiyen. old stadium of Galatasaray

****Saramago mentions the dog on the Sao Crisspm steps in her book "History of the Siege of Lisbon"

*****(popular turkish hair cutting style)

Jay Jay Okocha

noreply@blogger.com (Okan) — Mon, 01 Feb 2021 22:23:00 +0000

Ali Şen, büyük bir kurnazlıkla Oğuz ve Aykut'un gönderilmesinin yaygarasını sansasyonel bir transferle bastırmıştı. Jay-Jay Okocha'nın Fenerbahçe'ye geldiği haberini duyar duymaz "haince" 5 numaralı(Oğuz'un sırt numarası) Fenerbahçe formama Okocha ismini yazdırmıştım. Bir çocuk olarak zor bir karar değildi bu. Hem Okocha ismi Okan'a fena halde benziyordu. Üstelik lakabı şeytan olan ikici fenerli topçu olacaktı. Frankfurt'ta Oliver Kahn'a attığı efsane golü kanallar defalarca yayınlamıştı ve bu yüzden ilk maçını izlemek için sabırsızlanıyorduk.

Maccabi Tel Aviv karşısındaki ilk maçı, zamansız apandisit ameliyatım yüzünden kaçırdım. Narkoz sonrası babamı gördüğümde sorduğum ilk soru "Jay Jay nasıldı?" olmuştu. Babamın gülerek "şiir gibi" demesini ise unutamam.

Sokaktan... Lizbon

noreply@blogger.com (Okan) — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 09:38:00 +0000

Taş Kayık 3: Teksir Pistlerin Kralı

noreply@blogger.com (Okan) — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 20:56:00 +0000

Hikayenin ilk ve ikinci bölümü için buraya tıklayabilirsiniz.

Taş Kayık:Teksir Pistlerin Kralı

İstanbul ana karadan kopalı yıllar olmuştu. Galata, önce Cenova ile sevişmiş, akabinde Lizbon ile zorla evlendirilmişti. Üzerinden seneler geçmesine rağmen hala Cenova ile yaşadığı aşkı düşünüyordu.

Mesut on kuşaktır Galatalıydı. Bugün okulda en iyi yazı yarışmasına katılacaktı. En yakın rakibinden katbekat iyi yazabildiğinden hiç stres yapmamıştı. Yarışma öncesi anne refakatinde okula gelen Campo Ouriqueli, Cihangirli süt çocuklarını görünce morali daha da arttı. Kalemtraşını evde unutmuştu ama çok da gerek yoktu. Kalın uçlu kalemiyle de birinci gelecekti. Kendine bir hayli güvenen, zengin semtlerden gelen kız çocuklarının yazılarını daha önce görmüştü. Kusursuz bir simetrik düzende, pek şeker, sağa veya sola yatmadan dümdüz ilerleyen, sıkıcı mı sıkıcı yazılardı hepsi. Sanki ceylana kalemi vermişler yazı yazdırmışlar. Türkücü olmayan ceylan. Aklı başında her jüri kendisinin galibiyetini onaylardı.

Yarışma öncesi Tejo nehri kıyısındaki okulda beklerken yanına bir kedi ilişti. Güzelliğinden belli ki İstanbul kökenliydi bu. Maalesef Lizbon kedileri bir hayli çirkin ve korkaktı. Bu lafı solcular pek sevmezdi. “Yaşasın kedilerin kardeşliği”. “Gel pisi pisi” dedi haliyle. Kedilerin hepsi Türkçe konuşur. Tıpkı Yıldız Savaşları evreninde herkesin İngilizceyi anlaması gibi saçma bir düzendir bu. Ama allahın varlığının yüz kanıtı listesinde Türkçe konuşan kediler, portakalın dilim dilim olmasından sonra; hiçbir kar tanesinin birbirine benzememesinden önce yirmi yedinci sırada yerini bulmuştur. Sıralamanın galibini herkes bildiğinden daha fazla detay vermeyeceğim.

Kedi ile oynaşması o kadar uzun sürdü ki tüm yarışmacıların sınıflara girdiğini çok geç farketti. Koşarak içeri girerken silgisini, kalemtraşının yanında evde unuttuğu aklına geldi. Kimseden silgi isteyemezdi. Burası Lizbondu. “0.7 ucu olan var mı?” şeklindeki haykırmalar ancak aciziyet belirtisi demekti. Dik durmalıydı. Ne de olsa yarım saat sonra Lizbon’un en iyi yazı yazan Müslümanı ve hatta insanı olacaktı. Sıralar çoktan kapılmıştı. Ön sıraların çoğunda zengin kızları oturduğundan alarga durdu. En arkada oturan ezik Alfama Endüstri Meslek’ten bir Mozambikliyi gözüne kestirdi. Onun yanında huşu içerisinde hat sanatını icra edebilirdi.

Yarışma başladı. Mozambikli tam bir anaforcuydu*. Yazdıklarını aynen kopyalamaya çalışıyordu. Fakat Mesut’un sağa yatık yazı stilini taklit etmek, cartayı çekmekle** birdi. Mozambikli utanma duygusunu yitirmişti. İş iyice cavlaşmaktaydı. Sınav kağıdını elle kapamak müslüman evladına yakışmadığından, arka sıradan ançizlemek en mantıklısıydı. Önden ikinci sıradaki boş yere kapağı attı. Yan gözle kızın yazısını denetledi. Kız o kadar kusursuz yazıyordu ki, bir anda kusması geldi. Kusmuğunu yutup sağa eğik harflerini pürüzlü teksire döktü. Zengin piçleri teksir pürüzüne dayanamazdı. Patates tarlasında top oynayan züppeler gibi şaşkına döneceklerdi kesin. Ama konsantre olamıyordu bir türlü. Kızın yazısı o kadar kusursuz ve bir o kadar da sinir bozucuydu ki!

Kıza bakışından huylanmış, “azraile osuruk borcu kalmış” Portekizli hoca kopya şüphesiyle kendisine “dört göz” diye seslendi. İnsanların görünüşüyle dalga geçmek Batı Avrupa’da ayıp sayılsa da, Türkçe konuşan kediler gibi bu konuda da büyük bir asimilasyon gerçekleşmişti. “Önüne bak. Bir daha uyarmayacağım. Yoksa ağzını burnunu Çarşamba pazarına çeviririm”. Okulda dayak bir diğer türk asimilasyonuydu. “Sene olmuş 987 hala falaka”. Ömer Seyfettin’in öyküsü Lizbon Milli Eğitim müfredatındaydı. "Ant" isimli hikayesi ise süt çocuğu Portekizlilerin psikolojisini bozduğu gerekesiyle geçen sene yasaklanmıştı.

Sınav bitti. Sevimsiz kızlar çetesi elbette kağıtlarını en son verdiler. Mesut’un sağa yatık, hat sanatına selam çakan efsane yazısını anlatacak tek cümle şuydu: “Kusurlu ama gösterişli”. Sonuçlar gelecek hafta Praça de Figueira meydanına asılacaktı. Galata’dan oraya gitmek tam bir dertti. Ama buna değecekti çünkü birincinin ödülü büyüktü. Pasteis de Belem’de bir yıl boyunca sınırsız (Aslında sınırsız değil. Günde en fazla 4 olmak şartı ile. Bu şart tabii ki küçük harflerle yazılmıştı) nata tatlısı yeme hakkını elde edecekti. Artık Beyoğlu Dilbazlar sinemasına sınırsız giriş hakkı olan arkadaşının yanında ezilmeyecekti.

Yarışma sonucunu erkenden öğrenmek için Mouraria Ticaret Lisesi duvarlarını aşmak zorundaydı. Mouraria tıpkı Galata gibi hayli eğimli bir semt olduğundan duvarın iç tarafı iki metre, dış tarafı beş metreydi. Bunun farkına ancak atladıktan sonra varan Mesut, dizlerini iki sene erken emekli etme pahasına sokağın ortasına sert bir atlayış yaptı. Duvar kıyısında midye dolma satan mardinlinin tezgahını paramparça etmesi hızını kesmese emekliliği gelmiş bile olabilirdi.

İşte meydandaydı. "Alfama Alfama Alfama"... Dolmuşcu ciyaklıyordu. Kafalarının üstünde simit satan erkekler, kafalarının üstünde balık satan kadınlar. Karmakarışık bir yerdi burası. Sonuçların asıldığı yere güçbela yaklaşırken tekrar hayallere daldı. “Lizbon’un en iyi yazı yazan Müslümanı”, “Mesut, hat sanatına yeni bir soluk getiren genç yetenek”, “ teksire fısıldayan çocuk”. Fakat o da ne! İlk üç sırayı zengin semtlerindeki kusursuz kız yazıları işgal etmişti. Her biri birbirinden sıkıcıydı. Sağa azıcık yatırmaya bile cüret edememişlerdi. Sola yatımak mı! Ona kendisi bile cesaret edemezdi. Hepsi daktilodan çıkmış gibiydi. Hatta daha kötüydü. Kalemlerinin ucu o kadar sivriydi ki bazı yerlerde pürüzlü teksiri delik deşik etmişlerdi. İsmini mansiyon ödülünün yanında gördü. Mansiyon da ne ola? Birincilerin birincisi mi? Kainat güzeli gibi bir şey mi acaba? Teksir pistlerin kralı Mesut’a daha altı yakışmazdı. Yan taraftaki pastaneye girdi. İki adet nata tatlısı söyledi. Ne de olsa bir sene boyunca nataya para vermeyecekti.

Okan Benli

* Beyoğlu argosunda beleşçi.

**Beyoğlu argosunda ölmek.

10

noreply@blogger.com (Okan) — Sun, 30 Aug 2020 19:34:00 +0000

Taş Kayık 2 -Pelikan Yaşar'ın Düşüşü

noreply@blogger.com (Çukurcuma Times) — Wed, 15 Apr 2020 21:51:00 +0000

Hikayenin birinci bolumune buradan ulasabilirsiniz.

Pelikan Yaşar'ın keyfi yerindeydi. Ne morinası bitiyordu, ne sardalyası. Ama karşı yakaya bakınca Galata kulesini görememek hüzünlendiriyordu Yaşar'ı. Canı sıkılınca bir tur atıp gelirdi eskiden. Karaköy muhallebicilerinden artan tavuklu pilavları yutardı löpür löpür. Köprüde dolanan simitçileri özledi. Hep balıkla da olmuyor canım. İnsan iyiye de çabuk alışıyor. Hayat sana güzel Yaşar. Sinir oluyordu bu lafa. Siz benim neler çektiğimi nerden bileceksiniz diyesi geliyordu. Diyemiyordu. Ömrü bollukla geçmişti. Dünyanın en şanslı pelikanıydı. Hayvansever, yabancı sever İstanbul halkı onu el üstünde tutmuştu. Arada bir şirinlik yapıyordu, milleti güldürüyordu. Enayi İstanbul halkını sürekli kandirirdi. Balığı şovla yutar, sonunda da kanat çırparak şovunu tamamlardı. Gariban memur, bir kilo sardalyasının yarısını bu saçma artistlikleri görmek icin saçıp savururdu. Bu malların kuş sevgisini bir türlü anlamamıştı. Edirnekapı'da sırf kuşlar için pazar yapmışlar diye duymuştu. Gidemezdi o kadar uzağa. Yerinden kipirdasa uyanık biri gelip beni tahtımdan eder diye korkuyordu. Arkasındaki Yeni Camii önü kuş yeminden geçilmiyordu. O buğdaya, mısıra tenezzül etmezdi. Varoş kuş yemeği derdi. En büyük düşmanı uyanık martılardı. Birkaç tane de karabatak vardı ama onlar da ekmeğindeydi. Taşın suyunu sıkardı bu karabataklar. Ekmeklerini taştan çıkarırdı. Atlantik'e dalıp sardalyalarını yerdi. Kargalara da gıcıktı. Bazen şirinliği sayesinde simitçilerden birkaç bayat simit tırtıklıyordu. Ama uyanık kargalar götünden ayrılmıyordu. Kimi zaman ağzından simidi çalıyorlardı. Kıçını kaldırmakta zorlanıyordu şu sıralar. İyice şişmanlamıştı. Kargalar ise pek atikti. Onun kadar olmasalar da zekiydiler de. Kedilerden nefret ederdi. Bana yetki verseler hepsini itlaf ederim. Avrupanın ortasında vahşi kedi mi olur. Hangi çağdayız ayol! Köpeklerle saldırmazlık anlaşmaları vardı. İt iti ısırmazdı ne de olsa. Şu sıralar ayı enflasyonu vardı. Ona canı sıkkındı tabii. Kendinden zeki hayvana tahammülü yoktu. Üstelik balık sevdaları sinirini bozuyordu. Git bal ye, karpuz ye! Her bir boku yiyorsunuz zaten. Bak şurada armutçu var. Geçen gece sabaha karşı üçte hayal meyal bir aslan gördü. Sıska bir turistin boynunu kırmış bağırsaklarını yiyordu. Millete anlatsa da kimseye inandıramadı hikayesini. Bu Yaşar iyice bunadı. Yaşı kaç bunun. Yetmiş seksen var herhalde. Mala bak. Kaplumbağa mıyım ben. Geçen şurada Mustafa Kemal'i gördüğünü iddia eden bir karga vardı. Çocukken beni cok kovalardı diyordu. Annesinin adı da Zübeyde imiş. Bilemedim. Kargalara güven olmaz. Şu Salazar da ne tipsiz bir herif. Bir de bizim Mustafa Kemal'e bak. Yok ben sevmedim bu Portekiz diyarını yahu. İnsanı bir hoş. Geldim geleli güzel bir kız görmedim. Ah ulan efkarlandım. Fenerbahçem de ortalıkta yok. Lefter en sevdiği topçuydu. Ver Leftere yaz deftere! Kaliteli adamdı şu Lefter. Her geçtiğinde lüfer atardı. Ulan lüfere ne oldu. Aylardır ağızımıza lüfer girmedi. O da ne! Galata Kulesi mi o uzaktaki. Şu sarhoş balıkçılarla çok takılıyorum bu aralar. Elim olsa da gözümü ovuştursam. Ayı kardeş, ayı kardeş. Galata mı şu uzaktan süzülen? Ulan tek konuşan hayvan ben miyim şurada. Uçup kolacan edip gelsem mi acaba?

Yaşar sohbette

Galata'nın Cenova 'dan ayrılması ne kadar hüzünlüyse Lizbon'a ulaşması o kadar coşkuluydu. Lizbonlunun o kadar götü kalkti ki hemencecik Portekiz'den ayrılmaya kalkıştılar. Kalkışmanın ikinci haftasında şehrin içinden tanklar geçti. Rap rap rap… Bir iki kürdün tanka molotof fırlatmasının dışında herhangi bir direniş yaşanmadı. Size n'oluyor mına koyeyım! Burada bölücülük yapmayın bari. Algarve'dan Braga'ya Portekiz bir bütündür. Tek dil, Tek din, tek bayr...Yok o kadar da değil.. Ucu bize dokunacak bunun.. Başkent tekrar Coimbra'ya taşınıyor. Tenzili rütbe..Yazıyor yazıyor! Ondört tepeli şehrin çiğnenen onuru! Lizbonlu Galatasaraylılar UEFA'ya ihtarname çekti. Cenovalı taklitlerimize itibar etmeyiniz. Lizbon halkı İstiklal caddesine kavuştu. Eskiden bu caddeden parfüm kokusu gelirdi, şimdi mozambikli kokuyor ayol! Rua Da Prata esnafı meclisin önüne yazarkasa attı. Açız!. Esnaf İstiklal caddesini yağmaladı. Türkler Salazarın evini yaktılar. Vallahi de yaktılar billahi de yaktılar. Dünyanın en güzel görüntüleri. Esnafa saldıran esnaf. İkinci bir altı-yedi eylül bu. İstiklal caddesinde tanklar dolanıyor... Rap rap rap...

Yazıyor yazıyor… Tercüman'da akşam baskısı..Alfama sokaklarında bağırsağı deşilmiş iki alman turist bulundu..İsimsiz aslan, ayı tarafından kurtarıldığından beri sürekli doğal besleniyordu. Geceleri avlanmaya çıkıyordu genellikle. Dar sokakları seviyordu. Pusu kurmak cok kolaydı. Bu yüzden Alfama'yı tercih ediyordu çoğunlukla. Turisti avlamak pek kolaydı. Hem eti çok daha lezzetliydi bunların. Birkaç kere Çarşamba, Draman civarında avlanmıştı ama yediklerinin tadını beğenmemişti. Olsundu en azından İstanbul halkından intikamını almıştı. Bin tanesini gebertse yetmezdi ama neyse. Yaşlı alman turistler favorisiydi. Besiliydiler, üstelik kemikleri çabuk kırılıyordu. Gülhane'de geçen otuz zor senenin ardından ağzında pek diş kalmamıştı. Kuzu etinden bıkmıştı. Ama en çok arabesk müziğe tahammül edemiyordu. Bitmeyen Gülhane konserleri hala rüyalarına giriyordu. Ter içinde bin keman korosuyla uyanıyordu geceleri.. Sabuhaa çok bekledim... Suriçinden mümkün olduğunca uzaklaşmalıydı. Bir kere kazara Unkapanı önünden geçmişti. Boğulacak gibi oldu. Hakkı Bulut, Ferdi Tayfur.. Hele o Burhan Çaçan yok mu? Müslüm babayı severdi. Gariban dostuydu. Kendine birkaç kez but atmışlığı vardı. Allah razı olsun. Saat sabahın bilmem kaçı. İşte orada. Avare bir alman turist. Gökyüzünü seyrediyor mal nazi. Sanki Alamanyada yokmuş gibi...Tam zamanı..Rööoorrrr!!!Hilfeee… Sus lan kraut! Forşşş..

Fuar şehirleri kupası ikinci turu.. Galatasaray Lizbon, Fenerbahçe ile eşleşti. Galatasaray seyircileri hüngür hüngür ağlıyor.. En sevdikleri düşmanları Sami Yen'e gelmiş. Başkan sözünde durmuş, stadı yapmış. Avrupa Fatihi, Sporting'e kükremişti geçen hafta. Ama bugün sahada yokları oynuyor. Tüm takımın bacakları tir tir titriyor. Yatak çubuğa benzemez dikey olanı.. Fener, Sami Yen sever...Yazıyor yazıyor.. A Bola akşam baskısında yazıyor..Tragedia do Sami Yen. Fotospor manşeti: Samiyen'de seks...

Pelikan Yaşar hala mutsuz. Kulesine kavuştu. Köprü tastamam yerinde. Simitçi dersen gırla. Her akşam üç posta tavuk pilav yiyor. Bu boktan sardalya, lüferin eline su dökemez. Utanmadan bir de festivalini yapıyorlar. Bu Lizbonlular pek varoş canım. Ahhh şu anda İstanbulda olmak vardı anasını satayım!..Yeni Camiide mısır atmak kuşlaraaa!… Cami arkanda şerefsiz. İt oğlu it..Hoştt...Bu Pelikan Yaşar da çok oldu..Telli Turna Bektaş öyle mi. Ne kadar mutavazi bir oğlan..Kadırga çocuğu... Üstelik ne guzel rengi var.. Yavru ağzı.. Bacaklara bak hele..Balerin gibi maaşallah.. Yaşar'a bak bir de.. Kuşların Adile Naşit'i.. Göte bak göte..Ulan biraz az ye.. Millet aç aç..Off leş gibi balık kokuyor bu Yaşar… Siktiredin şu kuşu köprüden...Trafiğe engel oluyor.. Sür üstüne arabayı. Yallaah.. Ya biri tıksın şunu Gülhane hayvanat bahçesine..
Ferdi Tayfur'dan geliyor "Huuzuurummmm kalmadııııııı!!!"

Taş Kayık

noreply@blogger.com (Okan) — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 23:37:00 +0000

Önsöz:

Aşağıdaki kisa hikaye, Saramago'nun Yitik Adanın Öyküsü kitabından ilham alınarak yazılmıştır. Roman, İber Yarımadasının anlaşılmaz bir şekilde anakaradan kopup, Atlantik boyunca sürüklenmesi hakkındaydı.

Kostantiniyye Yarımadasının kartal başı görünümü bozulmadan evvel, Beyoğlu lokantalarında midyeli tirit satıldığı dönemlerden sonra…

Yedikule'de marulunu eken bostan sahibinden ilk çatırtıyı duyan diye bahsedilir. Yüzen adanın Ulubatlı Hasan'ı..Öyle böyle bir çatırtı değil… "Aynı anda bütün sur köpekleri havladı" der Ulubatlı.. Sur köpekleri diye küçümseme.. Avrupanın tüm sokak köpeklerini toplasan (Yunan dahil) bu kadar çok etmez..Her kapıda ayrı bir çete..Silivrikapı çetesi dilencileri geçirmez, Belgradkapı'nınkisi sarhoşa havlar, dilenciyi kollar. Sulukulekapı çingene dostudur. Dunyada ayı görünce havlamayan tek köpek çetesi budur. Dansöz ayılara sokak kedisi muamelesi yaparlar. Ulubatlı, çatırtının geldiği yöne baktı. Bostanının bitişinde tüm sur boyu ilerleyen kocaman bir yarık. Sanki yeni bir haliç belirmiş, altın boynuz ile Marmara'yı birleştirmiş. Haliç içinde haliç! Allahtan marullara zarar gelmemiş diye şükretti. Yoksa İstanbul ahalisi marulsuz napar.

Beyoğlu'nda ise durum çok daha kötüdür. Sur içinde -kalemle çizilmiş gibi- bostanlar boyunca oluşan yarığın tersine, binaların arasindan zigzag çizerek, kimi zaman binaları ortadan ikiye ayırarak ilerlemiştir. Burada köpekten çok kediler panik yapmış, son anda Cihangir'den Çukurcuma'ya atlayan birkaci, caddede küçük bir heyecan silsilesi yaratmıştır. Allahtan yarığa kimse düşmemiştir. Taksim'de göbek atan ayılar ise maalesef bu maceraya dahil olamamıştır. Neyse ki Sulukule'de mesaiye henuz başlamayan kardeşleri serüveni kaçırmayacaktır.

Suriçi ve Galata, Marmara denizinde taştan bir gemi gibi yüzmektedir. Sıraselviler caddesindeki yüzelli metrelik uçurumdan aşağı bakan bir seyyar simitçinin başı dönmüş, akabinde yarığa yuvarlanmıştır. Cesedi boğazın öteki ucunda taa Çengelköy'de bulunmuştur. Bu büyük doğaüstü olayın, belki de mucizenin tek can kaybı budur. Manevi kayıp ise büyüktür. Aya Triada kilisesi ortadan ikiye bölünmüş, Taksim meydanı, meydandan ziyade yıllar sonra akılsız bir adamın planına göre yapılan, suriçinin o düşmanı titreten kartal başı görünümünü yokeden, Yenikapı civarındaki beton bloğa benzer bir görünüm almıştır. Hatta İstanbul'un en popüler intihar mekanı unvanını köprülerin elinden almıştır. Meydandan atlayıp Anadolu yakasından toplanan ceset sayısı yılbaşında yüzü geçmiştir.

Yüzen adaların Marmara denizindeki hikayeleri Çanakkale boğazındaki "büyük sürtünme" vakasina kadar çok sıradandı. Sadece Büyükada'daki Trocki'nin evinden bu kadar uzaklaşmayı göze alamayan ve denize atlayan birkaç sarhoş Trockistin hikayesinden bahsedilir. "Büyük sürtünme" ise yıllar sonra dönemin şahitleri tarafindan farklı farklı anlatılmıştır. Kimisi büyük bir kapı gıcırtısı, kimi ise keman inlemesinin yüzbin misli bir ses çıktığını belirtir. Bilim adamlari ise keman inlemesi tezine daha ılımlı bakmaktadir. Sürtünme sebebiyle boğaz bugün yaklaşık on kilometre daha geniştir.

Adacıkların Avrupa'ya doğru ilerlediğinden artık emin olan kimi uyanık Çanakkaleli, zıplayarak adaya ulaşmıştır. Bu esnada sadece iki kişi surici ile boğaz arasında ayaklarını sıkıştırmak sureti ile hastanelik olmuş, ama can kaybı yaşanmamıştır. İstanbul ahalisi vapur ile iskele arasına ayağını sıkıştıranların hikayesine alışık olduğundan gazetelerde bu haber çok itibar görmemiştir. Çanakkale çingenelerinden bir çoğu adaya adım atmayı başarmış, bunlardan bir düzinesi ise ayısıyla beraber gelmiştir. Sur içi an itibari ile Yellowstone milli parkından sonra kilometrekareye en çok ayı düşen kara parçası olmuştur. Halihazırda kilometrekareye düşen en çok kedi sayısında lider, köpek sayısında ise dördüncüdür.

Ege denizinden aşağıya hızla ilerleyen adalar, Midilli'nin bir parçasını söküp beraberinde götürmesi ile İstanbul halkının moralini bir nebze yükseltmiş, şehirdeki uzo bolluğu Galata civarında asayiş sorununun baş göstermesine sebebiyet vermiştir. İstanbul basını bunu Yunanlara karşı süren yenilmezlik serisinin devamı olarak lanse etmiştir. Fakat Akdenize ulaşana kadar Girit veya Rodos'tan bir parça koparma sevdasına düşen vatanseverlerin heveslerini kursağında bırakırcasına, sadece Kardak isimli çirkin kıraç bir kayalığı yanında sürükleyip büyük denize ulaşmıştır. Bardağı taşıran bu son olay Yunan anakarasında hükümeti düşürecek kadar büyük yankı uyandırmış, kaybedilen toprağın hesabı her zamanki gibi şanssız sosyalist hükümete patlamıştır.

Şehri İstanbul, Akdeniz'e o kadar hızlı bir giriş yapmıştı ki, Avrupa'ya ulaşmaya çalışan uyanık Çanakkalelilerin bir kısmı Afrika'ya doğru ilerliyoruz paniği ile denize atladı. Atlayanlar arasıda iki ayı sahibi çingene de vardı. Bu ayılar sur içi çöplerine musallat oldu. Biri Yedikule bostanlarındaki marulları talan etti. Diğeri ise Gülhane parkındaki aslan bakıcısının elindeki kuzu buduna saldırdı. O esnada aslan kaçtı. Şehiri küçük bir panik havası sardı. Bu kaçak aslan daha sonra şehir sakinlerinin başına büyük belalar açacaktı. Neyse ki Kostantiniyye'nin sert bir manevra ile yönünü batıya çevirmesi olayı unutturdu. Artık önünde hiçbir engel olmadan Frenk ülkelerine ulaşabilirdi.

Pelikan Yasar

Sicilya'yı geçtikten sonra Galata bir anda hızlı bir manevra ile kuzeye yöneldi. İstanbul'u yalnız bıraktı. Galata köprüsü ortadan çattt diye ayrıldı. Köprünün ortasında mesken tutan Pelikan Yaşar, icgüdülerini dinleyip Eminönü tarafına geçti. İçgüdülerinde de yanılmayacaktı. Ölene kadar balığın bininin bir para olduğu şehirde alemlerden aleme koşacaktı.

Zamanla Galata'nın niyeti belli oldu. İtalya'daki ikizi Cenova ile buluşmak, koklaşmak istiyordu. Kavuşma çok şatafatlı oldu. Yokuşu ile meşhur şehre başka yokuşlar gelmişti; kerhanelerin üzerine kerhaneler; sokak orospularına orospular; batakhanelere batakhaneler; rıhtımlara rıhtımlar eklenmişti. Sabahlarını focaccia ile geçiştiren Cenovalıların menüsüne simit eklenmişti. Espressoya çay, corochianatoya rakı gelmisti. Ama en büyük coşku, tarihin en güzel Cenova yapısı olan Galata kulesinin şehir siluetine yerleşmesiydi. Bu ana şahit olan birçok Cenovalı gözyaşlarını tutamadı. Seksen sonları fuar şehirleri finalini Barselona'ya kaybedene dek şehir bu kadar duygusal bir gün daha yaşamadı. Kerhaneler arasında ilk günler sürtüşme çıksa da, Zürafa sokak kerhanesinin dolmalarla, böreklerle Cenova merkez kerhanesini ziyareti, aradaki buzları eritti. Hatta Kılıçalipaşa hamamında dansözlü bir eğlence bile düzenlendi. Birleşme sayesinde Avrupa'nın en çok hamamı, camiisi, orospusu, sokak kedisi ve köpeği olan şehir durumuna gelen Cenova, İtalya'yı beğenmez oldu. Haklıydı da. Yemek kültürü o kadar zenginleşti ki akşam öğününde dörtten az çeşit yemek yapan ev hanımları kınandı."Bugün sadece bir çeşit mi tatlı var".. Düne kadar baklava nedir bilmeyen Cenova yerlisi baklavasız, kazandibisiz yaşayamaz oldu. "Şöbiyet yemediğim her günü kayıp sayarım". "şekerpare yapmasını iyi bilen bir hanım istiyorum, şöyle ağızda dağılanından"

Yoluna son sürat devam eden Suriçi ise Gelibolu'ndakinden çok daha az bir sürtünme ile Cebelitarık'ı geçmeyi başardı. Burada resmi bir bacak sıkıştırma vakası olmadı. Cadiz civarındaki sürtünmede birkaç meczup İspanyol sur içine atlasa da kültürel çeşitlilik bağlamında fazla bir kazanç olmadı. Sadece mevcut sarhoş sayısında bir artış yaşandı.

İstanbul artik Atlantik'teydi. Sisli sabahları, öğleden sonra apaçık gökyüzü, serin rüzgarı, mis gibi iyot kokusu. Boğazını yitiren İstanbul başka bir boğaz kazanmıştı. Lüfersiz şuradan şuraya gitmemciler dev gibi sardalyaları görünce çenelerini kapamıştı. Yıllar yılı ton, kılıçbalığı bilmeyen balıkçılar şimdi sevinçten hüngür hüngür ağlıyorlardı. Pelikan Yaşar mi? O kadar çok balık yiyordu ki artık boz ayılar gibi sadece en yağlı kısımlarını yiyip gerisini sokak kedilerine bahşiş veriyordu. Yaşar hangi yöne gitse onu takip eden bir sokak kedisi bölüğü vardi. Sahipsiz ayılar ise balık bolluğundan en has bala burun kıvırmışlar, Balat sahilini mesken edinmişler, oltacıları haraca bağlamışlardı.

Sislerin arasindan Lusitano baş şehri yavaştan görünmeye başladı. Saramago "mırıldanan büyük bir sessizlik sadece" demiş Lizbon için. Kara Kitap'ta kendisinden cok etkilendiği belli olan Orhan Pamuk ise Lizbon ve İstanbul'un ortak duygusunun hüzün olduğunu belirtmiş, yedi tepe, yokuş ve tramvay kliselerine düşmeden. Saramago'nun en çok etkilendiği yazarlardan Garcia Marquez ise "dünyanın en büyük köyü" olarak betimlemiş güzelim şehri, bu tarifin en çok Istanbul için kullanıldığından habersiz.

İşte tarihi bir an.. İki yedi tepeli şehir birleşiyor. Oldu mu sana ondört tepe. Lizbon yokuşları yetmezmiş gibi bir de Mahmutpasa yokuşu çıktı. Lizbonlular göbek atıyor, Avrupa'nin en güzel kilisesi, camiisi artık onlarda. Bundan sonra tek dertleri sabah kahvaltısında nata mı yesek yoksa börek mi olacak.. Azizim bugün akşam bar çıkışı midye dolma mı atsak yoksa bifana mı? Kumkapı'da rakı mı içelim, Barrio Alto' da caipirinha mı? Fado dinleyerek mi hüzünlensek yoksa fasılla mı? Baharatını nereden alıyorsun? Mercadodan mı Mısır çarşısından mı? Bugün Atlantik'i Adamastor'dan mı izlesek, yoksa Sarayburnu'ndan mı? Hahha azizim herkes Berlin'i övüyor bu aralar, ondört tepeli Lizbon'u görmemişler galiba.. Bu sene paskalya ile ramazan bayramı aynı güne denk geliyormuş.. Yeni bir restoran buldum, içli köfte yapıyorlar ama içine bacalhau koyuyorlar. Vinho verde ile lakerda mi iyi gider midye dolma mı? Çok iyi bir lahmacuncu, sericaialari da bir o kadar güzel. Ud ve kanun ile fado icraa ediyorlar. Rakının dibine vuralım bu gece. Mesai biter bu çocuk Barrio Alto'ya gider. Gel pisi pisi..Hoşt. Booozaaaa.. simitciyaaaa... Ben anlamadım, bunlarin hangisi İstanbul, hangisi Lizbon martısı… Lizbon kedileri pisi pisiden anlamaz..Bu sene Gülhane konserlerinde Müslüm Baba'nın arkasından çıkan fadocular hayatlarında bu kadar coşkulu bir seyirci kalabalığı görmediklerini söylediler.. Jiletin sizle alakası yok canım. Gülhane parkında türkü söyleyen fadocuya aslan saldırdı.. Ayılar merkadodaki balıkçıların morinalarina el koydu. Birahaneci Ramiro'da midye pilaki var mıdır? Lizbon tatlıcılar odası başkanı menemencilere ateş püskürdü. Sabah vakti menemen satışı yasaklansın! İstanbul baklavacılar odasından ateşkes çağrısı. Lizbon fareleri tarihin en zor günlerini yaşıyor! Ayy bu kürtlerden de beteri varmış ayol! Su mozambikliler doğurup doğurup çocuklarını sokağa atıyor. Yazıyor yazıyor! Cenovalı Galatasaraylılar UEFA'ya ihtarname çekti. Lizbonlu taklıtlerimize itibar etmeyiniz. En sevdiği düşmanını boğazın öteki yanında bırakan Cimbom, Luz stadında Benfika'nin kartallarına konuk oluyor! Bir şehirde iki kartallı takım olmaz! İki askeri cunta hiç olmaz! Hangi paşayı dinleyeceğimizi şaşırdık kardeşim..Ondört tepeli şehrin yeni belediye başkanı, Sami Yen'in bire bir kopyasını yapacağını müjdeledi. E madem öyle, karşı yaka da Fenerin stadını dikelim. Hazır köprü de var. Oldu mu sana boğaz. Kız Kulesiz boğaz mı olur deyyus! Unkapanı'nın önü Alentejo'dan gelip meşhur olmak isteyen yanık seslilerle dolup taşarken, üst katlarda Amalia Rodrigues-Zeki Müren düeti kaydediliyor.. Albüm gelecek yaza yetişecek..

Lizbon'un meshur balikci kadinlari

Lizbon kestanecileri ile İstanbul kestanecileri birbirine girdi..Kardeş kardeş geçinin diyor meyankökü serbetçisi. Biz ginjinhacilara sataşıyor muyuz? Hepimiz aynı gemideyiz..Sahleeppp… Peixeee(baliiik)… Aa kadın seyyar satıcı mi olur..Ayol bunlar kürtlerden betermiş leş gibi balik kokuyorlar. Allahu ekber…. Allahuuuu ekberrr! Sekiz yüzyıl sonra müslümanlar tekrar Tejo'ya bakarak abdestini alıyor.. Alfama sana İslam ne de yakışıyor… Kediler ise ondan da çok yakışıyor.. Artık Sao Crispim merdivenlerinde sadece bir köpek yok.. Onlarcası mahallesini kolluyor.. Buradan tek bir Mozambikli geçemez..Raimundo Silva şaşırmış durumda… İstanbul köpekleri de amma besili! Ey köpeklerin tanrısı! Daha önce nerelerdeydin..

São Crispim merdivenleri

"Alabros mu yapıyoruz yine? Kulak killarini da yakalim mi? Çay mı içersin abicim, bagaço mu? Belenenses Karagümrük maçı ne olur?" Çattt! Çırağın ensesinde bir şaplak patlar. "Bir daha sokma su A Bola paçavrasını bu dükkana! Beşiktaş düşmanı bunlar. Dükkanın önünde küfesiyle hamal geçer.. "Lizbona geleli bunların işleri iyice açıldı. Burada İstanbul'un beş misli küfelik sarhoş var. Üstelik öglen olmadan hepsi yere seriliyor. Akşama da bizim türkleri taşıyorlar.. Oh ne ala. Milletin kazancında gözümüz yok tabii. Ama devir hamalların devri"

Kufelik olan bir Istanbul sarhosu

devam edecek...

Workaway:Quinta Dos Tres Rios

noreply@blogger.com (Okan) — Wed, 01 Jan 2020 22:01:00 +0000