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I missed blogging

2009-03-02T11:58:00.004Z

It sounds like taking a sabbatical leave as it's been nearly 10 months since my last post. Don't know why, but I think I missed blogging, though I don't know if I can find some time - in between thesis writing, job seeking and choral singing - to post a few entries. Anyway, just to say, I am still here.

Herbie

2008-05-26T09:11:00.002Z

Today is Bank Holiday Monday and the weather is wet, wet and wet. Almosy all people across the UK musy have been disappointed as it is the beginning of the half-term break for students. Anyway, May is the month for spring rains here, I should complain if it would go on like this in June.

It was another busy week, committed wholly to domestic to-do list. On Saturday we at last ordered our sofas, paying almost a fortune! We bought them from an Italian furniture shop (which means, import products!) since the British sofas are extremely soft, thus unhealthy for your back and their sofa-beds are only for occasional use. Anyway, our stain-resistant sofa-bed's name is Herbie, and we think we won't regret having it after a year or so. On the same day, we also ordered our carpets - an unexpected cost for us since we have assumed that it would be the contractors who would deal with fitting the carpets. Except spoiling thousands of pounds and waiting for ages for deliveries (our sofas, for instance, will arrive no earlier than the third week of July), this home furnishing thing is fun! Now, it is the time to order the white goods.

Last week was also the Eurovision week and Mor ve Otesi's live performance was very well indeed. Russia won, eventually, with a nice, but not a winner song. The singer was Dima Bilan, again, who lost to the Finnish band Lordi a couple of years ago, and that year the Russian entry was much better I must say. Anyway, next year ESC is likely to be held in St. Petersburg. But, unless the current system is altered, there seems to be no fair competition. The contender Portugal's 13th place in this regard was the proof.

Countdown

2008-05-16T16:28:00.002Z

We can now start counting the days for the completion of our house buying. Yesterday, we were invited to the building site for measuring up for the curtains and carpets, etc. That means, it is less than a month left before we move in. The appointment had to be delayed for almost an hour due to some misunderstandings between our representative and the site manager, but we were eventually taken into the apartment. In the meantime, we had a chance to get acquainted with other people waiting for the same thing.

The ground floor has four flats, and six on each of the upper floors. On our floor (which is the first), we have a young British couple across us, a Far Eastern family next to them (with the lucky flat number 8!). Our neighbour next to us wasn't there yesterday. And at the end of the other side, we have a nurse from Spain (a Catalan from Barcelona), and across her flat, another nurse from Spain, a Galician (NW Spain) from Orense. Welcome to London! :-) By the way, the flat looked gorgeous to us. Everything is brand-new and very well thought. It is a mid-size flat, but every bit of it is no waste. We were so excited that although we brought two cameras with us, we forgot to take pics! I can't wait to get packed!

Saturday Night Hayfever

2008-05-06T10:13:00.003Z

We just overcome another busy period. (Translation, as I am convinced, is one of the most time-absorbing tasks!) Anyway, it is over now and we have four days to enjoy pure blue sky and warming sunshine! The only problem for me is the extremely high-level of pollen count. I take my allergy pills regularly, once a day at 8am, but sometimes even they can't help, making me take a shower twice a day to get rid of the tiny particules inside my hair.

The last few days were spent by dealing with our home PC, which was seriously infected by a spyware. It was like a malicious cancer. We could not delete it as it duplicated itself and within two days we would be unable to switch on our PC as the virus assigned itself as the administrator of the computer! I spent hours on the phone, talking to DELL Customer Services. Whatever we tried, we failed to retrieve our data and all we were left to do was to reboot the PC. After our last conversation, Sevi and I somehow found a way to be able to see our files and we copied them to a memory stick part by part, so we could save all our photos and word documents, including my doctoral files, etc. (Though the latter had many more back-ups...) Then we re-formatted the computer, downloaded everything again, and bought a brand-new Norton 360 2.0 software to protect it from any cyber-attacks. The virus (maxpaynowti.exe) that infected our PC had a Spanish origin, travelling to the UK just within a week, and London is one of the most vulnerable network centres concerning cyber-malice.

Apart from that, we are still waiting for a date to move in to our new flat. I feel like a caged migrant bird with the urge to fly. I simply want to pack things, decorate our rooms... I even have a DIY guidebook and am very determined to deal with any sort of problems!

I started reading fictions again. That is a challenge for me, really! For years, my excuse was lack of time due to academic commitments and I seldom finish a book I start if it is not a page turner. The last book I could finish was "A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian" by Marina Lewycka. Then I tried hard to develop an interest in Vikram Seth's highly-recommended, yet to-me-disappointing "An Equal Music" and left it unfinished. Now I began to read Umberto Eco's debut work, The Name of the Rose and it is getting more and more interesting!

But, old interests hardly die out. At the age of almost 31, I still find myself looking meditatingly (or blankly, if you like) at my world atlas, journeying from place to place. The new weird thing about it is that whenever I look at a particular location for a long time, I go there in my night-dream. Last time it was Toledo in Spain. I don't know if the real Spanish town looks like what I dreamt, though... A sort of Clementine syndrome, I guess, though mine is not as adventurous as hers.

Delayed: "Autumnal vistas"

2008-04-22T13:37:00.000Z

I found an unpublished post of mine while persuing the list - unpublished probably because I thought I would write more about our Hungarian trip, but I must have then simply abandoned it due to lack of time. At least there are some pictures to share and some great times to recall.

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We have recently had our annual short break - this time to Hungary (as Turkey trips no longer give me the feeling of a good rest). We visited Budapest and nearby towns of Gödöllö (Empress Sisi's summer town) and Esztergom (Canterbury of Hungary - the religious centre of the country thirty mile northwest of Budapest, and of course, the place we know from our history books - Estergon). Lots of things to say, of course. But what fascinated me - apart from the architectural beauties -was the magnificent autumnal vistas. No need the mention how well the Danube beautifies the cities it splits up. Below are some of my favourite pictures:

Erszebet (Elisabeth) Park in Gödöllö

Fishermen's Bastion in Buda Old Town

Sunset on Maria Theresa Bridge (the official border between Hungary and Slovakia) with a background view of Esztergom Basilica and Castle

The Danube embankment with a background view of the Parliament on the Pest side

Enchantment of the colours... Just a couple of pictures to represent the beautiful trees of Margaret Island of the Danube

Ducks swmming in a pond in Budapest, whose surface is fogged due to warm spa water

View of the Danube at night (from the castle)

A year's plan

2008-04-21T08:48:00.002Z

It is simply unbelievable. We always hope for some leisure time, or somewhat normal pace of life, but something pops up! I know that it is what one should create for himself, but when I look back to the previous year, it is spent mainly by enjoyable, yet rather frequent long- and short-term visits by our relatives, families, friends, etc. and we really did not have intervals in between. Following our week-long trip to Budapest last autumn, I then isolated myself from everything to focus on writing my dissertation. And it was just a couple of weeks before the deadline that we were told about the result of our shared-ownership property application. Currently, we have a translation job which will occupy a whole fortnight. What next? Moving in to the new flat. Followed by my doctoral defence. Then the summer will be spent by revising my dissertation. In the meantime, I will start sending job applications and find a proper job by the end of this year, hopefully.

Well, is it comforting or slightly boring to know how to spend the rest of the year? The matter is that we have to wait, and wait, and wait for something to happen or finish and it sounds longer than usual when you know in advance what is next. Uncertainties create gray clusters in your life and you always yearn for the sunshine and since you know that it will show up eventually, it makes you even more impatient to wait for it. Mother says they are enjoying spring to the bits. Well, divide the temperatures by two or even three, and forget the sunshine, add some frequent showers, that is the good old British weather. :-]

From Prague to Bratislava

2008-04-15T12:14:00.003Z

Well, OK, this is not what I intended about the continuity of my posts, but academic commitments had to be immediately replaced by much-neglected domestic ones. We are about to complete our house buying and it is hard to describe how puzzling every step of it - reading the legal documents in English as well as comprehending the government's new stamp duty land tax policy, etc. The preliminary report that our solicitor prepared is thicker than the draft version of my dissertation! I think that is enough to explain the scope of the work being done. It is a huge thing here, property business, that is, which makes you pay thousands of pounds to a number of third parties who are dealing with the much-complicated procedures. Anyway, we are almost there. The only thing we want to know is the date for completion!

Meanwhile, having conquered the shopping malls in the city centre area, we started to have additional trips to farther districts of London. The big furniture stores are located in Croydon, and we spent our whole weekend visiting them one by one. And actually, we purchased a whole bedroom suit, bearing the series name "Prague". Timewise, it is tricky to make such bulky purchases here as the usual delivery period is eight weeks after you order! So, we hope we will have moved to the flat within that period, otherwise it will turn out to be another headache.

Secondly, we are still waiting to be allowed to see the actual looking of our flat. Therefore we are unsure about the measurements of the rooms and it won't happen until the last week before the completion. Sevi and I made countless drawings by ourselves relying on the small, yet more or less accurate floor plan in the brochure, and allocated the furniture modules in the two bedrooms accordingly, which led us to discover, for instance, that we need a wardrobe with sliding doors due to lack of space. Then we realised that the suit we fancy has a slightly longer height than the standards, and we could not be sure if it would fit in our new flat. Our solution was awkward, but practical: We went to the site, picked one of our to-be-neighbours in another block (that was already completed) who was having a fag in the balcony and she kindly invited us to her flat to measure the ceiling height as well as the door width. The latter is also a big issue especially for sofas and sofa-beds as some products require wider doors for delivery.

Anyway, that is what we have been doing so far, not interesting for many. At least we did not miss Easter sales, buying what we wanted on the very last day. Besides, this sales thing sounds never ending, they always find a reason to offer another one.

In the meantime, I at last returned to the choir rehearsals. Missed singing a lot! We have a few concerts ahead, including a trip to Slovakia. The concert will be in a small town nearby Bratislava, but our hotel will be in the capital. Sevi will join me as well, and we decided to arrive there a few days earlier just to enjoy the city. After our trips to Vienna and Budapest, this completes the triangle. Prague has to wait for another year, except for the furnitures. :-P

On again, off again

2008-03-19T04:26:00.002Z

OK, this is it. I have to put a stop to this internet procrastination. No news-reading, no facebooking, no sleeping. I have a week left to submit my dissertation and the material at hand is like joke! This should be my last post until April. Will write again soon, hopefully as a free man!

Eight months later

2008-03-13T02:09:00.003Z

It seems my blog is sadly deserted by me. It's been almost eight months since my last post, and other than 'facebooking' I still have no time to collect my mind and write a few sensible things. The only mental break was the trip to Budapest where I felt myself again. Thesis-wise, I am left just a couple of weeks ahead before my ultimate deadline. The pressure kills me. In the meantime (cherry on top, it doesn't rain, it pours, choose whichever idiom you like, but) after a successful application thanks to Sevi's efforts, we are in the middle of purchasing a new flat in Greenwich through shared ownership, a government-backed scheme for first-time buyers. A loooong to-do list!

Heavy clouds, and more rain!

2007-07-02T09:44:00.000Z

I am very unwilling to see my blog being updated on monthly basis. Well, actually it reflects my general mood. I am somehow unable to catch up with things nowadays. O God, what happened my neatly-written to-do lists? I am not happy with my Sibelius writings, it is going rather too slow than I intended. There are other things to finish, such as my Turkey report for the choir, which should have been done weeks before. My cousin will arrive this Saturday for language course, so I need to tidy up my belongings. Moreover, weatherwise, we are having the worst summer of the last fifty years - the inaugural Sun is yet to appear. And, due to our visa expiry date, we had to postpone our intended bargain trip to Tuscany this October, and the Italian Embassy advises for a six-week-notice appointment for application. (By the way, it is pouring down again!) We were planning to stay in Pisa and Florence, and have day out trips to Siena and Lucca - the latter is Puccini's hometown. Anyway, a spring trip would be more reasonable. Perhaps, Budapest could be a nice substitute. (Now, before choosing destination, I first check the relevant embassy's visa page! The Hungarian one seems to be easy-going.)

Last few weeks were busy as usual. Last Saturday, together with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and James and Jeanne Galway as the soloists, we accompanied Andrea Bocelli for his O2 concert. Although the programme consisted of overwhelmingly popular pieces, it was still very enjoyable. (At least, leaving my prejudices aside, I must admit that his voice is very impressive and strong, and his live performance was faultless.) This Wednesday, we will sing in an award ceremony. After that, only one concert is left, the one at Rochester Castle. Then, our busiest summer is over.

This year, we also had the chance to go to Wimbledon, and even managed to find a ticket to Court No. 1 to see the last fourty minutes of Andy Roddick's play. The rain had a few attempts to start, actually it managed to stop the games twice, but it is an inseparable part of the tradition. Lazy, crazy, rainy days of sum-mer...

These are a few of my favourite things

2007-06-12T21:48:00.000Z

I have been rather busy lately (as if I were otherwise!) Today, I rescheduled my writing plan, and faced with the bitter fact that time is scarcer than I thought, and I have to be very precise regarding my submissions. The definitive deadline is 21 January of next year. Well, I am not trying to raise my stress level, but a bit of adrenaline would even be helpful I suppose.

Apart from writing my dissertation, the choir has been keeping me very busy nowadays. Actually, we are having our most hectic summer this year. We had a recording session for the commemorative events marking the 25th anniversary of the Falklands War. The actual concert to be broadcast live on BBC will take place this Sunday at the Horse Guards Parade. Last Sunday, we sang at the Royal Festival Hall, reopening with a non-stop 48-hour musical weekend. We first performed in our ten-minute slot at noon and then all the choirs joined together to form a massive 1300-strong voices for an early-evening performance of the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to the new English lyrics. In a couple weeks, we shall take stage for the reopening of the Millenium Dome, the notorious white elephant of London, which was at last refurbished and renamed as O2 Arena after its sponsor. There are more concerts to come… In the meantime, my cousin Özlem will be visiting us for a whole summer, during which she will attend a language course. After having Sevi’s cousin, Bora for an extended stay, I can say that we are quite experienced. So, more family commitments waiting for us.

We are trying our best to enjoy the cultural activities on offer. Here is a ‘Price and Prejudice’ episode: The last couple weeks saw our first theatre experience here in London – with Edward Albee’s play, The Lady from Dubuque. I admit that I have prejudice against theatre, I cannot help but desperately need music while watching a performance. (Perhaps that is why I like opera.) After I while, I usually find myself humming instead of paying attention to the words. This time, Maggie Smith’s presence lured us as we wanted to see one of our favourite Dames live on stage. A confession: I was hesitant before the performance if I would understand every conversation word by word (Again, perhaps that is why I prefer opera. He he!), but then it was extra nice to see that I no longer need to press the 888 subtitles to be on the safe side. Moreover, Haymarket Theatre offers discount tickets for the students available on the day of performance. What I had to do was to go there in the morning and purchase a couple of tickets. By this, they give you the opportunity to afford the 50-pound tickets (the first twelve rows) for just 20 pounds! So, no need to mention that our seats were fantastic! This week, they start a new play, starring David Suchet, renowned as Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian detective, Hercules Poirot. He will be making his appearance as Cardinal Benelli in a Vatican thriller, The Last Confession. I won’t miss it!

Well, being busy does not prevent us from playing an easy-yet-addictive online game, Travian. (Unpredictably enough, Sevi has a game monster hidden deep inside her heart and mind you once it is triggered!)

Referring back to the title of this post, time to conclude with a TVC that puts smile on our face every time we see. Cheers!

Migrating pink wild ducks

2007-05-21T06:51:00.000Z

Finally back from Turkey. As every other recent vacations of us, it was short, flying speedily in a hectic schedule. Mostly Izmir-based, we visited almost all relatives; and if you mean to do that, you are left with no spare time. As a married couple, I think that will be the general format for a while at least until people get used to the idea. Besides, whenever we go, there will always be someone who gave birth, who was engaged, or married, etc. No complaints anyway. After spending some time also in Balikesir, we went to Beylikdüzü for a couple of days, which is seemingly part of Istanbul, yet ‘far’ from being so. (Pun intended). Neither Sevi nor I could manage to meet with any of our friends, having had to postpone it to our September trip. (The reason for this second trip is about the change of my visa type due to marital status.) Well, we only hope to spend more time in Istanbul.

In the meantime, I ruined my holiday by not being able to finish my dissertation plan before our arrival. So I had to write it while in Balikesir, and it was gnawing my mind until it was all done. (Lesson #1: Never mix holiday and work.) My annual assessment meeting has had to be postponed until May 15th since I was late to submit my chapters and the schedules of my assessors could not allow a day before our trip. Thus, it was the subtle source of stress. (Lesson #2: Never postpone things as they have the potential to ruin your plans.) Combined with such elements of stress, I ate a lot throughout the whole stay, like a goldfish with no sense of fullness and unavoidably put some unwanted weight. (Lesson #3: Stop when you realize you eat more than you talk.)

As soon as we return, a busy week welcomed us. However, the highlight was Tuesday as I had my assessment meeting which went much better than I expected. To my surprise, before it started (slightly later than it was scheduled), my supervisor had an hour’s chat with me about my future career plans, talking about a possible academic career, and encouraging me for some part-time teaching experiences. Well, honestly, I have never felt that I would be skilled enough to pursue an academic career. The post-doc opportunities are very competitive and hard to obtain, but now I think why not giving a try. Anyway, this will need further discussions, but after an agonising six-month period, I am now convinced that I will be able to finish my degree, which feels good indeed.

In the meantime, I was assigned a free-lance task – reading a fiction which has quite a few Sibelian elements in it and checking whether the musical descriptions sound reasonable. Since the book is yet to be published, I cannot release the name of the book, nor that of the author, but reading it seems to be fun. I am also beginning to write the fourth chapter of my dissertation, and the choir’s concert schedule is very busy as well. There are also some administrative stuff waiting – I have to write a report for my meetings with the festival committees, so no time to stop and relax.

Below is a shot from a trip to Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, with my cousin-in-law Bora, which I like a lot. There was no plaque to read the flower’s name and no staff was available to ask, but I tend to call it ‘migrating pink wild ducks’ (though some of them seem to go towards the wrong direction!)

Just a quick note...

2007-04-24T04:16:00.000Z

...to say that I am off to have our early summer vacation in a couple of hours. Will try to check my blog, but it seems to be occasionally. Sevi was doing the dawn shift. I was trying to print my material hastily (academic dawn shift). What a last couple of days it was! Now our parents say they are preparing a busy schedule for us. No!!! I need a break. Will it be a holiday in any sense? Especially when I am yet to finish revising my dissertation plan?!

VIVA postponement!

2007-04-16T12:00:00.001Z

I am in Nottingham at the moment. Caught a morning train to submit my so-so finished chapters, and rushed into the computer room after topping up my print credits. In the meantime, I saw my supervisor, only to learn that the other assessor will not be able to commit before my travel to Turkey. Well, what can I say, after this embarrassing delay on my part, they have every right. Therefore, my VIVA was rescheduled for 16 May, Wednesday. Viva postponement! The good side of this is that it gave me at least a couple of days to make my chapters look more handsome. Especially the endnotes are horrible this time, definitely requiring rearrangement.

I want to sleep

2007-04-12T13:20:00.000Z

...Because I feel utterly exhausted! You know why? Once again, I missed my self-imposed deadlines to submit two chapters of my dissertation for this last year's assessment, thanks to my unnecessary meticulousness and uncontrollable fear for a probable downgrade (to MPhil). I know it is no help, but it is constantly gnawing my mind. Sevi says my work-in-porgress sounds far better than lat year's material though. Anyway, I can see the end now, and it seems very likely that I will have to have my VIVA meeting just the day before our departure to Izmir for a holiday. God, I NEED one. I hope my assessors will announce their decision as they did last year. They will say whether my studies so far are adequate to continue my research and finish writing the dissertation. What I am going to submit within a few days is just a quarter of the whole pack, so I cannot imagine how I shall tackle with the rest.

In the meantime, I was enjoying a few concerts we gave in the Royal Albert Hall, first the three Classical Spectacular concerts, and then our annual performance of Handel's Messiah. The latter went particularly well. Last year, it was my first time to sing it, so while tackling with all those baroque vocal ornamentations, you forget the musicality side. This year, since I knew the oratorio much better, I could enjoy singing it. It is quite a demanding piece, lasting for two and a half hours, and I felt extremely tired when the event finished.

By the way, after the concert, to my surprise (as I was told about that only a few days before the concert), I was introduced to our President, HRH the Duke of Kent, who made one of his rare appearances by attending the event. Well, all those BBC period dramas could be of help at last I must say, while addressing to His Highness. The reason for that acquaintance was my recent appointment as a new director to the Choir. (Edit: O-ops! I mean Board of Directors of the Choir, an administrative post!) Since last month, I have been acting as a member of Board. Funny though, it reminds me of my university music club years. This time a big, Royal one. :-)

Vertigo

2007-04-07T17:39:00.000Z

When I first listened to the Maltese entry for this year's ESC (OK, this post is meant to be blogwise as you are going to see), I was undecided whether I liked it or not, thanks to the YouTube videos with a very poor audio-quality before the promo clip was available. Yet I remember that when Olivia Lewis was announced as the winner, I was astonished - not actually by her landslide victory, but rather by the fact that it was her eleventh attempt to win the national final Maltasong! After an agonisingly long decade, she eventually succeeded! Well, she apparently tried hard, what a perseverance I must say! Frankly speaking, I used to say this a bit wryly, but not anymore. I have been reading her blog (she is the only Eurovision performer to keep a blog of her own), which is about her preparations for Helsinki. She is a very keen blogger, posting almost everyday, portraying a down-to-earth character, unlike many other Eurovision singers residing in their ivory towers. You cannot help but feel the sympathy and wish her all the best - and why not, a victory perhaps. With so many good songs it has been sending to Eurovision, Malta definitely deserves one. So does Olivia herself. Below is the promo clip of her song "Vertigo" for Helsinki.

Bye-bye hep-pi-niz*

2007-03-20T13:13:00.000Z

My time plan for this year's VIVA has been suffering from an extremely serious backlog. Now the imperative deadline is the post-Easter. I already feel embarrassed for the unorganised nature of my chapters and my inability to meet the deadlines, but hey, this has to be finished whatever the result is. Man, how long has it been since the last project I was able to finish on time! I have a growing fear of failure this year. Insecurity must be the worst thing to tackle with as it brings anxiety, and anxiety brings sleepiness (not –lessness in my case.) Well, I rely on Bach remedy herbal drops though its effect has to be neutralised by caffeine overdose!

Well, it is supposed to be a 15-mnt lunch break and I mean it. By the way, some good news blogwise. No more Eurovision this year. First, I am unwilling to spend my time to write critiques of the contenders. There are so many now (a record forty-two entries for 2007!) and I really have no time to do so. Second, I have been sick of ESC-nerd-ness nowadays, including myself, I think it’d better stay as an ignorable hobby and should bother nobody else. Perhaps Metin Alp will have its independent blog one day, but I do not wish to indulge my spring posts into this particular subject. The only thing I can say for Helsinki 2007 is that it will be an open competition. Other than Turkey and the UK, I personally hope Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania and Serbia (in alphabetical order) will do well this year (well, a too-optimistic wish though) as I enjoy listening to their entries below. (The Lithuanian entry reminds me of the care-free days I used to order a double-cheese toast and tea with milk in Kuzey Kantin while Kral TV used to be watched as loudly as possible. Also, every time I watch the Serbian clip, the performer reminds me of Verda, our beloved Ychorus-mate.)

Anyway... It seems highly probable that this is my last post until the VIVA. Hope everything goes well. Stay tuned.

* Hepiniz means "all of you" in Turkish. The line is from Yilmaz Erdogan's movie "Organize Isler". The mafia guy sends the rival gang to a torture session with this Beatles-inspired pun [Bye-bye happiness].

GEORGIA
Song: My story
Performer: Sopho Khalvashi

GERMANY
Song: Frauen regieren die Welt (Women reign the World)
Performer: Roger Cicero (Live performance)

HUNGARY
Song: Unsubstantial blues
Performer: Magdi Rúzsa

LITHUANIA
Song: Love or leave
Performer: 4Fun (Live performance)

SERBIA
Song: Molitva (Prayer)
Performer: Marija Šerifovic

80s come back

2007-03-10T01:31:00.000Z

Sevi and I spent a couple of hours perusing some videos from the 80s, mostly animations from our childhood era - from Esteban and Yakari to Clemantine and Candy. For the latter, we randomly selected this episode to watch and were pretty surprised. I did not remember anything about that cartoon, all I knew was that my sister used to fancy it a lot, singing the song that goes like: "Seker Kiz Candy, Anthony'le evlendi. Bunu gören Lisa kiskancliktan geberdi." When you watch it, you realise that it is almost traumatising for children thanks to its over-dramatic soap-opera plot about a servant-turned-to-be-a-member-of-the-aristocracy, tackling with love triangles, blinking fetishisingly big crying-you-a-river eyes with all the tones of the blue while admiring the ridiculously-feminine-nosed aristocratic boys. Well, if Candy was unhealthily dramatic, Clematine was equally scary, Yakari was uber-silly and Esteban was full of deathbed confessions. Funny though, that was our times...

Sey Kitap Se Kerim

2007-03-09T12:32:00.000Z

Just a couple of hours ago, Kenan Dogulu has announced his song for Helsinki which is titled Shake it Up Sekerim (Shekerim - Sweety). It is neither admirable nor bad. Perhaps sounds a bit too fabric in an attempt of creating the winning formula - used in his latest hit Cakkidi and also in Sertab Erener's Every Way That I Can. Since Turkey is among the last few countries to share its song publicly, the expectations among Euro-fans were extremely high, and people are now undecided whether they like it or not. The important thing is how it would sound live. (It should.) Besides, it is far far better than Sibel Tüzün's Süperstar, so if she managed to come the 11th in the finals (thanks partly to the votes of the Turkish diaspora), then why not Dogulu? But, first replace those horrible clothes with likable ones!

EDIT: It seems that two third of Turkish public is disappointed with the song, according to the polls opened by major newspapers. (Well, I think this is another new unnecessary trend!) When you peruse the reader comments, you see that the Turkish complex of inferiority has not been resolved (at least, concerning the Eurovision Song Contest). I think this has become an inseparable part of our culture - harsh criticism without any reasonable cause. Actually, even accepting TRT's offer deserves to be appreciated as participating the ESC has the occasional potential to be a career disaster for the singer. (Also, nobody recalls the criticism that Sertab Erener had received before the contest.) I hate to see that we do not praise participating, we always aspire to win. This reminded me of the slight disappointment in the press when Süreyya Ayhan won her first medal in athletism. It was not a gold medal, but silver one and it has been announced not as a big achievement (she was the first one to win any medal in her discipline in the entire history of Turkish athletism), but rather a chance of victory sadly missed. There seems to be excessively crowded block of critics against Dogulu, so, I felt the sympathy towards him and wish him the best of luck - he may even keep that golden jacket if he wants.

Console me

2007-03-08T02:08:00.000Z

Had a day trip to Nottingham on Monday to meet my supervisor and attend one of the departmental colloquia. The meeting was very refreshing and a big boost for me. Also, I have issued several books from our music library – those I was using at the British Library as having them 24/7 will be much more practical during my writing process. With a rather blurry deadline, I am now continuing to type my second chapter with some new ideas. I am in a good mood.

Roughly speaking, the colloquium that I audited was about music, Turkey and Islam in the Eurovision Song Contest. The lecture was delivered by an American scholar whose fondness of ESC, as he told us, dates back to his childhood spent in Jerusalem. The topic seems to have sounded interesting enough that the room was entirely full. A confession: since I heard the subject matter, I was a bit concerned – or, perhaps biased about – the possible bias of Western scholars who tend to have a rather romanticised and exoticised perception of whatever Eastern.

I am afraid I was not wrong. Within its own context, the paper was well delivered and triggered a valuable debate on several issues, but it sounded me extremely subjective and intentional based on inadequately justified ‘facts’. It did not take too long for me to realise that what was referred Islamic was actually meant to refer to Turkish, Arabic or Middle Eastern elements. I also found it ironic enough to relate such elements with a religion which does not very welcome any music or musical instruments with few exceptions. The way they were exemplified was more problematic: the ‘Islamic’ vocal technique that was adopted by Tarkan for the middle section of his hit song, ‘Simarik’, or the ‘Turkish’ star on the chest of the last year’s Bosnian Eurovision contestant (to me symbolising that of the Bosnian flag - or even a yearning for the old days of Yugoslavia and its red star), or the French entry of 2003 (sung by Louisa) with a refrain that repeats the ‘Arabic’ name of the woman Leila (to me, first a Persian name; besides there was no name at all as in fact the singer was simply murmuring a nonsense lay lay la) or the battle of superiority between the Turkish zurna and the Armenian düdük (assuming genocidal connotations) in last year’s Armenian debut (to me reclaiming its national cultural heritage in Anatolia) and the like. Together with our Turkish lecturer, we found ourselves as the Turkish contingency to explain some of these issues. I did not try very hard though as I was in the mood that what was expected just happened. Or from a similar point of view, should I have argued for the beautiful 'Christian' vocal technique of Celine Dion's Oscar-winning performance for the soundtrack of Titanic and the symbolisation of Jesus Christ's crucifiction by the Di Caprio-Winslet on the edge of the deck?

Presumably, all of us are do the same thing when it comes to write about another culture. I have realised that when I travelled to Helsinki and that nature is not a fascinating subject to the Finns. Under the Anglo-American reputation of Sibelius, I was apparently - and exaggeratingly - romanticising the influence of nature on his music. That is simply not the case for his natives - and something they find unoriginal and boring just like the Turkish delight stereotype.

This episode reminded me of another scholar, Martin Stokes, whose book The Arabesk Debate has fascinated me in terms of its accuracy and originality. I have encountered his book while perusing the integrated catalogue of the British Library and could not help but typed one of the lyrics of his musical examples that he had provided in the appendix part:

Console the lover [Bir teselli ver]
whom you have driven crazy. [yarattigin mecnuna]
Only lovers understand the lover’s state [Sevenin halinden sevenler anlar]
Come and see my pitiful state [Gel gör su halimi]
Console me [Bir teselli ver]
If there is someone else between us [Aramizda baska biri var ise]
give me back my purest love [tertemiz askimi bana geri ver]
I am already an addict of every grief [Ben zaten her acinin tiryakisi olmusum]
I am drunk with my life-long endless torment [Ömür boyu bitmeyen derdimle sarhosum]
I cannot smile my love [Gülemem sevdigim]
I cannot live without you [Ben sensiz yasayamam]
What do I need but your love? [Bana ne gerek senin askindan baska]
What do I need? [Bana ne gerek]
Even if your love was poison I would still drink it [Askin zehir olsa yine icerim]
Even if you lead me to my death, [Yolun ecel olsa]
I would not be afraid, to follow [Korkmam gecerim]
If only you said ‘I love you’ [Yeter ki sevdim de]
with this love [ben bu ask ile]
I would laugh at all troubles of this world. [dünyanin kahrina gülüp gecerim.]
(Translation: Emine Gürsoy-Nakali and Saliha Paker)

The point is that it is almost impossible to delineate the cultural connotations of the lyrics ciphered with some untranslatable words and phrases such as mecnun, tiryaki, kahir and ecel which are widely used in the musical culture of Arabesk. You can hear the hit song by Orhan Gencebay here.

Although in poetic terms, the lyrics are hard to swallow, my unachievable project would be to commission, say:
1) an Icelandic pop music composer to set the English translation to music [having been persuaded that his work will be the only existing version]
2) an American country music composer to do the same
3) an Egyptian composer to set the Arabic translation to music
4) a Portuguese fado composer to do the same for the Portuguese translation
5) A classical music composer to set the lyrics to music with piano accompaniment [He would choose the language. German would be interesting] or what about writing an instrumental piece etc?
The outcome should be quite weird, but equally interesting.

A la Schoenberg

2007-03-04T13:45:00.000Z

Well, OK, I am not spending my whole time by perusing the YouTube clips, but we were told about this one by our cat-loving parents yesterday and I can say that Nora is definitely better than me concerning the pianistic skills. :-) She definitely has a style! [By the way, the pupil's piece is Bach's Minuet - the first piece I learned to play.]

Moment musicaux

2007-03-01T12:16:00.000Z

These are the two clips from Notre Dame de Paris the musical that I've been watching recently again and again. Frankly speaking I am not into musicals, and I dislike tenor voices at all [for instance, the tenderly voice of the character Phoebus (esas oglan) from the same act] not because my voice is baritone, but this one makes me utterly jealous! The vocal is Bruno Pelletier, a Canadian singer from Quebec. He plays the narrator Gringiore in the play, and definitely steals the show. French has never sounded so musical... Ignore the subtitles - without them I am more convinced that music transcends words. [By the way, YouTube provides all the clips, so if you are interested, check the rest as well.]

Act 1 Song 1: Le Temps des Cathedrales

Act 2 Song 15: Lune

Ritorna vincitor!

2007-02-24T17:40:00.000Z

Hey, YouTube is full of surprises! I haven't realised that I could find so much stuff! The excerpt is 'Ritorna vincitor', the titular protagonist's first aria from Verdi's Aida. The performer is Turkish soprano Leyla Gencer in Verona arena. It is my first time watching her! Exciting! Now is the time to have a majestic return to my paper.

Milk is a singular word

2007-02-12T09:05:00.000Z

By the end of this week, I will hopefully have finished my first chapter and resume the second one. Then it will be the time to ask Sevi's help to better the grammar of my writing and polish its vocabulary. Busy days ahead...

A lovely way to spend a Saturday

2007-02-03T17:35:00.000Z

Having a lovely Saturday. The unseasonable sunshine was luring enough to take us outside for a casual walk – something we could not do for the last couple of months. Apart from the weekly shopping, we went to the borough library and issued a dozen of CDs, reflecting a quite an eclectic choice which includes Julie London’s enchanting album ‘About the Blues’; an ethnic album of Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, (a Pakistani virtuoso who plays a woodwind instrument - still among to-be-listened); a Persian album complied by a Turkish musicologist; and Merlin, a three-act opera by Isaac Albeniz, set to an English libretto – the only choice by me. Ah, I am so slow when it comes to peruse the shelves whereas Sevi was amazingly speedier than Speedy Gonzales.

I got an extension for my last-year VIVA, so the new deadline is 1 March. Slightly relieved, but still nervous. But, as I understood – or rediscovered the Americas – no productivity is possible without some leisure time. Now, let’s get back to work.

Potential cast for a Hitchcock sequel?

2007-01-30T18:04:00.000Z

As part of my refined procrastination skills, I perused this week’s Radio Times magazine – as if I had nothing else to do – to choose which films to record (and watch one day, hopefully). Among them, Hitchcock films are always to be circled boldly with a pen and this week it is The Birds. I am just curious how I shall receive it after some twenty years – I think I was ten the last time I watched the film. No, it can never influence my affection towards birds – though the only exception could be the pelicans of St James Park, which have recently developed a eerie habit of eating pigeons. (I am not sure they quit their strange appetite.) I miss so much to go outside and have some fresh air, sitting by lakeside, feeding birds, surrounded by them – a few pigeons on one arm, a few geese and ducks at feet, and a big swan knocking my back, noisily demanding its share. Funny creatures! Don’t they seem hypnotised?

The duck with nine lives

2007-01-29T15:05:00.000Z

The titular saying is apparently applicable to this brave duck! Meet Perky who ‘survived being shot before spending two days in a refrigerator [and then] overcome major surgery - despite briefly dying on the operating table.’ Well, perhaps she was a cat in her earlier life. Well, it would be a good thrilling sequel for Andersen’s story: Perky the Four-Time Lucky Ugly Little Duckling!

Snow

2007-01-27T13:01:00.000Z

Doris the Lamb and Frank the Cow watching the very first snow of the year, which has already melted away...

Misunderstandings

2007-01-24T05:40:00.000Z

Perused the readers’ comments to the funeral of Hrant Dink in two of the mass-circulated Turkish newspapers, Milliyet and Hürriyet. Actually, the news was about Muhsin Yazicioglu’s press statement, emphasising the resentment he felt on behalf of Turkish people from the slogan ‘We are all Hrant, we are all Armenians.’

There were more than a hundred comments in total, and I can say that the overwhelming majority (90% as I estimate) thanked him to express their feelings, although some of them felt obliged to mention that they don’t agree Yazicioglu’s political view (which I would call subtle fascism). People were quoting Kemal Atatürk’s aphorism ‘Ne mutlu Türküm diyene!’ (Meaning ‘Joy to those who call themselves Turk’ or something like that), claiming that they are proud of being Turk, they cannot regard themselves as Armenians, etc.

As his alleged murderer said, Hrant Dink was killed for a sentence that starts one of his recent articles, seemingly calling Turkish blood ‘poisonous’. Every provocative politician quoted that sentence to accuse him, without paying attention to the rest of the article. That was the most straightforward (mis)interpretation ever possible which Dink had to pay for it with his life. Now it seems the majority of people interpret the funeral slogan almost equally offensive, the most straightforward way of thinking once again! Are people so shallow and unintelligent not to be able to interpret that simple phrase?

I often find myself trying hard to understand what is happening to my country and its people – which somehow lining up with Russia and Serbia in terms of democratic ‘achievements’? Am I getting estranged more and more? In the national history classes, we used to be taught about Turkey’s tolerance against the minorities and the peaceful atmosphere allowing people from all religions living in peace. After reading those comments, I asked myself ‘Where is that tolerance?’ Perhaps that was indeed history, something left far away in the past – not applicable to today’s ultra-nationalist conjecture which even cannot bear to accommodate the community of three-thousand Armenians.

Songs of nostalgia

2007-01-23T02:09:00.000Z

A couple of songs, Sultan-i Yegah and Mihrimah by Nur Yoldas, whose voice I missed so much to hear. Her album, Sultan-i Yegah from the early 1980s is still a milestone in the brief history of Turkish popular music (with a very distinctive style and quality, all the songs were composed in the discipline of Ottoman-Persian maqams while applying Western-style instrumentation and musical arrangement) and I am so glad it is available online. And now I know why the lyrics are equally beautiful as Erguder Yoldas's music. Both are Attila Ilhan's poems written specifically for this album project.

R - E - S - P - E - C - T

2007-01-22T07:15:00.000Z

Read on BBC’s Have Your Say page people’s comments about what impact Dink’s murder would create on Turkey’s foreign affairs, such as its EU prospect. Common people like us, people from all over the world, talk about Turkey’s international political image or their expectation for a new crisis in already-worsened French-Turkish relationships, or their fear about new possible manoeuvres of the Armenian Diaspora for the approval of genocide laws in the US and other countries, or the rightness or wrongness of counterarguments.

Dink was murdered on Friday, and will be buried tomorrow. And I doubt people’s sincerity as I question if this should be our way to mourn for someone dead – to talk about Turkey’s image and such other rubbish, letting ourselves delve into the superficiality of politics. Who cares? Dink is dead. His corpse is waiting for the day it would embrace the soil of his beloved motherland, but a debate on Turkey’s EU prospects could not wait. No matter how politically-motivated a murder it is… Have we really become so impatient? Is this the respect we show?

The head of Armenian Parliament claims Turkey should not even dream about becoming an EU membership. He can speak that way. He is a politician after all, he is entitled to say lies and be insincere – in this case, about his sadness over Dink’s death, if he is. Likewise, journalists write about the political impact of the murder and of further events it may trigger. They can speak that way. They are professionals after all, it is part of their duties, of what they are expected to do.

But, if WE the non-professionals find ourselves talking about such issues even before he is buried, I doubt if ‘we all are his brothers, we all are Hrant Dink!’. Also, from an ethical viewpoint, isn’t it an unfortunate timing for BBC to start the debate and for people as well to have their say?

The unbearable heaviness of being Turkish

2007-01-20T07:24:00.000Z

I have always thought that nationality, like your family or religion, is among the things that you are not able to choose but born into – it is a twist of fate, like it or not. Yesterday the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who was ridiculously found guilty of assaulting ‘Turkishness’ because of an article about the mass killings of Armenians during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, was assassinated.

I stay neutral against the genocide issue, having been disillusioned by lack of a free-minded, non-manipulative discussion platform thanks to the insincerity of narrow-minded Turkish politicians who seemingly offer to open the Ottoman archives for a fair debate as well as the history-turned-into-religion approach of the Armenian Diaspora, which fanatically treats any counterargument to the issue totally unacceptable.

What both parties did until now has been nothing but to raise brain-washed generations claiming - traumatically enough - victim status versus innocence. It is not Dink’s article, but the sad fact of his assassination which insults the Turkish identity. And perhaps for the first time in my life my nationality bothers me as for the first time in my life I felt ashamed of my ‘Turkishness’.

Strictly Come Eurovision!

2007-01-18T04:54:00.000Z

According to Eurovision official web site, a new show by the European Broadcasting Union is due to start by next September. It is apparently BBC's proposal after its highly succesful Strictly Come Dancing (which inspired this post's title) - the TV show which was adapted by many other channels from America to Australia. This is the third big show by EBU, following the fifty-one-year old ESC and the recent launch of Junior Eurovision Song Contest five years ago. The dance contest, featuring latin, ballroom and freestyle dancing, will be held on September 1st this year and BBC will be the host channel. For the first year, they are already a dozen of countries which expressed their interest to participate (excluding Turkey). By the way, as agreed in the meeting, BBC has already guaranteed to host the event for two consecutive years whereas the general rule would be expected to appoint the winner country to host the event as in the song contest version. This must be due to BBC's success and experience for sure. Also, after a decade of disappointing results in the song contest, they seem to miss the idea of organising a continental show, don't they?

Musical times

2007-01-17T02:14:00.000Z

Living like a night owl nowadays… Don’t know why, but it is much easier to get focused on what I’m doing and write substantially longer chunks for my chapters. The self-set deadline is big and I have no idea about how to deal with that. Time is simply ticking and I am like a bomb about to explode. Listening to music sometimes gives some relief, songs are good company to get rid of the silence - distracted only by the constant noise of the fridge.

Anyway, below are two of them which I enjoy these days. Cesaria Evora is one of my all-time favourites and Sodade, the opening number of her album, Miss Perfumado, is about the extreme, bittersweet homesickness, which is said to have an exact counterpart only in a few languages including Hebrew and Turkish. (I suppose it means ‘sıla’ or ‘sıla hasreti’).

Dulce Pontes, on the other hand, is a new discovery for me. The tune is actually familiar – I know the song from Sarah Brightman’s very unimpressive orientalist attempt – I think that was included in the album Harem. I encountered Pontes while googling for some Amalia Rodrigues songs. I am yet to find the very original version of this song by her, which is reportedly an striking interpretation, but this cover by Pontes is also hauntingly beautiful.

Trip to Bristol

2007-01-10T00:42:00.000Z

Well, time for a coffee break! The first week of 2007 is already over and I have no resolution yet. In fact, I am not sure if I have one. The only thing I wish is to submit this stress-generating chapter duo and then deal with a free-lance editing task I have been offered recently. And then prepare the Choir's 2008 applications for a trip to Turkey, presuming that there will be no invitations for this year. Well, that means more busy times! I am not complaining about being busy, the only thing I want is to see things are accomplished - successfully if possible. Well, concerning my annual assessment preparations, things are not going that well. At least, it seems so - for the time being...

Anyway, thanks to the stormy weather, I am not very optimistic nowadays. Just recovered from a brief, but terrible flu, I actually made not a bad start to the new year. The RMA Student Conference took place between 3-6 January in Bristol and I read my first academic paper there, based on one of the previous chapters of my dissertation. It was received quite well - beyond my expectation. I was there for the last two days and my work was scheduled as the very last paper of the conference, but the attendance was satisfactorily high. Meeting new people was nice and the audience reaction made me feel better in the way that what I am doing has some potential to arise curiosity and interest, so my efforts are not in vein - something I often tend to forget.

Below are two pictures from Bristol, a coastal city in the southwest, close to the Welsh border. Although my stay was short and it was rainy all day, I had a few hours to wander along the streets, getting lost among puzzling little harbors connected via footbridges.

Victoria Rooms of the University of Bristol, home for the Music Department.

A panoramic view from the main harbor in rain. I like the vividly-painted adjacent buildings. Look like a watercolour work. (Pun intended!)

Autumn in London

2006-12-22T15:39:00.000Z

Well, it seems I am about to publish my ever first photo-entry! Hope it works! This pic, dating back to a family trip last month to Kew Gardens has recently become the brand-new desktop bacground for home PC. It was taken at the Victoria Entrance and the building hidden behind the trees is Kew Palace, which was closed until the spring, unfortunately. I used to complain about shortness of autumn seasons in Turkey; no doubt London is a good place to spend the whole season.

The Vienna dream

2006-12-11T11:35:00.000Z

Back from a fantastic holiday from Salzburg and Vienna. It was the most inspiring experience and I simply fell in love with both cities! There is no practical way to show all the places we have visited. Listing them would not sound meaningful, either. Salzburg was a panoramic paradise whereas Vienna enchanted us with its imperial abundance of art and architecture. It was the last few weeks of the Mozart year celebrating the 250th birth anniversary of the composer. Listening to a choral concert under Riccardo Muti at the beautiful Musikverein was the peak moment of the trip. Well, let me see whether this Picasa gismo works to post a few pics. So, the posts for the following days seem to be retrospective in a sense. By the way, my paper for the Bristol conference has been accepted, which means an extra duty other than my twin chapter for January! Help!

Posts interrupted

2006-12-02T22:32:00.000Z

Writing is a constant urge, but I had to waste thousands of words written and waiting to be posted just because I could not find time to post them and now they already turned out to be old news. The last one-and-a-half month was enjoyable, very busy, and - needless to say - spent with the least possible time online as our daily routine was modified due to subsequent long-term visits by our parents. Today was no exception. We saw off our parents at Gatwick and then immediately headed to Heathrow to welcome Sevi's cousin who will be staying in Britain for a three-month language course in Bournemouth. After a quick supper together, he boarded his train and we hastily came back home to pack. And now we are left less than six hours before our cab will take us to Gatwick airport for a week-long Austria break - our ever first trip to (continental) Europe together! We shall spend a couple of days in Salzburg and a then few more in Vienna. I think nobody would believe me if I say I would send some pics of us, because I doubt I will be able to create time for that. But, let us hope so. From next week, I will start spending my days at home, so am willing to post more regularly and frequently than this! Cheers!

Ten mischievous criteria for naming an innocent baby

2006-10-12T22:22:00.000Z

Last Sunday Sevi and I went to the British Library to see the ‘Front Page’, an exhibition about one-hundred-year history of British journalism. It was the very last day of the exhibition and we were there just an hour before the buildings’ closure, so that it had to be a quick tour, but still an enjoyable one. At the very last minutes, we even managed to produce our own front page with the help of an interactive programme. We went for the Berliner-sized Guardian. You act as a news hunter, discuss possible headlines with your editors, decide which pictures to use, the layout, etc. At the end, you have it printed as a one-to-one-size newspaper, with an extra picture of yours at the top left corner featuring you as one of the news subjects!

After the exhibition session, we then took a walk from Euston to Charing Cross via Russell Square and Covent Garden and passed through streets unknown to us (well, at least to me, as Sevi is always better than me in finding ways and was surely aware of where we were going.)

At one point on our way back home, after a silence, Sevi asked me why the rivers Kizilirmak (River Red) and Yesilirmak (River Green) have such straightforward names whereas Firat (Euphrates) and Dicle (Tigris) has mythological connections. She added that, unlike Zap (Suyu) in Hakkari, for instance, they did not sound local enough.

Well, she was right, I thought; the Hittites or other ancient civilisations must have given different names to Kizilirmak and Yesilirmak. Indeed, as Wikipedia says, the former names were Halys (a Trojan soldier) and Iris (one of the Oceanides in Greek mythology), respectively. Why did not we keep it as Halis (which means ‘Pure’ in Turkish - was the water too muddy for that, lacking clarity?), for instance; or name the latter as Süsen (irrelevant to the mythological Iris, but it is the Turkish name for the flower iris)?

She then asked me what was the English name for the River Tuna (as we say in Turkish). I answered: the Danube. A bemused comment followed: ‘Well, life must be difficult for a Turkish girl, named Tuna, living here in London.’ (O-ops! That was the name of my English teacher’s daughter.)

And a today I read Selmin’s blog heralding the official news that she will be an aunt for a nephew. My first intention was to leave a congratz message, but it turned out to be a lenghty post. Well, considering the fact that many friends of ours are to become parents, aunts, uncles, etc., I felt the urge to give my unnecessary advise on the notoriously unfortunate consequences in baby-naming and help them avoid disastrous choices. Here we go!

TEN MISCHIEVOUS RULES TO NAME AN INNOCENT BABY

Take the issue seriously. Naming a baby is a serious thing as the infant will bear it for the rest of his or her life. Make sure it would be a loveable name.

Criterion #1: A name should never be subject to bullying.
School years are usually the time when a child starts hating his or her name, thanks to verbal bullying or teasing. Therefore, a name should be unable to be used in different contexts.
- No explicit reference to nature.
e.g. (before attacking the victim) Hadi bugun Deniz’e girelim. [Let’s enter to the Sea (Deniz) today.] Pushing a boy Yildirim (Lightning) to the ground in a rainy day and shouting ‘Yildirim dustu.’ (lit. Lightning fell to the ground.) or applying protective cream on one’s skin while sitting next to Gunes (Sun) in classroom should be considered as equally naughty behaviours.
- No reference to TVC jingles, famous singers, etc.
‘Erol, Erol, fisini almicak misin o’lum?’
‘‘Pinar’la mayalanan peynire doyum olmaz.’ etc.
- No potential for creative bullying.

Criterion #2: I don’t think Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise care about the fact that their baby’s name Suri means nylon bag in Vietnamese, or an American attaché residing in Istanbul would reconsider his decision to name his baby son as John Eric, but a name should not mean something nonsense in another major language. At least in English, the lingua franca of our age! It also should be easily pronounceable.
Example: Tuna (the Turkish name for the Danube, used as a unisex name and apparently requires no explanation why one should avoid using it so.) Also, Mine, Can and Cenk could be a few other questionable names.

Criterion #3: A name should not create a funny or unpleasant combination with the surname. Of course, Gaylord Focker is a fictitious character. Besides, every parent would behave considerately enough not to name his or her baby as such. However, the hidden danger reveals itself when initials take stage, not that much disastrously though…
Example:
Metin Argun KARA ---> M A KARA
Pinar SUTCUOGLU
Furkan ILTER ---> F ILTER

Criterion #4: Let the name be a techno-friendly one. Try to avoid names including language-specific characters. But, be careful. To relate the issue to the fourth criterion, don’t forget, one day your child will have an e-mail address, too. Evaluate the potential danger when the umlauts drop. No matter how Bahadir, a fresh graduate, for example, is happy to start a promising career in multinational company in the US, can you imagine the following?
Bahadir: Hi. Is it the IT department? Hi, this is Bahadir Öksüzer, the new guy from the marketing section, Middle-East desk… Thanks… Actually, this is my first day at work. I was wondering if my e-mail address…
IT Staff: We already created your account, dear. Your address is very easy: your initials followed by your surname at rssc.com. Like the others’…
Bahadir: [D’oh!] Well, could it be possible to change it to ‘bahadiro’ instead?
IT Staff: Why?
Bahadir: [Here we go…] Well…

Criterion #5: A name should not be very unique and easily recognisable. …In a list, for instance, so that he or she would not bother to spend his/her time to explain what does it mean to satisfy people’s (especially the teachers’) artificial curiosity and be the victim of an unfortunate event.

Criterion #6: If your surname is a very usual one, let the first name be slightly less common. Like Mehmet Yilmaz, Erkan Kara or Cem Yildirim. Relatively more common names are more likely to cause confusions. Your child one day may end up with being accidentally included in terror suspect or fraud list.

Criterion #7: Try not give more than one name to your baby. Bureaucratically again, it may create some unprecedented problems during his or her life. Just as Sevi forgot to write her other name to the OSS application form (for university entrance exam) and took the pain for weeks to have it corrected. If you definitely want to give a second one, let it be written as the middle name. Starting from the class lists, it would be annoying to be called with a name that you actually don’t use.
Teacher: Mahiye Topcu?
A friend: Cansu! It is you.
Cansu: Huh?

Criterion #8: Try to avoid descriptive names if you are unsure whether the physical or psychological condition of your child as an adult may meet the criteria that the name would require. Therefore, think twice before choosing Selvi, Gurbuz, Fidan, Nazli, Masum, Yagiz, Arslan, Yigit, and the like.

Criterion #9: Don’t push it too hard to create a name out yours’ and your spouse’s name. A name is not meant to have a DNA-like structure. Trying to create a combinative name sometimes mislead you. In a dated TRT sketch, a couple can’t decide after whom their baby boy will be named - the maternal grandpa, Mustafa, or the paternal one, Salim? The unnecessarily creative registrar takes the initiative and names the baby in a democratic way. The result is Musa. Below are a few more unsuccessful combinations.

Ahmet & Senem = Ahsen
Dündar & Yasemin = Dünya (But, you may like to refer to the second criterion.)
Caner & Sevgican = Ergican or Cansev (Well, they are usable names, but I like neither.)
Güner & Demet = Gündem (Whereas Erdem is acceptable.)
Özgür & Çigdem = Özdem

Equally important is that a name does not necessarily need to rhyme with the name of another family member, especially those of elder siblings. This would simply cause phonetic confusion at all times. So, our very Roger Zeynep should be happy not to be named as Sözde, for instance, after her elder sisters Gözde and Özde.

Criterion #10: Stop admiring the names you found and reapply the test from the very start. No doubt about the beauty of your newborn and the strength of your parental affection is probably at its height, but let your hormone level become normal again before making your ultimate decision. A double-check always seems to be necessary. You will then sure see that there are better options than Sevimyüz, Ayparçam, Hilalgül, Selimcan, Karçiçegi or Perim. Make sure you did not miss a point. We have that idiom in Turkish ‘Bir cuval inciri berbat etmek’ [lit. To mess up a hamper of figs.] Well, Gwyneth Paltrow did it with ‘Apple’s though.

Good luck! ;o)

Written by Emrah, the guy who had to attended the school during the height of the arabesque music child star Emrah the Little, and survived three years in a classroom with that name sitting next to two elder Emrahs.

Who do I think I am?

2006-10-07T21:56:00.000Z

We watched the weekly documentary ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ the other day on BBC1 for the first time. Each episode features a celebrity tracking down his or her ancestors with the help of archives, distant relatives re-contacted, etc. Sort of a genealogical detective story if you like...

It was David Dickinson’s turn – he is the presenter of a famous auction programme. He had been told he was an adopted child when he was 11 and saw his biological mother only once.

Well, that was because he was the offspring of a forbidden love and her mother has been married to another man after giving birth to David and leaving him. That was the secret known only by David’s (biological) aunt who reveals it to him. From her he also learns that her maternal grandfather was Hrant Guleseryan an immigrant Armenian to Manchester who continued his family business of textile there, a fact which clarifies the reason for his well-tanned skin and rather non-Anglo-Saxon facial features, something he has always been aware, but could not explain to himself. He then decides to have a journey of family history back to Istanbul. With the help of an Armenian historian there, he finds the house where his maternal grandfather lived, where he worked, where his family and relatives had been baptised and attended the church, and well, the striking racial similarities to the Armenian community. He even encounters a second-generation cousin, who is a goldsmith in Covered Bazaar, and whose surname is Guleser.

I am keen to watch the next episode which will introduce a famous Jewish businesswoman whose family story claiming their roots back to Iberia would be proved wrong as she would discover that her ancestors were actually from Germany and one of them fled Holland to escape justice, changes his surname and establishes the very first roots of her recent family.

Well, every one of has his or her story, especially in Turkey where almost every family has emigrational connections. There have been only a few anecdotes I was told - that my maternal grandma’s family came to Izmir from Priština when she was a little girl, and my mother’s paternal grandparents had recent Crimean and Georgian connections. Well, eclectic enough.

When it comes to my paternal relatives, further puzzling connections emerge. We know that my grandma’s great grandpa was a black guy from Arabian peninsula - probably an North African immigrant I suspect, who knows? - whom I must be owing my curly sponge hair and rather tanned skin as a member of the sixth generation.

I don’t know my grandpa’s connections simply because he was adopted by a baker during Greek-Turkish War in the early 1920s when he was probably four-year old or so. He was found nearby the battlefield, crying alone. Nobody knows why. It is told that in his first evening with his new family gathered for the supper, instead of using his spoon, the blue-eyed blonde boy asked for a knife, a fork and a napkin as well. To me it does not sound implausible to suggest that he might be the son of an Anatolian Greek family, who fled the country, leaving everything behind, which is not an unusual story those times. My grandpa never ever talked about this and it remained as sort of a known, but hardly-heard story. He passed away a year ago. I wish I could listen to his story from him.

Operatic imitation leading to nasal irritation

2006-10-04T14:31:00.000Z

We failed to get invitation from one of the music festivals for 2007, and I am anxiously waiting for the news from the remaining two. I prefer to be rather pessimistic and would be surprised with a positive answer from either of them. Anyway, I can console myself by saying that this was our first try. At least we have some good contacts with the organisers and pursue for future engagements. At least I know I have enough perseverance for that. That is why I started to think about new possibilities for 2008 and already submitted a brand-new proposal to our conductor and administrator and waiting for their response. This time, the plan is to give the Turkey premiere of Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No.1 for soli, chorus, and orchestra, entitled as ‘A Sea Symphony’. More details later…

My mom is back to Turkey after a three-week visit. Before the second visitor slot, I have less than two weeks to push myself a bit more than usual to utilise my time for writing the two chapters due to end of this year. I admit the pressure upon me, but no escape!

The choir started the new season by rehearsing Carmina Burana, a choral work which is probably the most frequently performed oratorio in Turkey so much so that we may think ‘as if Orff wrote it particularly for Turkish audience’ to quote Gurer Aykal, the Turkish conductor. Anyway, it will be a very big excitement to sing it in the Royal Albert Hall with two other choirs, soaring the number of performers up to five hundred. It is an enormously demanding piece and for the first time I feel the necessity to steady my voice before the rehearsals. Almost everybody who sang Carmina Burana has his or her own funny moments; for my part, it already became the first piece that made me sneeze because of irritation on my nasal passages triggered by the powerful sonority of the epiphanic opening.

Lost

2006-09-26T10:08:00.000Z

For the last one-and-a-half-month-long period, I had several premature attempts to post, but due to a defected brain, there could be no services in either direction between Neverton and Nowhereham. You know the complicated mailway systems; once the schedule is affected, severe delays chase one another. And, as the brain manager, it is your responsibility to give a brief report to both your passengers and the brain company for the causes to this delay. I am sure my mailway company would be the at the bottom of the list in terms of punctuality, but anyway, here is a ‘brief’ episode of what I have been doing rather than blogging.

OK, August was like hell. Amidst an academic paper crisis, I accepted a one-shot free-lance editing job, which consumed hours and hours. Meanwhile, it was the time for our choir’s application for next year’s festivals in Turkey. Well, I at last sent them off. Afterwards, I submitted my shambolic paper and met my supervisor to discuss last year plans before my last-year viva. Now I know I am supposed to write two more chapters, not one because they are closely related. 25,000 words to write and three-and-a-half months left!

The day after that meeting, my mom arrived London for her ever-first UK visit. That was the first week of September and since then we have been enjoying our time and taking her to popular sightseeing spots in and around London, including an open air concert – (Last Night of the) PROMs in the (Hyde) Park where our choir performed alongside Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna, and Lionel Richie; a day-out trip to Brighton, another one to Windsor, visits to Greenwich Observatory, Buckingham Palace, Covent Garden, Canary Wharf, St. Paul Cathedral, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Blackheath, British Museum… In the meantime, I tried to stick with my British Library schedule. Well, you may imagine how content, if somewhat exhausted, I feel. Actually, after becoming a Londoner, for the first time I spent that much time to visit some of these places. Otherwise you simply become lazy.

There are plenty of pics and I will put them to the Kodak Gallery if I can create some time. Luckily, the brain services seem to be returning to normal.

A cat's greetings

2006-08-11T16:01:00.000Z

Just the day after we finished a free-lance task that took days to finish, I was assigned another one – with an urgent notice as usual. In the meantime, I am trying to have a start to writing my new chapter. Or I pretend to do so, practically speaking.

The last few days were quite busy. Basak was staying with us for about ten days or so; hers was a combined trip of sightseeing and health concerns, which was resulted with an unprecedented, but successful eye operation with general anaesthesia. Last Tuesday evening, we went to a Mexican restaurant to say good-bye to her and Sim, my choir-mate who were also leaving Britain permanently after accepting the post of assistantship at Yeditepe University. The place was quite an authentic one, where we were served gorgeously delicious dishes and treated ourselves with shots of tequila.

On Wednesday Basak had her journey back to Istanbul, and only hours after, Heathrow was closed for all flights. Sim was unlucky as she has no other choice but to wait anxiously to be placed for another flight. In the meantime, Sevi’s friend, who had a flight to London, had to change his vacation plans. After this hand baggage ban, now the biggest dilemma seems to be for Bolshoi performers who are currently giving a series of performances in Covent Garden.

Yesterday’s surprise was an e-mail from Belgin, Kavun’s new owner. Kavun (Melon) used to be my cat, whom I had to find a new owner for her before the sister’s wedding. She was temporarily taking care of her after I moved to Britain, and eventually, we had to find a new owner, a graduate student living with her parents in Gebze and willing to have Kavun as her new cat since her sister took the family’s cat with her to Istanbul. After a few months, we lost our contact details unfortunately, and that was all. Now, almost two years later, having found our addresses somewhere, she e-mailed us with Kavun’s good news and attached a few of her latest photos!!! She apparently grew up, ate well, and turned to be a very healthy and happy yellow cat with honey-yellow eyes and white belly. As Belgin wrote, she developed a marvellous relationship with the mother, who spends the entire day taking care of her. She even became the “balkon güzeli (beauty in the balcony)” of the street. I was so moved seeing her pics again, Belgin’s letter describing Kavun echoed in my mind as if dubbed by Belgin Doruk in an old-fashioned style. But as I promised to myself, I will never own a cat again after Kavun. This is a feeling very hard to describe, something only cat owners can understand.

Yuck!

2006-08-01T17:17:00.000Z

I find it quite ironic to see people walking barefoot (even without socks) on the floors of British Library (including the public areas) whereas they don't hesitate to enter into home with their shoes on. Of course, this is a marvellous place for anyone to study, and in a way, to feel home, but not in that literal sense I guess. If they think of adapting what they call a Far Eastern custom, well, there seems to be something misconstrued. Perhaps, it is the next step to replace the funny, yet to-me-irritating flip-flops, but I feel more freaked out by the idea that they are actually walking on the same ground with those visiting the public toilets where urinal spills decorate the floor in a milkway style.

Phew, don't bother to read this. Besides, after those silent weeks would this have to be such a nonsense return to the blogosphere? Things are getting worse in terms of time management. I am far behind my to-be-revised schedule. At least, this entry means I am still alive, if not around.

Steward days

2006-07-11T20:12:00.000Z

Travelled to Nottingham to work as a student helper at the RMA conference. Will stay here overnight and travel back to London for the concert at Southwark Cathedral. On Thursday morning, back here again. Sounds a bit exhausting though.

Today I met many people, including a Finnish scholar whom I visited when I went to Helsinki and a next-generation musicology student from MIAM, who came to deliver a paper. Had a very pleasant conference dinner with them as well. Ah, and I couldn’t help but bought three second-hand books from the bookstands open during the conference. The funny thing was that I encountered another second-hand book about Hanslick’s ideology of aesthetics, which once was owned by a Bosnian student (his name and date on it indicating his student years in Oxford) who is now the author of the book I am avidly reading in the British Library. If world is a small village, then musicology must be the smallest one.

Now, I am in the computer room to do this e-mail migration thing, which seems to take at least a couple of hours. How sleepy I am!

Gimme a break!

2006-06-29T01:05:00.000Z

A short entry in the middle of the night. It’s been ages – well, almost three weeks, but it sounded to me long enough – since my last post. Either my calendar is overloaded, or I have become a bad time manager.

Apart from the weekday-routine of 9-hour session in the library, I spend the rest of the day by dealing with other duties, mainly our project for a trip to Turkey next year. Good news: The oratorio was admitted to the repertoire and will be performed in its original language, i.e. Turkish. It will be challenging enough, considering the fact that the work begins with the line “Teferrüc eyleyu vardim sabahin sinleri gördüm” Ack! Bad news: There will bids by two other British ensembles, not for the same work, but for the same festival, which means rivalry requiring tactical moves. We certainly need to find our own sponsor to strengthen our chance for an invitation.

There are things I would have delighted to recall, such as a Sunday visit to the Hampton Court, the former Buckingham of the monarchy, where we bought a hilarious “ruler” from the gift shop, listing all the “rulers” of the British Monarchy from William I (1066) to Elizabeth II (1952); or a Saturday-evening birthday dinner at Simurgh, our frequented cosy Persian Restaurant, where I had to pray for not having to deal with the task of banknoting the belly dancer since we’ve completely forgotten it was a Saturday night reservation; or my first visit to the Royal Opera at Covent Garden for a performance of Tosca; or my first exhausting tennis-court-debut at Ladywell. Well, here it thus turned out to be a very brief summary of all.

What I need is some leisure time to relax by doing nothing, literally. Instead, we will try our best to wake up at 5pm to go to see the peak-Saturday matches at this year’s Wimbledon, and the next day we will take a train journey to Southampton to visit a distant relative. In the meantime, I am supposed to finalise the application pack for the Turkish festivals, write the meeting notes, prepare a project calendar using Excel, write the necessarily formal letters to different parties, etc. We have three different concerts this month, one of them in Rochester, a nearby suburban town at the very east end of the Greater London. I will also be working at this year’s four-day Royal Music Association conference to be held by our university. Moreover, I am supposed to finish the cover letters for my long-postponed job applications. [One of the posts I newly encountered is at the Royal Opera, which I sincerely wish to be offered, so fingers crossed.] Before that, I need to make an application to change my visa type from student to dependant and thus obtain a work permit without the 20-hour-per-week limit.

For God’s sake, when shall I find some time to concentrate on my chapter and find some serious ideas for the forthcoming 3rd-year assessment? I have left only 6 months! Ack!

To YChorus...

2006-06-08T22:31:00.000Z

After enjoying another beginner’s tennis session (I LIKE playing it), I am alone again – Sevi is doing her last night shift this week. Plenty of papers are waiting to be filed; I messed up everything during my hectic assignment preparations, now I need to tidy them up.

In the mean time, I met my uber-wiser supervisor last Tuesday, who once again encouraged and motivated me with his to-the-point comments on my written work. Thus, my mood has been switched to “content”. (Where is my yellow-face unkymoods?) On the day I was wondering if that would be an ideal date to meet as some people was expecting peculiar things to happen though… Well, here in Britain, a mother who is a horror movie fan, delivered a baby weighting 6lb 6on and named him as Damien, the name of the child protagonist in Omen. Other than that, apparently, the Earth survived (!) Devil’s day, 06.06.06. Yey!

As a freak who can still remember the birthday of our ex-band’s musical director Haluk’s twin aunties (yes, he has cursed me for this with a big laugh, and apparently it worked!), this year, pity enough, I somehow tend to forget friends’ birthdays. Perhaps I’m growing older,aren’t I? My brain may have already become a garbage of unnecessary data such as this! Therefore, a couple of weeks ago, for the sake of surviving brain cells, I prepared a birthday list during one of my coffee breaks and ended up with seventy-something things to celebrate, i.e. a fifth of the whole year! Gosh! Some of them are practically useless though since I lost or could not update some of the contact information.

But… Today I realised I forgot to include – not someone, but – something. Today, June 8th is the day when the definitive YChorus, the vocal ensemble I sang in with eleven other vocalists plus a musical director, was formed. It is not surprising, especially due to its crowdedness, (we were sixteen if to include the latecomer instrument crew) to see that it was eventually disbanded, but three-year’s time was significantly long enough not to consider its existence as ephemeral. Now, each of us had his or her own way; five of us in the States, two in Europe, four in Istanbul, one dunno, Mugla perhaps?

But at least, we had a commitment, an album project, named Renkler (Colours), which saw every one of us working hard, trying a lot, crying a lot, giving a lot, receiving a lot, frustrating a lot, laughing a lot, arguing a lot, producing a lot, and doing all these things together… And the album was eventually released after a long episode full of such bittersweet memories. Now it would be a decade if survived. I don’t intend this to be an sentimental post, but, the YChorus project meant, means, and will mean a lot to me.

As Devrim has concluded in his website, it was “a meaningful and emotional ensemble founded by a handful of people with very high EQs. ‘Önce hüzün doğdu / sonra güz, ayrılıklar... / Yüzler aynı yüzler. Boşluk… / Aynı sancı herkes ay(r)ı’...”

Studying, singing, eating, sporting!

2006-06-06T03:01:00.000Z

Finished my undesirably brief paper and submitted it with an embarrassingly long delay. I guess I will never learn how to stick with the deadlines. Already feeling exhausted now. I am still unhappy with my performance throughout the post-VIVA period. Could someone shake me and put me back on the right track? Hope it will be my supervisor tomorrow.

The choir rehearsals are going well. Now we have our Bruckner concert ahead at Southwark Cathedral next month. In the meantime, after a few frustrating days spent by how to arrange the re-delivery of the long-awaited DHL parcel, today we at last received the score and CD of Saygun’s Yunus Emre. Now all I have to do is to wish that our choirmaster will love it and include it in next year’s repertoire. Fingers crossed.

Non-stop rainy days gave a pause, and the sun started to shine, uplifting our mood – well, at least mine. Now I want to have outdoor activities as much as I can. Last Saturday, we went to Tbilisi, a Georgian Restaurant in Islington for the eight-anniversary celebrations (apparently we were on the safe side after last year’s French disaster, :-P ) and enjoyed gorgeously delicious – and, er, quite nutty dishes. If you find one, don’t miss it!

The weather was still good on Sunday, so Sevi started to show me how to play tennis, which I found very enjoyable indeed! You don’t have to struggle to steal the ball like as in rugby, football and basketball, or stick with the teamwork and stupidly blame others when something goes wrong. Also, it seems much meaningful than, say, cricket, and you certainly burn much more calories compared to playing table tennis, and your body does not become partially deformed due to excessive use of a particular muscle. Could it be then the sport to suit me? Or, ack, had the poor Tim Henman thought the same way?!

Oh, Good Lord(i)!

2006-05-30T11:25:00.000Z

Seems to have been a huge gap since the last post. You know I wrote all those unnecessary Eurovision stuff, and when Finland reached its first victory, I disappeared! So, let me conclude this year’s ESC series. I have an assignment to be delivered soon, so this has to be a short post.

Well, what can I say? Well done Lordi! My guesses were not that bad, and I have expected Finland to score good, but not that overwhelmingly, which repositioned my favourite Top-3 as the runner-ups. Turkey unluckily missed the top-10, coming 11th only with a slight margin, i.e. we will have to compete in next year’s Semi-Final.

I am glad that Finland won though… It seems that the Finnish broadcaster YLE was not expecting a certain victory either, so that they even organised a gala concert in Turku on 10 May, only ten days before the ESC Final, to choose the ever-best Finnish entry to mark their 40th anniversary of participating in the ESC. Well, regarding the fact that they could reach only to the sixth place as their best (though there were many good-quality songs they have sent), they were simply unlucky!

Now what happens? Finland celebrates the victory while Sibel Tüzün keeps crying; the members of Lordi are chased by the journalists (or paparazzi should I call?) to be unmasked; the name Lordi is given to a square in Mr. Lordi’s hometown (proving that such things can be done not only by Turks and Greeks, but also by the cool Nordic people); Helsinki and Turku are challenging each other to be the host city for ESC 2007; the Finnish head clergyman, who have demanded the Finnish President to prevent Lordi’s participation to the contest in Athens, still declines from making comments [What about "Oh, Good Lord(i)!"]... And, me thinking if I should be planning another trip to Finland for next May… For academic purposes, of course! ;-P

Who will be the Eurowinner?

2006-05-20T09:11:00.000Z

Tonight is the big night for the ESC Final and I will miss it! We have a last minute engagement for a friend’s birthday dinner and I should (and want to) attend it. Thanks God, we have all the necessary video equipment to record it, so I will watch it with a delay of few hours time. All I need to do is to avoid the huge plasma screen at the Charing Cross station on our way back home lest BBC’s rotationally-broadcasted news may announce the winner.

The final show will be even more exciting since there are many more strong entries to be performed by the direct qualifiers. So, my guesses are like this:

Switzerland: Six4One is a group of six good-looking people (EBU’s official limit for on-stage performers) singing for world peace. Each of the band member is from another Eurovision country/zone (e.g. a Bosnian girl or a Swedish guy to steal Balkan and Scandi votes). Import singers had somehow always done well and these guys perform nicely as well. Harmlessly listenable, but not a winner.

Moldova: Fancy Moldovian rap? No, thanks. Besides, they have the most unlucky spot (No. 2) in the Final.

Israel: An example for how a strong and beautiful voice can be underutilised with a mediocre song.

Latvia: The ever-first a capella entry in the ESC history. The Latvian vocal group Cosmos will sing “I Hear Your Heart” with a simple but effective choreography. Nobody thinks they will score well, but I see them as one of the dark horse of the contest, so I do hope they will at least make it to the top-ten.

Norway: A young Norwegian blonde with a beautiful voice, singing “Alvedansen” (Elves’ Dance) a song praising the Norwegian sagas. Should do really well on the scoreboard, too. A top-five? Why not?

Spain: They sent a band of three girls last year to Kyiv, with the carbon copy of a Las Ketchup song and scored really bad. Now they send Las Ketchup itself (all the three Las Ketchup girls plus their fourth sister) who will sing “Bloody Mary”. The Spanish delegation obviously relies on the group’s immense popularity, but what a disappointing song it is!

Malta: A little number, a likeable one, but is likely to find a place in the middle of the scoreboard.

Germany: Poor Germany is aching for another victory since their sole triumph in 1982. This year they go for country music, sending Texas Lightning, a group of men with cowboy hats. They have a female lead vocal, an Australian lady. The song is very catchy, and Germany has never been that much favourite in the contest for ages. I am undecided. They will do really well, but I have this hunch that they will rank somewhere between the fourth and the seventh.

Denmark: An underrated song, which may do better than people expect. But claiming a place in the top-ten seems still to be a long shot.

Russia: A definite top-three. Dima Bilan sings his song excellently.

FYR Macedonia: An unlucky draw for them, sandwiched between Russia and Romania. Undecided, but will certainly get enough friendly votes.

Romania: The first Eurodisco entry comes from Romania – with a chorus in Italian! I guess this is the strongest entry to win the contest.

Bosnia-Herzegovina: Now I realise that my favourite top three songs come one after another. A strong contrast with the Rumanian entry (the fastest vs. the slowest). Another pretender for the top-three.

Lithuania: Qualifying for the Final must have been satisfactory enough. They have no chance, I’m afraid, to do better further. Other than preceding, i.e. ruining the chance of the British entry with a similar genre.

UK: People love it. Me not much. But Daz Sampson is likely to find a place in top-ten.

Greece: A pompous Greek ballad. I like Anna Vissi’s voice, but I think the song is a bit overrated. However, host countries have the habit of doing well in the contest, so I guess she will score very well, but I’d be surprised if she claimed top of the list.

Finland: The group that makes hard rock fans watch the show. The most remarkable novelty in the contest. Good luck to them! They will certainly be in the top-ten, but where exactly, dunno…

Ukraine: Tina Karol is likely to come between tenth and twelfth, which is enough to directly qualify for next year’s final – provided that the UK and Germany will be in top ten, i.e. as two of the Big-4, they extend the qualifying list to top-twelve.

France: They announced that France will never leave the contest after their mediocre/disastrous results and will keep sending good-quality songs. Doesn’t it sound a bit haughty at all? This year, once again they seem to be in the bottom five.

Croatia: I find the song lunatic, but people love it! Undecided. May score well after the friendly votes.

Sweden: A very tricky one. ESC will see whether the era of Scandi pop has come to an end or not. A definite top-seven though.

Turkey: People in Athens have started to pay much more attention to Sibel Tüzün and her song and she is another dark horse of this year’s contest. I hope she will do well. (How can I be neutral?) At least, we know she will get a high score from Britain, not because I will be sending my votes (Hey, now I am among the Euro-force for Turkey, hehe) but the four male dancers are British and Terry Wogan will be mentioning this as much as he can.

Armenia: Due to time difference, the Armenians – and the Azerbaijani spectators – will be watching the show between 00:00-03:15 local time. (It will be broadcasted as a morning show in Australia!) Well, the guy who kicked off the Semi will close the Final. A good chance to see how strong the Armenian Diaspora’s voting potential is.

So far, my guess for the direct qualifiers for next year’s final (in alphabetical order) are:

Bosnia-Herzegovina
Finland
Germany
Greece
Macedonia
Norway
Romania
Russia
Sweden
Turkey
United Kingdom
Ukraine

The list does not include ten countries, but twelve. This is due to my expectation that the UK and Germany will be in top-ten, and since they are two of the Big-4 countries (those who contribute to the EBU budget; the other two are France and Spain), they have an automatic place for the final. This means this year the eleventh and twelfth countries in the final scoreboard will likely to be qualifiers, too. Well, we’ll see…

Turkey in Saturday's final!

2006-05-19T11:23:00.000Z

Last night was a spectacular one! And for the first time I could watch the ESC semi-finals (missing the first two because of that BBC3 matter)! This year’s contest was highly competitive with a wide variety of genres, and it included a pretty good deal of strong performances. Well, commenting on each entry would take too much time, and sound irrelevant to those who are indifferent to the contest. But here are some highlights. But, mind you be ready for a long post I’ afraid…

It seems that the top-ten list of qualifying songs were fairly supposed to fill a different post. The newly-created one for the Balkan ballad was occupied by the Bosnian entry, which was inarguably the strongest vocal performance of the night. The songwriter is the Serbian Zeljko Joksimovic, who has conquered everyone with his lament “Lane Moje” (2004) and gained a respectable second place at the debut of Serbia and Montenegro that year. Now he seems to be a new Johnny Logan; this year he takes his place in the event rather as a composer. His second attempt “Lejla” was another lament, as equally impressive as the first one. One can even say that Joksimovic exactly applied the same formula – a haunting melody in minor key, lyrics in Serbian (to sound authentic enough), with a balanced vocal support from backing players who not only show off their interesting instruments, but also add a lot to the theatrical staging of the song, and ah, a stunning female violinist with posh hair and tall legs in an elegant night dress. Well, it has worked before, so why not this year? So, considering the fact that even the Western Europeans admire the song, Hari Mata Hari is one of the strongest contenders to reach the victory. A Sarajevo 2007? Not unrealistic indeed.

The mission to sing the western-style ballad went to the veteran Ireland and it was glad to see Brian Kennedy making to the finals. It was also pleasant to see a seven-time winning country to luckily receive the honour of performing the thousandth song of the ESC. Kennedy’s performance created a big contrast with the rest of the competitors who were too busy to impress the voters with sometimes unimaginably non-sense choreography. But, the backing male vocalist definitely needs a better costume. Ireland got the twenty-first place (NB: Statistics say that the later you perform in the contest, the better you are remembered when it comes to voting) and it is sandwiched between the lunatic Croatian entry and a favourite-yet-slightly-dated-sounding Swedish song. So, not a winner, but good to see the Irish ballad back.

This year, Finland was the avant-garde country, as they sent Lordi, a heavy-metal band (the heaviest one I ever saw, honestly). They seem to have demonstrated the fact that there are still left some other genres that could be introduced to the contest. The members of the band never disclose their faces and keep wearing scary masks which reminds me of characters from the Star Wars. Their participation has become a hot debate in their native soil. Even the Finnish clergyman has been involved in this and asked the President to intervene in the decision of the Finnish broadcaster. Well, for nearly forty year of its ESC history, Finland could gain only the sixth place as their best, but the bookmakers now consider Lordi as a good candidate to be in the top five. At least, they seem to be in top-ten and i.e. directly qualify for next year’s final. Not to my taste I admit, but Lordi’s soloist delivered a good vocal performance (some sounds I could have never produced). But the female reptile/keyboard player should stop her horrible backing vocals. (Even our Rock Choir were once more creative).

Macedonia has never had difficulty in qualifying for the final – they seem to have an eternal reservation for the finals – no matter how dreadful their songs were as they have enough friendly votes from the Balkans, but this year they seem to deserve to be in the finals as the song “Ninnanajna” was a likeable one with a good vocal performance – if to forget the meaningless lyrics. This year, they may even go further and rank in the top-ten and have a direct ticket to next year’s final.

The strong-yet-conventional song of this year was performed by Sweden’s Carola, a Eurovision veteran who participated twice and took her country to the victory in early 1990s. She has no slightest problem in live performance and her song “Invincible” is good enough to occupy a high rank, but a bit dusty and obsolete in sound. At least, one may say she is back to reclaim the Swedish pride as the country had to compete in the semi-finals for the first time.

Russia… Another obvious qualifier. A mid-tempo song with a very catchy B section. A strong contender to the top-five place in the finals. The stage performance was good, Dima Bilan seemed very confident and had no problem in his vocals. However, I am still not sure whether the Bolshoi ballerinas were necessary (one of them even popped up out of a white piano). But, this is ESC 2000s, you know.

Now we come to the post of underrated entry. This one was filled by the most sympathetic singer of the contest, the Ukranian singer/army aviator Tina Karol whose song “Show Me Your Love” has been unfairly ignored by the bookmakers. Regarding her very strong and faultless vocal performance and an up-tempo song flavoured with Ukranian folk melodies, it wasn’t surprising to see her qualified. A deserved ticket and definitely a dark horse to watch out!

If you think there is always one whom you wonder what s/he’s doing here for goodness’s sake, this year it was the Lithuanian band of six male vocals in black suites. LT United performed “We Are The Winners” [of Eurovision. We are! We are! So vote for us. I guess that was the entire lyrics.] Well, in Turkish we say when you want something to happen, iterate it forty times. Here, it seems to have worked, at least, to everybody’s surprise, they qualified. I am not sure they will have a good position in the finals, and they will have to perform after the beautiful Bosnian song and precede the British rap entry, which is definitely a stronger one. At least they really seem to be enjoying themselves on stage, perhaps that is why it worked. Will the unlucky Lithuania show the success of their Baltic cousins and triumph? Well, not this year…

A newcomer is always likely to qualify. So, this year it was Armenia’s turn – not only to perform in the ESC for the first time, but also to kick off the show – a heavy burden, indeed. Their song, “Without Your Love” is not an admirable one, but sounds good enough and like Turks, Armenians seems to be enjoying the immigrants’ votes. Well, in the final, this time they will compete in the last position, so interestingly enough, this year’s two-part ESC seems to be flanked by the same song. Good luck to them!

And Turkey… Well, a debatable one. I am absolutely delighted that Sibel Tüzün will be in Saturday’s show. Her song, “Süper Star” is not a very strong entry, but she sells it the best way she can. The four British dancers made a good job, the choreography looked smart. Although Tüzün sang some parts in English in some of the dress rehearsals, she went for pure Turkish throughout her performance. (Perhaps she will change her mind for the finals. Well, we’ll see.) The vocal performance was very satisfactory. She was very confident and faultless while uttering those wide intervals (Turkish readers may like to read Eksi Sozluk for funny comments on this). [Well, here I speculate: in vocal terms, she had less problems than Sertab Erener did – if there was any.] Tüzün will be competing in the penultimate position in the final, the best draw she could every get!

The biggest shock came for the Belgian Kate Ryan, who unfortunately was not at her best – probably due to meaninglessly overcomplicated choreography which made her change her microphone very frequently. Another shock was to see Slovenia out of top ten.

Gosh, look what I wrote! I should stop here, it is almost noon! Tune for the final!

Murphy uninvited

2006-05-18T09:24:00.000Z

Hey, are we really welcome back to London? It is ironic enough at a time when London is expecting its worst drought for the last 72 years, but could someone please tell me about this weather – gloomier than ever? Not because we have enjoyed the Turkish sun for the last two weeks. The weather there was tasteless enough, too – at least not as we have dreamt of. Except our last weekend in Izmir, wherever else we went, wind and clouds followed us. And poor Sevi had to spent half of it struggling with some insistent health problems due to excessive tiredness that weakened her immune system.

Now both of us feel as if we had no vacation at all. I feel miserably tired, most probably due to frequent weather changes (we were in a different town, i.e. a different climate every few days) and my annual allergy period. It is really unpleasant when you have lots of things to do. Why am I so lazy?!!! Even going to gym doesn’t help. (Well, needless to say, both of us put on some unwanted weight. I was eating (or was forced to eat) so much and so frequently that at one point, I felt as if I had signed a movie contract and was required to gain a few pounds to match the physical appearance of the character I was gonna act within two weeks time.) Now I have a terrible muscle ache! Ouch!

You know, when you want something that bad, something else happens to ruin it. Well, tonight is the night for the Semi-Final for Eurovision Song Contest 2006, which is to be broadcasted by BBC3, and look – our cable TV receiver is dead since yesterday! Replacing it would cost a good deal of money (and besides a new vacuum cleaner is something we need more urgently). Argh! The Final on Saturday evening will thankfully be shown on BBC1, but why does it have to be BBC3 for the Semi?!!!

This year’s ESC seems to be very competitive indeed. Thanks to Gülseren’s dreadful Rimi Rimi Ley last year in Kyiv, Turkey is back to the Semis, and Sibel Tüzün will be trying her chance by singing “Süper Star” to find a place in the Final. The song has been at first disliked by many. However, the news from the dress rehearsals report that her live performance is very impressive and slick that is enough to sell the song, the male dancers add a lot to the staging, the choreography is clever and the Turkish stage design is among the best. Well, fingers crossed.

Here my prediction for the ten possible qualifiers (in no particular order):

Sweden
Finland
Belgium
Slovenia
Russia
Turkey
Ukraine
Bosnia-Herzegovina
The Netherlands (though many dislike it)
Macedonia (I find the Greek-imposed abbreviation of FYROM [Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia] silly enough.)

The possible spoilers are Armenia (the song is not very strong to qualify, but the power of Armenian Diaspora shouldn’t be ignored), the eccentric Iceland, the romantic Ireland (to fill the non-Balkan ballad post), and conventional-yet-likeable Estonia.

Let’s see who will be the luck Top-10? [If only the receiver allows!!!]

Written, printed, delivered; it's mine!

2006-04-26T08:37:00.000Z

Yesterday, I went to Nottingham and delivered my ever-first paper – about Sibelius’s Vienna year as a new graduate. Things went smoothly enough and I was not nervous at all. Now I need to focus on the task of translating Sibelius’s only lecture that he delivered in 1896 as it seems to radically change my harmonic construal of his songs.

On Monday, we also had our RCS meeting for a probable trip to Turkey. Lots of things to do… But it is very pleasant to see their enthusiasm, so first I am supposed to write a letter to Bilkent to request Saygun’s score and CD for Yunus Emre. Then things will follow.

I will most probably be unable to check my blog or others’ till the middle of May due to our Turkey trip. So this station will be closed due to planned refreshing works until 14 May. (I am not sure if this is my last before that, but take care for now!)

Before the break

2006-04-20T23:24:00.000Z

Next week, the last before our two-week Turkey break, seems to be very busy indeed! I was going to present my paper about Sibelius’s Vienna year next month, but now there are only three days left to do so as I said yes to a last minute replacement. Feeling a bit panicked, yet trying to stay cool. At least till next Tuesday. The day before that, we have a meeting with our conductor and soon-to-be-secretary of the chorus to follow up the keenly welcome projects that we have brought forward. Requires some extra preparations… In the meantime, hehe, tinkering with the idea whether I apply for the back-up jury for Eurovision 2006 lest the televoting system collapses that night. Well, being busy keeps me up, which is good.

A delightful weekend

2006-04-16T15:23:00.000Z

My sister’s short visit is already over, lasting less than three days. Because of my rehearsals, I was neither able to go to the airport, nor could I see her properly until the end of our afternoon performance of Messiah on Good Friday. The concert went quite well, though I was extremely tired of singing those ornamented baroque lines for three hours. At least, I had my first Messiah, i.e. the ever first large-scale work sung. Something surprising for some as many choristers were trying to count whether that was their tenth or fifteenth, etc.

After the concert, we went to Simurgh, a cosy Persian restaurant at Covent Garden, and enjoyed exotic cocktails and gorgeously scrumptious specialties. Our next stop was Stomp at the Vaudeville Theatre - a choice by Sevi to match my sister’s hard-to-follow interests. The latest one is playing bongo and Stomp was no doubt an ideal choice for that, and I admit that we would not otherwise consider to see it. But at the end of the event, I was glad that we saw it. I was amazed by the incredibly difficult techniques they introduced throughout the performance, and their pantomime-like theatricality was very entertaining, too. It was dance-theatre mainly based on the rhythmic virtuosity of a group of eight performers. They were using equipments such as brushes, matchboxes, washbasins, metal bins or dust as well as their bodies to make ‘sound’ – or ‘music,’ or to dance? I admit it is difficult to define, so just visit their website to have an idea.

Yesterday was spent by a visit to a childhood friend, a quick tour of Camden Town, and ah, shopping. The two women went absolutely crazy when they entered to Pier, a home decoration shop and bought dozens of artificial flowers while I was having hallucinations of Spanish tapas waiting for us at La Tasca. You know, a research has revealed the fact that while accompanying women, men have an average of 72 minutes to remain seemingly enjoying the shopping activity. (OK, kidding – except the research results…)

Next time, we will be trying to arrange another visit – a longer one, hopefully – to watch the finales of the International Dance Championships to be held at Royal Albert Hall on October. But, now I must conclude my part of this second-year evaluation. With a cautious optimism…

From the oil crisis to an operatic catastrophe

2006-03-30T22:09:00.000Z

I am afraid it is the time to wake up my hibernating Eurovision alter-ego, Metin Alp (after Cetin Alp, a former contestant) as the 51st Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is approaching.

Sometimes I really wonder what kind of trauma I must have experienced to fancy the show while everybody else hates it or at least manages to remain irrelevant?

Could it be the “Opera” catastrophe in Munich in 1983? Well, that was the first ESC that I watched, when I was six, and it was the moment at which my numerical obsessive compulsion was probably triggered by the voting board, something I still cannot help but enjoy. Now I recall that after the contest which put Turkey at the penultimate position in the scoreboard with nil point (NB: The legend says the Swiss contestant who also got nil points was hysterically crying, claiming that her song could not be that bad to share the same rank with “Opera”) I have ‘idiotinnocently’ thought myself that it was partly my fault because I watched the show till midnight instead of being a good boy and going to bed earlier.

Now, I am a musicology student, who still watch the show (something awkward enough for many. At least, that indicates a bad music taste, a shamelessly bad one, I guess. Nonetheless, I do not need to be apologetic), as it still attracts my attention - from a socio-musicological perspective as well. Yes. If I can create some spare time from my Sibelius study, I am considering the idea of writing a paper entitled “From the Oil Crisis to an Operatic Catastrophe: Turkey and ESC in the 1980s.”

Some historical background… It was 1979 when Israel had won its second consecutive victory, but announced that it can not afford to organise the contest a second time, leaving the job to the Netherlands. That was the best news of the year for no other country but Turkey, which was absent in the previous contest hosted by Israel, obeying a ‘recommendation’ by Arab League. (NB: There are other examples for similar politically motivated withdrawals. For instance, Greece formerly protested Turkey’s entry and did not participate in the contest. Likewise, Turkey protested Cyprus’s participation the following year. Earlier, Austria had joined a few other countries to refrain from going to the Franco Spain. Or even last year, Lebanon withdrew to avoid broadcasting the Israeli entry, etc. All of them meaningless enough.) Rather than having the usual national election procedure, this time TRT preferred to commission a female singer, Ajda Pekkan, who was dubbed the title Superstar. She would represent Turkey with the song “Petr’oil,” on an intensely Eastern flavoured music, and with semi-satirical lyrics referring the worldwide oil crisis during the late 1970s. (If you think this is odd, then you may like to listen to a former Finnish entry based on a nuclear reactor). The result was hugely disappointing for Turkish people, who were expecting a certain victory, not a 15th place. What went wrong with this “brilliant” piece of music performed by “a pretty Turkish star?” Within days after the contest, Ajda Pekkan left the country and did not return for a while to recover from the aftershocks and disassociate her name from ESC.

She did, eventually. But poor Cetin Alp couldn’t. Perhaps arguably due to lack of an established career before the contest, unlike Pekkan’s, his name has been always associated with ESC and overshadowed his later efforts and successes. The song he performed in Munich was “Opera,” first composed by Bugra Ugur, and then lyrics added by Aysel Gürel. The result was disastrous, but interestingly enough, neither Ugur, nor Gürel was blamed for that - not even the TRT jury who selected it among the songs that they commissioned. Instead, Alp was somehow chosen as the scapegoat and had to take all the burden on his shoulders, although he simply did not know what to sing soon before TRT’s election, except the main melodic theme.

What is more peculiar is that after Ugur composed the music, TRT then asked Gürel to write lyrics in a way in which they must reflect how much Turkey had been westernised - a vain attempt to neutralise the negative effects of then recent military coup of September 1980 that once again destroyed Turkey’s hardly-healed international image. The committee also wanted some repeated words to be understandable by the spectators, i.e. containing words with foreign origin or sounding something similar to English. That was surely a nonsense phonological construal based on a previous experience: that the 14th place, a mediocre-yet-the-best-so-far result gained by the previous contestant, Neco, with his song “Hani”, TRT assumed, was partly because of the ‘fact’ that the often-iterated titular word “Hani” sounded like “Honey” to foreigners. (NB: Apparently, TRT does this on occasional basis. Legends say that in the early 1990s, they asked Sevket Ugurluer to avoid the letter “k” in the lyrics as much as he could, lest it might sound unpleasant and irritating to foreign ears. Well, ironically enough, the chosen song for the contest hosted in Italy had the title “Iki dakika” [Two minutes].)

Well, no matter whatever inspired Gürel after such a peculiar briefing, the output was the song “Opera.” When Cetin Alp performed it with the Short Waves - a group of five people, providing the back vocals accompanied by an equally grotesque choreography, it was received lukewarmly and then became a candidate for the worst ever ESC entry in the contest’s fifty-year history.

No matter how people in Turkey, including today’s most-acclaimed pop singers, denigrate Eurovision as an amateur, politically-motivated, third-class event, the contest made an undeniable contribution to Turkish pop music history before the early 1990s. Indeed, today, there is almost no singer from the previous generation who had not participate in ESC or the national finals. For instance, the latter event featured songs that later became very popular, such as Delisin (Cici Kizlar), Heya Mola (Sezen Aksu ve Modern Folk Uclusu), Bosver (Nilüfer), Bin dokuz yüz kirk bes (Sezen Aksu) or Ve Melankoli (Kayahan), to count just a few.

It is also interesting to see how differently Eurovision has been perceived from country to country. The non-frustrated Finns and Portuguese have been trying their best for nearly forty years, although both could achieve only the 6th place as their best. Norwegians seem not to feel ashamed about their unbreakable record of occupying the last place ten times. Watching it is an activity mainly for pensioners in Britain whilst an inseparable entertainment for the Swedish gay community. For Italians, it is a nostalgia since their last appearance in the early 90s. For Austrians, it is something not to participate anymore in order to protest its declining musical quality (as they claim so). For the seven-time winner Irish, it is doubtlessly regarded as a financial burden. For Eastern newcomers, such as Ukraine, it is another opportunity to jump at as they are keen to promote their new democracies other than applying for the EU membership. For small countries, such as Estonia, it is worth allocating all the tourism budget and even make profit out of that - as they did in 2002 and saw tourists and fans flocking into Tallinn to watch the event. Nevertheless, for the Turks, it turned to be a crisis of identity as well as a resentful matter of westernisation. In that sense, Sertab Erener’s victory in Riga that came after nearly thirty years of impatient waiting was the partial resolution of the “Europa complex.”

Anyway... This year, the 51st Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Athens at which Sibel Tüzün will represent Turkey with her song “Superstar.” This year’s only debutant will be Armenia, also kicking off the semifinals. Serbia and Montenegro withdrew after a dispute between Serbians and Montenegrins over voting in the national final. The countries to rank the top ten places of the semifinals will join the remaining 14, top ten countries of the last year’s final and the big four (France, Germany, Spain, and the UK). In order to prevent friendly voting, this year a separate draw for the running orders of the points’ presentation. Also, to save from time, the spokespersons of each country will only announce the points 8, 10, and 12, whilst the points from 1 to 7 will be automatically shown on the scoreboard. Nonetheless, the spokespersons of the last three countries will announce all points one by one. This year, these last three will be Bulgaria, FYR Macedonia and Turkey. This means, if it’s a close competition, this time Turks will have the last say. Remember how Slovenia made everything upside down at Riga 2003 that eventually led to Turkey’s ever first victory.

I will not be writing detailed comments about each entry. There is actually a brilliant blog to read, EurovisionBlog. You may also check the updated Eurolinks on the left column. If I am unnecessarily experienced about the general taste of Eurovision viewers, here are some of the forerunners of the year in alphabetical order: Armenia, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Slovenia, and Spain. But it seems to me that the rivalry will be among the penultimate four.

Best before: 03 - 2006

2006-03-27T23:02:00.000Z

It’s been more than three weeks since my last post, partly due to laziness, partly lack of spare time. How paradoxical (!) Actually, I have written much of this post days and days before, but could not have the chance to publish it. Guess its already time to find a way to get connected to the internet via my laptop.

Well, I guess I am slowly getting rid of that moodiness, which left me spiritually paralysed for the last couple of weeks or more. At first, I thought I need some inspiration to be back on the right track. At least, to put the blame on anything you like seemed to be the easiest way. A few days ago, when I was sipping my tea at the British Library cafeteria, I saw this Tchaikovskian quotation among others, painted on the wall - big enough to draw my attention: “Inspiration is a guest who is reluctant to visit the lazy.” OK, I am not rediscovering America, but that occurred to me the simple answer I should have already thought of. Perhaps that is my new inspiration as it helped me spend the rest of the day with a good spirit.

If inspiration is to be a guest, then no guest would be pleased to visit a kingdom of mess! For the time being, its territory is unashamedly widened I’m afraid: a bunch of academic papers left disorganised since my return from Finland, a departmental presentation of my recent chapter on Sibelius’s Vienna visit (which is to be my debut in every way!), a proposal for a possible trip of RCS to Turkey, a wardrobe stuffed with irrelevant combinations of clothes… Even this blog, with links waiting to be updated for ages! The ultimate target during this confrontation ought to be the headquarter. Literally speaking, it is related to my head, indeed, as I need to collect my mind to take the right action. In the meantime, I could at least reclaim the CD shelves by rearranging my collection in alphabetical order. I admit that it gave me some sort of satisfaction; no matter if the rest of the room remains untidy, I somehow tend to be proud of that particular corner and its good condition.

To fast forward some past anecdotes… The past period saw some socialisation to a certain degree. We went to the opening of this year’s London Turkish Film Festival and saw two brilliant films, Korkuyorum Anne (Mummy, I’m Scared!) and Crossing the Bridge (Istanbul Hatirasi) by Reha Erdem and Fatih Akin, respectively. As an ordinary movie-goer, all I can say is that I enjoyed both of them a lot, indeed! Although the latter film is actually based on a Westerner’s musical journey to Istanbul, I tend to perceive it as a cinematographic work that forces me to refrain from making comments as I feel incapable of doing so. Nevertheless, speaking of Erdem’s film, the Q&A session attended by the audience and the cast was catastrophic enough as it started with a very unfortunate question, which proved that we Turks have no idea about the civilised way to debate and the event soon became somewhat similar to an episode of A-Team (the notoriously provocative non-sense debate programme by Savas Ay). Anyway, seeing the films was refreshing enough, which we should do it more often.

The Saturday before last, I travelled to the University of Birmingham to attend a half-day musicological forum and to support a friend of mine, who was one of the five speakers. (On my way, I went astray countless time as I had no clue where I was. Unbelievably, neither the campus, nor the city itself had a map at all!) Regretfully, that was my first time to attend a conference-like meeting, apart from departmental colloquia, which made me realise that I should have started attending such events much before and much more often. At least, it is a good way to meet new people, to see what’s going around, and to get acquainted with works-in-progress. It also seems to be helpful for me to overcome the self-over-criticism regarding my academic study. Frankly speaking, to me, none of the papers sounded satisfactory enough - I know this is a problematic comment from many perspectives - but, hey, that ought not to be the point! At the end of the day, there they were being read, and people were discussing them and exchanging their ideas!

Now I feel more encouraged to present a piece of work. Actually, a friend of mine from the department has been working on a project of a post-grad meeting to be organised on monthly basis, and for the inauguratory session, I promised him to read my recent chapter-to-be-converted-to-a-paper. I have four weeks, fairly long enough to get prepared. It will also be a smooth start for me since the event will be a departmental one and I shall surely feel more comfortable with an audience whom I know already.

Last week, on Thursday and Saturday, I performed at my second RCS concert. This time, it was “Classical Spectacular,” a traditional series of concerts given by Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to reach the classical music to a wider audience. The orchestra was joined by our chorus, two soloists, a military band and a dozen of musketeers (for special wartime effects during the performance of Tchaikovsky’s militaristic overture, “1812” - a fact rationalising the presence of ear bugs for the choristers.) On my way to Royal Albert Hall, I missed all the trains that I had to take by seconds, had to sing several pieces by heart without actually having them practiced, i.e. pretended to sing. Then just an hour before the concert, I realised I had brought the wrong white shirt - the one with wing collar! Thus, I had to run the 10-mnt-by-walk way towards High St. Kensington to find an open store and purchase a regular one. Thanks God, It was, er, Thursday, i.e. the late-shopping day when the stores were open till 8pm everywhere.)

Apart from an annoyingly last-minute alteration of a piece before the concert, all went well. To accord with the event’s mission, the programme included all the popular classical works, such as The Easter Hymn from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, Brindisi from La Traviata and Nessun Dorma from Puccini’s Turandot, to count a few. The audience went crazy when the entire performers played/sang the unofficial British anthem by Elgar, “The Land of Hope and Glory” amidst the interior fireworks enhanced by laser effects; crazier when the 1812 overture was performed, and craziest during the encore as we were waving the British flags and imperialistically shouting “Rule, Britannia, Britannia, rule the waves! Britons, never, never, never, shall be slaves!”, whilst the spectators were overjoyed with hundreds of blue-red-white balloons released down the hall towards the conclusion. Finally, the interior weather forecast… Quite mild at first, then getting hotter, but with an intense foggy condition towards the night!

This time, my location was the far right of the front line, which situated me just at the back of a flutist (who also played piccolo occasionally) and an oboist. An on my right hand-side I watched the drummer and was surprised by the variety of techniques and equipment he used during the performance. Playing an instrument seems quite tiring, I guess. To my part, I don’t know why, but after every concert, I feel immensely tired as if I did a big job. Saturday was even more tiring, as I sang at two repetitive concerts, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening and it surely made a double impact on my body.

(Except a Katherine Jenkins concert at the Royal Albert Hall next Wednesday, which was the last minute announcement at today’s rehearsal), the next concert is the one I am avidly waiting for. We will be singing Handel’s Messiah Oratorio on the Good Friday, another tradition - for the last 135 years since RCS’s foundation in 1871. By singing this piece, I will have performed a big-scale work for the first time. (However, I did not know that the total duration of the performance would be two-and-a-half hours!) What is more exciting is that my sister, whom I’ve already missed a lot, will be travelling to London just to attend the concert and spend the weekend with us. A sadly short, but surely delightful visit it will be!

Writing this post helped me empty my mind, though being made up diverse and often irrelevant subjects. Well, inspiration seems to have come unexpectedly and I had no time to sweep away the mess, but treated this post as if it is a wardrobe to stuff the things at the last minute!

These are just a few of my favourite things

2006-03-02T12:49:00.000Z

I am revising the texts for this free-lance job (well, literally redoing almost everything from the very start due to lack of a reasonable briefing). So this post is supposed to be my break. My travel to Nottingham last Tuesday was ill-fated as the colloquium that I was planning to attend has been cancelled that morning. Apart from seeing one of my friends and meeting my supervisor for a post-trip-and-VIVA chat, I spent the day in the library. Yesterday was another colloquium day, this time at King’s College of London, with a guest speaker – my supervisor. Indeed, this colloquium series seem to be one of the opportunities that London promises.

By the way, for the first time someone tagged me in blogosphere. Thanks Ayda.

4 things that I do:
- Research on Sibelius’s songs
- Travelling (mainly to Nottingham)
- Home duties
- Fitness

4 films / TV series that I watch regularly:
- Avrupa Yakası
- Hercules Poirot
- BBC Period Dramas
- Disney Movies

(The last) 4 places that I resided:
- Balıkesir
- Istanbul
- Nottingham
- London

4 TV shows that I follow:
- BBC News (at 10pm)
- Have I Got News For You?
- University Challenge (Quiz Show)
- BBC documentaries

4 places that I have spent my vacation:
- Helsinki & Turku (combined with an academic trip)
- Kuşadası (honeymoon)
- Glasgow (first vacation in Britain)
- London (I used to live in Turkey then)

4 favourite dishes:
- Mediterranean salad (as I often prepare)
- Meatballs & fries (home-made)
- Spinach with yoghurt (cooked with rice and carrots)
- Şakşuka (cube-cut fried aubergines with tomato sauce and yoghurt)

4 places that I would like to be at right now:
- Bed (to sleep)
- British Library (to study)
- Greenwich Park (with Sevi, to relax)
- All over the world (to see friends. They are everywhere, literally! Departing from London, a possible route could be Brussels – Paris – Nottingham – Washington – Detroit – Los Angeles – San Diego – Istanbul – Milan – London.)

Choral dreams

2006-02-28T17:20:00.000Z

I did not know that yesterday’s chorus rehearsal would start with the Annual Meeting 2006 at which the new members had the chance to meet the non-singing members of the administrative committee. After a discussion about the rapid decline in the popularity of choral music (which seemed to me surprising as this year’s concert schedule includes twenty performances – an unimaginably high number for me, but a modest one if to reconsider it as a Londoner), we the members were then encouraged to be more proactive and contribute with fresh ideas.

Unsurprisingly, I refrained from sharing my suggestions thanks to my self-criticism, but I would rather like to have them as feasible projects, which requires some time to develop. But, roughly speaking, here a couple of ideas: Why don’t we attend next year’s Istanbul Music Festival – an idea first suggested by Sim (my ex-class/new-choirmate here)? I guess it is time to take action! From time to time, the Festival features work of a particular composer. Few years ago, it was Dvorak, for instance. That could have been a good chance to sing his Requiem!

My other wish (not ‘project’, since at the very moment it still sounds to me unrealistic enough) is to have the chorus performing Adnan Saygun’s Yunus Emre Oratorio, arguably the best-known and most-acclaimed choral work in Turkish polyphonic music repertoire. The performance can be either in its German version or in Turkish. The latter would be a real challenge though, but more preferable to reemphasise the universality of music. Imagine a British chorus singing a mystic choral work in Turkish at Aya Irini church. That sounds to me exciting - though I don’t know if the rest of the chorus would feel the same enthusiasm. Well, if we can find a sponsor, why not? The trips to abroad is not something unusual for the chorus, so Turkey with a good potential due to relative scarcity of such cultural activities could be our newest destination. By the way, a British bank, which claims to be ‘the local bank of the world,’ seems to me like a good target. Or is that just an unashamedly eclectic shallow nonsense? Argh, why can't I suppress my naive enthusiasm!?

Mass for the Sleepless

2006-02-21T08:28:00.000Z

As a proof of my eye-tearing commitment, here I am using the last drop of my energy to type this post as early as 8am. Sevi will be working in the early morning shift for these two weeks, which means she has to wake up at 5.30am. I joined her today, to finish the last part of this free-lance editorial task. In that section, I had to write short paragraphs based on the CVs of 21 manager. Well, in the meantime, I need to revise my own CV to start applying for a part-time job, but not today!!!

After a sleepless night, I had to spend yesterday by attending an all-day seminar at British Library. The morning session was so boring that I struggled with the desire of falling asleep. Eating during the intermission made it worse, but the afternoon presentations were quite interesting. The lecturer mentioned a brilliant web page about Beethoven.

As the seminar ended, I had to spend a couple of hours until the chorus rehearsal begins. We put Bruckner’s E minor mass aside for a week and sang Verdi’s Requiem (Mass for the Dead) instead. It is one of my favourite choral pieces and singing it was a magnificent experience. What a pity that I will be unable to sing it on stage this year, because it is the work to be performed in Cape Cod, U.S. and I won’t be travelling there. I was astounded to see that within two hours we have finished studying 140 pages! The Dies irae part was tough, requiring a forte fortissimo start, often challenging the tessitura. At the end, I was so tired that I thought I was dying. Well, quite metaphorically!

A spring resolution

2006-02-19T08:59:00.000Z

Struggling with scarcity of time. There is a long to-do list concerning spring and summer terms, and – ack! – I desperately need a break. After the trip, I spent – and am still spending – my entire time on this free-lance editorial stuff, which is supposed to be submitted by tomorrow. That is why I woke up at 6.30 am in a Sunday morning! Copywriting, academic papers, blog entries, letters to family and friends... Wonder how many words I will have written in my life!

Anyway… This shouldn’t be time to complain, but take some action instead. This year seems to be promising, though I did not have any New Year resolution, thanks to the upgrade episode that kept my mind busy, but…

Firstly, I need to write a summary of my trip to Finland as requested by the Graduate School, its sponsor. There are also plenty of papers waiting to be reorganised, mainly the photocopies of Sibelius’s song manuscripts as well as several articles and chapters gathered from different sources. Then, I guess I can make a fair evaluation whether the trip was fruitful enough. Also, as I promised friends, I will prepare a photo album to recall the Finnish days, though it is in a slow progression I confess. (Well, since I still do not own a digital camera, all I need to do is to scan the selected photos!)

Secondly, I need to better my Swedish and start to learn Finnish.* Seriously… There are more than a few articles in either language, which I am supposed to read and understand. The most exciting one is the transcription of the only lecture that Sibelius delivered in his lifetime! Moreover, there is this latest publication of Fabian Dahlström’s 555-page-long editorial work on Sibelius Dagbok (diary) in Swedish. There couldn’t be better timing for this! Thus, Sevi and I decided to motivate each other – she wants to work on her German as well.

Thirdly, I need to resume my research and take quick actions. Time is flying! My assessors and I agreed upon a new time plan which requires an extra year – officially to be officially my pending-up period. I did not have a chance to chat with my tutor how my VIVA performance was. Paradoxically enough, I felt it was relatively weaker concerning the interview part, but the paper was incomparably better than the first one.

Fourthly, until our trip to Turkey after the Easter, I should have started searching for a part-time job, a less demanding one preferably. I want that not only because of financial reasons… It is true, for Virgos, one’s own financial security is a must. However, they are also famous as hopeless workaholics as they constantly need to reassure themselves that they are useful human assets apart from monetary matters. So am I, so do I. A job in British Library would be superb. Or in a bookstore or a music shop… Or, a post in a classical music record company! My dream job, however, is a post at Hyperion, the independent British label, a ten-to-twenty-minute distance from home. OK, I’d better stop fantasising… But, I confess that in the background my mind is always busy with this. Having a career break is good – assuming that the world of academia is not for me to pursue for further study though I would like to – but a four-year break is too long I guess. Actually, this Hyperion dream is the best compromise I could think of, which could make me happy and satisfied really. However, always assuming the worst situation, I often imagine myself returning to the harsh business world and dealing with nonsense things. Phew…

Anyway, this are supposed to be the four main issues of 2006. I will yet dare to write my five-year plans, but people who know me know well that such a thing always exists. ;-)

* This bilingual topic may seem slightly confusing, so let me explain for those who may wonder. Jean Sibelius, whose songs are my research subject, is the best-known Finnish composer. Nonetheless, his choice of text reflects an appeal to the poems written in Swedish language, which was also his mother tongue (as he was born into a Finland-Swedish speaking family.) More interestingly, the poets, such as Runeberg, Tavaststjerna or Topelius who wrote those poems were Finnish, too.

Needless to say, this has historical connotations. Before her independence in 1917, Finland first remained as part of Swedish Kingdom for more than six centuries. After the war between Sweden and Russia in 1808-09 Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy under the Russian sovereignty. At those times, Swedish was the language spoken mainly by educated class populated alongside the coastal regions in the west. Finnish, on the other hand, was mainly spoken by the inland peasants.

To weaken this historical Swedish influence, Tsar Alexander II deliberately supported the rise of Finnish identity and granted Finland with generous privileges. Apart from moving its capital from Turku (Swe. Åbo) to Helsinki (Swe. Helsingfors) in 1812, i.e. somewhere closer to St. Petersburg, then-capital of Russia, together with the university institutions, he also allowed Finland to have its own currency and encouraged the publication of Finnish newspapers. Eventually, after the independence, Finnish became the main language of the country, while Swedish remained as the second official language. In today’s Finland, the latter is spoken by the six per cent of the total population. According to governmental regulations, everything – names of towns, streets, shops, etc. – are displayed in both languages. Wow, this became a long footnote than I have intended! A long post as well!

Home, sweet home!

2006-02-15T10:57:00.000Z

13 Feb was the date I was patiently expecting for months. Wedding preparations, spending weeks to write a huge chapter of my dissertation, immediately followed by the assessment meeting for an upgrade to Ph.D., and then an academic trip to Finland – such a loaded calendar made me exhausted I admit, though the eventual outcome of all was relieving enough. However, attending to the chorus rehearsal was the cherry on top of the cake. I had no time to go home to leave my luggage, so I had to carry those stuffs all the way to Moorgate from Heathrow – some forty-five kilos, made of bunches of photocopies and thick books (no need to mention how heavy they were!).

I admit I am lazy to recall the details of my trip to Finland, but I will soon have my films developed, and promise, I am determined to prepare a photo album with short comments – to be ready next week. Actually, I am once again short of time, even to write this post, because just after my arrival, yesterday I got a call from my ex-colleagues (what timing!) for a free-lance task – the same as I did last year. The deadline is tomorrow, I am supposed to submit half of a fifty-five-page-long document edited, which means that I need to work overnight to finish it. My goodness, shall I really have time to take a break?

Breaking news!

2006-01-26T16:12:00.000Z

Hey folks! I am overexcited and am once again short of time, but I could not help but annouce that I just had my second-year assessment interview, and my upgrade from MPhil to Ph.D. was granted!!! I will write the details soon. Can't explain how I feel relieved!

Short break from a long silence

2006-01-19T22:19:00.000Z

After months and months, I once again found myself in the computer room of Hallward Library. Today, I was supposed to submit my chapter for the second-year assessment to be held next Thursday – which should explain my long silence, and catch a train back to London in the early evening. After a series of sleepless nights, to nobody’s surprise, I almost finished the paper. However, the document simply collapsed when I started inserting musical examples. Therefore, bye-bye train! Here I am, as in old days, in the campus at night, struggling with another submission crisis. Utterly exhausted...

In fact, there must be lots of little things to tell. I realised I missed blogging, but still no time - this one had to be a short tea break. By the way, I started receiving replies from the Finnish scholars whom I suggest to meet and had to spend some time to keep correspondence updated. Apparently, my modest appointment list is getting more and more crowded. Wish to write indeed on this some time later.

Happy Cat

2006-01-01T14:04:00.000Z

Yesterday early afternoon, we were shopping at Tesco and wondering how to spend the New Year Eve. No wonder we would consume like a goldfish as there was a little mount of food and snacks in our trolley. However, after 4.30 pm, we received a few phone calls and found ourselves as the hosts of a spontaneously-organised dinner for six. Just a couple of hours left to do cleaning and cooking! My duty was to stuff hundreds of lumache with spiced mince i.e. ‘manti’ – to be served with garlic-yoghurt, whilst Sevi was preparing the side dishes such as nachos, saksuka, etc. After an chatty evening without any special New Year special TV programme unlike in Turkey, our guests with full stomachs left early not to miss the fireworks at the city centre whereas we preferred to stay home and watched the show onscreen.

Fanfare for a common man

2005-12-23T19:53:00.000Z

Eating incessantly is the worst side of home-studying I guess. This is my first day home after three consecutive weeks spent at the British Library. Just before the Christmas break, I finished perusing and taking notes from the books. Now the rest is to organise the materials and write the chapter properly. This time I want to be hopeful really, and produce something that is worth reading. The upgrade matter makes me quite nervous though… Anyway, fingers crossed…

This week was no different than the preceding one. Busy as hell… Finished [well, almost] sending e-mails to the institutes in Finland. Lucky me, they replied before the Christmas! Phew! There seems to be no problem so far. The Museum in Turku and The Library in Helsinki asked me to send the list of manuscripts I am interested in. In the meantime, I am expecting a permission letter from Sibelius’s legal successors.

On Wednesday, I deleted one more task from my to-do list: the application for visa. Collecting the required documents was a bit frustrating as always, but the actual application took a barely 10-minutes time. No hastiness, no problem-creating staff, no queues [literally, the sole I was the queue itself!]… The visa is to be delivered by the first week of the New Year. I wish they would permit for multiple entry.

The choir is also having a break until the 16 January rehearsal [for the Bruckner Mass in Em]. At least for the newcomers… There is a prescheduled performance of Beethoven’s Ninth for 29 December, but I refrain from attending that simply because the rehearsals have been already held weeks before the autumn auditions.

By the way, the Monday concert was brilliant! The Royal Albert Hall is an utterly magnificent place to sing. Every single seat was occupied that evening as there were more than five-thousand strong audience. The chorus performed a Christmas repertoire, accompanied by the organist J. Birch, London Concert Orchestra, and Fanfare Trumpeters of the Band of the Grenadier Guards [in their traditional outfits]. All the chorus members were in black, ladies with long skirts and blouses and men wearing standard dinner suits with bow ties and red daffodils. Standing next to one of the two gigantic Christmas trees, I was placed in the very back row as a member of first-bass group [i.e. baritones], neighbouring the second-bass part. Thanks to our location, the organist’s playing was vibrating my feet and the fanfare trumpeters were blowing just a couple of metres behind me. Being conducted was not something I am unfamiliar, but watching a conductor from the reverse side and seeing his face [during the orchestra’s playing Tchaikovsky’s Flower Waltz from the Nutcracker] made me realise that I was on stage. The trees did not allow me to count how many people we were on stage – no way to see the soprano-tenor part, but next time I will. Let’s say slightly more than two-hundred as it “sounded” to me… :o]

A penguin excitement

2005-12-19T02:14:00.000Z

I shall have my Royal Albert Hall debut (!) tomorrow with RSC and should be sleeping for the sake of my voice – I am newly recovering from a terrible flu; but, alas, for the last twelve hours or more, I’ve been writing letters to several Finnish institutes to obtain necessary permissions for my forthcoming academic trip. Feeling already exhausted, but still excited – particularly for the concert tomorrow! Therefore, I regret I have no time to blog yet, except this paragraph! Have I ever been busier in my life?!

A cold, cold Sunday

2005-12-11T21:06:00.000Z

I really could not find a solution to see my blog updated. I deleted all the caches as well the web history, but no, the AOL somehow keeps showing a previous version of – not other friends’ blogs – but mine. Therefore, I am not able to see the updates and comments for the last fives days or so, even though I have sent a new post in the meantime. Utterly frustrating!

Anyway… The nearer the deadlines are, the busier I am. After a Monday seminar and Tuesday trip to Nottingham, I spent four successive days in the library, from 10am till 7pm, reading and typing excerpts from new materials. This last week was pretty refreshing in academic terms, because I had the courage to peruse some additional sources – to my surprise – in German! Realised that singing lieder had in fact been a great help to learn a good amount of vocabulary and grasp its grammatical logic. Thus, I could ‘read’ a few chapters from several books about Sibelius’s student years in Vienna. Now I will be seeking Sevi’s help to translate them into English where necessary.

Received a Thank You chard from Howard and Pat for the Christmas gifts we have sent to the choir. Well, actually we could not give them in person, but Stuart ordered and arranged everything on behalf of us. Thus, all we had to do was to pay the bill. It was a Christmas carol which Howard could not find anywhere. Together with a greeting card, we sent personalised mini stickers to be affixed on each score. I am glad that timing was good, so that the choir had the time to practice the carol and include it in their X-mas concert programmes. I wish we could have time to attend one of them.

The Finland trip… I purchased the flight tickets, too! It starts to sound something more real, now. The next step is the visa application!

In the name of my memory!

2005-12-08T10:37:00.000Z

Having very busy times nowadays, really, but things are going well. A bit stressful though… Regarding the two-week Finland trip, I confirmed my reservations for rooms at Eurohostel (Helsinki) and Domus (Turku), and am to purchase the flight tickets today. This means next week is the time to apply for the visa. Nonetheless, this is the bureaucratic and relatively easier part of the business. My real concern is about how to plan those two weeks. [Needless to say, the latter requires permission letters to get access etc.] In other words, what to ask the scholars I’m supposed to meet. Or which manuscripts of Sibelius to peruse. I must admit that thinking about all these matters is not easy when there waits a huge chapter to be submitted only three days before my departure to Helsinki. Therefore, I am left only five weeks to deal with all these, and you may imagine how long my to-do list is.

Honestly, I feel I am already late to finish my chapter, which is about the dreams in Sibelius’s songs. It will be based on my last essay, so this gives me some relief. But, I still have doubts about how to elaborate on the conceptual connections among Sibelius, the composer; Dehmel the poet; Freud, the psychoanalyst; and Schenker, the music theoretician. Yesterday, I found magnificent articles and chapters in several books and journals at the British Library. A couple of them deal with exactly the same song, Drömmen, which I am currently analysing. I also found a short article by Dehmel, dated back to 1902, which required using a microfilm machine for the first time, which was pretty entertaining indeed. You somehow feel you are about to discover a very important clue. :-] Well, the only problem is that all these sources are in German, so that I will be seeking Sevi’s help to understand certain passages.

The choir rehearsals are going well. I realised I am better in deciphering new songs, so that learning them is not very difficult indeed. [Well, we will see if it is true when we start the Bruckner Mass next month.] Nevertheless, some of the pieces are loaded with texts, excessively enough to refrain from keeping the eye contact with the conductor sometime.

You know how bad I was in remembering all the names in our male voice choir in Nottingham. Frankly speaking, there are still a few people whose names I still do not know. Keeping them in mind was challenging enough. Now imagine my new situation in the RCS! In every rehearsal, there pops up a new guy next to me and I found myself spelling my name for him. And I think I shall still feel as a new member for the next six months or so. Nonetheless, learning all the names of more than 150 people must be a nightmare and sounds pretty unrealistic at the moment [and much tougher than doing this for the 101 Dalmatians]. Honestly, I would feel more than satisfied if I could do that only for the First Bass part. :-] However, I just learned that I missed the chance to go to a concert in the US this forthcoming May and sing the Verdi Requiem there, since everything has been arranged last August. :-[ Anyway, this is the second time they do that, and probably it will become an annual routine. So, let me hope for May 2007.

"Tell Helen that Richard said Yes"

2005-11-28T23:52:00.000Z

I at last could e-mail my essay yesterday night, and will meet my tutor tomorrow. Still have doubts about its quality, but well, we will see. Whenever I think about some serious facts such as I am still yet to reach an academic level high enough to produce a conference paper, I feel pretty depressed and my ego hurts. Don’t know if there is an English counterpart for the idiom, but this doctorate programme dynamited all the little mountains I had created.

But, at the very moment, I am overwhelmingly happy. I was admitted to the Royal Choral Society after taking the auditions. Everything happened so fast that I even feel a bit tired now. Went to the hall where the audition would take place at 5.45pm. [No need to mention that I went astray and lost my way even though I had the A to Z London with me. Well, at least I know myself and allocate enough time to compensate such problems.]

We were four people, three gentlemen and a lady to attend the audition. Each applicant was taken to the room one by one, me to be the last. While waiting and desperately trying to steady my voice, the concept triggered the horrible memories of mine from the conservatoire years. You are supposed to do some vocal exercises, pass an ear-training session, perform an aria or lied, and sight-read a choral piece. I sang Schumann’s In der Fremde, op.39 no.1 – that was the first song I had sung in a concert – which once again did not fail me. At least, it helped me recognise that after all those years without any training, I am still able to produce an operatic voice and my tessitura have not narrowed yet. I was pretty nervous to be honest, because before my turn, the conductor has refused two of the applicants by interrupting the audition, so when he interrupted MY lied, I thought that was it. Instead he said the song part was very nice, but the time for the beginning of the rehearsal was soon, so he wanted to switch to the sight-reading study. I haven’t overcome my anxiety, so mixed up the lines, and for the latter half of the piece, I accidentally sang the tenor melody by deciphering the notes in F-clef! Apart from that, it went not bad. He said me to tell Helen, the secretary, ‘Richard said ‘Yes’ and asked me if I would make it to attend a very soon Christmas concert. When I said ‘Yes,’ he directly send me to the practice hall. There I had my first rehearsal with more than a hundred and fifty people and sang Christmas carols for the forthcoming concert on Dec 19.

The male parts left the rehearsal on time whereas the female voices stayed for an extra 30 minutes. After the study, Sim, my ex-classmate from the conservatoire in Istanbul, whom I owe all this episode to happen, phoned me to tell that the conductor approached her after the rehearsal and said her that he was very impressed by her friend [me] who had a bright and steady voice. [Me: Yey!]

I have never sung in such a huge chorus. I have never sung in a choir / chorus accompanied with an orchestra. And I have never sung in Royal Albert Hall!!! Well, within less than a month, that will happen!

Schumann! Help!

2005-11-23T03:32:00.000Z

In the middle of the night, it might not be a good idea to blog, but here we go. Actually, I am pretty tired after a day-out trip to Nottingham in order to attend a departmental colloquium. My paper seems to be another never-ending stuff, full of posh words without a proper outline. But, this time it sounds better in terms of developing original ideas. Well, having read too much stuff on Freud may backfire though… However, apart from this, there is something else that has been gnawing my mind for the last few days: I received an invitation letter to undertake the audition of RSC. Utterly anxious and nervous! Guess I will go for a Schumann lied to fulfill the requirement of singing an operatic aria or lied. Whatever the result would be, it seems to be an interesting experience in any case. Fingers crossed!

Best in haste

2005-11-18T18:01:00.000Z

Racing against the time... No time for rest! I have a paper to submit next Tuesday and it was only yesterday that I have another think about my next week's schedule. The scary fact is that I have to attend a seminar on Monday and a departmental colloquium on Tuesday, a double impact enough to kill a couple of days. That means I am left only the weekend to accomplish my assignment. Ack! Long after, I restarted preparing a to-do list on daily basis. We both are hecticly working / studying that there is no time left even for shopping at Tesco. So, we had to do it at 10.30pm. Well, after a serene year-an-a half, London seems to have caught me unprepared for a challenging metropolitan life. Hope thing will go on more smoothly soon.

The door-cat

2005-11-11T19:29:00.000Z

I spend less than 30 minutes per day in front of the PC. That is why my entries have sharply become rarer. Once I get the rooter for the internet connection via my laptop, I hope things will be easier. Actually, I am not in the right mood to blog now. Spent an awful day full of bureaucratic frustrations, darkened by the gloomiest, greyest weather I have ever seen. The only nice time was a few minutes that I spent with one of our neighbours’ cat. Well, I haven’t got acquainted with any of them, to be honest; but every morning, a beautiful black cat [almost purely black, except a tiny, medallion-like spot on chest] greets us in front of our flat’s door. S/he often attempts to enter into our house or waits for us to open the main door. Today, for the first time, s/he allowed me to stroke his/her belly, while licking my thumb. Apparently, s/he knows where to hang around. Aww! By the way, I definitely need some practice in cats’ English.

Evertything was fine, every drink was wine

2005-10-31T23:46:00.000Z

Marvellous! This time AOL saves all the unnecessary caches so that it does not refresh my blog if I revisit it within twenty-four hours. Therefore neither I can view my last entries immediately after I publish them nor can I read the latest comments left by friends. Utterly frustrating! By the way, the task of selecting wedding photos are half-done. When I finish writing short comments, the Kodak photo-file will be ready for display. Just bear with me for a few more days, please!

The last few days were pretty busy indeed. We had another wedding party here for the friends who could not attend the one in Izmir. Sevi and I enjoyed it very much just because this time we were aware what’s been going on. For the party, we have hired the function room of Bar du Musee, a cosy local pub at Greenwich for this Saturday afternoon. The basement floor was entirely reserved for us. We were nearly thirty people, mostly Sevi’s colleagues from BBC. The guests enjoyed glasses and glasses of red and white wines, whilst an open buffet was being served for us. We were also allowed to play our own music, and to our surprise everybody was more than happy to dance with a compilation of Turkish pop music CD, which we have decided to prepare at the last minute before leaving home for the party.

There occurred only a couple of tiny little bits of problem, thanks God, just before the party. First, we needn’t to reconfirm our reservation for the place, which was found awkward by the pub manager since it’s the Britons’ habit to triple-check everything at least weeks before the event takes place [though they somehow can’t have a B-plan and stay utterly paralysed in case anything goes wrong.] Well, since we did not give a third call just to re-re-re-confirm that we were coming, they assumed that we were not and it was less than twenty-four hours that I learned that. Strangely enough, they didn’t need to wonder about that and ring us to ask. Anyway, this time to my surprise, it did not create a problem.

But our cab did! Just by not arriving on time! We had to find an alternative way to go there: er, by using public transportation. Anyway, it is not uncommon to see, say, people going to hippodrome for horse race in their traditional Ascot costumes; so that we did not bother travelling by DLR in our wedding costumes.

At the end of the day, our short afternoon branch has become a real wedding party prolonged until 9.30pm. And both Sevi and I enjoyed it very much, just because we were aware of what’s been going on this time. Well, dealing with thirty guest is much easier compared to a strong-200-something mayhem. Sunday was devoted to shopping, cleaning, balancing the alcohol-blood proportions etc. after a tea & talk visit to a friend of us. What I say is that we are keen to have another wedding party guys, regardless when and where it may take place. Sevi is – and will always be – keen to wear her costume and make me wear mine, too. ;-) So, this was to the attention for those who could not attend either of them. Don’t worry!

Research has finally started to go well. I started reading a few books by Freud and Jung, which helps me strengthen my arguments on the topic of ‘persona’. But time flies speedily and I must be in hurry! Argh! My nose is like a tap today! It won’t stop!

The lucky number

2005-10-27T06:40:00.000Z

The last three days was tiring enough although I did not have any library routine. On Monday, I attended the first ARHC seminar at the British Library Conference Centre, which was really helpful indeed as we were taught how to utilise all kinds of bibliographical sources available in Britain. Well, a second-year Ph.D. student should have been already aware of them! Tuesday was devoted to a trip to Nottingham again. This time I attended a marvellous colloquium on Schenker and his Vienna. Nevertheless, yesterday was the most tiring of all. I started the day with a frustrating visit to the local police station to report my new UK address, which could not be accomplished thanks to the British bureaucracy as torturous as the Turkish version. I would later have to to go to the Overseas Immigration Office in Borough just because my marital status has also been changed.

Well, I have some good news, as well! Yesterday I collected my brand-new laptop, Tom [together with a mouse, er, Jerry!] Today, they will pay their first visit to the British Library and I will hear its the Microsoft opening tune joining other visitors' for echoing in that gigantic hall. :o]

But the best news comes the last. I was awarded the Travel Prize for my Finland trip! Yes, my application was successful, and they will pay me the maximum amount I have requested, GBP 452.-! [Well, it can't be divided into 3, but anyway...] Hurray! For the remaining half, I will be applying for another prize offered by Society of Music Analysis. So, I keep my fingers crossed. Hope everything goes well. Meow.

A brief encounter

2005-10-23T23:52:00.000Z

At very last, I have a laptop! I mean, almost… After a few previous premature attempts to search for a laptop at a good price, yesterday we devoted the whole afternoon to shopping. Indeed, we were so lucky to find one while wandering throughout the Tottenham Court Road, aka “Dogubank” of London. After entering into an overcrowded sweaty shop without any customer services, we tried our chance at an Ask store and found ourselves being informed keenly by an Iranian saleslady. After explaining our need and saying the price range we can afford, she started showing us around all the options they have. After seeing a few Toshiba, there we stopped in front of a Sony Vaio with a smart look. The price was topping the range we have set, but hey, it was Sony and it was the first time that I saw a Vaio below the GBP 1,000 with much better specs compared to other brands! So, we decided to purchase it – the VGN-FS315B to be more specific. We wanted an unpacked one, and the saleslady attempted to bring one from the other store they have. But all has been sold out within hours there as well. Yes, we were the ninth customer who demanded the same laptop the same day, and the one in display was being repacked as it was purchased by another customer after us. Therefore we decided to order a new one which is due to arrive by next Wednesday. Yuppie!

Afterwards we went to Golders’ Green, a pleasant neighbourhood in northern London, to visit one of our friends who has recently moved to a new flat there. After the coffee-cake We enjoyed the wine at a local pub. First, it seemed surprisingly not crowded, but then we realised it was Saturday evening as we were in a place dwelt by the biggest Jewish community in London.

The brand-new week starts tomorrow. I have registered with a series of seminars offered for music postgraduates. Those I have selected to attend sounds very promising and helpful and the better thing is that all of them will be held at the Conference Centre of the British Library! I am avidly waiting for the first one on “Exploring Online Bibliographical Materials”. After moving to London, the time I spend to study has dropped dramatically, so I need to reschedule my week very carefully to be stuck with my schedule. But, I feel somewhat motivated again! A feeling I have missed really…

A very choral dream

2005-10-20T23:05:00.000Z

The stress is chasing me as I’ve been left only three months until my second annual evaluation at which my upgrade to Ph.D. is to be decided. I’ve been spending everyday at the British Library, but overall speaking, I feel as if I have nothing at hand to write about. So my mood is ‘so so.’

Any good news? Well… Having been the first or second runner for the last few years, this time, our music department of the University of Nottingham has topped the Times Good University Guide 2006, beating the Ox-bridge myth! Hurray! :-)

Ah, and another thing. I used to consider myself as a guy with high-ambitions-transformed-into-perseverance-and-determinateness, but this time I do not just want, but aspire something at the expense of failing to achieve it!

Last week, I at last managed to phone Sim, a classmate of mine from Mimar Sinan Conservatoire at Istanbul, who moved to London a couple of years ago. Since I was in Nottingham and my visits to London were too brief, we could not meet each other here. We are still yet to do. However, during our last conversation, she told me that she’s been singing in the Royal Choral Society and asked me if I’d like to do as well. Having just been moved to London, I was tinkering with the idea whether I should keep singing or not. As Sim mentioned that they would perform Carmina Burana at the end of the month, I’ve been already hunted. Well… I am talking about a big choir with roots back to the Victorian age, a choir that gave concerts together with, say, Jose Carreras and Kiri Te Kanawa, a choir with a tradition [a real one!] of singing Handel’s Messiah since 1870s in Good Friday every year. Therefore, I am supposed to pass a challenging audition, which includes a tough sight-reading, ear training, and performing a lied or an aria. Considering the fact that I had been admitted to the conservatoire at my third and last attempt [and the audition would be much more difficult I bet], it seems quite probable that I may fail. But, hey, there was no plan to sing in a London choir, so I do not mind if I can’t make it.

For the first time in my life, I do not care about being disappointed. The idea emerged suddenly, so the disappointment would fade away as quick as that. So this is what I call ‘to aspire something’. A feeling that is so strange to me… Well. Here is another one: Having somewhat slightly brawny biceps when my arms are in normal position. :-P

A month's summary

2005-10-18T13:35:00.000Z

You know, it is almost a rule that engineering work tend to be prolonged as something is usually supposed to be go wrong. So is the case with my station. Since our arrival at London last Wednesday, I could have spent less than an hour online due to a hectic schedule as I expected. Moreover, my attempts to send my entries were unsuccessful due to a technical error with my station. Anyway, at last I am back! And I am very glad to be back.

Days are chasing one another. After arriving the UK, we spent the first few days for unpacking things and rearranging the flat for the use of two people. Our home seems utterly ‘stuffed,’ but we accomplished the big part of the business. By last Monday, Sevi started her hectic office work, whereas I began my daily visits to the British Library. Such a fantastic place, convincing enough for a postgrad to live in London!

Yes, I am officially a Londoner now. Actually, this immediately creates another to-do list: I have to redo what I have done when I first moved to UK: renewing my police registration, reapplying for the council tax exemption, reregistering to the GP and dentist, etc. So, this is my off-day to accomplish them all, hopefully.

I’ve already paid a couple of post-vacation visit to Nottingham. The first one was a daily trip – to register with the university and to attend the first colloquium, which was a good event to get acquainted with the newcomers. [By the way, just curious… Etymologically speaking, could the word ‘event’ be the abbreviated form of ‘evening entertainment’?]

For the second visit I was joined by Sevi since we have been invited for this year’s ‘square dancing’ by the choir. Before the event, we spent the afternoon with Pablo, Vinoth and Katie at Antalya, a Turkish restaurant in Nottingham city centre. It was very nice to see them all after a long time. Then Pat and Howard gave us a lift to the place where the event would be held.

Square dancing is something I know from one of the favourite cartoons from my childhood, Lucky Luke (aka Ret Kit). There is an Irish fiddler who gives the instructions by singing amusing rhyming songs. After a while he does that in a tricky way so that you start doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. Eventually everything becomes a mess! Such a fun it was though I was almost exhausted!

By the way, the baritone section has welcome a new member after me, an A-level student – the youngest of us, even younger than the young Philip. Considering the event, however, the youngest guest was Eric and Jan’s adorable first grandchild, Dan, who was barely over a month! [Just tell me if any Turkish parents would bring such a young baby to somewhere!] While I was gently stroking his head, Lucy gave him to me and I suddenly found myself holding him, feeding him and relaxing him after drinking so much milk (you know what I mean). And I realized it was not only cats! He fell asleep, too. We were both Virgo, might that be the reason?

At last I could start a healthy life! I was registered with Fitness First, and had my second session last Monday with Alen, my Slovenian personal trainer. Last week, it was my legs that were deadly aching. Now, it is my back. Perhaps, I should correct myself: All parts of my body are aching like hell! Ouch! Sevi has been already a member, but was complaining about lack of time. I hope this will help us motivate each other and keep it up.

Well… I know the wedding deserves a separate entry, but I think it would be better to do that together with the photos. So my aim is to prepare an online photo album for that, with a short comment per pic. But I must say that it was fantastic and I really, really enjoyed it. When it comes to a married life… If you are planning to get married, just do not postpone it once you have the right candidate. ;-)

The wedding planner

2005-09-12T11:05:00.000Z

It is already September and the event of my life is to happen within two weeks, ack! This means that the Mailway Station will be closed until the first week of October due to planned engineering - er, I mean 'wedding' - work, except a few probable short entries or comments hopefully. It's been just a couple of days since I arrived Istanbul and after a quite short time spent with my sister, I am gonna travel to my hometown this late afternoon - and next day to Izmir where the wedding will be held. I feel already exhausted without doing anything, perhaps because of the hot weather, which I have long forgotten, the overwhelming cacaphony of Istanbul (I took the wrong bus today on my way to pucrhase my ticket!) and ah, the butterflies in my stomach. Once again, I could not manage to see any of my friends whom I miss a lot. Why does the time have to be so scarce?

House-bound

2005-09-07T11:53:00.000Z

Well, perhaps I shouldn’t have preferred blogging to packaging my last remains at Beeston house as I am literally leaving by tomorrow. I’ve been carrying my stuff for the last several weeks, so that there is left only a luggage to fill, but I am so dilatory to do that. I think I am a bit exhausted by the hectic schedule of the last few days before my departure to Turkey. Even busier days are soon.

Having submitted my notoriously-delayed paper last Monday, today I met my supervisor. The result was not a brilliant one as I expected, despite the improved performance in Schenkerian analysis and the smart Zbikowskian graphs, my new academic toy. At the end, the essay was full of grammatical mistakes, conceptual blurriness, and intentionality. :o[ I can’t really think of any way to improve my academic English at the moment, really; it seems to remain to a big obstacle. What I know is that I tend to compose overwhelmingly long sentences when I am not sure what to claim. Moreover, in doing so, I sound so defensive and unconfident that I use double-negatives quite often which makes my writing harder to swallow. In other words, it merely becomes rubbish, full of unnecessary – sometimes big – words. Anyway… I have started to read the Economist on regular basis, which, I think, exemplifies how to make shorter sentences without refraining from the effectiveness of your writing. I hope that will help. Thus, I just spent more than three hours only to revise a four-paragraph application form before submitting it, just to avoid any embarrassing grammatical mistakes. Sevi’s proofreading required further revisions, needless to say.

But at last I managed to apply for Graduate School’s travel prize. My Finland trip will be next January, hopefully. The two-week trip will cost me nearly £1,000 and I am demanding half of it. So, fingers crossed! Despite its recent inclusion in the Euro zone, Finland seems to be still pretty expensive, not as much as, say, Norway though. It is still the cheapest among the Nordic fives. For the remaining half, I need to make another application, this time to another institute. Gosh, there are lots and lots of things to do to get prepared for that! The idea makes me feel quite stressful. :o[

But… Before that, there is another event waiting: the wedding! :o] Everything seems to have been going smoothly so far, thanks to our parents and aunts. Indeed, we will be like special guests – that is it. So, if you want to get married, just reside in abroad and let your parents deal with everything. Yesterday, once again, I felt convinced that every parent on this earth is living for this mission. My mom, on the phone, was enthusiastically describing how each step of the staircases would be flanked by candle lights or how beautiful the gilded calyx-shaped plate will be full of fresh white roses. The latest news: They seem to have been hunted by the idea of hiring a violin-and-guitar duo to play some easy listening classical music pieces during the welcome session before the event starts. Well, what is next? :o]

I’ve been spending the last few days by helping my fiancée as she works intensely everyday. We are trying to arrange place for a wedding party here, to be attended by her work colleagues and a few friends of mine who may come from Nottingham. Regarding the fact that we have left by this Friday morning, we are left only a single day to make our choice among the options and send the invitation cards! I devoted my entire Tuesday for that, but everything in London is too expensive as you may guess! By the way, Monday was exhausting, funnily though… While she was at work, I dealt with cooking, hoovering, laundry, cleaning, shopping, packaging stuff, etc. All sorts of house work… Wonder whether there might be any etymological relation between ‘husband’ and ‘house-bound.’ :o]

The last rehearsal

2005-09-01T23:59:00.000Z

Had the last rehearsal with the choir before my departure to London. Howard, our conductor – a true gentleman, has asked me to list my favourite songs chosen from a 115-piece-strong repertoire. Of course I did prepare my Top 15 list! How could I resist his offer? Thus, for the first meeting of the new season today, the choristers have been asked to bring the scores of those particular songs. We started with no.24, ‘Some Enchanted Evening’. I couldn’t escape Howard’s teasing me if there was any particular reason to start with that one, referring to our wedding date [9/24] and the song title. If you also reconsider the second song, ‘How to Handle a Woman,’ err, let’s say perhaps, there might be, yet subconsciously… :o]

During the interval, I was given a beautiful congratulation card signed by every member of our choir with their best wishes for our wedding. Afterwards, it was the photo session as Pat took a few picture of the choir, including all the present members. At last I can cease worrying about not having one after missing the annual photo session last April. The time was not enough to cover the entire list, so the penultimate song became ‘I could have danced all night,’ the first song I’ve heard from the choir, and we finished with the nostalgic ‘Take Me Home,’ also bearing a meaningful title to end the rehearsal. :-P

I did not say good-bye to anyone as I will try my best to meet them as frequently as possible by visiting the Thursday rehearsals and monthly concerts. Time will tell how I would succeed it. By the way, after the rehearsal, John did not ‘take me home’, but the pub as usual. And, now, having drunk a 1½ -pint of Stella, and with a 2-hour sleep of yesterday, I am in the library, trying to finish my essay which is due to – err, yesterday! Gosh, I lost all my persuasiveness about the deadlines!

Meanwhile, I couldn’t manage to ring Zeze as I’ve intended before her departure to San Diego, Cali. I hope everything has gone smoothly so far. She must be pretty excited and I’m really looking forward to hear from her soon. In other words: "Denizde koyunlar... Cayirda baliklar... Gökte 'Racir'lar... Düsünüyorum... Ürperiyorum!" ;-P

Tied down

2005-08-31T10:16:00.000Z

A dozen of invitation cards for our wedding arrived yesterday to be delivered for friends here and elsewhere. Utterly excited. I wasn’t really sure how they would look like; but now they seem to me pretty elegant although elderly guests might find the inevitably ‘curly’ font hard to decipher. :-) The card is designed to be a voluminous one – beyond our expectations – in the shape of a photo frame, so that people could keep them after the wedding and place our photo that we would send them to say ‘thank you’ if they wish to do so. The writings and edge strips are gilded, which is the colour theme of the event – yet not to be overemphasised though. That is why I am searching for a waistcoat and a [Victorian-style] tie with a similar colour to match the ornamentations of the bride’s costume – yet without any intention, despite the notoriously hot summers in Izmir, to be a wet groom after swimming in a lake, fully dress-coded like Mr. Darcy. :oP [Ok folks, watched Pride and Prejudice, recently.] The one I like is out of stock though… Anyway, hopefully, I will find a suitable one – but alas, only after the impractical EU bureaucrats could find a plausible solution for the Chinese textile row. Ack! Why me?!

FLAGrading

2005-08-26T00:07:00.000Z

Not my business, definitely, but I find the new Iraqi flag pretty disappointing. Well, the topic reminded me of another memory from my childhood: I used to prepare mini versions of the world flags and try to place them correctly on a large world map afterwards. Reading the story of each flag used to seem very interesting to me as well. Correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I remember, the Danish flag must be the oldest one [dated back to the 13th century?] among those that are currently in use.

By the way, a New Zealander associate professor gave letter grades to the world’s flags mainly from a designer’s point of view, just for fun. The Gambian, Pakistani, Japanese, Somalian and Turkish flags make his Top 5. I really enjoyed reading it all through, especially the evaluation criteria, though some patriotic readers might find some humorous-yet-wry comments offensive. At least, I can presume that my blog is not read by people from Northern Mariana Islands whose national flag received the lowest mark, 2 out of 100, i.e. a big F. Well, excluding the Turkish flag [to avoid any sense of ‘backing’], my Top 5 consists of Japanese, Greek, Botswanan, Israeli and Gambian flags. So, which flags are your favourite, folks? :o]

Portugal 2007

2005-08-25T09:42:00.000Z

Yesterday, I did a big nothing, really, other than pretending to study for a little bit of time. August is the worst month I guess. Anyway, I am glad it is soon over. In the evening, Pablo and Vinoth dropped by and we chatted a lot and enjoyed snacks and desserts, accompanied by red wine. Pablo was just back from Madrid. He told us about his travel throughout Eastern Europe and Germany by Interrail; and said that Poland, especially Warsaw, was a fantastic place to visit.

And today's big smile was Eylem who sent me an e-mail to share the pics taken during their two-week trip to Portugal. It was so nice to see her and her husband, Samuel, after those years! I think this is the best side of the photo-sharing services through the internet. The pics were utterly fantastic and made me want to see those places as soon as possible. By the way, I am still considering a reunion with friends in Portugal in 2007 [I am not kidding, I’ve been saying this for the last three or four years and I still do so.] and the photos are just the proof of a promising vacation. Now, one thing I know is that I wanna travel throughout the continent! Norwegian fjords, Venice-Florence-Rome, the Baltic trio, Finland, Portugal, Barcelona and the Catalonian countryside, Andalusia, the Greek islands, Switzerland, Prague-Bratislava-Budapest, Paris & Bruges, the Croatian islands… So, this is our holiday plans for the next twelve years. :-)

The dandruff cat

2005-08-23T23:47:00.000Z

Could it be an early rain-swept autumnal symptom? Or simply the wedding stress? Or the inevitable monetary problems? Or delaying my essay for the umpteenth time? Or too much car race games during the prolonged breaks? Or the side-effect of my hay fever pills, Cetirizine? [Today’s discovery after reading the prospectus for the first time following fifteen-months of use.] Or another irrelevant astrological event? Don’t know why, but I’ve been feeling agitated nowadays, really – just like a cat who is trying to adapt itself to a new house. Er, I’ll soon do that, too. Meow. Σ:-]

Thinking in the rain

2005-08-22T14:47:00.000Z

Surprisingly enough, I am among those captured by the F1 spirit. For the first time, fifty-eight laps did not seem to be too long, including an already—notorious Turn 8. Besides, before watching the excerpts of the Sunday event, my hour-based schedule was fifty-minute studying plus playing a car racing game for the remaining ten. I scored badly, really; I think it is quite related to how well you know how to drive in real life. Me? I wasn’t even sure which lane I should take, but funnily, I found myself driving on the left side, adapting the British style subconsciously.

The new week started with heavy rain and the weather forecast heralds much more! The autumn starts early here, but I realised I missed it, so no problem at all, if you have your umbrella with you. I got up early and went to the city centre to purchase my coach tickets to London. [Next week, there will be no train service due to planned engineering works. A sort of indirect announcement of “Why don’t you stay home during the Bank Holiday weekend!”] Then, I wandered around the streets, realising that I am soon to leave this city and there are still places I have yet to visit. [I am already in the mood of tedbil-i mekân.]

Therefore, I decided not to hurry and enjoy the modest rain for a while. I gave a break at Starbucks and read Leman’s paper, accompanied by a cup of caramel macchiato. It was an essay about the problems of Romani people – particularly in the UK – have to tackle with, especially those prejudices and discriminations by the local communities. It reminded me of the provocative headlines of the tabloid press here as the issue has been revived several months ago, inviting the authorities to fight them. It sounds quite ironic to know that Britain is spending millions of pounds for refugees fleeting from abroad and behaving so reluctantly to find a satisfactory solution to that ill-fated matter.

My landlady gave me a wonderful wedding present – a photo frame and a square-cylindrical vase, both with a reflective surface ornamented with tulips. She acted before me as I was planning to purchase a thank you gift before my soon departure. Today, I bought a couple of tickets to ‘Dracula,’ a ballet performance staged by The Northern Ballet Company, Leeds. Though the music is the compilation of excerpts from four twentieth-century composers that might be a bit hard to listen to, [one of them is Rachmaninoff, at least] I hope the subject sounds appealing enough and they will eventually enjoy that.

While you were sleeping

2005-08-18T11:28:00.000Z

Living alone makes you egocentric I guess. I was writing the hundredth scenario about the extreme delay of my submission as if the only thing my supervisor should think all day and night is my paper and he is counting every extra day I am spending shamelessly. Of course, not! Once again, he made me feel relaxed. I just printed my essay which turned to be a chapterish work. It is already more than fifteen pages and looks pompous enough with all those sophisticated (!) conceptual integration charts and Schenkerian graphs; and after spending all that time full of agony – and also trouble due to document corruption – I really don’t want to submit it before reading once or twice and make necessary amendments, modifications, even revisions. Probably we will skip our delayed appointment and meet by the first week of September before I take my monthly break for the wedding. Well, enough to polish what I’ve written so far… But at least, for the first time, I will have delivered something better definitely – compared to my previous attempts. Let’s hope so. Now I am going to home to do the thing I’ve been terribly missing: I’ll sleep!

Random visitors

2005-08-12T15:43:00.000Z

Thanks to Bravenet’s service, I sometimes check via which link my station has been visited. So, your Big Brother is speaking! Hehe… Apart from random visitors mostly either from Far Eastern countries or the States [mostly depending on the time I update my blog] who encounter this station via the list of currently updated blogs; there are also some other visitors who board the wrong brain. I mean, mostly those who search for the official web site or the song lyrics of Emrah, a famous arabesque music star in Turkey, who could get rid of his stage-name affix “Little” only after he turned to be seventeen-something. He is just a few years older than me and I can say that I really disliked the idea of being a teenager during the peak of his ‘stardom’. Especially, in my secondary school years, during which I shared a desk with a classmate of mine, whose name was also Emrah... Since I was one year younger than the rest of the class, guess what..? [Phew, at least, my case is not that much deadly, like the poor history teacher whose name is Banu Alkan (an Eksi Sözlük entry says so), thus left nothing to do but threateningly urge her students not to laugh when she introduces herself, if they wanna pass the class.] By the way, the weirder thing is that except Google, the rest of the search motors often list the Mailway Station as well as other blogs in top-ten or -twenty list within irrelevant contexts. Perhaps, that does explain why more and more people prefer Google nowadays. [Well, you may say now I just included something relevant to that Emrah by giving the link to his web site.] Anyway, those who drop by this station are always welcome. Meanwhile... The paper is going well. This time, I mean that!

These foolish things

2005-08-11T23:10:00.000Z

Have been attempting to write song lyrics in my spare time, nowadays… Don't know if I should call it a confession, because the idea sometimes sounds extremely cheesy. I don’t know why I write them, either; that was something I have had enjoyed just a few times before our group’s eventual disbandment. To put it bluntly, I dislike poetry, but when words fuse with music, they suddenly become important to me. [Perhaps that is why I prefer opera performances to theatre plays or Schumann’s Heine to Heine unsung.] With attention paid to prosody, phrase rhythm, melodic structure, choice of words [in Turkish] and having a vocal colour in mind, it becomes a mathematical game for me, which I currently enjoy. Since there is no original melodic material at hand, I produce cover versions of [to me] old or [to me-unknown] once-popular songs, keeping the concept the same – just to have some exercise. Currently, I work on a jazz standard, the Istanbul version of ‘These Foolish Things’, for a female voice between Zuhal Olcay’s and Deniz Arcak’s. It may sound quite artificial, but first translating the original text and then working on that version by making several amendments or revisions seem to work, I guess – at least for the sake of preserving the same mood, or plot if any. Ah, the idea now sounds foolish, again. [Not necessarily because the song says so!] Anyway, that is all for today.

Ding Ding-A-Dong

2005-08-09T02:57:00.000Z

Still writing my paper… I guess it will never end. One of the vending machines is out of order, which means no tea, coffee or any other hot drinks during the night. However, in the middle of the night, a catchy song, Ding Ding-a-Dong by the Dutch group, Teach-in, keeps me awake and my mood up, really. At first, I haven’t given any credit to it, regarding its nonsense title and the fact that it was a Eurovision entry for the Netherlands in 1975. [I was yet to be born!] But when I listened to it, it sounded to me even better than the Luxembourgian entry (1965) sung by France Gall. [Well, to be honest, I have never fancied Abba’s Waterloo (1974).] Anyway... Here is the link for those who'd like to listen to it - together with all the other ESC winners since 1956.

Why did Mehtap and Deniz’s Japanese mini-stove explode while they were asleep?

2005-08-08T15:07:00.000Z

It might have been a good interactive way to refer to Gustav Holst’s well-known suite, “The Planets” to teach schoolchildren about the name of planets and their meanings, if the suite had included Earth and Pluto [then-yet-to-be-discovered] and played in the right order [it doesn’t start with Mercury, but Mars instead.]

However, read in this week’s The Economist that in the US schools, the members of solar system are taught with the help of this sentence: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas, each initial indicating a planet name in the right order. (Er, there’s no equivalent of this in Turkish, actually, but if you try too hard, well, you may compose this semi-cracky sentence: Mehtap Ve Deniz’in Mini Japon Sobasi Uykularinda Niye Patladi? [lit. Why did Mehtap and Deniz’s Japanese mini-stove explode while they were asleep? D for Dünya (Earth) That doesn’t sound childish enough, does it? Hehe… Perhaps it’s better not to have one at all.]

Anyway, the news was about the recent discovery of a new planet in solar system that seems to have restarted the definition of a “planet.” Some astronauts claim that the newly-identified “Xena” is not a planet, but a gigantic asteroid, whereas some others argue that it is a planet – bearing similar characteristics with Pluto. Well, according to another group of scientists, this also puts Pluto’s “planethood” under scrutiny. The article has a genuinely funny conclusion saying that we would soon see whether our very educated mother would have served us “Nine Polished Xylophones,” “Nine Pizzas,” or just “Noodles.” :-)

End of the break. Time to resume my essay!!!

The world's shortest personality test

2005-08-05T18:20:00.000Z

For those who don't mind to spare just a few seconds... I couldn't publish the visual material due to some weird technical errors, which I don't understand; but I picked up the GREEN one, so here is what it says: "You are nurturing, kind, and lucky. [No complains at all!] Like mother nature, you want to help everyone. [Don't know why, really. Maybe because I can't tolerate unsolved problems.] You are good at keeping secrets and tend to be secretive. [As secretive as a Swiss bank I bet!] A seeker of harmony, you are a natural peacemaker. [Yet if s.o. pushes me too hard, I have the potential to become a wry peaceshaker, though.] You are good natured and people enjoy your company. [As long as they want some serenity, I guess. Could it be why all cats can't help but sleep on my lap?] You put people at ease and make them feel at home with you. [Well, preparing a breakfast or dinner ritual must be the key activity I suppose.]" O.K., YES to all, boringly enough...

Bam ba-va da-va dam

2005-08-04T22:28:00.000Z

Last week, while searching the net, I accidentally encountered with a student profile from Harvard. To my surprise, it was Emir, our precious lyric tenor, from Bogazici Uni. Music Club, whom I couldn’t have the chance to keep in touch once he went to Boston to have his degree [on artificial intelligence]. So, there were a lot to catch up, which means lots of news. What I learned so far: Last year, he married to Sule, the angel-voice soprano, another choir-mate!!! They still live in Boston. Yonca, our sole cellist, and Levent [from Jazz Choir] got married and moved to Baltimore [I didn’t know that it was that Levent!] Balkız finished her Ph.D. at Harvard and went back to Bogazici to teach English Literature. Gülsüm, another devoted soprano, got also married – to a German guy. And Ece, our lezzo-mezzo, released a CD as a member of A Capella Bogazici, a group discovered by Kerem Görsev!

It is so nice to hear all these goods news. Also considering the Ychorus gang, it seems half of us have moved to the States! Ah,we often enjoyed sitting lazily on the South Campus square after the weekly rehearsals of spring; and thanks to Emir’s insistence and [Bach’s irresistibility] Sule, Ece, Emir and I [sometimes joined by others] always used to sing The Swingle Singers’ fabuluous version of J.S. Bach’s Organ Fugue in G minor, BWV 545, aka “Bam ba-va da-va dam...” :-)

So, those were the days... But why is this nostalgia? Am I growing old too fast?

Put the blame on Mercury

2005-08-03T21:47:00.000Z

Had no choice other than to postpone tomorrow’s appointment with my supervisor, as my essay started getting longer with no hope to finish it by tomorrow. In fact, he has always mentioned that we would start meeting less since I would need more time to get prepared; and I was the one who has proposed the unrealistic date and time. Now I understand what he means! Well, the essay is going better indeed; to strengthen my arguments exemplified by Soluppgång, Op.37/3, I decided to add some other critical discussion related [not to another song, but] to the last of Sibelius’s symphonic poems, Tapiola, Op.112. At least I feel relatively more satisfied. I hope this time it will worth spending that much time. So, another long session is to start. Good luck to me! By the way... Until 15 August, as an over-disciplined Virgo, I am advised not to worry about my 'slowness;' because it is all Mercury's fault - due to its awkward position. Well, my monthly horoscope says so. What else could I do? ;-P

A tasty refutation against a tasteless joke

2005-07-31T22:40:00.000Z

I am so glad to have picked up the leaflet in our department, which eventually led me to join the choir, meet many people and enjoy their friendship. As part of it, I spent a very pleasant Sunday afternoon today as Pat and Howard invited Jan, Eric, Sevi and I for a ‘traditional Sunday lunch,’ which was absolutely gorgeous and delicious – well, Monsieur Chirac would definitely change his mind about that ‘tasteless’ joke. There was more than one reason to propose a toast: our forthcoming wedding [this September], Pat & Howard’s forty-third anniversary [next week], Pat’s re-re-retirement [last week – after twenty-nine years of teaching music in primary school], and Jan & Eric’s first grandchild expected soon [this October]. After eating and drinking so much, I could not help but took a nap – well, for a couple of hours – as I was home. It will be my pleasure to cook traditional Turkish dishes if they can set a date before I move to London. Now is the time to resume this never-ending essay business. But, first, I should wake up!

RadioDiva

2005-07-30T18:38:00.000Z

No time to blog today. [Well, as you see, it's a lie!] Writing my paper, and far behind my schedule, really. My writing session is being accompanied by a song-stream from RadioDiva, the official website of Ajda Pekkan, who is one of the most acclaimed singers in Turkey with more than forty years of career in music, bestowed as ‘Süperstar’. The good thing with the link is that it loops all the songs mirroring her wide-range discography, from recent works back to long-forgotten or [to me] unknown pieces from 60s, 80s and 80s most of which are either cover versions of worldwide popular songs or those sung mainly in French. For the first time, for instance, I heard ‘Yağmur,’ [Turkish version of Jose Feliciano’s ‘Rain’ (bearing the same title)], or ‘Tek Bir Şey’, [Stewie Wonder’s ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’ in Turkish]. Ah, and there are also the French and English covers of her once career-ruining ‘Petr’oil’. Anyway... It’s very enjoyable I think, so this link is mainly for my Turkish friends [and curious others], who’d like to feel the delightful nostalgia. [Just click on the icon on the top left once you open the main page; or alternatively, click on the old album front-covers (left to radiodiva) and select the songs by yourself.]

Around the world in 80 minutes

2005-07-27T23:00:00.000Z

In the middle of a hectic schedule, I shouldn't have started playing it, but thanks to Sevi's forwarding, I just couldn't help, but killed some time - OK, I confess: more than an hour! Well, anyway, here is the link for those who think geography is fun! [For me, IT IS!!!] The most difficult part was to adjust the size of countries, rotate them and place them on the map correctly. I can't say it was easy to recognise the shape of, say, FYR Macedonia and find its exact proportion, either [see European Countries Level 9 Einstein]. And I couldn't dare to start 'The US capitals' game; Africa was challenging enough. Warning: It's highly addictive. Well, at least, for me! :o]

Killing me softly [with his song]

2005-07-25T14:29:00.000Z

Welcome my brand-new academic alter-ego, Roberto Clack, who is about to produce another non-academic sounding, nonsense paper! Pretty disorganised, with full of intentionality, my essay on one of Sibelius’s songs is going bad, really, really bad; and you know, I am left only six days ahead before the submission?! While having the agony even for this tiniest piece of work, I can’t imagine myself that one day I will have written a polished dissertation of a 100,000-word at all. Tired of this, not physically, but mentally… Argh, I hate complaining!

Last of the summer wine

2005-07-22T14:26:00.000Z

Attended the traditional ‘Beer & Skittle Evening’ in a countryside pub with the choir yesterday. The attendance was very high – 41 people, mostly couples. Despite the breeze, the weather was good enough to let us enjoy the open air during the mealtime. After the dinner and the raffle session, we started playing the skittle – a kind of bowling with few easy rules, – but compared to last summer’s game, I could not perform well: a total of nine points only for three turns! Nevertheless, among the five, our team ‘The Baritones’ could eventually make it to the final and became the winner. As the event ended, Howard, Pat, Erik, Jan and me went to Kim-and-Ann’s house for a cup of coffee. So, it was the last meeting of this year until September 1, which is to start the new season for them, and to conclude for me before I move to London. Yet I feel reluctant indeed to say goodbye to them – I will not, because I intend to visit the Thursday rehearsals sometime. Besides, we have already got an invitation to the Square Dancing evening on October 15. So, time to be Lucky Luke once again! Hurray!

Back from Glasgow

2005-07-20T14:25:00.000Z

The greenest landscape with erratic altitudes, puzzling strong accents, completely different banknotes without the Queen’s portrait and the pipers’ playing of unceasing melodies… Back from our short, yet pleasant Scotland trip!

Excluding the journey times – a deadly-tiring ten-hour trip to Glasgow by coach and an overnight train journey back to London – we were left less than three days. Our hotel was Holiday Inn Express, located in the Theatreland part of Glasgow city centre, which helped us save much time, and offered very comfortable accommodation with a bargain price. Glasgow’s main advantage is that it is cheaper compared to Edinburgh; that is why we chose it as our accommodation base.

What could one do in a country during a prolonged weekend when there were more than a dozen of destinations with seductive promises? We could go to the castle in Inverness or have had a day-out trip to the must-see Edinburgh, an hour’s distance from Glasgow; but time was scarce, and wherever you go, every city should deserve more than a day to discover, so that we decided to stay in Glasgow, and wander around – almost every street of the city centre. Glasgow is a beautiful modest place with wide avenues and attractive buildings – pity it was overshadowed by the capital’s fame. After a short visit to Glasgow Cathedral, the last day was devoted to a trip to Balloch, on the shores of Loch Lomond with panoramic views.

This trip was just a delicate starter, which left me yearning for the main Scottish course. 'Glasgowing' was enjoyable, but next time, I want to visit Inverness and Edinburgh, too, and hopefully have a longer holiday there. I’d write more in detail, but now is time to go back to study. In British Library, I found an excellent book by E. Kravitt about the fin-de-siecle lieder, which would be extremely helpful for my research. And today, I issued several books on lieder by Schoenberg, Wolf and R. Strauss, which means I’ve got plenty of new materials to cover! And my submission date is approaching again! Ack!