Imagine Istanbul

It’s been a while since I last did any Istanbul writing, but I’ve been far away, writing about other things. Life becomes busy and you sort of forget a place though it lingers and haunts the mind as a kind of old ghost. I’ve been writing about other things far removed from the city of Istanbul.

I will one day return to Istanbul and I am sure that the city will give me another tale from its ancient treasures. Imagine Istanbul, although only in blog format for just over a year, is actually a five year old website. People still visit this site, but they find my site from articles I have written on other aspects of Istanbul such as the Turkish filmmaker Yesim Ustaoglu or her recent film Pandoranın Kutusu. Or people find my site by searching for the photographer of Istanbul, Mr Ara Guler. Still others search for information and find my article on Bulent Ersoy or my favorite Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk or they search for information about Turkish writers arrested and these people, too, find my site. Some people search for words on photography in Istanbul or the films of Istanbul and Turkey by someone as talented as Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Some search for restaurants such as the Hamdi restaurant or architectural wonders such as the famous Galata Tower or mosques as great as the Hagia Sofia or the New Mosque.

Some search for poems about the little boy of Istanbul or they search for “imagini Istanbul” or even my name which is lost in a sea of pages about an actress of the same name in England. Somehow Google helps these explorers find my pages. Someone even searched my first name, the little boy of Istanbul’s first name and “London”. It leaves me wondering who that was.

The greatest number of visitors to my site comes from United States, France, Turkey, Russia and China. The most popular pages of my site besides my index page, are my writings on Bulent Ersoy, Ara Guler, Yesim Ustaoglu and my movie on Istanbul, entitled “Imagine Istanbul” and then, for some reason, my photograph and page on the Egyptian Market of Istanbul. These are the stats on my pages that I find most interesting. Sometimes my readers write to me and I write back and it makes me happy.

So one the day I return to Istanbul, I am sure another story will begin and perhaps that time, I will visit other places in Turkey and really see all that is Turkey. It is then I will have a clearer view of the country I love. Besides writing on Istanbul, I am currently listening to a love story from a friend who also fell in love with Istanbul and then she met a man.

It’s been a year since I turned Imagine Istanbul into a blog format. But if you’ve been a regular reader, you would know that my site about the search for the little boy of Istanbul has been around since 2004. I also lost the domain name for one year because it expired, I was out of touch with my computer and email, somebody else snatched it up and tried to sell it. They didn’t have any luck and the domain name imagineistanbul.com expired and I quickly snatched it back because the name Imagine Istanbul belongs to my poem, my Imagine Istanbul movie, my story. If you haven’t seen the little movie I made of the poem “Imagine Istanbul”, please hop over to the Imagine Istanbul page. You’ll need the Flash player installed and your speakers on, of course.

I am hoping that one day I will go back to Istanbul, find the little boy of Istanbul who is now a teenager and let him know how much creativity he inspired in me once. The last person to go back to Istanbul that tried to help me connect was my mother. She went to the cafés by the mosque, met up with the waiters of the cafés, most especially Mehmet who would speak good English and spent some time with them. Mehmet told her that Yilmaz, the little boy of Istanbul was no longer a little boy, but now a big teenager. He also told her that Yilmaz was no longer in Istanbul but had gone back to his village that was 24 hours away by bus. I wonder what he is doing now and wonder if he has forgotten me. I just know that one day, maybe when I am an old woman, I will indeed meet up again with the little boy of Istanbul. There are just things one knows in their hearts and souls.

So I’ve posted here a photograph my mother took of the waiters of the café and a great shot of Istanbul from an airplane. I was planning to go back to Istanbul this year but had decided not to, you know budget and other life obligations kind of get in the way. I have to travel to other places before Istanbul and this is just not the year to go there again. I miss Istanbul and am jealous of every single soul who has the opportunity to live there. I miss the light of the Istanbul sky, the people I knew there, the Bosphorus and the architecture, the oldness, the beauty and the decay of those weathered buildings in some districts. I miss the crowds, the markets, the mosques. Oh well. I will return one day to Istanbul.

You might remember me writing about an Istanbul photography contest a while back run by an artists’ organization, Les Arts Turcs in Istanbul. That photography contest is now closed and the winning photographs have been decided by a jury.

I’ve had a look at the winning photographs and the photographers and I thought I should share the news and the images with my readers. Congratulations to all the winners! The first prize winner’s photograph reminds me of a photograph of old world Istanbul by Ara Güler.

Istanbul is one of those places where it is difficult to take a bad photograph. There are other places like that, such as Santorini, the landscapes of the Grand Canyon, the landscapes of Afghanistan or northern Iraq/Iran, and there are many like that, breathtakingly beautiful, a lovely photograph can be seen anywhere you look. I mention these places because I am very interested in landscapes at the current time.

So, one day I shall return to Istanbul and Turkey and start taking photographs again. Where I am presently, nothing inspires me and it’s difficult for me to even take a good photograph because everywhere I look, I just see ugliness. But maybe if I looked deeper, I would find the beauty in the ugliness.

The winning photographs will be exhibited at 1001 Direk Cisterns in 23 december at 19.00 in Istanbul. If you are in Istanbul at that time, be sure to visit.

As promised then, Here are the winning Istanbul photography contest photos: To see the honorable mentions and also larger versions of the images, please visit their website at www.istanbulphotocontest.com/winners.php

As you may have noticed, I haven’t written about Istanbul for a long time. You are probably wondering why I haven’t written about my most favorite place in the world. Did I forget about Istanbul? Did I fall out of love with Istanbul? Did I forget about the little boy of Istanbul, you might ask? Did I disappear? Well, no, as you can see, I am still here. The answer to all of your questions is: No.

So why, you may ask did I stop writing? Writer’s block? No. Loss of love? No. Disillusionment? No. There’s lots I could have written about Istanbul, about Turkey, but lately I’ve been busy. So what have I been up to, you may wonder. Well, if truth be told, I’ve been writing, writing, writing for many other sites. Just not this one.

Also, writing about Istanbul at the current time is not possible. Why? You might ask. Well, I can’t write about Istanbul and Turkey for one, because it has to do with the censorship of the self. If you have been a regular reader of my blog, you would know that I censor myself. I am such a good girl. I censor myself. I’m laying low. I’m being very quiet. I’m sure if you read other sites about Turkey you might be able to figure out why. The time is not now to speak up and speak out.

I could write about Turkish films from the talented filmmakers in Istanbul and Turkey like Nuri Bilge Ceylan or Yeşim Ustaoğlu or the German Turkish Fatih Akın or the Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi, but I haven’t been able to see any films lately. I’m waiting for my video store or local movie theaters to distribute some good Turkish films.

I could write about the love story of a very good friend of mine in Vancouver who keeps going to Istanbul to see her Turkish lover. I’m so jealous of her – she gets to go to Istanbul rather frequently. I love a love story like anyone else and writing about love might make me happy but I am not sad most of the time. But, as I said, I’ve been busy, busy, busy. Writing, writing, writing.

Perhaps I could write about politics in Turkey, but politics bore me and politics are dirty and then I would be going against my moral code of behavior and that is the act of censorship of the self. Perhaps you think I am a coward and if you must think this, then I am.

I could maybe write about writers of Turkey but then too, one always has to censor the self to survive or hire a body guard in this very modern world of the 21st century. But I haven’t been reading any Turkish writers lately, like my favorite Orhan Pamuk. Like I said, I’ve been writing, writing, writing. This 21st century, this age of mistrust, this age of violence, this age of extremism where religion has raised its very ugly head. I remember when I was a little girl. Religion was barely mentioned, it was a private thing. It was the cold war then and we worried only about two things.

I could write about how I miss Istanbul which I do, but the time is not right to travel back to the city of my dreams. The light is not right in the sky. My next vacation destinations are somewhere else in the world for business, for pleasure, for leisure.

But I have not forgotten Istanbul, that perfect city for artists, for travelers, for lovers, for writers. Neither have I forgotten the little boy of Istanbul, who by now must be a young man. I wonder if he has forgotten me, but I think not. I was an oddity in his life, something out of the ordinary. But one day I shall return to find the little boy of Istanbul and many other things which are stored in the vast halls of my mind in the filing cabinet entitled Istanbul: Censored.

In my previous posting I described my disappointment at not being able to obtain tickets to see Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s film “Three Monkeys” so instead, I bought tickets for another Turkish film of which I knew absolutely nothing called Pandora’s Box. Sometimes, we find a little treasure unexpectedly and what a jewel of a find this new Turkish movie is.

Yeşim Ustaoğlu, the director of Pandora’s Box describes her latest film as “a story of alienation and isolation. It is a story of individuals whose lives have been shaped by a sterile, middle-class morality, a story that many people touched by the inevitable combination of capitalism and modernity can identify with. It is a kind of human landscape, both universal and singular at the same time…”

Playing for the first time at the Toronto Film Festival, Yeşim Ustaoğlu’s Pandora’s Box is the story of three siblings who must go and search for their aging mother who has disappeared in a mountainous region in Turkey… Read more…

I’m sad. I didn’t get a ticket to see Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s film “Three Monkeys” at the Toronto Film Festival. They were all sold out. I had to work when the tickets went on sale to the public. I got to the box office almost three hours later. I went to Craigslist and a ticket scalper was selling two tickets but he or she must have found someone willing to pay more.

I’m still searching. I asked the Vice President of my department (because he’s interested in film) if he knew of anyone who could get me a ticket. He’s looking. A guy at work who is a fan of film and the Toronto Film Festival is going to see another film on the same day, at the same theatre this film is playing and he is offered to try and find me tickets at the box office. I can only hope…

Instead, I bought tickets to two other films, another Turkish film called “Pandora’s Box” and a Spanish film called “Return to Hansala“. I’m sad about missing Mr. Ceylan’s movie. Perhaps, he would have been at the showing of his film and discussed his film and answered questions. I will miss the opportunity, the chance. I guess I will have to wait for the cinema release of the movie or else the DVD. But if any of my readers know of some extra tickets hanging around somewhere, please email me at imagineistanbul@yahoo.com or leave a comment. I will be grateful forever.