A Haunted House

Around the early days of September, I heard a horrible, draw-out wail rising from this old house, near the Karacaahmet district on the Asian side of Istanbul.

Even though I'd passed it by hundreds of times, it had never occurred me before to take a proper look at this place. Look at the beautiful, intricate design of the doors. This was probably the property of a rich Armenian or Greek family, before they abandoned it for better futures.

The house still had old tags for gas lines. This method of heating and illumination was discontinued sometime after the sixties or the seventies, giving a possible date for the last time it was inhabited.

The garden was full of friendly cats, but no ghosts. There was also a deep, old water well that I almost fell in. I covered it up with planks and branches lest the poor cats don't.

I couldn't find anything else in the garden, but there were plenty of dark, broken windows I could poke my camera through...

...the flashes only revealed trash and desolation. Just as flashes were going off, however, a ghostly scream began to emanate from the interior of the house. Now it sounded more like...

...a dog's cry. The "ghost" was just a poor, blind old dog that had somehow crawled into the house to die. It couldn't move about as I took these photos, it just kept wailing and wailing.

I left the place with a terrible sense of sadness for the wretched creature.

If ghosts had any basis in reality, however, Istanbul would be haunted by entire families of Greeks, Armenians and other non-Turkish minorities whose lives had been erased by a century-long history of national homogenization. As if their departure wasn't enough, the remainders of their houses, schools and churches are purposefully being allowed to rot away, as if the buildings somehow constitute a threat to the nation's integrity.

Molten Rabbit Chocolate Death

Kill us... kill... us... Stinky, semi-molten chocolate easter bunnies for sale in a bus station's gift store near Izmir. Turkish bakers learned to make bunny-shaped sweets from the Greeks, but they don't consume them for the same reasons.

At the Santa Maria Draperis Latin Church

The courtyard...

...and the interior of the Santa Maria Draperis Latin Church in Istiklal Avenue; arguably the most European part of Istanbul.

Exploding Plants

One of the most entertaining plants that I ever know of is the exploding cucumber, Ecballium elaterium. Found commonly throughout the Mediterranean shores, it explosively discharges a thick fluid that contains its seeds when touched. By explosive, I mean explosive; the jet of goo can sting your face just by its force. It is also distasteful, and irritating as hell when it gets to the eyes.

A favorite childhood game: Opposing players sit around an Ecballium patch with long sticks in their hands and try to prod the right fruits that will go off in the face of their opponent. Remember and try it if you see these plants, it's mighty fun!

All Hail Atatürk

This gigantic monument to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk dominates a certain section of the Istanbul-Izmir highway. I have nothing against Atatürk, but I think totalitarian statues like this fly in the face of his vision of a society free from dogmas. It is also kitsch to the point of being ironic; Kemal's head on the spire almost gives the effect of being impaled on a stake.

Balls of Steel

No ball games: Tonight at the LSE (London School of Economics) campus, we saw a group of brave young men lining up with their testicles in their hands...

...a minute later they broke out into a wild run, at the end of which they spin around themselves for ten turns, all the while drinking gregariously...

...I guess this was one of England's antique pub games, or alternatively, an equally arcane initiation rite to the LSE rugby team that was holding a party that night...

...I could have just asked, of course, but it would be a bit awkward to ask the drunken guys with their balls hanging out just what they were up to.

A Green Fly

Nowhere is one immune to discovery and wonder. I was riding the Tube on London yesterday, when this iridescent green fly landed on my newspaper. I'd seen plenty of little flies like it before, but its bright green color was truly extraordinary.

As far as I can tell, this mysterious green visitor belongs to the Chironomids, a group of harmless flies that superficially resemble mosquitoes. I wonder what exactly it was, and why it had that wonderful color...

I should really start taking a small vial and a bottle of ethanol solution everywhere I go.

For more on Chironomids, check out the Chironomid Home Page.

A Fountain at Uskudar

A defaced Ottoman fountain from Üsküdar town, on the Asian side of Istanbul.

And here is what Üsküdar's main square will look like, until 2009 or even later. The reason for all this chaos is the construction of an underwater tunnel through the Bosphorus.

Really Awful T-Shirts

These guys seem to have entered a bad t-shirt contest... and won. The scariest thing is, such awful clothes can actually attract Turkish girls. From Ortaköy, a few weeks ago.

A Mysterious Inscription

This strange engraving is set on the high, protective walls of the Genesis tis Theotokos Greek Orthodox Church. It seems to say "OMENTOIN", but that doesn't make much sense. Perhaps it is the exposed part of a much larger text.

Whatever its meaning, this everyday enigma can be seen on street level by everybody walking from Beşiktaş to Ortaköy, on the European side of the Istanbul.

At Goldsmiths

New Career in a New Town: A glimpse from Goldsmiths College, my place of studies for the next year or so. What looks like a Space Odyssey monolith is actually a work of student art. The ivy-encrusted building is the main hall, with the seven-story library behind it.

Orthopterans of Cesme

In Cesme I kept finding many orthopterans, usually attracted to our porch lights. This huge grasshopper had newly molted, its wings were all soggy and wrinkled. Look at those wonderfully-striped eyes!

Several days later, I found this large, one-legged katydid (family Tettigoniidae) she was very friendly, accepted every kind of food we gave her, and actually stayed in her little corner of the room for more than a day. She might have stayed more had I not released her back to the garden.

How do I know she was a she? Well, there's something that looks like a sword sticking out from her back. That's the ovipositor, an organ some female insects use to lay eggs. Aside from the gender, I couldn't figure out anything about either of my orthopteran friends. Can anyone identify them?

Return to Pulp Bar

If you remember my old posts, you might recall this visual survey of the wonderfully trashy Pulp rock bar in one of Istanbul's "underground" districts. Well, guess what - Pulp has undergone an extensive makeover to become... another trashy rock bar. But this time, it seems to have embraced its trashyness with such a passion that it is impossible to tell whether they did it on purpose... or by accident.

Here, you can see the legendary staircase that leads up to the bar. The shit paintings of Lennon and his spastic friends are gone, instead you have a ripped-up street sign that reads Terkos Dead End, hinting that the bar might be a last destination for a lot of people. Also, you see a lot of mushrooms around... could they be...

...a thinly-veiled reference to psychoactive drugs? This hypothesis is further augmented when you come face-to-face with the gothic-indiefied characters of Alice in Wonderland. You know, like, through the mirrors, labyrinths, magic potions and all? Oh, poor Alice, it must indeed be agonizing to walk around with no underwear, no neck and badly-applied KISS make-up on your face.

Wow, and here's the magic dealer/rabbit, running away after brutally raping Alice. Judging from the extremely brief way rabbits seem to have sex, this might not be that big of a deal.

Inside, we saw many guys sleeping around on improvised beds made out of sofas, chairs and pillows. This, of course, is not the normal situation of the place. It may have more to do with the fact that it was almost seven AM when these pictures were taken.

The people that remained awake, however, made for some great company, and I ended my last night in Istanbul on the stinking-yet-lovingly-warm sofas of... Pulp bar!

T.U.R.T.L.E.

In space, no one can hear you eat lettuce... very... slowly... James Cameron seriously thought about shooting another space thriller called T.U.R.T.L.E. before settling for a sequel to A.L.I.E.N.

The Master of Cesme

Not only is this guy the coolest person I've ever seen on a beach, he's also passing his style groove on to his son! From Cesme, a Turkish equivalent of Miami.

Zographion High School

The imposing facade of the Zographion Greek High School in Pera.

The entrance is artfully decorated with these sphinx reliefs. This institution is the largest and the best of the few Greek high schools that still survive in the City. Since most young Politis Greeks study in Greece these days, the entire school only has about fifty students.

The Book Fair at Bodrum

Fourteen years apart: Me at Bodrum's traditional book fair today...

...and in 1997. If you look closely, you can see that I used to be quite an UFO geek when I was younger. Call it an inoculation against bullshit.

Provocative Graffiti, Vol. 1

Two pieces of my favorite graffiti from Istanbul's streets. The first one is pretty obvious, the second one reads "Thank god I am an atheist!" Pious vandals have tried to remove it, to no avail.

The Mini-Buses of Bodrum

The vibrant minibuses that run around the Bodrum peninsula are home to unforgettable memories for many of Bodrum's visitors.

This one goes to Torba; a quiet, unspoilt town with some of the cleanest beaches of the entire peninsula...

...while this one goes to Torba's polar opposite, Gümbet; a nearby town infested by cheap British package tourists and some horrible establishments that cater to their tastes.

The blue one goes to Bitez, a village right next to Gümbet. I have fond memories of almost every summer spent there, from age three onwards. Sadly, Bitez is being overrun with cheap buildings these days, and its pleasant orange groves are giving way to teeth-like series of mass housing.

Finally, the orange buses operate within Bodrum town itself. As I've told before on this blog, such minibuses are as practical as bars and clubs for getting drunk and meeting new people.

A Dead Snake

Our cat dragged in this poor juvennile snake in our summer house at Çeşme this summer.

It was so young! If cats could understand punishment, I'd really spank my cat for this heinious deed.

Its sharp, angry-looking "eagle eyes," combined with its brown-spotted skin pattern, suggest that this probably was a juvennile blacksnake, Coluber jugularis. (I can be wrong, of course.) Although not poisonous, these snakes are very aggressive and bite like psychos when handled. They are nevertheless beneficial creatures for keeping pest rodent populations in check. Blacksnakes can grow up to two meters long, but this one only got to thirty centimeters. Rest in peace, friend.

Two Faces of Smyrna

I dream of Smyrna: A beautiful Greek house shimmers in the midday sun like a mirage. From the Konak district.

I have nightmares about Smyrna: One of the run-down favelas that surround Smyrna's hinterland. Such ugly buildings are a by-product of internal migration from the villages, layers of them surround every large city in Turkey.

Careless Morons

What's this? Gray-brown foamy mud swamping a local park in a stinky mess? Why? Who might have done it?

Oh, I see... Somebody is digging a water well without bothering to warn anyone about it, or cleaning up after themselves. Life as usual in Turkey.