Human Error

Due to the absolutely shit care it received from my parents and seven-year-old sister, one of our pet red-eared sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans) recently developed infections in both of its eyes and refused to eat its food.

A few days after this picture was taken, we were forced to euthanize the poor thing by wrapping it in a wet towel and placing it into the freezer. Death was painless, but infuriating nevertheless. Only sheer human error was to blame for the death of this beautiful creature that could have lived for more than forty years. Bummer.

Geological Madness from Cappadocia

No more words now; here is an orgy of geographical weirdness from the volcanic wastelands of... Cappadocia!

A Weird Stone Church in Cappadocia

Hello again! after a 3-week "mini" absence here I am, back with more photos of my Cappadocian adventure. As many of you might know, Cappadocia is a region blessed with some of the most alien geography on Earth, all the more so because of its historical heritage. You can't trek more than a mile without running into some old Christian church or underground city, literally carved inside molten-looking pinnacles of rock.

There are many such underground churches, and the internet is replete with tourist photos of what's inside. I won't bore you again with pictures you can see everywhere. Instead, I want to show you only the weirdest stone "church" in the region, a bizarre edifice I nicknamed the "Church of St. Ska."

You can see why this place earned such a nickname. The entire ceiling was covered in a bizarre, reddish checkerboard pattern.

I did not see any markers or signs showing the original name of the church, assuming it had one. I wonder how old it was? Christians were still present in the region until 1923, so it might date to around then. Alternatively, it might be an older, pre-Ottoman structure, (something left over from the period of iconoclasm?) or conversely, something more recent painted by bored villagers.

Then again, was this place ever a real church? Something tells me this is more a work of Anatolian folk art rather than a place of Christian worship. Of course, like most things in Turkish history, you never know...

Three Greek Houses from Cappadocia

Three abandoned houses left in ruins by the departed "Greeks" of Cappadocia, who spoke perfect Turkish, had habits and dresses almost indistinguishable from those of local Turks, and took no part in the bloody Greco-Turkish war that took place in the west. These people were included in the horrifying population exchange between the two countries only because they were Orthodox Christians. What a shame.

The Legacy of "Asmalı Konak"

Last spring, I took a family trip to fabled Cappadocia region in the middle of Anatolia, where I stayed for a couple of days in the town of Ürgüp.

Touring the streets of Ürgüp, me and my brother came across this unusual monument. All those names, chiseled straight onto a slab of marble... could this be a monument to some tragedy?

Even more names. Oh dear, there must've been a massacre! Wait, some of those names have titles like Director, Story, Production and AVID Editing before them...

...oh, now I see! The unnecessarily war memorial-like monument, it turned out, was actually honoring Asmali Konak, a very famous Turkish TV drama that was filmed right here in Ürgüp. I remember it being a huge hit between 2002 and 2003, where it was broadcast not only in Turkey, but also in Greece, where a large population of Cappadocian Greek exiles still live.

Clup Trend 99 Crazy Party

I found this bizarre ad for a new year's party at a certain "Club Trend 99 / Memoli" on the pavement during a stroll in the first morning of 2007. I really wondered what the "Karambol sokakların hızlı gençleri" (Fast lads from chaotic streets!) were all about. What was DJ Ferdi's music like?

Then again, after seeing the 10ytl (5 Euros,) price tag, (which, for a New Year's event, is so cheap that it feels like there has to be something wrong with the deal,) I was glad that I left this mystery unsolved.

Mystery Katydid

W.T.F!?! Although this it look like any boring little insect to most people, this weird creature has left me completely mystified over its identity.

I cannot identify most insects I find. However, at least I can pin them down as members of a certain order, or even family. This green monster is an exception. Its head, huge eyes and rear legs remind me of a katydid, but its body and wings are radically different from other katydids I've seen. Perhaps this is one of the more basal katydids, or a convergently katydid-like member of some other clade. Who knows?

One thing is certain, there is a certain thrill to be had from unidentifiable animals literally turning up on your doorstep.

Blammo!

Blammo! Blammo! Blammo! It's the ONLY WAY! I see street-art as an overblown phenomenon that has more in common with dogs urinating to mark their territories rather than with art, creativity and self-expression.

That being said, I also like preparing my own street-art stickers and pasting them around. Here is a new one, named Blammo. You can still see some of these stickers in select corners around Istanbul, Bodrum and London.

One final riddle, can YOU guess what on Earth Blammo is? Enjoy!

Totally Wordled

I'm sure I'm one of the last people to discover Wordle, an on-line application that produces random word clouds out of your blog feed. Here is one from mine, you can click on the picture to zoom in. Some of the associations here, such as "tree worship," "abandoned Istiklal" and "Alevis used bugs despite struggle" are especially amusing.

At "Teras Büklüm"

Now it can be told: Here is a selection of pictures, going all the way back to 2004, of a particular crash pad that was very popular among certain youths in Ankara, my friends among them.

"Teras Büklüm," as it was called, was one of the innumerable places to hang out and drink in the drawn-out and boring weekend nights of the Turkish capital. A rooftop flat now abandoned by its owners, the only way to access it was to creep up silently through the apartment building and again, silently unlock and climb through a window leading up to its balcony. That famous window is seen in the first picture of this post. Here is what the flat looked like from the inside.

Now decorated all over with graffiti, Teras Büklüm had passed through its heyday in the mid-to-late nineties, when its owner was still living there and was throwing legendary house parties almost daily.

Here is the "living room" overlooking a beautiful vista of Ankara. The faint red glow seen from the right-hand window is Anıtkabir, the tomb of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Much fun was had in front of this regal view, as the beer bottles littering the floor can attest.

A bizzare collection of objects still remained in the house, including a broken-down old radio, a bird's cage, a smashed guitar and perplexingly, a pair of jeans. I wonder who took it off, and why?

A detailed view of the layers of graffiti covering the main window.

The fanciful "Büklüm Club" sign was overlaid with faded lines of song lyrics and bad poetry.

A weird poem written on one of the doors read as:
No one tops you in making beauty ugly, in blaming the world for your fault. You knew the value for nothing, and you won't for me. You will ruin this too, certainly.
Note: A reader known as "Pınar" has warned me that this poem is actually a selection of lyrics by Teoman, a sex-obsessed Turkish pop star.

Here are some of the more interesting pictures we found on the walls. Here is a perplexing cube. But... it's also a lightbulb! Wow!

So hardcore!

This drawing, termed the "David Bowie" after the name of the song written next to it, was probably the most haunting image I came across in Teras Büklüm.

One really wonders the artists who painted these images, and their mind-states at the time.

And thus, with a peek at the Trainspotting-like toilet of Teras Büklüm, we finish our Tutankhamen-esque photo expedition of this wonderful place.

The last I visited this place was in a cold winter in 2006, two years after these photos were taken. The window had been smashed and then boarded up, making entry impossible for visitors. After that, rumors started that the entire building was to be demolished, but as far as I knew, nothing of this sort happened. I now have no idea what state Teras Büklüm is, since I haven't visited Ankara for more than two years.

Insect Eggs

Mystery eggs! I found these eggs, laid by an unknown insect, on a tree in Istanbul. That particular tree was crowded with Pentatomid "stink bugs" all summer long, so I wouldn't be surprised if these eggs belonged to those insects.

Signs of the Times

Go West: Channel bags, fake blondes and Starbucks on the perpetually busy Istiklal Avenue, which has seen an inordinate amount of gentrification in the past five years.

A Place of Gathering

One of the places of worship (Cemevi) used by some of Turkey's ten to fifteen million Alevis. Despite the prolonged struggle of Alevi activists, the Turkish Ministry of Religion refuses to acknowledge these buildings as official places of worship, relegating them to the status of "cultural centers" instead.

Parasites!

Parasites! Parasites! Parasites! More than four months ago, I visited the Natural History Museum's Darwin Center in London to see their collection of parasites.

Housed in a vast and seemingly endless series of carefully maintained cabinets, thousands of jars contained millions of preserved parasitic worms.

Here is a jar full of nothing but tapeworms. I couldn't record what species they were.

I particularly regret not being able to recall what these things were. Whatever they are, these chunky, thumb-sized maggot/worm things were some of the most awesome things I'd seen. Mrs Eileen Harris, who guided me on my tour, told me they were retrieved from the liver of a horse.

More parasitic goodness: This worm had been preserved as it was emerging from its host fish, Alien-style.

Here is a jar that's full of nothing but parasitic nematodes. They were all collected from people, whose guts they particularly like to infect.

Parasitic nematodes come in all sizes. The ones you saw above were pretty small. Here is a bunch of medium-sized ones, as long as chopsticks.

And finally, giant nematodes as long as someone's arm.

But even that is far away from the largest parasitic worms can get. The jar you see here contains one worm. That's right, one, single, frighteningly long worm. It was collected from a killer whale and measures more than forty meters long. That's longer than some whales are, you know? This giant worm is the crown jewel of the NHM Parasitology collection and was even exhibited to the Queen of England!

Aside from tapeworms and nematodes, the collection also had numerous flatworms (like the one shown above,) eyeball-clinging copepods and parasitic catfish that attach themselves to... to... well, perhaps you could watch my latest documentary on the subject to find out.

If you like this kind of stuff, I strongly recommend visiting the NHM. This, by the way, won't be the last you'll see of this place in my blog.