“The Siege,” by Erol Akyavaş, is going up for auction at the beginning of March. It’s Akyavaş’s masterwork, and is considered to be one of the top five most important modern Turkish paintings. It’s expected to fetch a price somewhere between 1 and 1.5 million dollars (USD). I’ll probably have to pass on this one, beautiful as it is; at a size of nearly 4m across, I just don’t have the room for it. Link

As of yesterday, Vogue magazine now officially has a Turkish version. Apparently it’s a limited edition that’s causing quite a stir. To be honest, I hadn’t really realised before that there wasn’t a Turkish Vogue. Perhaps it’s because we get every other international version of the magazine already, and to me this just seems like another one cluttering up the stands. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything in particular against fashion magazines; I just don’t really see the need to have so many multiple versions of each one. Can’t we just have an international Vogue that gets translated into each country’s local language? I suppose this is paper magazines fighting against their own inevitable death… but I think they’re diversifying in the wrong direction. Link

I’m only about halfway through the set, but the Saklıkent photos are slowly being posted. There will probably be about 40 in the set total, but for now you can definitely get an idea of how much snow was involved. Link

I’m always looking for photos that don’t sit anywhere on the axis between “tourist snaps” and “glossy pro shots.” I like photos that are off the beaten path, both in style and content. I absolutely love this set of photos from Canadian photographer Ali Bosworth. He visited Turkey last year, and captured it in a way not many photographers manage. Nostalgia is heavy in this set, and even if you’ve never been to Turkey before, you’ll feel like you’re looking at shots that remind you of trips you took long ago. Amazing work. Link

If you’re feeling ambitious after that Istanbul set, Bosworth has an entire collection of sets from his trip to Greece and Turkey, including a second Istanbul set, and some photos from other areas of Turkey, as well. Definitely worth a look. Link

I’m always having to tell people that Antalya is more than sun and sand. We have mountains and snow, too, and more rain per annum than the UK. Alison Kenny goes into detail about all the Turkish seasons, and what we locals have to do to keep our sanity in this city of extremes. Very interesting and well-written article. Link

A million thanks for all the birthday wishes yesterday. It was overwhelming, to say the least, to learn that there are that many people out there who would stop their day for a few seconds to say hello or send a card or text message. In fact, at the risk of sounding like a whining first-worlder, toward the end of the day I had to switch my phone and computer off because I was feeling… er, bombarded is too strong a word. Maybe “snowed under” is more like it. Part of it was like, “aaaack, I’m never going to be able to respond to all of these individually!” Which is true, and I just have to accept that. I think maybe others had already accepted it and weren’t expecting personal thanks, but I come from a time and culture where after a celebration, you sat down and wrote out thank-you cards to everyone who did something nice for you. Nowadays I suppose it’s enough to say thank you a few times in relevant public forums, and assume people will get my message (as they assume I got theirs).

The other part was that a lot of people said some very nice, very specific things to and about me yesterday. Perhaps surprisingly, as narcissistic as I am, I have neither the affinity for mush, nor the talent for handling thick streams of compliments. It occurred to me this morning that it’s a good thing I never got my childhood dream of worldwide fame, because I realise now that I’m not the kind of person who would handle that very well. On the other hand, perhaps if I’d been famous for most of my life, I would have built up the skills to deal with attention more gracefully. Who knows.

In any case, many thanks to everyone who sent cards (both paper and electronic), SMS messages, Facebook comments and PMs, blog comments, e-mails…. what else… oh, Flickr comments and PMs, of course, and… everything. Just everything. Thank you.

I love birthdays. I don’t understand why people hate them so much. As if getting older, gaining experience, and seeing what the future holds were bad things!

I’ve been asking for snow forever, it seems, and over the weekend Emirhan took me to a place where there was more snow than I could shake a stick at. I loved it. In fact, at one point I was literally up to my hips in snow.

There will be plenty more mountain photos soon, but right now I have some relaxing to get started on, because there will be some partying tonight!

One of my favourite bloggers, over at The Turkish Life, has posted her take on the New York Times article I posted about last week. Whereas I was glad to see an American paper even mentioning Istanbul, she has some suggestions for improvements to their reportage on the subject. Since I’m just an overwhelmed tourist myself when it comes to our largest city, it’s interesting to hear what a local has to say about it. Link

I’ve often been met with strange looks when I’ve told people how incredible Turkish art can be, but it seems that the rest of the world is catching on, as well. Hürriyet Daily News has the story of how the Turkish art market has not only withstood the economic crisis, it has thrived. Link

Jennifer Conlin of the New York Times has posted a fantastic article detailing what to do and where to go if you happen to have a free weekend to visit Istanbul. It’s got some great suggestions in there, including some I didn’t even know about. Istanbul is the 2010 European Capital of Culture, so if you were ever thinking about visiting, now would be the perfect time, because they’re really pulling out all the stops. Link