five•two•fifty-two is coming along fantastically, check out what we have so far here.

Spring is here.

Week eleven is up.

Last week I threw caution to the wind and flew up to Istanbul for an all-nighter. Ben l’Oncle Soul does not often play small rooms, so I had to take advantage of the fact that he was at Babylon. Wonderful venue, wonderful music, wonderful night.

I couldn’t resist stopping by Ara Güler’s place, like a crazy stalker. If you’re not familiar with Güler’s work, it’s time to get with it.

I’m really glad these pieces don’t get covered up. I think they add to the character of the city.

For no particular reason, I’ve taken a recent interest in the interior design of homes. Not designing interiors myself, you understand— just appreciating good home design as an art form, the home as an installation piece. I love it when people make their living spaces beautiful.

The parade for the closing day of the annual Golden Orange Film Festival, the largest and most important film festival in Turkey.

There were a lot of celebrities there, but my favourite part was the silver people. So dreamy.

Sometimes I forget how nice-looking some of our bridges are.

Yes, thinking of autumn, of course.

I have always loved these fountains at the Republic Square, and especially the peacock art installation. The best part is that the peacocks are moveable, so every once in a while they get moved into a different configuration.

While wandering through the old town last week, I happened upon an art class in progress, and was invited inside to take pictures.

Gently backlit window + glass table + beaded candleholders = yes.

Last week I was invited to participate in a photo project by Wrong Studio entitled Mediterranean Quilt. The ideas is for photographers living in seaside cities and towns in the 23 countries all along the Mediterranean coast to send in four “patches” (i.e. four square photographs) to contribute to the quilt. The project is open to anyone living on the Med, and the deadline for submissions isn’t until April, so there’s plenty of time for you to get something together and submit it. I put my submission in a couple of days ago and I’m pretty excited to see how this project turns out. Link

Great photo, right? Except it’s not. It’s a painting. As in oil on canvas.

Check out the work of Gregory Thielker, it’s well worth your time.

A single message engraved in 24 languages on the Imagine Peace Tower in Reykjavik. Yoko Ono will be re-lighting the tower on Saturday, 9 October in honour of John Lennon’s 70th birthday. The ceremony will be broadcast live on the Imagine Peace Tower web site, be there or be square.

For those who aren’t familiar with the Tower, here’s a short mini-documentary explaining how it all came about:

I know you people love free stuff, as do I, and I know you love books as well, so here you have the chance to get the best of both worlds: a free book! As you’re already aware, I’m totally into independent creative endeavours no matter what the medium, and because of where I live, getting paper books in English can often be a challenge.

Memoirs of an Antihero was brought to my attention last week, so of course I had to download it. I’m just getting started on it, but so far I’m finding it amazingly well-written. It’s not particularly reminiscent of anything (Blank seems to have quite a distinct style), but I’d say that if you like the artistry and raw power of Palahniuk, you and Memoirs of an Antihero will get along well. I’m enjoying it greatly. Link

I ran across the Huebner Family Photos Flickr account quite by accident; it was one of those things where I was so deep into a trail of searching for things that I have no idea how I ended up where I did. But I’m so glad I found this account— if you have some spare time (and if you don’t, make some), their photo collections are well worth a look or three. Basically it seems they’re going through all their old family photos from the past half-century or so, many of which appear to be slides, and they’re converting them all to digital uploads. While that in itself might not be so interesting to anyone who isn’t in their family, where it becomes of interest is the fact that these people travel a lot, and they were traveling fifty years ago, too. They have nearly 4,000 photos up there at the moment, many of which are from Europe in the late 1950s, stretching all the way through to the present day. Also, they appear to be a family of very skilled photographers, which helps.

I can’t even describe how many different kinds of photos are there— you just have to go see it for yourself. The above photo was taken from my favourite set, Czechoslovakia 1988-89. I find that set particularly interesting because I was dating a Czech guy at that time, and it’s amazing to see that his descriptions of his homeland were so incredibly accurate.

I’ve been told by a very reliable source that this is just the beginning, and there are more sets of photos coming soon, including a set from Europe, dated 1961. Can’t wait to see those.

I’m kind of fussy about visual art, drawing and painting and such. I have a few artists I really love, but mostly I’m hard to please.

Albert Cerriteño’s work, however, is simply amazing. He has an incredible eye for detail, and his sense of quirk is more than admirable. I’d love to own one of his pieces someday.

I recently downloaded the pilot of Pioneer One, the first-ever made-for-torrent dramatic series. Given the paltry budget and the fact that it was just some random people making it, I thought it probably had the potential to be total crap, but I felt like I needed to give it a chance and support the ideas behind it. Governments and media companies need to understand that p2p is not the enemy— it’s a powerful tool that benefits everyone. And even if they insist on telling themselves p2p is the enemy, they need to know that we’re not going to stop doing it, end of story, and they either need to find a way to play along and be a part of the game, or get used to disappointment. You would have thought they would have learned this lesson after the now-hilarious incident where they shut down Napster ten years ago, dusted their hands off with satisfaction and said, “there, that’ll stop those pesky file-sharers.”

Anyway, I shocked myself by absolutely loving Pioneer One. Okay, yes, it’s low-budget. I’m prepared for growing pains, that’s not a problem. The important thing is that the storyline is there. It’s an unbelievably magnetic plot, and the twist at the end of the pilot sent chills down my spine. I donated to the project so that the rest of the first season’s episodes can get made, and in return I got a great mp3 of the Pioneer One theme music, which was one of my favourite aspects of the show. Consider me a fan of Bracey Smith’s and Josh Bernhard’s work. If you haven’t already seen the show, go and download it now. Free is my favourite price. Link

Tonic.com has published a fantastic story about the merits of crowdfunding sites like RocketHub, and Hidden Anatolia is one of the featured projects. It gives me a lot of confidence to know that major web hubs are picking up on the importance of crowdfunding, and thereby acknowledging the importance of independent art. It’s a great article, and it’ll only take you a minute or two to read it (I’ve heard you’re a pretty fast reader). Link

Just a friendly reminder that the clock is ticking on the Hidden Anatolia project, so if you’ve had it in the back of your mind to get in there and become a part of it, now would be a great time! Come on, you’ve got nothing else going on right at this moment— it only takes a minute to help fuel the project, fueling levels begin at just one dollar, you get great rewards for fueling at any level, and best of all, you get to be a patron of independent art! Check it out and fuel, fuel, fuel!

I get a lot of e-mails and Twitter messages from people saying that they envy my life, and while I’m certainly grateful for what I have and the things I’m able to do, May was a sobering reminder that it’s not all wine and roses. I still have problems just like everyone else. I had a moderate health issue that took me out of commission for most of the month, and during the few intermittent days when I was well enough to be up and about, the thought of trying to get caught up on things like writing and photo projects was too overwhelming to deal with.

Things are back on the upswing, however, and as much as I hate summer, I’m actually looking forward to June. I want to get the Hidden Anatolia project fueling wrapped up as much as possible, and starting tomorrow I have a new introspective photo project starting up (details coming soon!). I think the goal is to keep as busy as possible during the hottest months, so that maybe I won’t notice how awful this whole wretched season is.

Also, I’m looking at taking a brief break from the heat— somewhere really, really north. Just for a few days. I’m thinking Arctic Circle.

Anyway, first things first: a lot of people have asked about Hidden Anatolia over the past few days, and a couple of very generous donations have come in, including a second one from LeahAndMark.com, bringing their fueling total to a whopping $200! It’s fantastic to have such amazing support from friends in the community, and you can get involved as well, no matter what your budget. Fueling levels start at just $1, and even at that amount you’ll still get your name published in the official Hidden Anatolia book! The reward levels go up and up from there, and I look forward to having as many fuelers as possible, so if you ever wanted to be a patron of independent art, now’s your chance!

Learn more about Hidden Anatolia and join the project!

Today’s Zaman runs an interesting story about a group of Antalya students who tried for the world record in group violin playing. The 500 students, aged 3 through 12, only started learning to play the violin six months ago.

I wonder what that sounded like, 500 violin beginners at the same time. Good luck to them with getting the record, although I think the Guinness Book is kind of becoming a parody of itself, what with all these groups trying to invent newer and more bizarre ways to get certified. Link

Who am I kidding, it’s impossible to choose favourites. Have a look at all the posters and you’ll see what I mean. Considering the pace of uploads, it looks to me like Gideon is timing it so that the end of his project coincides with the season finale. Fantastic stuff. Link

I’ve avoided talking about Fire of Anatolia because I’m generally not a great fan of glossed-up stage shows that are manufactured for the sole benefit of profiting from tourists, but I have to admit… I like this belly dance sequence. I think it’s the costumes I like as much as anything. I would still prefer to see a belly dancer in a remote village somewhere, but with any luck, that’ll be happening sooner rather than later.

Oddly, this is something I don’t think I’ve ever discussed here— in decades past, rather than just taking hit movies and dubbing or subtitling them, the Turkish film industry decided to remake a ton of now-classic titles. These remakes were generally direct rip-offs, starred Turkish actors, and were done on, ahem, modest budgets (you’ll see what I mean). The results are hilarious to our eyes, but when the films were made, they were often more popular than the Hollywood originals.

There’s a good starter list over at English Turkey. Some of the linked videos have since been removed from YouTube, but if you just click through on a few of them, you’ll find everything you could possibly want in the “related videos” column on the side. It’s amazing some of the films they couldn’t leave alone. Hilarious and mesmerising all at the same time. Link

Quick, go check out Levent Şen’s 360° panoramic shots of Kaleiçi. It’s basically like an upmarket version of Google Street View, except with exquisite photography and a nicer overall feel. It can be a bit processor-intensive, but if you’d like to see the most beautiful parts of the Antalya old town, it’s definitely worth it. Link

Here’s the teaser for the Hidden Anatolia project, and today I learned that it’s now the front page featured project on RocketHub! I’m really excited about how things are going, it’s got some good movement so far.

But of course, more momentum is still needed, so please do look at the project details and see what you think. Check out the rewards on the right-hand side of the page— these are the gifts and rewards you will get for participating! I tried to make a range of rewards so that people at every level would feel comfortable contributing.

Anyway, check it out and get yourself on the acknowledgements list! It’s going to be an epic project, and I’d love to have as many people involved as possible.

ETA: For people who can’t see YouTube videos, there’s a Vimeo version here.

As you probably already know, the Turkish tradition of classical music varies greatly from the European tradition, but it’s also very different from the sort of classical music found in other parts of Asia. Turkish Music Portal is a great place to start if you’re interested in learning about the history, instruments, performers, or composers of Turkish classical music. I went there today to look something up, and ended up spending a couple of hours exploring. Fascinating stuff. Link

I love learning about Turkish photographers, especially because it’s often a scavenger hunt to find their work. I was introduced to the photos of Erdal Kınacı last week, and although he does seem to have his own domain name, there’s only a placeholder there. I have, however, found some of his work in bits and pieces elsewhere. It’s fascinating stuff, and his portrait work is especially impressive.

• Fotograf.net
• Flickr
• DA Portfolio
• FotoKritik

Also, there’s a very short but interesting Wikipedia page that ends with the cryptic sentence, “he was arrested on July 03, 2008 in Turkey for issues related to his photographs.” Way to leave me hanging, Wikipedia.