Jazzy Rotterdam

North Sea Jazz Festival Programme is now known. I had bought my tickets already at a lower price, not a drastic difference with current sales but with the guarantee of having a three-days ticket in my possession before it gets sold out. After having meticulously checked the programme, I am really happy I did so... but still, there is one thing that I find really unfair and quite a shame actually: all headliner artists like Paul Simon, Diana Krall and Alicia Keys necessitate an extra fee of 15 to 30 euros per person. Well, I could understand when it's some of them, but all is a bit too much- especially when all communication had been focused on them the last months. Fortunately, I am not going to this internationally renown festival to listen to popular jazz and soul "stars" but to experience strong live musical moments from artists like Herbie Hancock, Michel Camilo, Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez, Victor Wooten, Bobby McFerrin and many more to discover. So in the end I am satisfied with my purchase and can't wait for the experience, without Alicia Keys, Paul Simon and Diana Krall.

One Ordinary Travel Anecdote

- Have you ordered a special meal? asked the stewardess
- …. (Listening to music through my iPod)
- Miss?
- Sorry, what?
- Have you ordered a Moslem meal?
- …
- ???
- Oh, yes, thank you.

She said the word “Moslem” so loud, I felt like everybody in the plane was looking at me. Nine hours and twenty minutes… how far was I going to manage not to see all those eyes staring at me? I’ve always loved to put my cultural and religious identity forward, although I didn’t practice most of what my given faith told me to. Not eating pork was one way to affirm one of my identities. You don’t chose where you come from, but you can learn to live with it and even enjoy your differences with others. Being the “other” had never been problematic for me since I’ve been lucky to grow up in a quite nice, even if not fancy, environment, with educated parents and friends. I suppose it was a luxury to affirm my Moslem identity out loud while still living like a Westerner. My “special” meal had arrived, and there is no need to be a gourmet to see that it wasn’t special at all. Chicken, potato and carrots… “Mmmmm… I hope the carrots are halal” I thought I was joking with myself when I figured out that my neighbor began to observe my apparently strange behavior. I smiled at him and took a bite of my supposedly halal chicken. I never eat halal at home, I don’t pray either, only when I got scared, like everyone I suppose. It’s my best friend who’s working at a travel agency who booked the special meal for me. He always does so. A very sensitive gesture, especially when you know that I myself wouldn’t even think of it. Anyway, I had to spend the next nine hours and sixteen minutes on this flight to the United States, having already accepted the fact that every other passenger around had tagged me as “THE MOSLEM”. Maybe I was getting paranoid, but believe me, even five years after 9/11, with all the new security rules in airports and Islamophobia in the international air, you follow the way of paranoia, Moslem or not.
After seven hours of uncomfortable flight, the same question rose again from a different stewardess, only this time, I was ready to answer.

- Have you ordered a special meal?
- Yes, yes, I did! Why all the fuss about it?
- Well, no fuss Miss. Just wanted to let you know that it’s the same meal for everyone, only that you get an extra bar of cereals.
- Hmm ‘hanks

Let’s hope it’s a halal one! This time, I didn’t say it out loud, but I could feel my neighbor hearing it anyway.

Writers who get close to you

Not so long ago, and thanks to my dear espresso bean, I have discovered a great author: Neil Gaiman. I am now religiously following his journal, checking everyday (my life is easier thanks to Google reader!) whether he has posted anything new on his blog. The man is really brilliant and still very humble. Another author's blog I really like following is French writer and philosopher Pierre Assouline's La république des livres. I'd never read any of their books, and reading their blogs makes me want to know more about their work. I wish more authors would do the same. I really applaud those who make the time to stay close to their readers and be able to write about anything they like to talk about. Thanks to their blogs, I also know where these authors are, it isn't that important to me to know that Neil Gaiman is in Tasmania now -although it is interesting- but knowing that Pierre Assouline is now in Amsterdam until 20 May is clearly relevant information. I can now catch any opportunity to go and listen to one of his lecture here in the city where I live.

MONOCLE

While enjoying a sunny Amsterdam Sunday cycling near the canals, I've stopped at the Athenaeum Boekhandel and the American Book Center to check some travel guides for this summer and I found a magazine -nothing to do with travel, although its writers move all around the world- called MONOCLE. The atypical, chic and easy layout just made me wanted to take it, but I also found the title of the magazine in itself attractive: MONOCLE. A Briefing on Global Affairs, Business, Culture & Design. Then I read the headline: MONOCLE reports from Ashrafieh: home to Beirut's most resilient residents and their curious community that just won't quit. I had a quick look inside and just bought the magazine. I think I'm going to follow it every month. It also has a quite complete website: www.monocle.com with articles and video programmes. Also in this month's issue are articles about Art Dubai, the Faroe Islands and the North Cyprus Turkish Republic. Oh, and at the end of the magazine is a Japanese comic/manga Kita Koga exclusively produced for MONOCLE in a modest studio of Tokyo. The making-of pictures of the manga are quite nice. I think a found the almost perfect monthly for me!

Online Shopping

I am not really a shopping addict and I usually like to see and touch what I am buying, but I have just discovered two online shops that are really worth looking at: etsy and foof (this came from our friend Bijan who always finds out what's best on the web!).

Etsy - "Your place to buy and sell all hand made" - proposes a wide range of very nice accessories, all handmade by people from all around the world (check Morelle for Amsterdam based designer for instance). I fell in love with a flower brooch made by Monda (I collect broochs) and a very nice every day use bag by Morelle (I have too many but it's never enough).

All MacBook and iPod users should check foofshop ASAP! The cable turtles are really a must have, together with great MacBook and iPod sleeves. And if you still hesitate, here's another good reason to purchase from them: foof products are all ethically hand made in Australia.

So what are you still waiting for? Go shopping!

New!

I hope you will like the blog's new layout. I thought I should get rid of the black background, not because I didn't like it -I love black!- but mostly because it isn't so easy to read light gray letter fonts on black. And the photograph called "Rotterdam Wind" - it was taken on Erasmus bridge in Rotterdam on a very very windy evening late fall 2006 (photo by Erinc Salor) - is now fully part of the blog's title.

Enjoy!

Baba

Imagine a man surrounded by three laptops and one extra monitor in front of him, one earphone linked to his cellphone, one hand on the land line phone and the other hand ready to grasp his blackberry at any time. What a horrible view of a workaholic drowned in modern technology you might say. Well don't go that fast presuming, because when you look at the man's face, you can see an enormous smile, eyes shining with creativity and brightness and energy bursting out of his whole body. I see much more in this man: hope, ambition, passion, love and tuns of respect. That man is my father and I am deeply touched by the way he handles his life. He didn't always take the right decisions and made a lot of mistakes towards his ex-wife and his children, but it has also been the other way around. He is 54 years old and has a quite sensitive and weak health, but he goes on no matter what. He runs after his dreams, even if sometimes I think he goes a bit too fast. I can't tell him to slow down but I just keep on hoping he never forgets to put on his safety belt.

Seni Seviyorum Babacim

Polar Fox

I was doing some research about whales when I dropped into this magnificent animal on google. It is an Arctic Fox (Alopex lagopus), also known as the White Fox, and lives in the cold Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere. It makes you say "I want one!" So these pictures are just for consolation... But after all, it is sure happier in its environment and therefore even more beautiful.

I'm an Entertainer!

This test has qualified me as "Entertainer".

"Radiates attractive warmth and optimism. Smooth, witty, charming, clever. Fun to be with. Very generous. 8.5% of the total population."

I usually don't like tests but here strongly tend to agree!

An Ode to Women

After her internationally acclaimed The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak is back in the book shelves since the end of November 2007 with a new work in Turkish: Siyah Süt. It has not been translated yet but I am sure it will in a short while. And if no editor has already thought about publishing an English or French version, I can hereby state that I am very much open to work on it in French.

Siyah Süt -Turkish for "Black Milk"- is Shafak's first autobiographical novel, as clearly stated on the cover (see right side bottom). It subtitle says: "Yeni baslayanlar için Postpartum depresyon" -Postpartum depression for beginners. At first view, it wasn't a book for me I thought. I am not a mother and I have no wish to be one, even though I stay open to change my current vision on my life is baby-less. But then I really like Elif Shafak's work, especially her English written novels The Saint of Incipient Insanities and The Bastard of Istanbul - I have to be honest, I have difficulty reading the language she uses in her Turkish novels. I wanted to know more about this writer, because I was sure, no matter what, that she was going to tell her readers about her writing and not about her baby splitting on her nightgown only. And I have been impressed, even more than expected. Black Milk is a brilliant work. During 200 pages and even more, Shafak specifically writes about herself and the many voices inside of her before her pregnancy, enabling her readers to really understand the postnatal depression she went through. Inviting her readers to reflection, Shafak tells about her fears, her wishes, her doubts and moves to the wider theme of being a woman in society. She describes women writer's lives and vision on motherhood and feminism, making parallels with her own states of mind. She gives voice to the different women within her, and talks to herself through these six different characters throughout her story. Artist Latif Demirci's drawings also add another dimension to her storytelling, allowing an outside eye to draw the author's experience.

Shafak thought that she could never write again, but she intelligently and movingly transforms her black-turned maternity milk into ink. However, she wants this ink to be ephemeral as she tells her readers right from the beginning that this book has been written so it could be forgotten as soon as it has been read. "Suya yazi yazar gibi..." - as if you would write on water.
I don't know if it had been designed on purpose, but the ink of the title on the cover of my book has vanished after I read the novel... No matter what, I will not forget this book because for me, it is above all an ode to women.

Elif Safak
Siyah Süt
Dogan Kitapçilik
303 pages
Published November 2007 in Turkish

After winter comes...

...festival season!

Spring might have started with snow this year but the sun has not waited very long to show its rays. As I am typing now, it warms my Amsterdam apartment through the large windows of my living room, where I was watching the snow covering the streets not as long as an hour ago.

Snow or not, winter is now giving its place to spring, and for me, spring goes along with the start of a very long and rich festival season. After the launch of the Iceland on the Edge Festival, going on at BOZAR until 15 June, starts Ars Musica, again in Brussels, celebrating contemporary music. Those of you who are in Brussels in April, I would suggest you to go listen to Jean-Philippe Collard-Neven, a magnificent pianist who also happens to be the husband of a precious friend of mine and the father of a beautiful Antoinette, on 19 April at Flagey. You can also hear his Boulez recording in the exhibition around Paul Klee at BOZAR: Theatre here, there and everywhere.

More theatre and dance in two performing arts festival in Brussels and Amsterdam: kunstenFestivaldesArts and Holland Festival, both offering a very rich international programme. I've spotted several performances: Aydin Teker's HarS and Zan Yamashita's It is written there at the kunstenFestivaldesArts, Amir Reza Koohestani's Quartet: A Journey to North both at the kunstenFestivaldesArts and Holland Festival, Samuel Becket's Happy Days with Fiona Shaw, William Forsythe's Kammer/Kammer and Decreation, the latter based on Anne Carson's eponymous work and Calliope Tsoupaki's brand new oratorio presented in World Premiere at the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, all at the Holland Festival.

After Spring comes Summer... and with it even more festivals... But for the moment, let's enjoy Spring, it's only the beginning!

LOST?

One rainy Sunday afternoon, with no will to go out even to get some groceries, ordering food in and watching Kate, Sawyer and Jack's adventures on a faraway island. It sounds silly right? Well, that's what I thought, enough of these silly stories, what the f... is that black smoke on the island, and why the hell are these "Others" treating our nice heroes so badly? So I just stopped the DVD of the third season of LOST to get something to eat and to read some news... and guess what, the real world sounds even sillier! EL PAIS and The Guardian are writing about the possibility to make primary school children eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behavior indicating they may become criminals in later life. If that's the way it was working in Belgium when I was a kid, my parents would for sure be in serious trouble since I had a kind of hobby knocking guys out in the schoolyard (I stopped soon enough, don't worry, I loved to play the fearless garçon manqué). Anyway, I thought I might read about what was happening in my native country and moved to Turkish paper Radikal where I read a short article entitled: "Alkolsüz türkü üretildi!". It can be translated as: Alcohol free türkü (a type of Turkish folk song) has been created and it explains how during the celebration of "Health/Medicine Day" the members of the Choir, coordinated by the Ministry of Health, have avoided the words "alcohol" or "drunk" in all the türkü's they sang, replacing them by the word "doctor". So the line 'Sarhoşlar geliyor eli şişeli'/ "The drunk are coming bottles in hand" have turned into 'Doktorlar geliyor eli şişeli' / "The doctors are coming bottles in hand".
I'm just going to leave my international-online-newspaper-tour to watch some tattooed doc' kept prisoner on a faraway island.
Some people really don't need to get drunk to get LOST.

Stay switched on

Since the last 3 years, I have been living without a television. My parents both have TVs home and I used to live with its sound when I was sharing their house. I must say that I even enjoyed watching it a lot... all the series, cultural programmes, news broadcast, documentaries, movies... But let's face it, most of what's on TV is... JUNK. And now that I am spending the week in a TV friendly environment, I just feel I get more headaches. Only the sound of it is disturbing me. I feel like my head is full of unnecessary noises, no matter what they are. Music, commercials, series... I don't need the television to know about what's happening in the world or to watch a good movie. Here I have experienced once again how happy I am not to have a television. It's a personal choice, one that gives me more space to read, write, enjoy the company of my lover, converse, go out, meet people, discover the world. I'm glad I can do it all without having a TV. I intend to keep it that way. And I don't feel I know less about the world. I'm always switched on so I can better see what's around me and far beyond.

Angels in Amsterdam

The beautiful play by Tony Kushner, Angels in America, has moved the whole world already. I had missed the French version, with the music of genius composer and conductor Peter Eötvös, staged in Paris in November 2004, which I still cannot forgive myself for! So I thought I would get some consolation with the TV version on DVD, which has actually been a revelation (I agree that with actors like Meryl Streep and Al Pacino, it can hardly not be good). So I kept on dreaming about someday when I could experience the stage performance of the stunning play. I would never have thought I would be so motivated to see a 5 hour play in Dutch! Indeed, toneelgroepamsterdam is preparing to tour Angels, starting from the Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam. You can either go for a marathon performance or split it into two parts, which I will certainly do since my Dutch will not permit me to focus on 5 hours of strong text in a row. First thing tomorrow, I will head to the Leidseplein and buy my tickets. I will go on dreaming until I see it for real... the Angels will soon be in Amsterdam.

From 1 to 8 March and from 26 to 29 March 2008 in Amsterdam
More tour dates on toneelgroepamsterdam.nl

Images Moving

I have been deeply moved by a work of art a few minutes ago. A book of drawings, images talking to me without using a single printed word, except for its title: The Arrival, and the name of its author: Shaun Tan. One artist to discover for certain. The Arrival has won the prize for best comic book of the year at the Angoûleme Comics Festival. One immigration story among billions one might say, so what makes Shaun Tan's story so original? Without spoiling your pleasure to discover the book by yourself, I will just tell you how I felt when I started to watch and read the images one frame after the other. The absence of written language just made me feel as lost as the central character of the story, I could follow and experience each one of his feelings: the arrival to the foreign land, the tasting of new food, the meeting with people, the search for a job, the loneliness... And the awkward need to belong. Frame after frame, I was trying to decipher each drawing as the character tried to decipher his new environment. I could write pages and pages about the technique Shaun Tan uses, comparing his work with other graphic novels... But I will not break the spell: I have been deeply moved by the story of a man who leaves his daughter and wife to search for a better life on an unknown land. Nothing new, same old story for hundreds of years. And I am still moved by the humanity in it, only this time was the feeling even stronger.

Photo: 'Four Seasons' Shaun Tan, pencil on paper

Flying up on an Air Balloon, bis

The 'bis' part of a concert is usually one of the best moments of it, I think. It is sometimes the case in everyday life too, when you see something for a second time, especially when you didn't expect it. Well... today, on my way back from Zutphen to Amsterdam, I saw the air balloon with the purple and green stripes again. And this time, it was flying even higher...

Flying up on an Air Balloon

Today, I have become a Japanese, Israeli, Polish, Romanian and even Russian young woman in the mind of several young people involved in a training about diversity. During an exercise about prejudices, I have experienced others' perception of me. Yes, I have an unusual name, and yes, it isn't clear rightaway where it comes from, and yes, I have quite a pale skin, eventhough I can easily get tanned under the sun. And to make it more confusing, I speak good English, and Dutch, my Spanish is correct and my mother tongues are French and Turkish. But these kids didn't have all that information (they just knew I spoke English and Dutch and they knew my name), so they thought of me as everything but Turkish or Belgian. I understand it pretty well, and furthermore I don't like to identify myself with a nation in the first place- it is part of my identity, not my whole self to be a Turkish-Belgian. But I still couldn't understand why suddenly I have become Japanese or Israeli? I thought of it a bit, and on my way back home to Amsterdam from this little town where the training was held, I saw a huge air balloon with green and purple stripes starting its ascendancy to the bright blue sky. I forgot about being Polish, Romanian, Japanese, Belgian, Turkish... I just thought how beautiful it was to be a free human being.

Do you know Iceland?

You will say that you know Björk and maybe also 1955's Literature Nobel Prize winner Halldor Laxness. You might even know about the Hofdi House, built in 1909, one of the most beautiful buildings in Reykjavik, best known as the location for the 1986 summit meeting of presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbatsjov, that effectively marked the end of the Cold War. And of course, you might have heard about the Sagas, the trolls, the harsh and breathtaking nature, the geysers and the blue lagoon... And if none of these ring any bell to you, don't worry, it's never late to learn! And if you live in Brussels or not too far from the city, don't miss the Iceland on the Edge festival that will take place at BOZAR from 15 February to 15 June. They also have a blog where artists and Iceland lovers (including me) write everyday: www.bozar.be/blog
I will make the trip from Amsterdam, at least for the opening AIRWAVES concerts on 15 February. I admit that I am not only go for that event only, but while around, there's no reason why I should miss it.

John Eliot, Nick and Beth

What do the Monteverdi Choir, Bach, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and Portishead have in common?

PASSION!

And moreover, they are all coming to Amsterdam in the following months and I will be there, from the Concertgebouw to the Heineken Music Hall.

So they will also have me in common, at least in Amsterdam!

Check their websites for additional tour dates:
http://www.nickcaveandthebadseeds.com/
http://www.portishead.co.uk/news.php

Stuck between two scenes

I'm literally stuck between two scenes in my play. I shouldn't think of it now but I just can't help it. It's just words on paper for the moment (and might stay so if no one gets any interest in what I'm writing), but I can't stop thinking "what if"... What if it takes too long to move from one background to the other, will the play lose its dynamic right from the start? What if I move the first scene to the second part, would it then lose its impact and strength? What if I can't get the rights to use any music I want... and it goes on.
I should stop, really... I'm gonna try something new: what if I could just go on writing and then I'll see. If any director gets interested in my text... then only will we see.
Well, it feels good to talk sometimes, just talk, even if it's nonsense to most of the people hearing or reading about it. Even to me it sounds like nonsense, put I'm gonna post it anyway.