Black Swan

One of the best movie of the year. Director Daren Aronofsky once again shows us how brilliant his technique is. Mostly shot by 16mm, you can feel the vibe and the tension throughout the movie. Sad to hear that he signed a contract to direct Wolverine part two...
Natalie Portman is brilliant as well.
Good way to end the year in terms of cinema...
We have a bunch of movies to watch, 1 down 102 to go...

Books - The lonely planet guide to Experimental Travel

This book was a gift from Sedos to us. I think she gave it 6 months ago and last night I had the chance to have a look at it. The co-writers Rachael Antony and Joel Henry were both enthusiastic travelers.

I can revise book in two sections.

The first part is the introduction and I must say this part interesting. It gives a brief information about 'tourists','tourism', traveling and sightseeing. I learned that the word' tourist' first introduced by Stendhal in his "les memories d'un Touriste" in 1811. First guide book was published by John Murray in 1820. It was " a guide for travellers on the Continent"

I purchased both books from Amazon, will mention them as soon as I receive them.

There are plenty of other interesting information on travelling in the introduction part. The rest of the book is on the games that were invented by those who seek for more in their travels. Some of them seems to be funny others doesn't seem fuuny or interesting to me. But its a good book to read of you are a into travel.

You can find the details on www.latourex.org

Sag ol Sedoooossssssshhhh

Documentaries

Defnos and I was watching a couple of documentaries last week.

We liked BBC Sahara documentary which was created by Michael Palin. The documentary stars from Gibraltar and then heads to Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Niger, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and then comes back to Gibraltar and finishes where it all started.

The documentary is told in 4 episodes and I must say I was fascinated with episode 2. Where Palin takes us  from Senegal to Mali and then to Niger. Both the journey and the video is very strong in this episode. I must say most interesting part of Sahara journey is those areas as well. We fell in love with Mali once again and decided to take this part of the journey. The hardest part seems the train journey from Dakar to Mali which goes up to 35 hrs...

During the journey Palin was able to caught different cultures and people surrounding those cultures. I must admit his way of story telling is not ideal for me however its much more better than the ones we watched earlier this week.

Lonely planet Botswana and Namibia documentary was one of them. This Australian fellow was travelling in these lands and we were not able to tell what was his point and whether he liked the places he was travelling, well, thats his problem. On our end it was also impossible to capture the feeling of the places he was visiting. As it's a lonely planet series you assume its a budget travel and he tells in several places that he was sleeping in a budget camp site, again, it was impossible to understand if the places are good or bad or the only option. The route was almost the worst option possible. The camera was so so...

The other documentary that we had the chance to watch was agaon a BBC documentary. This time it ws about history of Namibia and first genocide of the 20th century. Germans on local herero people. Its sad to come across with those realities of history.. It's a 50 minute informative documentary. If anyone who plans to visit Namibia should watch this beforehand. It was a 2005 documentary if I am not mistaken.

We also started to watch Micheal Palin's 80- days around the world. Although its relatively old documentary we had fun watching first two episodes. Will fast forward the rest 5 episodes soon.

Now we plan to watch National Geography's Madagascar documentary.

Music Part II - Frank Zappa

Thanks to Tod I ran into an article in New york Times. Actually an interview with Tom Waits. His choice of best 20 albums ever released. Yet to listen all of them first discovery for me seems Frank Zappa.

I know, I should have heard him long long time ago but ''rastanti tanrisi" you never know when, where and how :) ....

Just listened his last album "the yellow shark" - great music. A little search and find out that he is one the most productive musicians ever... Have to listen lots of albums...

After that I will be able to write down my thoughts on him and his music...

Music

Gavin Bryars 

Two great album long songs

The sinking of Titanic
Jesus Blood never failed me yet (both album and Tom waits versions are great)

Full name : Richard Gavin Bryars

Edited on February 3 2011


The story of The sinking of Titanic : 

The Sinking of the Titanic at Xebec (1990) In the various performing versions of The Sinking of the Titanic made since its inception in 1969, the starting point for the piece has been the hymn-tune "Autumn," following the evidence of the surviving wireless operator Harold Bride. He told the New York Times in April 1912 :"....the band was still playing. I guess all of the band went down. They were playing Autumn then. I swam with all my might. I suppose I was 150 feet away when the Titanic on her nose, with her after-quartet sticking straight up in the air, began to settle - slowly.... the way the band kept playing was a noble thing..... and the last I saw of the band, when I was floating out in the sea with my lifebelt on, it was still on deck playing Autumn. How they ever did it I cannot imagine. That, and the way Phillips (the senior wireless operator) kept sending after the Captain told him his life was his own, and to look out for himself, are two things that stand out in my mind over all the rest.." As Walter Lord wrote: "Bandmaster Hartley tapped his violin. The ragtime ended, and the strains of the Episcopal hymn Autumn flowed across the deck and drifted in the still night far out over the water." The hymn tune was played between 2.15 and 2.20 am, the last five minutes of the sinking, and this unit becomes the building block for the music. Following a time plan - a kind of time=space in side elevation - the music goes through a number of different states, reflecting an implied slow descent to the ocean bed which give a range of echo and deflection phenomena, allied to considerable high frequency reduction. This presupposes that the music was played as the water engulfed the ship and, from Bride's account, there is no reason not to think this. Remember that the band were not only playing ultimately in water, but with the ship standing perpendicular in the water for these last 5 minutes. Bride cannot imagine how "they ever did it", but we know that the band were playing outside the gymnasium doors, and these open doors would have become the horizontal floor that served as their last bandstand (in the ship's vertical configuration). The prolongation of the music into eternity, however, comes about from another "scientific" point of view. Marconi had developed the principles of wireless telegraphy over great distances and this was the first extensive use of wireless in ocean rescue. In fact, when Bride arrived in New York on the Carpathia, Marconi rushed on board to shake his hand. Towards the end of his life, Marconi became convinced that sounds once generated never die, they simply become fainter and fainter until we can no longer perceive them. Curiously enough, one of the rescue ships, the Birma, received radio signals from the Titanic 1 hour and 28 minutes after the Titanic had finally gone beneath the waves. To hear these past, faint sounds we need, according to Marconi, to develop sufficiently sensitive equipment, and one supposes filters, to pick up these sounds. Ultimately he hoped to be able to hear Christ delivering the Sermon on the Mount. Perhaps Xebec is not yet quite ready for such a task, but through the sensitivity of its personnel and the sophistication of its environment, I was able, along with the Balanescu Quartet, four excellent Japanese musicians, and my sound engineer Chris Ekers, to give substance to this metaphor in the extraordinary Xebec Hall itself, at the Museum of Modern Art in Nagoya and in the Christian Boltanski exhibition at Art Tower Mito. Gavin Bryars February 1993.

The Habab People from the lowlands of Eritrea, 1936.

Local images from East Africa, year 1936.

Great archive photos.

Arnulf Reiner

Bu rastlantı aslına bakarsanız bu yaz karşımıza çiktı. Münih seyahatimiz esnasında modern müzede sergilenyordu son yapıtları. Ben yağlı boya işlerine bayıldım. Son dönemde her ne kadar fotograf üzerine çalişmalara takmış olsa da ve her ne kadar bunlar bence diğer işlerinin biraz arkasında kalsada müthiş çarpıcı işlere imza atmış.

Yaptığı işler kadar yapabildiği yelpazade çok çarpıcı, sergiyi gezerken birisi size farkli kişilerin işlerini gösteriyoruz dese inanırsınız. Web'de malsef çok görselini bulmak mümkün değil ama aklınizın bir köşesine not ediniz.

Austrian born painter, whose work is very well known across Europe. We had the chance to visit his huge exhibition in Munich this summer. Although I was very impressed with his oil canvas works, the variety of works that he was able to create was very impressive as well. Unfortunately its really difficult to find this variety at web.

Mac kullanım kılavuzu

Gün itibraiyle Türkçe klavyemin olduğunu öğrenmiş bulunmaktayım. E bu da insanlık için küçük ama benim için büyük bir buluş olarak buraya girmeye hak kazandı...

Yaşasın Türkçe karakterler !!

√iva hede hödö...