August 2018

August seemed LONG, despite having less work and less travel. In taking stock of the month’s best and worst, I couldn’t believe how much I crammed into this sticky summer stretch.

Best Of The Month

It feels like it was ages ago, but I went hiking in the Kackar Mountains at the beginning of the month— or tried to, at least. A combination of poor planning and heavy fog meant that we only spent one full day hiking, but also meant that every day was full of new adventures. The highlight of the trip was our guide Ahmet, who we hired to take us over a mountain and who was a true delight. He didn’t speak any English, but it didn’t matter— we spoke in baby Turkish and laughed our way through fog and rain and wet. He made the adventure such a joy.

I borrowed my friend Nacho’s spare bike and have been zooming up and down the Istanbul seaside in the morning. It makes me so happy. I’m training for a 10k with some friends, but my cross-training biking mornings are truly my favorite.

This month also saw the launch of Sunday Supper Club, a weekly dinner I’m hosting to connect some of the people I enjoy in this city. My first beta-dinner was a success, so hopefully this continues!

Worst Of The Month

After a really exhilarating July, I hit some August blues. A lot of different things triggered it (though I’m pretty clear on the primary cause), but it seems inevitable— that exquisite high had to come down eventually.

What I’m Loving

Reads: This month was a little absurd, because I read nine books (including a 700-page biography). Partially this was because I took my annual vacation to Kabak and spent three straight days buried in books, and partially this was because I was so excited about all the books I picked up at Harvard Bookstore’s warehouse sale last month.

I enjoyed reading Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks, especially because he delves into some of his own experimentation with mind-altering drugs. Stalin’s Daughter, a biography of Svetlana, was fascinating (though the style annoyed me a bit). Svetlana Stalin defected to the US in the ‘60’s, defected BACK to the USSR in the ‘80’s, returned to the US again, and just loved a generally eventful and complicated life.

A friend lent me What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami, which has been inspirational as I train for this 10k, and also inspiring for me as a writer.

The Brothers by Masha Gessen is about the two men who attacked the Boston Marathon. I found it really interesting, but towards the end, the effect of the awful thing they did becomes a little bit more prominent, and then I had to put the book down and catch my breath. I moved to Istanbul two and a half months before the bombing, but it still affected me and many of the places I’d lived and many people I knew. I learned a lot about Chechnya and Dagestan, though. That learning continues with the memoir 8 Pieces of Empire by Lawrence Scott Sheets, where he talks about his experiences as a journalist covering the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ugly wars and reverberations that came out of it. He spent a lot of time reporting in Chechnya during the first war, and the book made me realize that there is so, so much I don’t know.

And to round out a Russia-heavy book month, I read Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons as my great Russian novel of this summer. Though it felt like cheating— the book was only 200 pages long.

Music: I love the song Why by Nick Gillette, which turns up in the credits for the Crimetown podcast. Also been pumping myself up to run at 7am with The Edge of Seventeen by Fleetwood Mac.

Film/TV: My friend Pesha and I spent a night watching the very camp ‘50’s movie Auntie Mame, which had some wonderful parts— the costumes!— and some unfortunate parts— ugh, the racism! It’s a weird movie for sure, but we enjoyed it (except for the racism).

Podcasts: Not only did I read an immense amount this month, but I also listened to a lot of podcasts. One unexpectedly wonderful find was The Great God of Depression, part of the Showcase podcast. It’s about the author William Styron (the great god of depression himself), whose book Darkness Visible was one of the first to talk about what it’s like to have depression. It’s also about Alice Flaherty, a doctor who dealt with manic depression and hypergraphia and who treated Styron towards the end of his life. There are only five half-hour episodes, and I breezed through all of them. It’s really good.

I also somehow ended up listening to all of Cover Up, a podcast about Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick. It was very interesting but I never quite shook the feeling that I was reading a trashy novel; it’s probably worth a listen if you don’t know anything about this tragedy, but I don’t know how much it really adds. It dabbles in conspiracy theories, but not particularly convincingly.

Speaking of conspiracy theories and the Kennedys, I’m almost done with The RFK Tapes, which I recommend because, though they also flirt with conspiracies, they stay clear-eyed about it. One major “second gunmen” believed even completely changes his mind when faced with the actual evidence. I thought I would have issues with this podcast, but I’ve loved it.

The Film Files

I developed two interesting rolls this month— portraits Alison and I shot in NYC with double layers from Istanbul, and another roll for our Dreamspace project. I haven’t had a chance to develop anything I shot this month though— soon, soon!

Ephemera

An article I wrote for The Daily Beast about the hydropowers that threaten the mountains in northern Albania was finally published. I’m very proud of this piece— I’ve been trying to write about this region since I was there a year ago.

Upcoming

My best friend Kelly is coming to Istanbul! It’s her first time here and I can’t wait to show her all of my favorite things. There might also be a return to Albania and a Turkish wine jaunt up this month… we’ll see!