October 2019

I thought I would travel somewhere outside of Istanbul this month… but I just didn’t. There was too much joy keeping me in the city, and with my California trip approaching so quickly, I wanted to soak in Istanbul as much as possible.

Best Of The Month

The weather was basically perfect, which made the entire month of October seem to glow a little. There were so many lovely dinner parties and social events, often involving many of the same people, which made it feel like I was on some sort of social circuit.

My friend Özge and I decided to take an urban adventure, and after hopping on a random bus we ended up in Kisirkaya, a stretch of beach on the European Black Sea coast. There were white horses and wedding parties strolling the shore, which was unfortunately dotted with trash (c’mon, Turkey). We ate meze and drank beer by the beach and it didn’t even feel like being in Istanbul.

After missing Halloween for the last few years— in 2017 I was struck down by a 48-hour bug, and last year I was drinking wine in Chamonix— this year I celebrated the surrealest holiday with my friends at Soho House. I am not usually into the Soho House scene, but Halloween was a perfect exception. We went as the cult people from Midsommar (no, none of us have seen Midsommar) and wandered through the suddenly haunted Soho House, drinking gin and dancing. It was GREAT fun.

Worst Of The Month

My Frankencomputer has been limping along for a while now, and I’ll get a new one in December, so of course this month it decided to break down just a little bit more. My battery hasn’t held a charge for too long, but as long as it’s plugged in, it’s been fine. Then the computer stopped charging— it recognized it was plugged in, but the battery slowly died anyway. This happened on a day I had a deadline (of course) so it was a race against the battery to finish writing an entire article, which I did. Eventually I was able to get a new cord, which has temporarily stopped the problem, but it’s definitely not a long-term solution.

Apropos for autumn, it was sort of a weird emotional month, with some unexpected changes that I can deal with, but still was thrown by.

What I’m Loving

Reads: I finished two great books this month. I read Gellhorn by Caroline Moorehead, a biography of the incredible war journalist Martha Gellhorn, who was briefly married to (the famous asshole) Ernest Hemingway and loathed how his larger-than-life persona overshadowed her incredibly impressive accomplishments. She reported on every major conflict from the ‘30’s through the early ‘90’s, was the only journalist who made it to the beach on D-Day (she smuggled herself on a nursing ship), and was just generally an inspiring badass.

Then, to switch gears a little, I read a British spy novel set in Istanbul called A Colder War by Charles Cumming, which didn’t really land its ending but was good frivolous fun.

Music: Cerys Matthews’ BBC program continues to be my favorite source of new music, and this month was no exception. I made a playlist of my October jams that you can listen to here, which includes a lot of Turkish psych along with some British hip hop and Bollywood ballads.

Cerys also featured a bit of Crosby, Stills, and Nash in one of her programs, which led me to listen to Suite: Judy Blue Eyes many, many times this month.

Film/TV: The Pera Museum has been hosting a free film series to coincide with the Istanbul Biennial, and I of course forgot all about it until the tail end. Luckily I caught one of the last screenings, this one of the original Planet of the Apes from 1968. I’ve seen it before, and I would happily see it again, because it’s SO GOOD. Seriously, even if you think you’re familiar with the plot, even if you know the twist, go watch this movie. It is really great.

Podcasts: The podcast I’ve been most obsessed with that I wasn’t even planning to listen to is Dolly Parton’s America, and if you aren’t listening to already, DO IT. There are only three episodes out so far but it’s such an engaging look at the utter genius of Dolly Parton and also how she captures so much about the complicated culture in America. The first episode goes down this fascinating rabbit hole about feminism that I was thinking about for days. Also, she wrote Jolene and I Will Always Love You in the SAME NIGHT, what a woman!

The fiction podcast I’ve been into, Passenger List, ended this month… I was afraid they wouldn’t land the ending but oh my did they. I was alone in my house shouting “Passenger List what the fuck! Oh my god!” You should check it out.

One of my favorite podcasts (probably the best one out there), You Must Remember This, returned after a hiatus with a series about Song of the South, the racist Disney film that has never been released on home video. I’m very pleased to have the GOAT back in my feed.

And the podcast I’ve been running to, Stories from the Eastern West, had a two-part series about the experimental polish theater director Jerzy Grotowski, “Search” and “Continuation”. I was very obsessed with his manifesto “Towards a Poor Theater” when I was a weird theater kid in college, so the episodes felt very tailored to me.

The Film Files

I hosted a double exposure workshop at Nadas for my exhibition, which was sparsely attended but still fun. It’s interesting to try to teach a subject I’ve more or less learned from trial and error.

I also finished one of our double rolls from my project with Alison, which is always a treat.

Ephemera

I’ve returned to drawing class and this month has been all about charcoal drawing, which is very messy and great fun. Charcoal and watercolors both appeal to me because they are so much about playing with light and shadow, which my photographer brain understands.

I also discovered I have lots of curry paste that I brought back from California, which I should probably make a dent in before I go back to California. So it’s going to be curry November!

Upcoming

In a few days I’ll return to Berlin for a quick visit to a dear friend. Though I really enjoyed Berlin in August, it looks like this visit will be cold and rainy and I am already dreading that.

And then, I’m off on my annual visit to family in California! Where did this year go??