A year ago, the world changed. And a year on, we’re still in some sort of lockdown in Istanbul. While many things and vastly different now, the tediousness of a year dappled with lockdown measures has really started to wear at me.
Best Of The Month
Ironically, March kicked off with things opening. Istanbul’s weekend lockdowns were reduced to only Sundays, and restaurants and cafes opened up again (though our 9pm curfew remained in place). The first joy of a beer out! Also, having my Saturdays back was blissful. I could ride my bike on the weekends! As you’ll see in the section below, it didn’t last.
I got out of Istanbul for a very quick weekend away with some friends in Sapanca, just a two-hour drive from the city. It was very low-key, we played board games and read and cooked and went on walks, and it was nice to have the company.
After a two year pause, I took our beer making kit out of storage and made a new batch with my friends Nacho and Bradley. And it’s pretty good!
I also received my new residency card, which is always a huge relief.
Worst Of The Month
Almost as soon as things opened up, the case numbers in Turkey shot upwards. It’s not only because of the loosening restrictions (the British variant started raging here), but it made the new openness unsustainable, and by the end of the month we were back in lockdown. The worst part was that everyone knew it was coming, so it was impossible to fully enjoy our tiny bits of freedom completely.
Also, a dear friend of mine was supposed to visit from the US for my birthday in April, but we had to make the call to postpone his trip for a few months. It was the right call, but it still was a drag.
What I’m Loving
Reads: A couple of years after really loving Peter Frankopan’s book The Silk Roads, I read his follow up The New Silk Roads, about the economic rise of China. It’s much shorter than the first book, but an interesting continuation. Though it was published during the Trump era, so it already felt a half-step behind. But this is the nature of publishing a book about modern events.
I also read Lady Chatterley’s Lover by DH Lawrence, a book I picked up in Kadikoy bookstore because a) they only had a handful of English-language books, and b) I knew it had a reputation for being a little smutty. And it was! And it was great! What resonated in particular was the fact that all of the characters have just survived WWI and are feeling untethered by the catastrophe that has passed, and the society that has changed and is changing. It resonated in this modern catastrophe in ways I wasn’t expecting.
Music: I loved Altin Gun’s new album Yol, especially the song “Ordunun Dereleri.” I also spent a lot of time listening to Little Simz’s album Stillness in Wonderland, which hit that perfect sweet spot of moody jazz-inflected hip hop that I love. (It even features BADBADNOTGOOD on one song, a band that has a knack for this genre.)
And the swing song “Strange Things Happen Every Day” by Chris Barber’s Jazz Band seemed like an apropos soundtrack for this weird time we seem to live in.
Movies/TV: I’m on some sort of Al Pacino/John Cazale kick, so I watched The Godfather and The The Godfather II, and both were terrific as always.
Podcasts: I’ve been slowly working my way through the back catalog of You’re Wrong About and every episode is great… I finally started the long (and not yet finished) OJ Simpson series and it’s intense but very very good.
I’m so happy that Cautionary Tales is back and any of the episodes this month are worth your time, especially the Dunning Kruger episode and the Art Forger episode.
And Hit Parade did a deep dive into the songs of Sam Cooke, which is an endless pleasure.
The Film Files
I developed very little this month, but I’m hoping to shoot a bit more in April.
Ephemera
I was interviewed by CBS travel journalist Peter Greenberg at the Ciragan Palace about my experience living in Turkey, an utterly surreal out-of-the-blue experience. I think it came out okay! You can find the show here— my segment is at the 1:00:00 mark.
In further adventures of beautifying my home, I bought some new pieces from the Istanbul shop 3rd Culture, and they make me happy every time I see them.
Upcoming
I have two trips coming up in April! I feel a real need to get out of the city, so I’m going hiking in gorgeous Cappadocia with a friend for a few days— it’s an early birthday present to myself.
And then at the end of the month, I’m going back to California for a bit. The first time I went I got Covid… this time, I’m getting vaccinated.
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