sketching

delivered as "essay" - and accompanied by the sentence "i try to draw you"

flattery goes a long way...

...sometimes.

mr. T

today i had my very first experience with turkish coffee cup reading.

i drank a cup of steaming hot turkish coffee and then tipped over the cup onto its plate. the school's cleaning lady collected it from me and told me to come back in half an hour - and with a translator...

so, after class i went to the teachers room and asked one girl who looked particularly cheerful whether she could help and we ended up in the tiny kitchenette at the top floor where the aforementioned cleaning lady goes to smoke her muratti cigarettes.

she lifted my cup and started saying: "you get rid of all stress in your life" which did not sound extraordinary... she then added quite whimsically... "i see that all your relatives are veeeeery happy. you family members are veeeeeery happy. the ones close to you are. the ones far away from you are. all your relatives are veeeeeery happy" - they sure are, i rather meekly conceded - (...but what about me...?? i sort of screamed inside).

she went on to explain... "i see a key at the bottom of the cup. you are going to buy something BIG" -

like an elephant? a hot air baloon? a grizzly bear?, i tried to joke -

oblivious to the humour she replied, sternly... "no, it is either a car or a house".

"to be honest, i cant see that happening any time soon..." i mentioned, politely.

she responded it was meant to happen "at some point in your life".

"...ok" i conceded, i guess looking like a disappointed babboon - "can you see anything else??" i continued.

and she whispered "...i see that your life is full of people... and that there is a man... a man..." - which spurred the enthusiasm of my translator "a MAN??"

"yes" the cup reader explained "a man whose name begins by T"

"T?? i am not close to any man whose initial is T..." i told her - but my protest went slightly unnoticed "t... T... T needs your help... he is going to ask you something..."

"alright" i said rather unenthusiastically... thinking that i was being told:

- my family was happy;

- i was about to purchase an old beat of a trailer, a rhino or a copycat of the Enola Gay or something similar:

- mr. T was going to nag me with some request

blast.

note to self... never try bloody cup reading again!

"anything else?" i tried, with the conclusive tone of somebody trying to wrap up things.

"ha!" the cleaning lady gave me a happy look and then asked with sparkling eyes:

"does anybody close to you suffer from any heart condition?"

to which i turned to my (still cheerful, i noticed) translator and said...:

"i think we can... kind of... go on another time...??"

Henrik Nordbrandt

OUR LOVE IS LIKE BYZANTIUM

Our love is like Byzantium
must have been
on the last evening. There must have been
I imagine
a glow on the faces
of those who crowded the streets
or stood in small groups
on streetcorners and public squares
speaking together in low voices
that must have resembled
the glow your face has
when you brush your hair back
and look at me.

I imagine they haven't spoken
much, and about rather
ordinary things
that they have been trying to say
and have stopped
without having managed to express
what they wanted
and have been trying again
and given up again
and have been loking at each other
and lowered their eyes.

Very old icons, for instance,
have that kind of glow
the blaze of a burning city
or the glow which approaching death
leaves on photographs of people who died young
in the memory of those left behind.

When I turn towards you
in bed, I have a feeling
of stepping into a church
that was burned down long ago
and where only the darkness in the eyes of the icons
has remained
filled with the flames
which annihilated them.

DAYS IN LATE MARCH

Days move along in one direction
faces in the opposite.
Uninterruptedly they borrow each other’s light.

Many years later it is difficult
to determine which were the days
and which were the faces . . .

And the distance between the two things
feels more unreachable
day by day and face by face.

It is this I see in your face
these bright days in late March.

--- sailing ---

After having loved we lie close together
and at the same time with distance between us
like two sailing ships that enjoy so intensely
their own lines in the dank water they divide
that their hulls
are almost splitting from sheer delight
while racing, out in the blue
under sails which the night wind fills
with flowerscented air and moonlight
– without one of them ever trying
to outsail the other
and without the distance between them
lessening or growing at all.

But there are other nights, where we drift
like two brightly illuminated luxury liners
lying side by side
with the engines shut off, under a strange constellation
and without a single passenger on board:
On each deck a violin orchestra is playing
in honor of the luminous waves.
And the sea is full of old tired ships
which we have sunk in our attempt to reach each other.

arturo's island (elsa morante)

One of my first boasts was my name. I soon learned (it was he who first told me, I think) that Arturo is a star: the swiftest and most radiant in the constellation of Bootes, in the northern sky. And what's more that this was the name of a king too, in ancient times, commander of a band of faithful, who were all heroes, like their king himself, and treated as equals by him, as if they were brothers.

Unfortunately, I then found out that this famous Arthur, King of Britain, wasn't definite history, just legend; so I put him aside for other more historical kings (I thought that legends were childish). There was another reason, though, that sufficed, for me, to give a heraldic distinction to the name Arturo: it was that the person who gave me this name (without knowing, I don't suppose, its noble symbolism) was, so I discovered, my mother. In herself, she was no more than an illiterate girl; but more than a queen, for me.

big beard, big ego, big queue

heard in class
(i)
i want to go to italy to see the leaning tower of... Ibiza
(ii)
i would like to do...erasmus... but there is exam. so... before... i need to... pass away
(iii)
me: i suppose in europe now - people generally marry later, have children later, much later than here... actually.
reply: why? they have.... no money?
(iv)
in turkey virginity is big tabu. if a girl in school does it... everybody knows immediately. so all the girls say "bitch". so all the guys make loooooong queue.
(v)
me (to a girl in my class): wow, i love your dress. you have great fashion sense.
reply: thank you. i wear for my best boy.
me: i see...a boy you like. any result?
reply: no result. he not interested. very big ego. very big ego not good thing, ...i think.
me: ok... but what's so special about him?
reply: ...nothing.
me: c'mon...i mean... is he cute? funny? clever?
reply: he has big beard. he is big. we not talk. msn...sometime...maaaaaybe.
me: alright... in english you can say "he thinks a lot of himself".
reply: no...he not think a lot.

(vi)

ME: ok. so, if they interview you for a job - well, you try to be polite, say good things about the prospective employer / company etc. like... if you apply for a job with coca - cola... you start off by saying that you would loooove to work for them because of the great reputation of the company, its amazing success etc etc.

now... i know that some of you are going for this turkish airline selection. so, let's imagine i am the person asking you questions... like. why would you like to work for this company?

REPLY: money veeeeery good.

BAD KIDS (black lips)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tAdG2D5fZQ