8x8

wild boars: all thirteen team members and coach trapped in an underwater cave in Thai are rescued

i’m in the business of vegetables, let’s take a selfie: covers of popular songs with auto-complete lyrics

the purge: Erdoğan’s government dismisses an additional eighteen thousand civil servants (previously) and cancels their passports

art-o-mat: cigarette vending machines repurposed to distribute tactile unique collectibles

moral panic: how Tom Hanks’ debut film Mazes and Monsters informed parents about the danger of role playing games, via Miss Cellania

rip: heartthrob Tab Hunter has passed away

department of child-labour: more on the Trump regime’s plot to destroy the US educational system

omnishambles: UK Foreign Minister resigns over soft-peddling BREXIT

mockbuster

After two years of restoration of the last known reel of the movie in existence and digital conversion, the atrociously campy cult film that’s better known by the moniker “Turkish Star Wars,” the 1982 Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (previously) or The Man Who Saved the World will be enjoying a limited theatre run in London and Glasgow later this summer (May the Fourth be with you).
The movie—hitherto only watchable on bootlegged video cassette copies—gained notoriety for its unauthorised use of footage from the actual Star Wars, with other science fiction films and space programme scenes spliced in, has quite an incoherent plot and was roundly panned by critics at the time. Despite its poor reception, a sequel was produced in 2006, Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam'ın Oğlu (The Son of the Man who Saved the World—otherwise “Turks in Space”) but audiences (never easily satisfied) were also critical of the second movie for having professional actors and special effects and was no longer true to the original. Visit the link above to see a video of a few scenes.  I think it’s fun that there’s a revival of such an unambiguously bad movie, but I also hope that the attention it garners directs more people to the finer side of Turkish cinema and film-making, as well.

odonym or diplomatic cul-de-sac

Via Tyler Cowen’s always engrossing Marginal Revolution, we find ourselves acquainted with the Cold War-era brinksmanship that’s currently undergoing a resurgence in the form of insulting street-naming. Though the provocation is probably best exemplified by Moscow’s proposal to re-designate the square where the US embassy is located as “1 North American Dead End,” Russia isn’t acting alone and not on the offensive.
A month prior, the US reflagged the block of Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, DC that hosts the Russian mission as Boris Nemtsov Plaza, after the opposition leader that was gunned down just outside the Kremlin in 2015. Moreover former Super Powers are not the only Titanics fighting over one iceberg—with Beijing having suggested to re-name the street passing in front of America’s diplomatic headquarters after Edward Snowden. While there’s enough petulance to go around, there’s apparently also sometimes a few overtures towards bridge-building—as it were—with Ankara calling the address of the US embassy “Olive Branch” ahead of a scheduled visit by the—as it were—top diplomat of the Trump regime, a rather backhanded welcome as it is the codename for the offensive against the US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria. It is doubtful anything good comes of that and the rebuke at large is bound to continue.

friday matinee massacre

For those of you playing along at home, just to re-cap the individual, Devin Nunes—who drafted and dropped a think-piece that reinforces the narrative of the government agencies being infiltrated by ideologues of the Deep-State and are conspiring against the Trump administration not only wrote the memorandum himself, ordered de-classified and released to the public by Trump (propelled by the momentum of a twitter storm) against the wishes of the Federal Bureau of Investigations since it could not be expected to rebut this characterisation without disclosing classified and privileged information—was the same individual who in April of 2017 was temporarily removed from the investigation into ties with the Russian oligarchs and possible meddling over disclosure of classified documents to the White House he had obtained from the White House.
Trump was convinced that Obama was spying on him via his microwave oven and Nunes later rejoined the Committee. This was our Friday Matinee Massacre—paralleling the way Watergate pivoted after Nixon’s series of firings. To see what could come next, one need only look to the beleaguered Turkish people under their despot Erdoğan whose purges have not stopped and have intensified recently after medical professionals and academics (already under assault) are being ostracised and alienated for the smallest perceived infractions and anything that does not please the ruling party. Those found afoul in the public sector are not only summarily dismissed from the jobs, they are also not allowed to seek any government-sponsored assistance, and blacklisted—atomised as it were from contacts and social support—are either impoverished or imprisoned and have to resort to selling off their possessions and property to survive. These changes tend to creep up on you and we tend to miss the gradations until they’ve become so ensconced that it’s difficult to regain liberties and trust we’ve sacrificed.  We have to try and stay a few plays ahead.

sunday drive: die siebenschläfer

For a few weeks now there’s been a detour due to major roads construction on the way from home to my work-week apartment that necessitates that one drive straight up a mountain range to get to the Autobahn, and there’s been some new vistas to enjoy despite the dodgy weather. I made it a point to visit a little wayside, hilltop chapel near Ebersburg dedicated to the Seven Sleepers.
Click on the images to enlarge them.  Both Islamic and Christian traditions share the story of seven young men who flee persecution in Ephesus around the year 250 AD by hiding in a cave to emerge from a long slumber three centuries later, at a point in history when the Roman Empire had a more favourable view of Abrahamic religions.
Indeed under Emperor Decius, such religious practises were outlawed as antisocial and subversive but the Empire turned to adopting Christianity as a state religion.  One story names the youths as Achilledes, Diomedes, Stephanus, Eugenius, Probatius, Sabbatius and Quiriacus plus their loyal dog who stands watch the whole time.  According to other accounts, the seven are still sleeping and there is also a bit of conflation and cross-over with stories of Joseph of Arimathea as the keeper of the Holy Grail, identifying the Chalice Well in Glastonbury as the cave of the Seven Sleepers. 

serçe saray

Colossal directs our attention to a photo-essay by Caner Cangül whose work skilfully brings to the fore architectural elements and embellishments that might be lost in the monumental scale of some the buildings and bridges where his subjects are found.
The detail of this particular greebling are the surviving examples of Ottoman-era avian palaces, meant to give shelter to pigeons and sparrows in urban centres that might be lacking in safe accommodations for birds. Not only were households eager to host such guests, the additions also ensured that the façade of the surrounding structure was spared from birds roosting all over the place. These mansions are certainly grand ones and many designers lavish attention on the architecture of birdhouses but we suspect that the next talent showcase—prestige project will be in insect hospitality. Check out the link up top to learn more and see more of Cangül’s photography.

hiobsbotschaft

Though Germany’s message in support of social justice and democratic reform in Turkey might have withered (as we’ve seen in other milieu) if the country’s economic prosperity were under threat by maintaining its criticism, Germany nonetheless deserves our plaudit for not compromising its values in order to eke out just a little more profit.
Most regimes have no moral qualms when it comes to enabling dictatorships when there’s money and influence to be gained. Even businesses and the robust German tourist industry are showing some character, however, insofar as they’re not—overtly at least, cowing the government to acquiesce to their ambitions and agenda with palaver and ignorance—putting something much bigger at stake than vacation plans or market saturation or even the politics of the present. Though Germany’s foreign minister also enjoys the high-ground in this challenge—the tantrums that Erdoğan is throwing are just as laughable and hollow but far more fraught for the people of Turkey—and authorities have stopped short of saying don’t travel to or invest in (although so much is implied by saying that Germany cannot vouch for one’s safety after multiple arrests and detention of activists, accusations supporting terror and of diplomatic embargoes and restricted access) the setbacks to Turkish relations to the West (Dear Leader’s affinity not counting towards the positive) and for the population are potentially immense and generational. I think Germany can take the name-calling, realising the gravity of the situation.

around the horn

We’ve known for some time that the fall of the Byzantine Empire—precipitated by the Ottomans’ taking of Constantinople—in May of the year 1453 was an event chronically adjacent to the dawn of the age of exploration with Christopher Columbus’ voyages in 1492 and Vasco da Gama’s five years later (preceding both and inspiring the success of his fellow countryman subsequently was Bartlolomew Diaz). We, however, failed to recognise the collapse of the Eastern Roman Empire and the blockade of overland routes to Asia directly, like the series of Crusades to recapture the Holy Land of Middle Ages and safeguard caravans of pilgrims, was aimed to re-establish trade-routes severed by Muslim occupation.

Unlike what Marco Polo had done a century prior, one could no longer walk to India and China and so a sea-route was sought in order to satiate those willing to spend exorbitant amounts of wealth on exotic spices and silks. Exchanges of goods and culture still continued by the Venetians, with whom the Ottomans had developed a business-relationship, but no one else thought that that maritime empire should enjoy a monopoly on supply. Betting that the globe was in fact smaller than Greek geomancers calculated, Columbus first embarked on a route to the East by going west and never realised that his progress had been arrested by two intervening continents, it was da Gama that actually reached the Orient first by sailing around the southern horn of Africa and on to Asia—prompting the Pope to negotiate a treaty decreeing all lands outside of Europe belong to one of the two Iberian kingdoms. The line of demarcation was the Cape Verde Islands (Repùblica de Cabo Verde) and everything to the West belonged to Spain, whilst (inclusive their colony on the archipelago) belonged to Portugal—stopping at Cuba and Hispaniola, and while repudiated many times over the centuries basically held until colonial ambitions for all of the European powers erupted. Though the Byzantine capital was subject to many sieges in over a milleuium until its fall—it took the Ottoman forces’ knowledge of gunpowder from the Chinese to breach the city’s defences, it had resisted capture until the fifteenth century and kept open the lines of communication between the West and East. One wonders if that if the old logistical network hadn’t become a less than ideal option, then would there have been an impetus for exploration.

inherit the wind

Chillingly, we learn via Super Punch that Turkish president Erdoğan has directed high schools to excise the topic of evolution from its science syllabus in public schools.
Demonstrating that wanton ignorance and lack of curiosity is not exclusive to one demagogue, the controversial topic will be removed from standardised textbooks issued to the country’s matriculating ninth graders beginning next fall, arguing that young Turks are not yet equipped with the critical-thinking and scientific background to adequately assess a theory fraught with problems confronting students at such an impressionable age. I suppose we needn’t worry about them acquiring that vital skill-set now. This development combined with the narrowly won referendum to cede the office of the president greater powers represents a national lurching away from its commitment to secularism and separation of church and state and towards a policy of neo-Ottomanism, for which Turkey hopes to be the anchor and guide.

luftwaffenstützpunkt

Having been repeatedly denied access to visit service members stationed at the NATO airbase in İncirlik, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said that his country has been left with no choice other than withdraw troops and materiel and re-station them elsewhere.
Turkish authorities have blocked visits by government officials since last summer’s questionable coup d’etat and Germany’s refusal to extradite political asylum-seekers caught up in the swift and subsequent purge. Relations further degraded thereafter. Defence Minister von der Leyen offered that the some two-hundred fifty personnel and Tornado fighter jets now at the base in southern Turkey (where the US also has a presence of around five-thousand soldiers and airmen with their families and fifty or so nuclear warheads) could be re-deployed to an installation in Jordan but the transition would be costly and hamper joint efforts in the fight against the Cosplay Caliphate.

the great game or rules of engagement

Just for those who might have harboured a kernel of doubt about Russia’s meddling in Western elections, Jason Kottke directs our attention to a 1997 publication by Duma-advisor and noted fascist and eschatologist Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin, which is essentially an Orwellian play-by-play script for the destabilisation and subterfuge that we are experiencing presently.
The geopolitical book sets forth that the struggle for world dominance for Russia did not end with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and that the country remains the venue for the new anti-American revolution, with a Eurasian Empire united against a common enemy. Across different theatres of influence, sophisticated instructions are given to ensure absolute and enduring Russian victory—including the suggestion that Germany should be the dominant power over western and central Europe, the United Kingdom ought to be cut off from the continent, Ukraine should be annexed. For the Middle East, Dugin advocates supports that the Iranians, Kurds and the Armenians ought to be supported—especially insofar as they could create chaos in Turkey. China poses a serious threat to Russia and should be dismantled and encouraged to focus it’s only expansion towards Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia. Moreover, Russia should cede the disputed Kuril Islands to Japan to as a way to weaken their allegiance with the Americans. For the USA, Dugin prescribes that special forces be used to provoke instability with racial and social strife, blackmail and undermine internal political processes. With Brexit, Dear Leader, proxy wars, Crimea and fake news, it’s chilling how many chapters have already become headlines and scary to speculate how much further this manual might be carried out.

minyatür

Public Domain Review curates an exquisite collection of sixteenth-century miniaturist Matrakçı Nasuh’s images of Persian landscapes and urban centres. The gifted polymath, historian and strategist’s particular, modern style became its own genre among Ottoman art circles, “the Matrakçı school,” but that moniker was not his name but rather one that the Janissary had earned when he devised a lawn game to demonstrate his skill with a cudgel, matrak.

arbitration, vendetta

Last week the Turkish diaspora residing in Germany rather incredulously appeared to vote against their self-interests by helping to garner a bald majority in favour of the referendum to imbue the office of the presidency with executive powers.
Ahead of the plebiscite, relations between the two countries strained to the breaking point when German municipalities refused to grant permission for campaign rallies due to concern for public safety. Now that the first resolution has passed an addendum is to follow but this time Germany as a federal republic (not just a venue for a political junket) and as a proponent for human rights would be legally able and morally obligated to block Turkish expatriates from participation in ballots that would involve the reinstatement of capital punishment on German soil—prohibiting set up of voting booths or embassy outreach programmes that would decide this issue that represents a very slippery slope once the recourse is brought back and antithetical to Germany and European Union membership.

sınırı

Whilst arguably an improvement to the mine-field that formerly separated Turkey from Syria (an arrangement drawn up by our old ombudsmen friends Sykes and Picot from the vanquished Ottoman Empire), the world seemed to take far less exception with the wall now half completed that effectively cordons off the war-torn region than with Dear Leader’s imaginary one. Once the nine hundred kilometre long border is secure, the wall will be the world’s second longest structure, second only to the Great Wall of China. The circumstances are very different on each frontier but it’s strange how both dictators couch the threats from the barbarians at the gate with the same language and from the characterisations, one would think neighbours could be easily transposed.

exit through the gift-shop

Apparently chuffed from his recent claimed mandate after a referendum passed by a slim margin investing the office of president with executive powers, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has directed the Turkish Ministry of Culture to erect a museum dedicated to the victims of the failed coup d'état of last summer.
Some three hundred people died but it is unclear if those deaths were at the hands of insurrectionists or whether the other victims, the hundreds of thousands of civil servants, educators, artists and journalists that were purged, aren’t also deserving of memorial—and not just damnatio memoriæ. The Museum of 15 July: Martyrs and Democracy as it is to be known will have besides its permanent exhibits a library, café and gift-shop.

(s)alt çoğunluk

Whilst the sentiments of Turkish citizens voting abroad from embassies in Germany and Austria were solidly in favour of constitutional reforms that would give the country’s executive broader, consolidated powers more in line with those of the president of the United States, there was no clear majority among domestic polling stations.
Though the election commissioner is expected to release in ten days, the party of Erdoğan is already claiming victory with a bare fifty-one to forty-eight percent majority in the contested referendum. The opposition party is to launch an investigation over voting irregularities. With campaign pledges certain to derail any hope of Turkey’s pending membership in the European Union, it would seem that the expatriate community would not vote against their own self-interests but with relatives and in some cases whole families left back in Turkey, I suppose these voters are also among those that could be easily intimidated, just enough to nudge the outcome.

5x5

ærodrome: Kottke wonders if the circular aircraft runway might ever take off

no mister bond, i expect you to die: movie villain dermatological trends

my beautiful launderette: the Pope opens a free laundromat for the poor and homeless of Rome with plans for expansion

nakkaşhane: scenes from cult films depicted in Ottoman miniature style by Murat Palta, whom we’ve admired previously

bring a whistle to a knife fight and pretend you’re the referee: Texas is tendering legislation to name an official state gun—with the Bowie knife being a top-contender, via Weird Universe 

trial balloon, probefahrt

Although allowing a foreign government to play in Peoria to its diaspora (many of whom left their homeland for fear of political reprisal) would be without precedent, the refusal of Germany and Austria to permit the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to campaign at venues in those respective countries with sizable Turkish populations has garnered much angry and caused further tensions between the outlier and EU member states.
In mid-April Turkey plans to hold a referendum not on EU membership but rather on changing the country’s constitution to invest the office of the president with greater executive powers, more akin to those of the president of France or the US rather than the largely ceremonial, soft-power that Erdoğan enjoys now. With rallies in Turkish communities, the administration is hoping to persuade (or perhaps intimidate) the expatriate population to vote to strengthen the presidency—while many outside Turkish jurisdiction probably harbour the exact opposite sentiments. While in Austria the denying of a platform is coming from the government directly, the federal government of Germany, who has seen continual strained relations for some time now, insists it’s played no part and local venues are wholly cancelling engagements at their own volition without the government’s influence. As stated, it would be highly irregular to allow a foreign politician a pulpit from which to bully exiles in a power-grab—Obama passing the mantle of leadership of the free world to Merkel is something quite different, though these are quite irregular times—but perhaps this refusal is a sign that other institutions will stand up to America’s Minitrue and Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda when he and his minions try to through European elections.

7x7

bowie.net: prescient 1999 BBC News Night interview with David Bowie regarding the emergent world wide web

urban league: a primer on why cities grew where they did

track 61: an intrepid team of urban spelunkers explore FDR’s custom train car underneath Grand Central Station, via the always marvellous Nag on the Lake

hic sunt leones: the Phantom Atlas chronicles how we filled in the gaps of our geographic knowledge with centuries of fictitious locations

time and tide: beach installation of mirrored poles captures the reflected sunrise and sunset

shyriiwook: woman goes into labour wearing a Chewbacca mask

curds and whey: a dairy factory in the western Turkish province of Afyonkarahisar boasts a circular viewing gallery around its central courtyard that offers visitors a demonstration of cheese-making

now it's turkish delight on a moonlit night

A new collaboration by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s civil engineering faculty creates a privileged platform for witnessing the development of Istanbul and several junctures of its modern and urbane history as one of the world’s mega-cities. Through the lens of history and with geopolitical superposition, one can trace the evolution of the metropolis from 1850 onwards. Surely all communities are just as much representative as the heirs and drivers or change and deserve a show-case of their sprawl and re-zoning for their own re-inventing, only hopefully without too much directed or ordained.