MY DEAD LOVES

Since I was five years old, I have consistently fallen love with dead people. Unfortunately I have never been able to live in same time period with my loves.

My first love was Red Kid. He had a horse, a dog and a gun. He had everything that being charismatic for a little girl. Red Kid was a cartoon, but that was not a obstacle for my love. Then I became more realistic, and I fell in love Niko :) Do you remember Niko? He was a TV series character and also he fell in love with big-mouth Nazlı. When they married in the series, I forgot him.

I can see, you are saying that they are not dead person, they are just fiction characters, but they are ancestors of my dead loves.

Let's continuo...

When I was in the high school, I terribly fell in love with Cemal Süreya. Finally I had been able to love a real person. I just had a little problem. He had already died.  Withal he had fallen love with Tomris Uyar, and she had fallen love with Turgut Uyar. You see, I was the most desperate circle of this love chain. 

Then, I fallen love with Nazım Hikmet. He was my blue-eyed giant*. My dead blue-eyed giant... And he had said “In the twentieth century grief lasts at most a year". My grief did not continue even a year because we were in the twenty-first century. 

When I listened to Leonard Cohen, I fell in love him. When I saw a Dali's painting, I fell in love that mad man. When I learned what Atatürk had done, I totaly fell in love him. (Actually this love still continues.) 

Now I love a dead person again. I was nearly achieving to be able to fall in love with an alive person, but I couldn't. He had died in 2016. Unfortunately I started to read his books in 2017. I won't say his name because I am a bit jealous of him. I don't want to share him with anybody.

Despite all, I have a source of consolation.  When I die, I will become together with all my loves!

PS: If you fell in love with a dead person before, please write me because I have started to think that I am a crazy. I need to know that I am not the only person like this.

* a poem which was written by Nazım Hikmet Ran

A BEGINNER FLANEUR'S ADVENTURES

Today I am a flaneur*. I am walking with turtle steps. I am "picking plants from asphalt."* Today is the first day of my professional idleness career. I found a guide book. I have no hurry. I have no purpose. I have no destination. I am just walking to feel the city, and I sense that its heart is beating.

I can see. People are struggling to spend money. They are striving to buy some things that they don't need. They are trying to being a part of capitalism. It is important for them because it is the most significant rule of being modern. If they want to be modern, they have to be capitalist.

Now two lovers are sitting towards me, but there is something weird. They aren't looking at each other. They are looking at their phones. Okay, love is not to look at each other, but to look at the same place together, but they are just looking at the selfie camera together. Aghhh God! I think I sensed wrongly. The heart of the city is beating arrhythmical. The city is a cardiac patient.

Here are some kids. They are singing a song. Probably their moms are in a shopping battle, but the kids are not caring about the sales. They are just caring about a stray dog. They are starting to play a game with the dog. Thanks God! Fortunately kids are always kids.

Yes! This is the end of a beginner flaneur's adventure. I walked, I saw and I wrote. It was a really nice experience for me. See you on next week...

*flaneur: Someone who walks for just walking in a city, kind of idler (bkz: aylak).

*Walter Benjamin

FROM A CHOCOLATE TO A LEGEND

Did you see this chocolate? Godiva... What is the first thing that it reminds you when you saw this chocolate in a market shelf? Sweet things, a child, a friend, a drooling mouth... These are very cute things, but when I saw this chocolate, I remember a verse: Neither Godiva passes through the way nor somebody becomes blind. (Ne Godiva geçer yoldan ne bir kimse kör olur. ) This verse belongs to İsmet Özel. I know, at first view it seems very nonsense, indeed it has a really impressive story in its background.

This is the most famous Lady Godiva
 painting. It was painted by John Collier.

Here is Lady Godiva. She was the lady of Conventry. She was known with her mercy, but her husband was a cruel lord. When the lord had increased the taxes, she felt very bad herself. She asked her husband if he can decrease the taxes, but her husband said her the folk doesn’t deserve such a mercy. Lady Godiva persisted, and finally they made a deal. If Lady Godiva can walk nakedly with a horse on the streets, he can decrease the taxes. But there was a condition. Anybody of the folk mustn’t look at her. If someone looked at her, he wouldn’t decrease the taxes. This news was announced to all of the folk, but they didn’t know why Lady Godiva would do this. When Lady Godiva began her naked tour, nobody left his home. Even a single curtain wasn’t open. Anybody didn’t look at her because the folk didn't want to make embarrassed their lady. Lady Godiva had won, but at the last moment, a man couldn’t restrain his curiosity and looked at her. As soon as he looked at her, he went blind. He was damned by whole city. Since that time, Lady Godiva has been the symbol of mercy and loyalty. And whenever I eat a Godiva chocolate, I close my eyes. No need*, in case I get blind...

*Here the author wants to say "neme lazım" :)