May 13th

I write to you on the official beginning of my summer vacation. I celebrated in the most honest way I could, sleeping in late, going for a run, listening to NPR, eventually getting breakfast (it was 2:00 by then), and relaxing at a favorite cafe surfing the web and reading as the sky outside changed from grey to dark grey. It is raining now, which isn't unusual in Bilecik. But because I've already touched upon the weather in previous posts, I need not go there. the weather is, however, one of the few things I can comment on in Turkish, so it's something I'm especially keen towards. You never know when that everyday conversation about weather can turn into a Turkish vocabulary lesson.

I plan on visiting Istanbul as early as tomorrow to relish in the urban magic for what may be one of my final chances to do so. The pages are running out on the Bilecik experience. Istanbul, however, is the most beautiful city in the world and the subject of countless chapters of books, and artist's images and compositions. It is the heart and soul of Turkey's past, present, and future, swiftly flying forward while keeping it's eyes fastened on the richness of its very own history.

I friend of mine, on a Watson Fellowship, has just settled down in Istanbul, on the next leg of her journey through 7 (?) countries. She's an artist, truly and completely, and I'm grateful for her exposure to such a lavish Well of inspiration.

Perhaps it's my own fault that I haven't tapped into the artistic consciousness of Turkey. I've grappled more so with the layers of identity, and the political push and pull of the government. In fact, my only exposure to Turkey's art movement were the articles and images I digested of the Monument to Humanity, representing friendship between the Turks and the Armenians in the eastern city on Kars. It's deconstruction so moved me that I acquired a sour taste concerning the governments lack of openness and compassion. It was an uncomfortable narrative to follow, especially in awareness of the strong undercurrent of guilt and shame bubbling up within the soul of a country manipulating history to fit what it wishes to have happened.

I watched a YouTube video last evening of Dr. King describing the difference between non-resistance and non-violent resistance. The provocative nature of non-violent resistance was intended to place great shame on the white population at the time. It effectively ripped the white conscience from its contentment, compelling it to stare strait into the eye of injustice; to confront its vile guilt. It reminded me of the monument, the necessity of art as a means by which to evolve not only on the basis of a singular event, but in terms of overall thought. Art does what academics fail to do in revealing not only the intellectual, but the wholly human side of things. The academic, the journalist, can report on the deaths of a thousand. The artist, however, can make you feel it. I regret the monuments destruction. I applaud its capacity to have done forced one step closer, an accurate view of the past and a hopeful image of tomorrow.

I remember reading Reza Abdoh for the first time in an Contemporary Drama class at Wheaton. I felt literally ill, nauseous reading his play. The gruesome imagery, over-the-top violence, perverse sexuality, and the grandiosity of it all prepared me to march into class the next day and vilify Abdoh's identity as an artist. All I really needed to alter my view of the drama, however, was a brief backstory of the artist. Iranian-born, gay, dead of AIDS at 32. His work was a giant F*CK YOU, compliments of the powerless and the voiceless. The visceral response emerged from reading his work was a projection of his very own reality - an image of the world I wasn't prepared to confront. I dismissed the genius of Abdoh because I couldn't, at the time, face the music. What does it mean for one's village to be bombed, to be imprisoned and under siege? Turkey, I feel, is dealing with the same thing, albeit with a frightening degree of intolerance. We can hope and pray for art to emerge as a powerful medium of intellectual and spiritual enlightenment amidst societies everywhere.