happy birthday to you

The Trip

“The Trip” has resonated in my mind and my heart recalling my memories from South Yorkshire as a foreigner and the delicacies of our relationship with DJ, also raised in Yorkshire, whose certain traits of personality and education, similar to Steve’s, are mind blowing. Only after serious efforts to understand or decode his Yorkshireness.

And Kevin, one of my roommates in Sheffield was a Welsh archeologist digging the Peak District. He has shown me the sites and told me about their history as we walked on similar cliffs. And yes he told everything in too much detail. I was bored back then but now I am a bit confused about those feelings.

And California, where heroes are for fifteen minutes, which is nostalgic in its own way. That is where I went to graduate school.

In this wonderful movie, the Northern landscape and its classic literary interpreters Coleridge and Brontes (as far as I could catch) popped back and forth in the words of Rob and Steve, sometimes as charged as they were meant to be, and sometimes blended with pop culture in a lighthearted way.

During my stay at Sheffield, my visits to the beautiful English landscape at the Peak District, always gave the feeling that my English colleagues and even well-known contemporary English artists did not know what to do with an their outstanding history of arts and sciences accompanied by economic and military victories, in a not-so-well-doing economy today and the changing balance of the world powers. Because people do not have time to understand where you are coming from anymore and because it takes a good amount of time to understand and appreciate that English “coldness” is in fact modest brevity, a classic.

The mug with a skull printed on it that was resting on Steve’s dinner table. I could not tell whether it was Hamlet’s skull or Damien Hirst’s. In this mist, Steve’s longing for playing in a drama, like Heathcliff, was heartbreaking.

In the secene where Steve hesitated a bit about picking one between his child getting sick and an Academy Award, I think his hesitation was for being extremely careful about not omitting any tiny possibility. “What if I say “no” and I can not keep my word” sort of thing. It is also impossible to make DJ say a direct “yes” or “no” because heroes are too proud to be into your face. They do not want to spoil you and they always have to take into account the possibility that they can die and not be with you.

The wondefully crafted conversations about “Wales-England”, “Yorkshire- the rest of England” and “England-America”, reflected in the acting of Rob and Steve, were very light and so beautiful. I was amazed with how strongly English people pronounced “t”s such as “getting” instead of “gedding”, as I am used to. And a full “yes” instead of a “yea” and the Welsh accent of Rob and the Yorkshire accent of Steve and the American accent of Misha, Ben Stiller and the speech styles of Hollywood superstars re-presented by Rob... I was lucky to catch all the fun about all of these as I have lived in these places before. Blessed to have known Wallace and Gromit’s world.

Is this movie a metaphor of the UK not being as powerful as it used to be both economically and in artistic production? I do not know. But I feel in love again with the ackward English sense of humor and the simplicity of her people.

Ali Poyrazoğlu'nun, güzel bir hikâyesi
"Şunları bir araya toplayayım. Bir güzel muhabbet edelim" diye düşündüm.
Mutfak işinden de anlarım. Donattım sofrayı. Bayağı uğraştım. Hepsinin, ayrı ayrı ne yemekten, ne içmekten hoşlandığını iyi bilirim. Bayağı da para gitti. Birinin yediğini öbürü yemez. Ötekinin içtiğini beriki içmez. Dört kişilik sofra kurdum. Mumları da yaktım. Hepsi, Erick Satie severdi. Hatırladım. Müziği de ayarladım.
Geldiler…
20 yaşında ben, 35 yaşımda ben, 40 yaşımda ben ve bugünkü ben, dördümüz. Yirmi yaşımı, otuz beş yaşımın karşısına oturttum. Kırk yaşımın karşısına da, ben geçtim. Yirmi yaşım, otuz beş yaşımı "tutucu" buldu. Kırk yaşım ikisinin de "salak" olduğunu söyledi. Yatıştırayım dedim "Sen karışma moruk" dediler.
Büyük hır çıktı. Komşular alttan üstten duvarlara vurdular. Yirmi yaşım, kırk yaşıma bardak attı. Evin de içine ettiler. Bende kabahat. Ne çağırıyorsun tanımadığın adamları evine...
Ömür dediğin üç gündür, dün geldi geçti; yarın meçhuldür. O halde, ömür dediğin bir gündür, o da bugündür...

Babamdan Bulunmaz Hikayeler Episode III

Dört dün tavuk gibi yaşayacağıma bir gün horoz gibi yaşarım.
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Allah sana uyuz versin, tırnak vermesin.
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Yatan aslandan gezen tilki yeğdir.
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Topuğu kıllı beygirden küheylan doğmaz.
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"Antep'in pekmezi acıdır." demişler. "Gitmem Antep'ine yemem pekmezini"demiş.