Carpe Diem by another name...

Fang jetzt an zu leben und zähle jeden Tag als ein Leben für sich.

Commence to live now and count each day a separate life.

Lucius A. Seneca

You are who you are!

You are who you are! What good will it do to cross the sea and change your place of home? If you want to escape the things that burden you, you don’t have to be at a different location, but you have to be a different person. Your journeys will not alleviate these burdens; because you travel with your passions and your evils will follow you.

Lucius A. Seneca

Hommage à William Eggleston

Never calm again...

Who’ll wake up this night, will forever be awake
Who’ll listen to this song, will never stay calm again

Sleep, while it’s snowing
Above the river there’s bitter ice

In this ice there’re miracles inside:
Blue forests,
Birds don’t sing there,
Animals don’t drink water there

Sleep, while it’s snowing
Above the river there’s bitter ice
In this ice we’ll never find any warmness

Who’ll wake up this night, will be awake forever
Who’ll listen to this song, will never stay calm again
Will never stay calm, will never stay calm again.

Notes from Istanbul

On Sunday night, I went out eating at a nice restaurant in the Cihangir district of Istanbul… since I did not have a reservation and the restaurant was fully booked, I ended up eating at the bar… with the nice side effect that I got to chat to the owner of the restaurant, a man in his late 50s with an excellent command of English (who also - as it turned out - owns a hotel in Istanbul)… the conversation soon became rather philosophical (mainly on account of his comments)… Turkey is – for an outsider – an interesting concurrence of modern life and very traditional values, secular versus very conspicuous religious life, European values juxtaposed with the door to Asia Minor… As I mentioned that there might have been a few steps back in Turkey on the road to modernisation lately (for example I noticed that youtube is blocked in Turkey, someone told me that some statues of the champion of the secular state Atatürk have been removed these days), the restaurateur intimated that sometimes what might look as a few steps back, might in reality and with hindsight be even more modern and in a sense post modern than it seems at first glance… He also suggested that some of the legislators have enacted some stricter laws recently to prevent that even harsher laws are put in place… and he insinuated that maybe a less secular way of life is more in tune with “contemporary” life than what conventional wisdom would suggest - have you been in a church recently during the day and noticed how many people are there, and I mean not sightseeing but praying? maybe he has got a point…

Rüya/Dreamboat

Oezlem's and Murat's pre-wedding party, Istanbul

Erwiderungen: Einführung

Erwiderungen: Einführung

Ob du dich auch in finstrem tal verloren ·

Von höhen abgesunken:

Wie du hier stehst bist du erkoren

Ins neue land zu schaun.

Du hast vom quell getrunken:

Betritt die offnen aun!

Durch veilchenwiesen zieht die gelbe ähre ·

Im haine lodern die altäre

Bekränzt mit rosen ..
zitternd warmer schein

Ist in den lüften und der stete

Gesang des engels tönt.. sein mund

Auf deinem brennt dich rein ·

Du weilst auf heiligem grund:

Knie hin und bete!




Stefan George . 1868 – 1933
(aus: Der siebte Ring, 1907)