With 18 million TV homes, Turkey is one of Europe’s major markets… [But t]he introduction of the cellphone at the end of the 1980s and its immediate spread was a major factor in Islamist political organizing, making it possible to set up phone trees and mobilize large numbers of people through their personal networks.
I found this image of a 19th century Istanbul tram ticket decorated with a map of the routes on a wonderfully intriguing site exploring eclectic Turkish and Ottoman maps, Afternoon Map. It’s a site that I love to peruse and have just added to my blogroll. Afternoon Map gives the provenance of each map and discusses [...]
I was thrilled this morning when I discovered that my hero Abdülcanbaz still lives. I used to cut Abdülcanbaz comic strips out of Cumhuriyet newspaper; I have stacks of them. Decades ago in a used bookstore in Istanbul I discovered a large cache of his original comic books and bought all of them. I still leaf [...]
Some information from a recent evaluation of Turkey’s publishing industry (click here): According to the Turkish Ministry of culture, over the last 10 years there has been a 300 percent increase in number of books published. In 2011, according to the Turkish Publishers Association, 43,190 titles were released with sales of 1.5 billion dollars. 30-35% are [...]
A new book on the history of Turkish/Ottoman sweets, Sherbet and Spice by Mary Işin, was reviewed in The Times Literary Supplement (here). An excerpt: Starch was not regarded as a cooking ingredient in eighteenth-century Europe and was primarily used to powder wigs. In Ottoman Turkey, pulled sugar sticks (similar to Edinburgh rock) were particularly favoured [...]
In a twist of irony, Turkey is at once celebrating the lifting of decades-old bans on 453 books and 645 periodicals while waiting for the fate of two classics whose fates are yet to be decided. One of these classics is John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” The other one is the beloved children’s book [...]
Turkey has become a sought-after medical tourism destination, especially from the Arab world, for men’s hair implants — mustaches, beards, and associated whiskers. (click here for Constanze Letsch’s article) While their wives check out the sites where Turkish soap operas so popular in the Arab world are filmed, the men have their virility enhanced (at [...]
A map of languages spoken in the Middle East, found here (at http://global-atlas.jrc.it/maps/PUBLIC/2133_Mid_East_Ethnic_lg.jpg). I’m struck by homogenous much of Turkey is, characterized primarily by Kurdish and Turkish; I wonder what this map would have looked like in the 1890s.
A 21st-century ode to Turkish unity (actually a clever ad for Yeni Rakı), based on folklore, family feeling and nostalgia, rather than blood (soy) or religion. The video courses through many parts of Turkey, and the end frame says “Whenever we get together, we become big.” Of course, people who abstain from alcohol don’t appear [...]
I just heard that the venerable Inci Pastanesi, the bakery and cafe that opened by Luka Zigoris in 1944 and was a destination for generations seeking Turkey’s best profiterole, has been evicted from its premises on Istiklal Boulevard. They had fought the eviction in court and lost, but before the court decision even reached them, [...]