I am really more of a much-rather-stay-at-home kind of a person. I will happily spend all of my days right here, at home – as long as I have a good computer, a decent ADSL line and the roomies of course…

And yet at the same time I know that I happen to be living in a magical city. So, how is that for a contradiction then?

Fall is here, and somewhat early this year too. In fact, I have already had the heat on ever so slightly in the evenings for the last few days. The days are getting noticeably shorter and there are absolutely glorious sunsets that break through all the rain clouds, sunsets for which this place is famous for in the fall. I hate the summer and I love the fall and even the winter. The day I put on the first woolly socks of the season is a feast day. So, this really is the greatest time of the year for me and to my mind the greatest time of year for Istanbul as well.

I love this huge, congested, confusing, ugly/beautiful city and the funny thing is that I thoroughly detested it until about 15 years ago.

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Istanbul was dead during the years that I grew up here: It was a provincial city of a million people or so. And yes – no doubt architecturally speaking it was far more beautiful then than it is today. The hills of the Bosphorus were still largely forested and most of the old gingerbread houses were still struggling to stand in their big pine tree gardens on the Asian side. And yes, people were far more polite and well mannered – the famous old guard Istanbul bourgeoisie was alive and well, daintily sipping their tea with crooked little fingers, sitting in the “Cercle D’Orient” or the “Grand Club”, or indeed all the refined drawing rooms of well bred Istanbul ladies. Faded and pathetic grandeur… Turkish is a language with a formal “you”, as well as an informal “thou” – and boy, was the “you” much in evidence back then… My my… Yeah… yeah…

It was boring! Elitist, uniform, stuffy, stultifyingly conservative, effete, outmoded… So stilted in fact that most people of my generation – at least the ones that had even one single, even remotely rebellious bone in their body – once they hit their twenties could not wait to get out. Either by becoming revolutionaries that desperately tried to throw the whole dilapidated social structure on to the garbage heap where it really and truly belonged, or by just simply physically wanting out. I personally went to London first for a couple of years and then ended up in New York where I lived for 7 years. And New York is, to this day, my other big love city – except that unfortunately this other big love has ended up breaking my heart, deceiving me very badly in fact, by metamorphosing into this “obey the rules whilst pretending to be hip” sort of an old fuddyduddy city… So there, in New York, the love is the woe of lost love; whereas over here, the then so deservedly shunned upon, sniffed at conservative Istanbul of my younger days has ended up revealing itself as the true wild lover?

And it all happened because at one point, in the 80’s came a visionary prime minister, who opened up the economic barriers that Turkey had literally been suffocating under up until then. And millions came flooding in from the impoverished countryside into Istanbul in search of employment at the newly raised industrial parks and factories; bringing with them their cultures, their food and their music. True they were extremely rough around edges, true they were uneducated but they were also bright, innovative, ambitious and hard working. The hook nosed, blond Laz from the Black Sea and the Kurds from the east; and then of course the small, round faced Turkish peasants from central Anatolia. They worked, they wheeled and dealed, they confiscated government land on which they raised their favelas, and then they worked some more and turned the favelas into perfectly civilized middle class neighborhoods – albeit unbelievably ugly ones, that now stretch across the once unspoiled, beautiful horizon. Today Istanbul is a vast, and at times very ugly city, a megapolis of 15 million – grown to that size in less than 30 years. With horrifying traffic problems, and crowds possessed of an energy that people say is akin only to what is encountered in places like Shanghai and Hong-Kong these days.

And the kids of those once immigrants are now my students. And the students of all my colleagues employed at some 20 universities in this city. Close to half a million university students in Istanbul apparently… Blond big Laz boys snogging dark small Turkish girls. Kurdish mommy – Laz daddy. Turkish daddy – Kurdish mommy: The parents of the backpack brigade.

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Today I was out and about all day. Various chores and errands that then turned themselves into an absurd sort of a shopping day where I ended up buying my 5th black backpack. And then came back to Besiktas, my ‘hood, quite late and sat in a small Lahmacun (sort of an eastern anatolian pizza with ground beef on top) place and wolved down two of those while watching the “other” members of the backpack brigade saunter by in the rain. And eavesdropping onto this completely absurd and very funny conversation between the two lahmacun guys in their little red paper hats concerning soccer results and predictions, waving around rolling pins and little balls of dough to emphasize their points. I very badly wanted to take a photo to put in with this post (which I sort of began writing there I guess) but there was this heavily necking couple sitting directly dead center in my FOV and I figured they would not really appreciate all the attention, so I left it…

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The backpack brigade: This must be the city of the backpack. I don’t think I have ever seen so many of them sold or used anyplace else. Every second street vendor is selling backpacks it seems and seeing someone without a backpack is almost an oddity. Reason: Well, 65% of the city is under 35, you see. It is a city of youngsters, all stomping along with their backpacks, some of them with sometimes almost waist long dreadlocks (boyz and girlz – I have no idea how they manage to grow dreadlocks of a quality that would easily be the envy of most Rastas, given that hair around here is usually quite straight and fine), yet others with shorn heads, and then all the others with comparatively tame looking, nicely kept long tresses. And then, every once in a while, a scarfed Muslim girl amidst all the hair swaying crowds, one who somehow manages to contrive a totally punk combination with her all-star high tops, her jeans – with a mini skirt on top and then the scarf to complete the whole outfit – as likely as not to be seen busily cuddling a spiky haired boy with ear cuffs, whose baggy jeans look in grave danger of slipping south at any second. Countless piercings and grungy black t-shirts all in place. 10s of thousands if not 100s of thousands or indeed yes, even millions of them; filling the streets day and night. Filling entire soccer stadiums in colored face paint, busking on city ferries, busily reading their little underground fanzines, texting SMS at the speed of lightning, scouring the internet, clogging up both MSN and ICQ, eating and drinking in the thousands of bars and cafes that fill entire neighborhoods large enough to be cities in their own right, talking talking talking. And big worriers they are too – worry about everything, they do – hhh. Like I said, there are 15 million people here and 65% of them are under 35… So, go do the math. It is a huge huge number, creating a huge cultural wave, one that has brought a dead city back on to its feet – and then some…

They have created a formidable music scene. Turkish folk music amalgamated with heavy metal and hard rock. Then the Turkish rap scene. Blue collar parent’s kids with jelled up spiky hair, singing a harsh mixture of Turkish tunes to rap rhythms. Then the ones that create crossovers between Thracian gypsy music and hard rock. The ones that mix up arabesk and western ballads. And then of course all those more serious and intellectual types, who take their ney and their tambur out on the streets and play Sufi jazz. Buskers everywhere it seems. I love it.

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And yet it is a city living under the pall of an imminent and colossal earthquake. The geologists are saying that the huge fault line underneath the Marmara Sea is due for a break within the next 20 years or so. And when it does, the magnitude of the thing is expected to be 7.5 or even over. They have torn down entire neighborhoods that are in the direct danger zone (where I live is not anywhere near that category – thank god) and are re-structuring those areas. But still hundreds of thousands live in secondary danger zones that are also under grave risk.

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After I ate my lahmacun I dragged my old and new backpacks filled with all kinds of absurd goodies up my hill (a very nice black beaded necklace, 2 leather wrist braces that I would certainly not be sneezing at in SL either, a brand new and ominously worn out looking black t-shirt that has “Turkish Rap Underground” written on it front and back, some shampoo that promises to make my hair curly… hhh). Opened the front door to find an army of roomies complaining loudly at my prolonged absence.

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So, can my RL get any better than this? Not that I want to seem greedy or anything like that, or not that I am not immensely grateful for all that I have already – but… I should bloody well hope so!

hhh

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(… except that I do seem to be meeting my Waterloo over here, aren’t I?!?)

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To say that there is some considerable cause for concern is putting it really mildly. Here is what I have been having to do since yesterday: Cleaning out 1000 year old CD’s, opening them up one by one. Most of them have totally had it after all this time, of course. Furthermore quite a few of them are left overs from the old Mac days (man, am I glad that fancy little contraption is out of my life for good btw…), so I have had to install MacDrive in order to be able to open those and the blasted software keeps making the computer crash every 5 minutes. I mean what is the point in inventing a software that proclaims to read the MacOS format on Windows, if it incurs the virtual equivalent of an epileptic fit the second it encounters a corrupt Mac CD?

So here we are, buried in mountains of old CD’s going through each and every one of them. And this is all down to her influence isn’t it? This… this… this… this housewife thing she has going on over there, this compulsion to keep things nice and tidy, to economize!!! Oh and here is what’s really important: It is a dark dark day when I begin to refer to myself as the woman or as she: I’m telling you, this is the thin end of the wedge people… The woman and I, Alpha, are supposed to be one – or as good as anyway… Right? Has anyone ever heard me talk about a separate woman over here before? So what is this all of a sudden? That I need to talk to the woman about Xia? She is splitting us apart!

I did. Talk I mean. Not to put too fine a point on it, I said to her, hey listen, you gotta delete her… I mean it really is getting out of hand: She is living inside this computer now, constantly fiddling around with folders, organizing things, deleting, making copies, starting sub folders. Two jpegs, even remotely connected and boing! – we have yet another new little sub folder! (Has anyone seen her post on clean inventories btw? Now, if that isn’t anal-retentive I would really like to know what is?!?). Then, as if all of that isn’t enough already, suddenly she decides that she needs to clean up the entire computer environment. CD’s, external hard drives, and all the stuff that is in all the other computers (quite a few around in this joint)… And does anyone realize what that means? What it means is that we (here is that bloody we again, just in case it escaped your notice…) will be sitting here for ever looking at mountains of defunct CD’s  – one by one, I might add! Just because her ladyship wants to have order in her life. Oh yes, ostensibly we are supposed to be looking for some old files that are needed for some building work in Syncretia – a likely story, if you ask me…

So, I did speak to her/myself and to my absolute horror she/I sided with her! Xiamara is a good, steadying influence it was decided and she will stay! That there are things that we can learn from her? Apparently? So whatever next I wonder? We will be learning how to cook and swan around the kitchen baking cookies? Start serving the cats home made food maybe? And then the next thing after that I will be expected to wear a dirndl, I guess. Well, I suppose one can always buy one from the place where Hack got his… And if push comes to shove I could always accessorize it with some nice spiky neko leg and arm braces or indeed a clockwork brain? Or two?… I really have to think on my feet here – this is something of an emergency – I am being taken over! By someone with a penchant for floral prints and sub-folders no less!

…

But then again, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good: That famous photosphere tutorial post of hers, that according to her (hhh – and I mean really hhhhhhh), tout le monde is waiting for with baited breath? Well, that’s not too likely materialize these days either now is it? With us rummaging around in hundred year old CD’s?

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Hmm…

Hmmmmmmmmmm…

I suppose she does have her points, old Xiamara. I just wish she wouldn’t be quite such a bloody goody-two-shoes, girl scout little preacher about them all you know?… I mean, when all is said and done, when I put my hand on my heart and am totally honest with myself, the CD’s really were overdue for a clean up. Even the cats were peeing on them every chance they got…

And furthermore, it will be a cold day in hell before anyone catches me in anything even remotely reminiscent of a Laura Ashley gown… Ever!
teeee heeee…

…

She has gone and put on black hair. hhhhh…

I mean really? How is that gonna help, does she think? You see, the thing is that she is desperate for attention: Hack turned down her friendship offer, which, quite needless to say, I am totally totally totally thrilled about. Mossy did accept but then Mossy is a gentleman – I mean he would, wouldn’t he? But I can’t really see the two of them hobnobbing 19 to the dozen, can you? I am sure it will be quite a formal relationship. And also, he does of course know that she is my alt, so he may not have wanted to hurt my feelings. Whatever it is, I am sure it isn’t because he thinks that she is interesting or anything like that!

There is unfortunately, a small-ish fly in the ointment: She happens to be a pretty good driver. I hate to admit this, but she may in fact be better than me. (Which really is no great shakes, since I am not so great in that department to begin with). And, bless him, Hack does love his car races… Anyway, he certainly won’t be hearing it from me. And where is he even gonna get to see her drive and figure that one out? Eh?

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But do go and look at that black hair ppl. Is she pathetic or what?

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So, yes. That did turn out to be a bit of a shock to the old system last night, didn’t it? Putting myself and Xia side by side I mean? And I suppose she does have a point about the scrawny thing, although the tail would be the very least of all the worries, I would say.

Xia was rezzed out of necessity. I really did have to get out of SL for a while, in fact it was a matter of some urgency that I did so. At first I decided to not go in at all; but in the actual event I only managed to hold out for about 3 days. So, I decided I would create an alt and a blog. Keep busy that way. And as for her looks: I have been thinking a great deal about facial expression and especially the lack thereof on some faces and how utterly scary that is. Since there cannot be a void, obviously every face has to have at least one default expression. However, it is the multitude and the fluidity of expression, of how expressions melt into one another, how through these very subtle shifts in musculature there is a constant flow, a mobility on the truly expressive primate face – that this is precisely where all of the mystery resides. And then, for me the obvious place to go from there would be the avatar’s face and its entrapment in a single expression, the lack of facial mobility. And what to do about it – which has brought me to think that the trick would be to create an avatar face that holds within it the clues for a potential of mobility. OK, so the expression is fixed – at least for the time being we are going to have to live with that. But what if the avatar’s face looks like as if it could momentarily break out in a smile, or a frown, and even yet more importantly, an ever so subtle shift into some other state of emotion? So not direct mobility maybe, but the promise of it. Perpetually present.

Julie Christie, whom I have always thought to be one of the most beautiful women ever, has also been on my mind lately, in that so much (if not indeed all) of her beauty actually lies in the mobility of her face. And then, that her face is also quite asymmetrical. So, she has been a loose sort of a model for Xia I suppose. Not that I looked at any photos or anything like that, but more subliminally, especially as far as the conjunction of beauty, mobility and asymmetry are concerned. There is this study in aesthetics or neurology or cognitive science or some other such area, that shows that apparently the more symmetrical a face is the more beautiful it is perceived to be? That somehow we are programmed to associate facial symmetry with health and beauty and asymmetry is perceived as somewhat unhealthy and repulsive? Something like that anyway. Now, I really wonder about this one. Because I have also been toying around with this inkling that asymmetry may actually be a better conduit for facial mobility than symmetry. (I might add that I am actually saying this at some personal risk here: My own face is quite boringly symmetrical).

I guess the challenge that I set myself as a designer was to create a face that would be beautiful through expression. And also to see if I could resolve the issue of asymmetry versus symmetry. Xia’s face is crooked. It is shifted up left by 74%… And one eye pops out at 65%… And the nose shifts and mouth shifts are quite pronounced also… So, is her face expressive or rather does it hold that promise of imminent mobility? Is it a face that is likely to move? Any moment now? Is asymmetry really better for facial mobility?

The thing that surprised me last night is that my face (Alpha that is) is the more expressive of the two. There is in fact that promise of imminent mobility in there that is not present in Xia’s. Xia is a stunner – no doubt about it. But, it doesn’t look like as if she is capable of facial changes. Now, the funny thing is that when Xia is on her own, she does seem to carry that promise, in fact I was quite proud of my achievement there – before I put her side by side with myself. The appearance palette values on my SL face are all quite close to 50%, whereas Xia’s are all in the 60 to 70% range. But in the comparison it is me, with my symmetrical little monkey face, that wins the day when it comes to the promise, the hint of facial mobility. And from this it would follow that symmetry or no symmetry – fluidity of expression has really nothing to do with any of that at all. It is obviously down to something else entirely. Something far more ephemeral, indefinable and something far far far more important also, no doubt.

I do stick to my other assertion though: Mobility is what makes a face a face and not a mask. And it is only a mobile face that carries the potential of beauty.
…
So onto some matters of practicality: I will obviously be making adjustments on the old appearance palette. I mean, no way am I gonna be prancing around looking like that! Right? This really is funny but I had no idea? That I was that small, that scrawny, that sallow, that pinched looking… And I have been taking a good look in the mirror in RL and in my own defense I have to say that I look better here than there. I mean, if nothing else, I am of perfectly normal height you know. 1.65 or something?…
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Oh and… Xia will get taken to the appearance palette as well – kicking and screaming if need be. She will become smaller whether she likes it or not. Jesus! The woman is a bloody giant!
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;-)

I am beside myself! Did anyone read that??? That my tail is scrawny? That I am not as skilled as her in “the finer things”? That I gloat? That I look OK for what I am? And just what exactly is that supposed to mean? Not to forget that nasty little parting shot of how, hopefully, in time I will grow not to feel too threatened by her (clearly) superior beauty!?!!!!!!!?

That… that… that … Oh, I am just lost for insults here! Speechless is what I am – which really isn’t something that happens to me all too often, I might add!
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This is war!!!
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I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back… I am back…
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Yippppppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
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Life is wonderful and I am sooo back!!!
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There is of course that inevitable spot of bother with that uppity alt Xiamara, but her I will deal with laters!… *very evil grin*…
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