My PhD professor and mentor Roy Ascott, to whom I owe far more than just this one word is the one who coined the term “syncretismas” a few years ago when he sent out a syncretic season’s greeting. It fits what goes on here, an essentially non-Christian society, to a tee and I have thus embraced it wholeheartedly in describing the occurrences around this time of year in what I think of (mostly quite fondly but sometimes also critically) as the land of the shapeshifter. Today I went to a cut-price hyper-market to stock up on household utensils, cleaning things and so forth. And then later I took a stroll around Kadikoy market. And since the preparations for “Syncretismas”, which is celebrated here on New Year’s Eve in the shape of a completely secular, non-religious “Christmas”, are well under way I took the opportunity to document some of what I saw, to share with people who do not know my culture.

So, without further ado, we kick off with what would have to be the all time symbol of Syncretismas: The alem tree ornament, needless to say hugely favored by the more devoutly religious Muslim crowd:

The “alem” is the metal part at the very top of a minaret. Usually there is a sickle moon at the tip, sometimes there isn’t. The ones with the moon are of course very popular and sell out very quickly. So, what is left over today are the regular ones. The good news is that this year they also seem to be selling separate little moons and stars which you can screw onto the thing if you wish to. This goes on top of the tree, where you would normally have the angel or the star on a Christian Christmas tree.

Efes is the Turkish Budweiser (so to speak). However, Raki is the thing which really puts a smile on our faces… Rivers of it get consumed on Syncretismas!

Bit of a traffic jam in the ornament aisle?

The city decorates the main avenues and streets with fairy lights and shops (no matter how modest) do their bit to add to the season’s cheer as well.

Every segment of the population celebrates Syncretismas. The well heeled at fancy restaurants along the Bosphorus or at elegantly catered home affairs, the modest folk with a home cooked meal. There is a traditional Syncretismas dinner with turkey (yes! you heard right!) where families and friends get together. However, we have replaced the stuffing with a special Turkish rice dish. And we have traditional Turkish meze (tapas) before. And for afters: Baklava and Yule-log? On the same plate of course!

Santas are very popular. Last year we had this little drummer Santa all over the place. If I catch him being sold again this year, I will definitely add a picture of him to this post later since he is really hilarious. This year we seem to have a mountaineer version, complete with backpack and rope ladder. Does any other country have this? Or are we the only lunatics on the planet?

Gifts are exchanged. Again, each to his own means: The glitzy types swap Bulgari’s, the modest folk go for  – well, modest stuff…

One thing about Turkish Syncretismas is that once the grub has been demolished at home or at the restaurant it is also big time party time! Istanbul has literally thousands of night time entertainment venues and they all dish out the goods for the disco crowds. However, what almost everyone, young and old and rich and poor alike, does is go out to a street party at least for some part of the long night. The major ones are organized by our (avowedly Muslim!) city administrators. The biggest one is at Taksim Square and I believe well over a million people attend it every year. There are live bands who perform until nearly daybreak on multiple stages, Efes gives away free beer and at midnight there is a huge fireworks display over the harbor. And then there are scores of street parties on all the smaller squares as well. Some organized by the municipalities and some by neighborhoods. Although the amount of drinking is phenomenal there are hardly ever any incidents. This is one night when people want to celebrate together in joy.

Haci Bekir is the place for traditional Turkish sweets, specifically the lokum i.e., Turkish Delight (which in no way resembles its British namesake by the way). Please click on the image to get a closer look at the “Turkish” parachute of  Santa, decorated with sickle moon and stars. Very nice samovar too, on the left…

And finally: The red knickers! I am not sure if other cultures have this as well, however here it is a long held belief that if you are wearing red knickers at the chime of midnight, you will have lots of money in the new year. Never tried it, so I cannot vouch for it’s working or not. What I do know is that shops and markets fill to over-spilling with red underwear at this time of year…

?

Don’t ask. I live here. I am from here. And I love it here. Do I understand this totally bizarre culture which seems to be achieving such an unexpected synthesis between religions and cultures? How could I possibly? One thing though: Apparently, historically Turks celebrated the winter solstice during the long millenia of their nomadic/shamanic sojourn, only to be interrupted briefly during the past few centuries of Islam. Today Turks are Muslims, but mostly, if not indeed invariably, Muslims of a very strange melange. The shamanic thing survives somewhere deep inside, I think. And “Syncretismas” may well be yet another manifestation thereof.

…

This year I will be spending Syncretismas, aka. the Turkish New Year’s Eve (Yilbashi as we call it), with my aunt who recently lost her husband, with whom she has spent the last 50 “Yilbashi”s. She also has an orthopedic problem for which she will have surgery early in the year. So, we will not be hitting the streets, but spend a quiet evening together at her home. Which I am really looking forward to given the funny, charming, intelligent companion that she is.

…

Let your heart be light
From now on,
your troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yule-tide gay,
From now on,
your troubles will be miles away.

Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.

Through the years
We will be together,
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself A merry little Christmas now.

…

I do not know how many people read this blog. To judge by what the wordpress stats give me, not too many at all. 12 today. 5 yesterday, none the few days before that, then 4 and so on. But recently I found out that I do not see all the viewings. And not only the ones via RSS but even regular page viewings. Some of those seem to slip the radar as well. So, really I have no idea.

I also do not know why I keep this blog. It is not really a diary. I have a separate one for that and that is private. And when I look at what I write here – quite frankly I am appalled: It is “me me me” straight through all the way. I cannot write about what I really want to write about. That is forbidden to me. So, I have nothing but my boring self. My alts. My this. My that. My opinions. Me me me. I am very tired of “me”.

I travel a lot. Many airports. I board the plane from one which looks almost exactly like the one where I finally leave it. Traveling minstrels we are these days – academics. I walk a lot of streets in the cities that I end up in. Sometimes there is an invisible someone with me. We sit in cafes. We smoke our cigarettes standing on sidewalks. We do not talk very much, we do not need to. It is understood. I miss that companion who has been walking by my side for a quite a while now. Who gets impatient as I insist on buying more shower gels and soaps and curly hair shampoos wherever I go. Who leaves me in front of all the colored flasks and tubes and wanders off in pursuit of other interests. Which is quite perfect. I will delight in all the great new toys when we meet again at the exit.

I no longer wish to talk about things that are stopgaps. Like “me”. So, I think I will shut up for a bit. Until I find something to say that isn’t altogether about “me”. Could be quite some time, that…

…

I am in Milano right now, at NABA, teaching a workshop in SL fashion. My charge: a group of enthusiastic fashion design students with the odd industrial designer mixed in for good measure. I was quite panic stricken all last week as I was preparing for this event, given that I am not really a fashion designer, wouldn’t know how to cut a piece of cloth so that it hangs right, even if my life depended on it. Whatever I lack in know-how however, the attendants more than make up for in enthusiasm and today on the second day, some rather remarkable output has already begun to manifest. Like the one who is making a garment out of an armadillo for instance. Or the one who is putting together a truly wonderful thing made entirely out of stripes. Not to mention the Marie Antoinette outfit that is slowly beginning to materialize or the one with the weird tribal markings.

There have been a lot of IT problems since yesterday and one of them has been that for some unknown reason SL has not allowed the students to create accounts. Possibly because they were all trying to do it at once from the same IP address. There were some that had taken care of this beforehand so they were good to go and the rest could of course have gone home to take care of it but time is precious and so I had this idea that they should use my avatars!

Now, I have more than the 5 that are involved with alpha.tribe. There are the tour guides of Syncretia, that basically sleep until there is some RL exhibition of the place when they wake up and assume their duties. Then there are a few more that no one knows about and that I use on particularly misanthropic days when they wander off to a really deserted sandbox that I have discovered recently (and no, I am certainly not giving out the slurl!) and rezz stuff for the 5 tribe avatars. They are drones really. And then there are some others too. Anyway…

So, today for the very first time, there they were in a classroom in Milano: Alpha, Alpho, Grapho, Amina and Xia… Together with the other ones, but the ones that matter are the 5 of them of course. I felt a lot of things as I ran back and forth between computers trying to help the workshop participants. Saw them side by side. Talking to one another. The students, who were actually using them to chat when they were in the same physical space, would have had no idea what it made me feel to see these 5 tiny creatures in whose company I seem to have spent such huge portions of all last year, together for the very first time. Yes, I have logged in two at one time to take photos or whatever, but here, today were all five of them and they were carrying on autonomous existences at that. They do not need me. I need them.

Tomorrow I will take a photo. In fact, I will take many photos. I realized how much I loved them. My brave little troopers. My little companions.

And no. They are not me. None of them are. And yes, not even Alpha.

…

to be continued…

“Let me conquer
My own jealousy that prevent me from seeing others talent and partake in their joy.

My own greediness that always turns me into the false protagonist of the day’s epic.

My own bourgeois moralistic mind that wants to shoot lines towards other opinions

And let me not put me or my as the first word in a sentence

And if you should see me loose this battle today, do not feed the enemy Myself.”

…

This is from Frigg Ragu’s Flickr. She wrote it today. And reading it has compelled me to write this post. I was going to write her a Flickr testimonial, but what I will do instead is link this post to there.

Anyone less in need of this prayer than Frigg I cannot imagine. And how do I know this? I recently told Frigg something that had to do with me. Not SL stuff, a personal matter in RL. Now, women (and forgive me for being sexist here, I am one myself after all) at least in my limited experience, can be master underminers. And it has nothing to do with how much they like or dislike you, whether they are your friend or not. Usually it is very subtle, hardly noticable. But more often than not, I tend to end up feeling shortchanged whenever I tell a woman of something that shows a certain strength that I might have. I leave with an uncertainty. No affirmation anyway. Not that what I told Frigg is really a strength as such. It involves a long and quite difficult to understand set of interrelated occurrences with a lot of sub-text which seems to somehow revolve around me. It would take a very subtle mind to “get” the thing even. Frigg has it. She has a subtle mind. And, more importantly, she is also generous. So, not only did she “get” what I was trying to tell her, but she also did not do the usual thing which I have encountered all too often in similar exchanges: The “oh, you are probably imagining it all…”, “it is all in your head…”, “you know, that happens to everyone…”,  “oh, that is just a coincidence…” … The subtext there being: “You are just an overly imaginative old cow, who is trying to make herself interesting by telling me a loonytoones story and then I am supposed to believe that?”. *(very subtle) snort?*…

I have yet to see Frigg turn herself into the protagonist of the day’s epic. In fact, if anything, she is a master listener. I have yet to hear her voice even one single bourgeois (or otherwise) pontification. And I have never ever seen her manifest jealousy and much less greed. She is a storyteller, someone of a depth of perception and an understanding of narrative sufficient to turn SL avatar poses into “expressive artifacts”.

How well do I know her? I first started noticing her on Flickr, through her comments and then became friends with her in-world late last summer. In SL, Frigg is the only person that I talk to everyday. We correspond via email also. I have collaborated with her on an intricate project over several weeks, with not even a single awkward moment anywhere along the way. No, I do not know her in RL and I am really hoping that I will some day. I do know that there she is very beautiful – which may account for the self-assurance which, as far as I can make out, seems to me the sine-qua-non of generosity. Not that all good looking women are self-assured to the point where they can also be generous but somehow in Frigg’s RL face there seems to be a strength and a clarity (which actually account for her looks) that I feel is important.

I am very very very glad that she is around…

…

Addendum: Of course what I said about women is a generalization and there are plenty around like Frigg herself who are nowhere near being emotional scrooges. My lovely friend Dina (who occasionally comments here as Ephemeral Emerald) is one such, for sure. And I know of others as well. Obviously. But, without generalizations there would be no statistical data, without which we would have no science – so, by and and large and exceptions notwithstanding, I am sticking to my guns, I’m afraid…
;-)