Tweets on Situation in Turkey, 3rd Entry

Since those of who have opposed Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have referred to him as 'The Turkish Bush' for years. Here is a look at the civic unrest in Turkey which going on into its fourth day:


1. Kaan Besinci: Oh my god! Erdogan was right! Terrorists! Hooligans! (we suspect this is a tweet in jest)

2. Emre Peker: "Some #occupygezi protestors clearing debris off the street of Dolmabahce by Inonu Stadium to clear road for cars."

3. Emre Saglam: "Sleep well dear Turkish media! You will be remembered as traitors. Enjoy your place in the hisotry.......#occupygezi"

4. Tayfun Eker: "The Turkish Government is killing the Turkish citizens. Police violence turned into hateful police authority."

5. Aysun Yurel: "Can't sleep and fearing for the safety of my friends' lives for the last two days.......Stop the violence! Just stop it! #occupygezi"

6. Elif Batuman: "I wrote about #occupygezi for @tnynewsdesk and it almost killed me. Respect to all the reporters out there!"

7. Witchy: "What's happening in #Turkey is a very good example of how quickly things can change when change seems almost impossible."

PS: We are listening to an excellent radio piece on the BBC about Azerbaijan and the country's territorial struggles with Armenia and domestic problems with the dictatorial government in Baku.

Quote of the Week- Leo Tolstoy

Today, we quote the vintage Russian writer Leo Tolstoy who wrote both "War and Peace" (1869) and "Anna Karenina" (1877). The Turkish-American writer Elif Batuman wrote a wonderful, fairly-recent memoir about her interest in Russian novels, which we highly recommend.

Here is a quote from Tolstoy:

"The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people."

http://www.elifbatuman.com

We Are Postponing the Top 10 Entry (for the moment)

We are going to post our Top Ten list of very long names, but we think Mon., April 25 will be the better time for that as opposed to today since our last entry took as long as reading "War and Peace" would.

Since we knew we would mention Leo Tolstoy's epic 1,225 page novel which perhaps an inmate at the Birmingham, Alabama, city jail on 425 6th Avenue, South, is reading to pass the time, we will point out a few things we learned about the work here.

__ It was originally published in 1869

___Novel begins in 1805 during the reign of Tsar Alexander I and it details the years in which Russia was invaded by Napoleon starting in 1812.

___Made into 1956 Hollywood film with Henry Fonda and Audrey Fonda, as well as the more critically-acclaimed very long (we think it lasts like ten hours) version made in Russia in 1968.

_ "War and Peace" has also been adopted into an opera and stage play.

Elif Batuman, a fellow Turkish-American (I don't know her personally) wrote about her love for Tolstoy and other Russian authors in her recent memoir "The Possessed."

And, in all likelihood University of Virginia professor and author Sina Vaidhyanathan will make our hardest names in the world list. In his latest book "The Googlization of Everything," he states that the small town of Eu, France, actually considered changing its name so that it would not be confused with the EU (European Union) on Google search engines.

As for "War and Peace," one can probably find it at PackBackers (a student bookstore at North Carolina State) and the Boulder Bookstore in Boulder, Colo.

This weekend is also Independent Record Store Weekend, and if one is in Athens, Georgia, they may want to visit Wuxtry Records where I found a rare cd from the late German New Wave pop artist Klaus Nomi when I was visited the town two weeks ago.

Special Quote of the Week- Bono

We continue our series of quips from famous people from Ireland, in honor of Saint Patrick's Day on Thursday, with a quote from Bono who everyone knows as the lead singer of U2. Bono is also known for his civic activities, including helping third world countries like Ethiopia with their debt crisis problems.

My favorite U2 song is "A Sort of Homecoming" from the 1984 album "An Unforgettable Fire," which followed their classic album "War" (1983, pictured here). I did not know until researching this piece that another one of the songs on 'Fire' which is titled "Bad" (has the memorable lyrics: I'm wiiiiiiiddde awake") is about heroin addiction.

Apparently, Bono is also into reading as we gather from this quote:

"Books! I dunno if I ever told you this, but books are the greatest gifts one person can give another."

Speaking of books, I just finished Elif Batuman's excellent memoir "The Possessed" about her love of Russian literature (assuredly, she loves Leo Tolstoy) and the summer she spent in Uzbekistan as a Stanford student in 2002(she was either getting her graduate or doctoral degree at the time; Batuman was born in 1977)

Batuman, a fellow Turkish-American whom I've never met, also has a story in the March 7 issue of "New Yorker" about young fans for the Istanbul soccer power Besiktash. She will be in Ireland for an international book festival on April 14.

Quotes from The Composers- Sergei Prokofiev

Today, as promised, we are quoting two Russian composers on our two blogs. We start Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1936), the modern composer we've quipped so far. He is perhaps best known for his symphonic children's story "Peter and the Wolf," which was written in 1936. It was ironically made into a Disney short film just ten years later.

The Soviet-era composer died on the same day when dictator Joseph Stalin's death was announced.

Prokofiev is buried at the famed Novodevichy Cemetary in Moscow where one can also find the graves of Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet (1901-963) who left Turkey because of his communist views (today, he is ironically Turkey's national poet) and famed Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) who directed "Battleship Potemkin."

Here is his quote:

"I play rather well- in any case, jauntily. My success was rather great and I should say no doubt unexpected."

SIDEBAR: For those who love all things Russian, Turkish-American writer and scholar Elif Batuman has a relatively new book (released in early 2010) entitled: "The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them." The book, as one would expect, discusses the likes of Anton Chekov and Leo Tolstoy. I will probably never read the rather lenghty "War and Peace" by Tolstoy myself, but Batuman's book is only (compared to Russian novels) 296 pages.

Even though I am also a Turkish-American, I have never met Batuman, though I've been told that her book, which was reviewed in "The New York Times" last year, is really good.

We learned through Wikipedia that Batuman also studied the Uzbek language as a grad student while studying in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.