Where There is Smoke..There is Tintin?

Almost half of Turks aged 15 to 49 smoke, according to a 2007 Gallup survey and the government last year extended the ban to smoking in all public buildings, including restaurants and bars. But fining a TV station for the smoking habits of Chicago mafia bosses portrayed in a Tintin animation is idiotic, stupid and shames the common sense of Turks. Tintin? Be real and stop this mockery. The whole world is laughing.

Mavi Boncuk |

A classic Tintin cartoon in which characters smoked pipes and cigars cost a television station $33,000, after Turkey's state media regulator The Higher Board of Radio and Television (RTUK) fined it for violating an anti-tobacco law that bans smoking. Nurullah Ozturk, a RTUK official, confirmed the fine when reached by telephone.

Turkish television stations usually pixelate images of cigarettes and other forms of smoking in films and series to abide by a 2008 law that makes it illegal to broadcast such scenes.

Bal by Semih Kaplanoglu

Mavi Boncuk |
Synopsis
Yusuf is an only child who lives with his parents in an isolated mountain area. For the young boy, the surrounding forest becomes a place of mystery and adventure when accompanying his father on the job. Yusuf watches in admiration as his beekeeper father Yakup hangs specially-made hives at the top of the tallest trees. With the skill of a tightrope acrobat, he must often suspend dangerously from the uppermost branches to gather honey. The strong bond that he has with his father cannot protect Yusuf from becoming an outsider during his first year of school. Yusuf's stutter shames him in front of his classmates during oral reading assignments. Yusuf's anxieties escalate when his father must travel to a faraway forest on a risky mission. His father gone, Yusuf slips into silence to the distress of his pretty young mother Zehra. Days pass and Yakup still does not return. Yusuf sees his mother becoming sadder everyday. Yusuf summons all of his courage and goes deep into the forest to search for his father. A journey into the unknown...

Director Semih Kaplanoglu is one of the most profiled writers/ directors/producers of present-day filmmaking in Turkey, having received important national awards such as the Golden Orange (Antalya IFF) and the Golden Tulip award (Istanbul IFF) for his third feature »Yumurta« (Egg). His feature films have also screened at festivals around the world, earning him international awards, such as FIPRESCI prize for »Süt« (Milk) at the Istanbul International Film Festival and the Best Film Alternativa award for »Melegin Düsüsü« (Angel's fall) at the Barcelona Independent Film Festival.

»Bal« (Honey) is the third part of the Yusuf Trilogy, which traces the origins of a soul. Like in his previous films, Semih Kaplanoglu decides to work without music to create the emotional world of the film.

Filmography as writer, director, producer:
2010 »Bal« (Honey, feature film) World premiere in Berlin 2010
2008 »Süt« (Milk, feature film) World premiere in Venice 2009
2007 »Yumurta« (Egg, feature film) World premiere in Cannes 2008
2004 »Melegin Düsüsü« (Angel’s fall, feature film) World premiere in Berlin 2005 2000 »Herkes kendi evinde« (Away from home, feature film)

Cast: Bora Altaş Erdal Beşikçioğlu Tülin Özen
Crew Production Manager: Aksel Kamber
Sound: Matthias Haeb
Art Director: Naz Erayda
Editor: Ayhan Ergürsel, Semih Kaplanoğlu, S. Hande Güneri
Screenplay: Semih Kaplanoğlu, Orçun Köksal
Associate Producer: Alexander Bohr
Co-Producers: Johannes Rexin, Bettina Brokemper
Producer: Semih Kaplanoğlu Production
Company: Kaplan Film Production

Co-Production Company: Heimatfilm
Technical Data Format: 35mm / 1:1,85 / Colour / Dolby Digital Length: 103 min. Original language: Turkish Original title:Bal
World Sales: Match Factory
The Match Factory GmbH | Cologne/Germany

bal-pressbook.pdf (3,876.8 kB)

'Bal' wins top honors at Berlinale

Press Book in PDF
Mavi Boncuk|
Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu's film 'Bal' (Honey) won the Berlin Film Festival's prestigious Golden Bear prize for 2010. "Honey," The heart-warming drama from Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu, "Honey," is the final film in Kaplanoglu's autobiographical trilogy - the others are "Egg" (2007) and "Milk" (2008) - follows a young boy in rural Turkey whose father collects wild honey. It was one of the few life-affirming films in this year's Berlinale line-up and was an underdog favorite for the top prize. The film tells the story of a young boy in an isolated mountain area who ventures into the forest in search of his father.

The Berlinale Jury, headed by director Werner Herzog, gave its Silver Bear Jury Prize to a very different film: Florin Serban's pull-no-punches look at juvenile delinquents in Romania, "If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle." "Whistle" also nabbed the Alfred Bauer award, named after the Berlinale's founder.

Japanese actress Shinobu Terajima won best actress for her role in 'Caterpillar,' while Grigori Dobrygin and Sergei Puskepalis won best actor for Russian film 'How I Ended This Summer,' which also received the award for outstanding artistic contribution.

Bal/Honey also won the Ecumenical Jury Prize:
Competition: “Bal” (Honey) directed by Semih Kaplanoglu
Panorama: “Kawasakiho ruze” (Kawasaki’s Rose) directed by Jan Hrebejk
Forum: “Aisheen [Still Alive in Gaza]” directed by Nicolas Wadimoff

Honey/Bal Review

1919 | Emir Faisal's party at Versailles

Let's briefly point to some connections. The French help during the Arab Revolt (using Algerian Arabs) and the occupation of Clicia (Adana and its environs) as a follow thru on the plans of no other than Georges Picot, the French High Commissioner in Syria and Armenia. Mavi Boncuk

Emir Faisal's party at Versailles, during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. At the center, from left to right: Rustum Haidar, Nuri as-Said, Prince Feisal, Captain Rosario Pisani[1] (behind Feisal), T. E. Lawrence, Feisal's servant (name unknown), Captain Tahsin Qadri.

The Faisal-Weizmann Agreement was signed on January 3, 1919, by Emir Faisal (son of the King of Hejaz) and Chaim Weizmann (later President of the World Zionist Organization) as part of the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 settling disputes stemming from World War I. It was a short-lived agreement for Arab-Jewish cooperation on the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and an Arab nation in a large part of the Middle East. The parties committed to carrying into effect the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in exchange for The Zionist movement assistance of the Arab residents of Palestine and the future Arab state to develop their natural resources and establish a growing economy.

The peace conference results did not provide the vast Arab state that Faisal desired mainly because the British and French had struck their own secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 dividing the Middle East between their own spheres of influence after the expected downfall of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The agreement was concluded on 16 May 1916 by the French diplomat François Georges-Picot and Briton Mark Sykes.

[1]"... Days passed, talking politics, organization and strategy with Feisal, while preparations for a new operation went forward. Our luck had quickened the camp; and the mining of trains promised to become popular, if we were able to train in the technique of the work enough men for several parties. Captain Pisani was first volunteer. He was the experienced commander of the French at Akaba, an active soldier who burned for distinction - and distinctions. Feisal found me three young Damascenes of family, who were ambitious to lead tribal raids...The Lewis guns rattled out suddenly, three or four short bursts: there was a yell from the Arabs, and, headed by Pisani sounding the women's vibrant battle-cry, they rushed in a wild torrent for the train...Pisani superintended the carrying off or destruction of the booty. As before, the Arabs were now merely camel-drivers, walking behind laden pack-animals..." (T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom BOOK FIVE CHAPTER 68)

"In order to succeed in this new undertaking, he decided to join forces with the French Captain Rosario Pisani, a peerless fighter whose career was closely allied to that of Colonel Brémond [*]. Lawrence and Pisani left Akaba on 26 September. They were accompanied by nine men, two of whom were gunners of the French detachment. On the way, Lawrence recruited 80 Bedouin and instructed Pisani in the handling of explosives. By 3 October, the raiders had reached the railway. Lawrence and Pisani laid a mine at kilometre 500, near Akabat el Hejazia, but they had to wait until 5 October for a train to cross the bridge where the charge had been laid. The mine did not explode. Lawrence and Pisani then decided to 'lay an electric mine made of 25 kilos of gelignite and to torpedo the train which [was to] arrive from the south.' Pisani continued in his report: 'I asked Major Lawrence for the honour of positioning myself beneath the bridge so that I could blow up the train and take my revenge for the torpedoing of the Caledonian." (Pisani, report no.204, 21 October 1917, SHAT, box 7 N 2138.) Source

[*] The Allied headquarters divided the Levant into four occupational territories. Cilicia comprised the Northern Occupation Territory with the city of Adana as its administrative center. Colonel Edouard Bremond, whom the French government named administrator-in-chief of Cilicia, arrived in Adana on February 1, 1919, and assumed his duties as the head of the civil administration of the province. The cities of Marash, Aintab, Urfa, and Kilis were not incorporated within the jurisdiction of the French administration. Instead, they were assigned to a newly established fifth occupational zone and put under the command of the British Desert Mounted Corps whose administrative center was in Aleppo.
At the time when the French civil and military administrations had started to organize and regulate living conditions in Cilicia, Georges Picot, the French High Commissioner in Syria and Armenia and one of the signatories of the Sykes-Picot agreement. Source

"The head of the French Military Mission at Jidda, Colonel Bremond (Wilson's counterpart, but with more authority; for he was a practising light in native warfare, a success in French Africa, and an ex-chief of staff of a Corps on the Somme) strongly urged the landing of Allied forces in Hejaz. To tempt us he had brought to Suez some artillery, some machine-guns, and some cavalry and infantry, all Algerian Moslem rank and file, with French officers. These added to the British troops would give the force an international flavour. " (T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom BOOK ONE CHAPTER 16)

Taşdelen Memba Suyu | Third Story

Daily diaries kept during M.K. Ataturk’s last days (01.10.1938-10.11.1938) at Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul was published under the title "Son Nöbet Defteri" on the 17th anniversary of his death by Türkiye Is Bankasi A.S. and mentions Tasdelen source water with name.
Mavi Boncuk

10.Oct.1938 Monday

00.20 Lokum/Turkish Delight 4 (small)
00.30 Water
00.40 Grape juice
05.10 Water
06.50 Temperature 36,8 Pulse 94
07.30 Salep with milk (dried and ground orchid tubers)
10.05 Apple juice
11.00 Temperature 37,0 Pulse 92 Blood pressure 12,5 - 7
14.30 Yogurt soup
14.50 Grape juice
18.20 Temperature 37,2 Pulse 94
18.30 Grape juice
20.05 Potatoe Porridge
20.15 Tasdelen source water

02.11.1938 Wednesday

00.55 Orange juice
03.50 Milk
07.45 Whole wheat milk porridge
08.40 Ates 36,6 Nabiz 80
10.00 Sütlü salep
12.10 Whole wheat milk porridge
14.00 Artichoke, buttered bread
16.50 Temperature 36,7 Pulse 80
18.00 Milk
20.00 Pea puree, bread, Tasdelen source water
20.30 Temperature 37,1 Pulse 98
22.00 Porridge
23.15 Fruit juice with 6 spoonfuls of sugar
23.20 Water

Taşdelen Memba Suyu | Second Story

An exile's last wish. A sultan enjoys Taşdelen water one more time. As for confessions I must admit that while I type this posting tears trickle down my cheeks and my longing for Istanbul grows day by day. Naturally this must be a Balkan boy's eternal dream and an eternal heart ache. My Norh American exile continues.

Post-card by Matarasso, Saragoussi & Rousso, Salonique (Salonika, Thessaloniki) mailed on June 22nd. 1912, from Salonika, to New-York City. "It is now 8 P.M. and I am pretty well toasted. If the Sun had been visible an hour longer, I should have been done to a turn. The ex-Sultan is closely guarded here and no one is allowed near the house.The guard is changed every month to avoid bribery. Monte."

Mavi Boncuk |

Notes from the Fezleke [1] of Ali Cevat Bey, Baskatib/head scribe [2] to Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamîd [3] on the day of his exile to Selânik:

" Abdülhamîd had three medium luggages with him. At the Sirkeci train station he asked for Taşdelen water and tipped the bearer for 30 kurus. The train left an hour and fifty minutes late and arrived to Selânik[4] last night"

NOTES
[1] Fezleke: summary, summary report
[2] Baskatib/First Secretary. A ministerial post at the place.
[3] His Imperial Majesty, The Sultan Abdülhamid II, Emperor of the Ottomans, Caliph of the Faithful, (Ottoman Turkish: عبد الحميد الثانی `Abdü’l-Ḥamīd-i sânî, Turkish: İkinci Abdülhamit) (21/22 September 1842 – 10 February 1918) was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He oversaw a period of decline in the power and extent of the Empire, ruling from 31 August 1876 until he was deposed on 27 April 1909. Abdülhamid II was the last Ottoman Sultan to rule with absolute power, and was succeeded by Mehmed V.
[4] In 1912, when Salonica fell to Greece, he was returned to captivity in Constantinople. He spent his last days studying, carpentering and writing his memoirs in custody at Beylerbeyi Palace in the Bosphorus, where he died on 10 February 1918

Taşdelen Memba Suyu | First Story

Water, Empire, Gold, Primitive Stage by Jean Baudrillard[1]

It is always difficult to talk about a city. If you were born there, it is very close to you. You share its vice, commonplaces, stupidity and language. If you came from somewhere else, it always preserves its character of an object not completely understood in your eyes. Especially if it emerges from the depths of time like İstanbul... Read full text

Baudrillard article does not touch on the subject of source waters.This is where I want to continue with some stories about one of them. The beloved Taşdelen Memba Suyu. "Burrowing stone source water" that points to its remedial quality and cure for kidney stones.

Mavi Boncuk |
First Taşdelen Story
An Ottoman Pasha exiled to Eastern parts of Turkey mentioned in longing the irreplacable quality of Taşdelen. The locals offered a variety of source waters of the region and he found all to be inferior. Assuming that this was some kind of snobbery on his part they manage to get some Taşdelen from Istanbul and offered it as Kackar water to test him.
He enjoys it and says: "Wonderful source water. I was not aware that an arm of the Taşdelen source reached all the way to the Kackar mountains."

[1] Jean Baudrillard (27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and post-structuralism. "Water, Empire, Gold, Primitive Stage" was published by Atlas, a Turkish magazine(looks like National Geographic), in 1999. Baudrillard was in Istanbul then by the invitation of the magazine and he wrote the article.

5 More days to 666 for YouTube in Turkey

It has been 660 days. Turkish block of YouTube, which was instituted at the direction of a court after it found that a Greek video hosted on the site violated a law against ridiculing the country and its leaders. It is illegal to criticise either Ataturk or Turkishness in Turkey and the prosecutor’s office in Istanbul acted despite YouTube’s agreement to take down the offending videos.

A growing number of software companies are capitalizing on an unexpected business opportunity: Internet censorship.

In countries where governments continue to ramp up Web filtering systems, more people are searching for tools that will allow them to access inaccessible information -- and they are willing to pay for them.

Such tools include virtual private networks (VPN), proxy servers and other workarounds that enable users to breach barriers to blocked information online.

Mavi Boncuk |

Things that seem to work now:

- YouTube videos embedded in a web page or blog work fine

- A proxy, specifically http://youtubeproxy.org/ works well. Just visit that page and then find the video you want to watch.

- TOR - The Onion Router — Commenter says it works, but is slow.

- The TORPARK browser

- OperaTor (after setting it to allow Javascript and plug-ins). It works, but it is slow.

- OpenDNS in combination with OperaTor. OperaTor with OpenDNS seemed to be more responsive than using TT’s DNS. I did not try OpenDNS with Torpark.

Others proxies to try include:

http://www.proxymy.com
http://www.proxysmurf.com/
http://www.worksurfing.com/
http://unblockfacebook.com/
http://www.bypassfilter.net/
http://www.ibypass.org/
http://www.ipzap.com/
https://proxify.com/ https://proxify.us/ https://proxify.biz/
http://kproxy.com/index.jsp
http://www.attackcensorship.com/attack-censorship.html
http://mrnewguy.com/
http://www.unblockwebsites.com/
http://spysurfing.com/
https://www.the-cloak.com/anonymous-surfing-home.html
http://www.stupidcensorship.com/
http://www.evilsprouts.co.uk/defilter/
http://www.bypassbrowser.com/
http://www.proxymouse.com/
http://www.fsurf.com/
http://www.browseatwork.com/
http://www.surfonym.com/
http://www.iamnewguy.com/
http://www.ninjaproxy.com/

Find updated proxies here: http://myspaceblockedproxies.com/

Untested possibilities:

- Evade DNS lookups for YouTube by installing the lookup on your local machine. Instructions from Slashdot reader AKAlmBatman are here.

- BoingBoing’s longstanding guide to evading censorware

Fit for a Sultan | Karakulak Fountain 1836

Mavi Boncuk |Selim Ileri mentions Ahmet hamdiTanpınar's Beş Şehir/Five Cities "Istanbul begins with the discussion to an old woman a family friend hallucinatingly mumuring and naming source waters of Istanbul: "Çırçır, Karakulak, Şifa Hünkâr, Taşdelen, Sırmakeş..." [1]

Karakulak Fountain 1836 near Beykoz[2].

Evliya Çelebi praises Dereseki in Beykoz, pointing out the fine quality of its air and water. The researcher Ibrahim Hakki Konyali states that the Dereseki region, which is listed under villages in the Yoros area in old land registers, has ten distinct springs. These are Karakulak, Deli Osman, Sirmakes, Sifa, Derman, Kirklar, Hamam Deresi, Sogucak, Müezzinoglu and Beypinari.

Haluk Sehsuvaroglu also mentions this source and gives us it's story:: “The source of Karakulak, the most delicious water in the world, is near the village of Akbaba. The water was discovered by someone called Karakulak Ahmet Aga, whom it helped to recover from a disease. Later the spring was bought by a woman called Cennet Hatun who had the necessary building work carried out. Bezmialem Valide Sultan donated a market boat for transporting water to the city. The village had another market boat which had been donated by Ahmet Pasha, the governor of Hanije, for the purpose of carrying passengers and goods. Konyali, meanwhile, tells us that the dependants of Tokat manor took water to the Palace every week in silver urns. Until the last Ottoman Caliph left Istanbul, all the Sultans drank of this water in the Palace.

Osman Celal Kaygili says, “Of the water of Bosphorus I love Karakulak the best” and adds: “The location itself may appear a little oppressive, but the water has a taste not to be found in the “bird’s milk” of fairy tales, or even at a mother breast. Especially last year I drank some and liked it very much. And the nearby village of Akbaba, which is famous for its walnuts, has such delicious meat that when a kebab is being cooked on an open fire the smell reaches Dereseki.”

Source (no pun intended)
[1] Çocukluğumda, bir Arabistan şehrinde ihtiyar bir kadın tanımıştık. Sık sık hastalanır, humma başlar başlamaz İstanbul sularını sayıklardı:

-Çırçır, Karakulak, Şifa suyu, Hünkar suyu, Taşdelen, Sırmakeş...

Âdeta bir kurşun peltesi gibi ağırlaşan dilinin altında ve gergin, kuru dudaklarının arasında bu kelimeler ezildikçe fersiz gözleri canlanır, bütün yüzüne bizim duymadığımız bir şeyler dinliyormuş gibi bir dikkat gelir, yanaklarının çukuru sanki bu dikkatle dolardı.’

[2] Of the other famous waters of Beykoz. Sirmakes is a water Ahmet Mithat Efendi discovered in the wilderness and had pipes laid to convey to his seaside villa in Beykoz. Kaymakdonduran, which is at a popular spot for outings, on the other hand, springs out of the hill on the left of the fountain on the farm in the grounds of the foundation set up by Sarim Ibrahim Pasha in Hünkartepe. Another spot for an outing near Beykoz is Sultaniye. The spring water here is famous under the name Gümüssuyu. It was Mehmet Bey, the son of Pir Mustafa Pasha, who had the fountain here built in 1763.

Now You See Me.. Now You Don't

Mavi Boncuk | Aux Dardanelles, un Turc qui s'était transformé en buisson [entouré par deux soldats/ Gallipoli, a Turk camuflaged as a bush between his captors.

Paris | The Turkish Café

Louis Léopold Boilly (La Bassée 1761-1845 Paris)
The entrance to the Turkish Garden Café 1812 [1]

Mavi Boncuk |The Turkish Café ('Jardin Turc' or 'Café Turc'), which was located on the south side of the Boulevard du Temple (no. 29) [2] in the Marais district in the east of central Paris, opened in 1780 as an ice cream parlor. After its operations where taken over by Bonvalet in 1811, it evolved into a proper restaurant, known for its fine wine cellar and exceptional cuisine. The historian Victor Fournel, writing of 'vieux Paris' in 1887, recounted that the Café Turc 'was the largest and most beautiful on the boulevard, the one where one was the best served. It was renowned for its excellent ice creams. There one could take one's reveries out for an airing through two charming gardens, discuss politics or news of the day seated on a bench with some nice old rentier from the Marais, play chess, dominoes, draughts on a café table, or else spin tops, play toad in the hole, or swing under the cool shadows.' (Quoted in Siegfried, 1995, p. 137)

The café's most distinctive features were its decorations à la turque, and its spacious gardens with exotic, Turkish-styled pavillions. The café's easily recognized green-striped awnings, canopies, and tented kiosks surmounted with crescent finials. Fantasy architecture of this sort found its origins in aristocratic garden follies, and the Café Turc served in some ways as a more democratic and public 'surrogate villa'. It was the oldest commercial operation of its kind in Paris, though other cafés with exotic decor and pleasure gardens soon followed its success, such as the Chinese Café.

The proprietor of the Jardin Turc, Bonvallet, was among the Marais citizens who strenuously objected to Louis Napoleon's coup d'état of 2 December 1851. Bonvallet continued the café of the Jardin-Turc into the years before World War I.

Boulevard du Temple. Le Café Turc by Frederick Nash(1782-1856), British painter of architectural subjects.

[1] Christies sold it for a record-shattering $4,562,500 to Getty Museum / January 27, 2010.
[2] It runs from the Place de la République to the Place Pasdeloup, and its name refers to the nearby Knights Templars' Temple where they established their Paris priory.
Caffé Turc sur le boullevard [sic] [du Temple by Jean Baptiste Lallemand (1716, Dijon - 1803, Paris) French painter, mainly active in landscapes and genre art.

Death in Monastir

This is my fathers hometown Monastir [1](Manastir) TR/BitolaMavi Boncuk | Canons turcs pris à Monastir [soldats turcs tués à côté d'un canon sur le champ de bataille] /Turkish Canons in Monastir [Turkish soldiers killed next to a canon in the battle field.


From 1382 to 1912, Manastır (now Bitola) was part of the Ottoman Empire. For several centuries, Turks were a majority in this city, while the villages were populated mostly with Slavs. Evliya Çelebi says in his Book of Travels that the city had 70 mosques, several coffee-tea rooms, a bazaar (market) with iron gates and 900 shops. Manastır became a sanjak centre in the Rumeli eyalet (Ottoman province).
In late 19th century, it became the second-biggest city in the wider southern Balkan region after Salonica. The city is also known as "city of consuls", because 12 diplomatic consuls resided here during the period 1878–1913 [2].

In 1864, Manastır became the center of Monastir eyalet which included the sanjaks of Debre, Serfiçe, Elbasan, Manastır (Bitola), Görice and towns of Kırcaova, Pirlepe, Florina, Kesriye and Grevena.

[1]The name Bitola is derived from the old Slavic word Obitel (monastery or abode), since the city was formerly noted for its monastery. When the meaning of the name was no longer understood, it lost its prefix "o".For the Ottoman Turk it was always Manastir.

[2] Great Britain 1851 / Austro-Hungarian 1851/ French 1854 / Greece 1859/Russia 1860/Serbia 1888/Italy 1895/Romania 1895/Bulgaria 1897/ Source

Guarding the US Embassy

Mavi Boncuk |Constantinople, marins anglais gardant l'ambassade américaine / Constantinople, English sailors on guard duty at the American embassy On duty and On rest

Sur les quais de Constantinople

Mavi Boncuk |


La foule sur les quais de Constantinople | Crowd on the quays of Constantinople

Marins turques sur les quais de Constantinople /Turkish Sailors on the quays of Constantinople

1912 | funeral of the patriarch Joachim III

Istanbul, obsèques du patriarche Joachim III [convoi funèbre dans une rue] :
Funeral of the patriarch Joachim III [1] [funeral convoy in a street]
Mavi Boncuk |


[1] Joachim III the Magnificent (1834 – 1912) was Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 1878 to 1884 and from 1901 to 1912.

He was born in Constantinople in 1834, with origin from Kruševo. He was educated in Vienna. In 1858-1861 he was the deacon in the holy temple of St George. In 1864 he was elected bishop of Varna and in 1874 bishop of Thessalonica

Great War in Constantinople

Constantinople, photo prise au ministère de la guerre, le drapeau avec un lion est le drapeau persan [foule amassée dans une rue brandissant plusieurs drapeaux] Constantinople, photograph taken near the ministry for the war, the flag with a lion is the Persian flag [crowd piled up in a street holding up several flags

Mavi Boncuk | Artillerie turque quittant Constantinople [canons tirés par des chevaux | Turkish artillery leaving Constantinople [horse drawn cannons]


Constantinople, [soldat] convalescent turc au Museum [anglais] de Constantinople / Convalescing soldier at the Constantinople (English) Museum
Constantinople, on soigne un blessé turc / A Turkish casualty is looked after
Constantinople, museum anglais transformé en hôpital/ English Museum tranformed to a Hospital
Constantinople, infirmière de la Croix rouge et Soeurs de la charité au museum anglais transformé en hôpital/ Constantinople, nurses of the Red Cross and Sisters of charity at the English museum transformed into hospital 1912

Scala Nova 1905

Kus Adasi/Scala Nova, the Neapolis of the Milesians at the head of the gulf of Ephesus. An outpost of Ephesus in ancient Ionia known as Pygela (Πύγελα), the area between the Büyük Menderes and Gediz rivers, the original Neopolis is thought to have been founded on the nearby point of Yılancı Burnu. Later settlements were probably built on the hillside of Pilavtepe, in the district called Andızkulesi today. Kuşadası was a minor port frequented by vessels trading along the Aegean coast. In antiquity it was overshadowed by Ephesus until Ephesus' harbor silted up. From the 7th century BC onwards the coast was ruled by Lydians from their capital at Sardis, then from 546 BC the Persians, and from 334 BC along with all of Anatolia the coast was conquered by Alexander the Great.
Mavi Boncuk |

Important city of Anatolia opposite the island of Samos; seaport of Ephesus. The oldest epitaph in the Jewish cemetery is dated 1682; but the town evidently had Jewish inhabitants in the thirteenth century, for in 1307 a number of Jews removed from Scala Nova to Smyrna, a similar event occurring in 1500. At the time of the expulsion from Spain 250 Jewish families went to Scala Nova; and a number of the local family names are still Spanish. In 1720 the plague reduced the number of families to sixty ("Meserit," v., No. 39); and Tournefort, who visited the city in 1702, found there only ten families and a synagogue ("Voyage au Levant," ii. 525, Paris, 1717). In 1800, when an epidemic of cholera caused many Jews to emigrate, there were 200 families in Scala Nova, and in 1865, when a second epidemic visited the city, there were still sixty-five families there. In 1816 Moses Esforbes was the chief of customs for the town, while Isaac Abouaf was city physician for several years, and Moses Faraji and Moses Azoubel were municipal pharmacists.

At present (1905) the Jewish population consists of thirty-three families, some of them immigrants from the Morea after the Greek Revolution of 1821. The majority are real-estate owners and have some vines; but the only mechanics are tinsmiths.

The synagogue, erected by Isaac Cohen in 1772, was rebuilt by Joseph Levy in 1900. The community likewise possesses a Talmud Torah, directed by a rabbi who officiates also as shoḥeṭ and ḥazzan. The gabel is enforced. A false charge of ritual murder was brought against the Jews about the middle of the nineteenth century; and a certain amount of anti-Semitism is generally manifested at Easter.D.

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656–1708)

‘In [botany], it is absolutely necessary to combine into groups those plants which resemble one another, and to separate them from those which they do not resemble. This resemblance should be deduced solely from the closest sign of relationship, i.e., from the structure of one of the parts of the plant, and must pay no attention to more distant signs of relationship that can be found between certain plants, such as the possession of similar [medicinal] virtues, or the place in which they occur’

Quote from Tournefort’s Élémens de botanique (1694), in Sloan (1972, p.40).

Mavi Boncuk | 

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (5 June 1656 – 28 December 1708) was a French botanist, notable as the first to make a clear definition of the concept of genus for plants. He studied medicine at Montpellier, but was appointed professor of botany at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris in 1683. 

Tournefort was then sent by Louis XIV on a journey through what was then called the Levant with a wide scope not just confined to plants or natural history; he was to bring back information on the peoples and cities (including city plans) and their trade, manufactures and religions. He left Paris in 1700 visiting first Crete, then Greece, the Cyclades islands, Constantinople, Turkey and Georgia, returning in 1702. He was accompanied by the German botanist Andreas Gundesheimer (1668-1715) and the artist Claude Aubriet (1651-1743)[1]. 

Tournefort died in Paris in 1708 some months after a street accident eerily like the one suffered by Morison, but an account of the journey Relations d’un Voyage au Levant was published posthumously in 1717 and was rapidly translated into English and Dutch. Worth bought a 1718 Amsterdam edition of this work.

His description of this journey was published posthumously (Relation d'un voyage du Levant), he himself having been killed by a carriage in Paris; the road on which he died now bears his name (Rue de Tournefort in the 5ème arrondissement). 

 [1] Aubriet was a botanical artist who worked at the Jardin du Roi in Paris. His work attracted the attention of botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, who commissioned Aubriet as illustrator of Tournefort's 1694 Elemens de Botanique. From 1700 to 1702 he accompanied Tournefort on an expedition to the Middle East where he performed botanical drawings of the region's flora. Afterwards, Aubriet continued to work with other botanists at the Jardin du Roi. 

[Image Source Relation d'un voyage du Levant / Volume I.p.32 :] Grec. Turc. Candiotes Publisher : Aux dépens de la Compagnie (Amsterdam) 1718

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, (born June 5, 1656, Aix-en-Provence, Fr.—died Dec. 28, 1708, Paris), French botanist and physician, a pioneer in systematic botany, whose system of plant classification represented a major advance in his day and remains, in some respects, valid to the present time.

Tournefort’s interest in botany began early, but only after the death of his father, who was forcing him toward the priesthood, was he able to drop theology and study botany. He became a physician to support himself but continued his botanical studies. In 1688 he received an appointment as professor at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, a position he held until his death. He collected many plant species on scientific expeditions to the Pyrenees, Asia Minor, and Greece and acquired a wide reputation for his botanical works, particularly the beautifully illustrated Éléments de botanique (1694).

Tournefort placed primary emphasis on the classification of genera, basing his classification entirely upon the structure of the flower and fruit. He excelled in observation and description, and some of his generic descriptions are still acceptable. He was less innovative in theory, however, for he denied the sexuality of plants, and the classifications that he put forward above the level of the genus were often artificial. By his use of a single Latin name for the genus, followed by a few descriptive words for the species, he provided a major step in the development of the binomial nomenclature—that is, the use of a two-word Latin name to denote each species.

SOURCE

TOURNEFORT, Joseph Pitton (Claude AUBRIET, illustrator).

Elemens de botanique, ou methode pour connoître les plantes.
Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1694. 8vo. With 3 engraved title pages, engraved royal arms on the title page, 2 engraved headpieces, 2 engraved initials and 451 engraved botanical plates.Early 19th-century red morocco. [1], [1 blank], [18], 562, [20] pp.

A Turkish Van for Ashton Kutcher

Months ago this blog went gaga with a Turkish Van for US article. Now I am tickled pink with the careful product placement that took the van to Hollywood.

Mavi Boncuk |
Ford's Transit Connect, the car company's new compact minivan landed a major role in the feature film "Valentine's Day". The van is painted pink and serves as the delivery van for a flower company tying otherwise unrelated stories together as Ashton Kutcher plays the flower deliveryman and drives the van, with George Lopez as his coworker and copilot.

In May 2009, a Ford Transit Connect commercial van rolled off the line at the Ford Otosan factory in Kocaeli, Turkey, and up the gangplank of a ship bound for America as the first vehicle in the first shipment of automobiles from Turkey to the United States.

On this side of the Atlantic, there was no fanfare when that first van rolled off the Grand Benelux, the first Turkish-made Transit Connect slipped in largely unnoticed while the industry observers were watching and waiting for the first Chinese-made cars to arrive. But in the following months Transit Connect has exceeded Ford's expectations with brisk sales, with dealers hard-pressed to keep the compact van on their lots.