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July 21, 2006
Reception
I approached a couple of likely young men. Likely for what? Who knew?!!! “Are you friendly?” I inquired, wondering if they would bite. Burak replied that he was exhausted. “I can’t speak in English or Turkish.”
It’s a good thing I wrote my reflections of Day 1 during the last panel, before the conference “get together.” Veysel (of the gin and tonics) told me about Foucault and disciplinary discourses: “Discipline starts in deficits not real imitation.” (We were speaking about the debate initiated by Göle with Chatterjee.) Kutlughan (the mainstream guy) condemned postmodernists in general. Altug told us of eating Turkish crayfish in Sweden (they’re not eaten in Turkey, only caught here and shipped there as a "delicacy" ~ talk about "postmodern!") Yonca promised to email. Yasemin identified tursu as pickled plum. That was a treat, although not as delicious as the deniz berulcesi devoured at the after-party. (As well as for breakfast this morning!)
Serkan didn’t stick around but I did get the briefest synopsis of his presentation (1.43) which sounded awesome. Baris (“peace”) also vanished even though he had complained of being left out when it took a moment for introductions to be made. I’m not sure where Veysal ended up. He’d had his eye on someone and was in hot pursuit when we left. He gave me one of the best compliments on my hair that I’ve ever received: “It’s just noise!” :-)
The reception ended: “Tomorrow this will be a school,” the security guard informed us as he chased us away. But we weren’t done. Camiye me geldik! We ended up somewhere deep in the Nevizade.
Burak dubbed me “mommy” – which turned out not to be so special as he had at least two others of various genders and a “father” as well. Who are the rest of these people? Dilek, Kaan, Mark, Omer, and Ayse, among unnamed others. :-) There was even a Koray lookalike - giving a hint of things to come. Turns out I like the lion’s milk, and all the spreads that came with it (eggplant, yogurt, a bean paste, olives). I want to know what fish arrived later? It was fantastic.
The question that lingers is, did any of us become prettier? Igelim guzelleselim!
Posted by Steph at July 21, 2006 5:40 AM