Reading, Consumption, Nutrition

I'm prefacing this post with a warning:
It's depressing when people you've known your entire life, who know you quite well, call you a snob to your face. I realize that a couple of you back home are going to think this word in your head at me at least once before the end of this post, and I don't know how to defend myself against it. Probably I haven't learned how to present a passionate plea for that which I love without sounding like a snob. The aim here isn't to be mean or to call people or industries stupid: it's to be discriminating, it's to separate nutrition and quality from the superficial and worthless.

I happen to find myself in a really captivating book right now; it's called Cassandra at the Wedding, and it's by Dorothy Baker, who wrote four novels and succumbed to cancer at the age of sixty-one. She writes: "She knew what she wanted, she said, at least she thought she did, and it wasn't anything very hard and specific like giving concerts and having people pay to hear her. It had more to do with belonging to a tradition in music and staying in it and working at it in any capacity you can fit into-- playing what's being written, and what's been written, composing too if you want to and can, but mostly trying to keep it alive and separate the chaff from the grain and keep them separate. Know which is which, and care, and that's a life work" (Baker 12).

Some people are involved in the tradition of writing, of keeping it alive. Some people are killing it.



I read two-in-one [sic?!] really bad books during the holidays with my family. Don't ask me why I did this: unless I've miscounted, I have here forty-three English language books (and one Kindle).

I've probably miscounted. But the point is that I forsook extra clothing in my luggage to avoid such a situation.

These books include my favorite theology books, my favorite philosophy book, several works of fiction I purchased in Antalya that I haven't read yet, and two presents from Andreas and Nina:

• J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy (Reviewed by NY Times's Michiko Kakutani, Rachel Wilson for policymic)
• Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version by Phillip Pullman (Reviewed by The Guardian's Sara Maitland, Maria Tatar for The New Yorker)

The new books are hardbound and thick, and I didn't have the foresight to plug in and charge my Kindle. This might be my greatest regret of the holiday.

So Mom and I tore this paperback (with a bonus book!) in half and swapped when she finished her section. I didn't have it in me to finish reading the one before swapping. I'll say this: I don't generally hate on genres, but I think that Christian Romance is actually too contradictory to work. Romance readers want to enjoy scenes of pre- or extra-marital sex, and Christian authors simply can't get away with writing those-- they can barely get away with intra-marital sex that's not about procreation. I can't name an exception to this rule, and if you'd like to get in a fight with me about this, leave a comment, and I might expand upon my point.

I've got some residual anger about this. Anger and not a little inspiration. One of the authors of this two-in-one is a #1 New York Times Bestselling Author, and the other is a Whitman College alum. I'm disgusted by these authors until Spencer says to me, "write a novel. See if you could make millions."

Here's the deal: someday, I would like to write something that'd be worthwhile for other people to read. It'd also be nice to earn money at it, too. So often the two don't go together. I used to think that people could earn money by working well and hard at their passions, but perhaps the cynical lesson I've learned from this Bestselling Author is that good work doesn't necessarily earn money, and money doesn't necessarily produce good work. You know this, I know this, so why do we keep paying for bad books? Who keeps buying them?

I think I've just realized my late resolution for 2013: I won't buy any books before I read them. I'll check them out from the library, and if they're worth a second read, I'll buy them then.

It's not as though there aren't other, larger problems in the world. It's just that this one is really personal. You could pay me to read and edit all day.

What we take into ourselves-- by eating, drinking, reading, listening, watching, touching-- must sustain us. This isn't a question of should. And companies know it's a bad business model to sell an insubstantial, unsustainable product-- just ask Hostess, and this guy at The New York Times who's saying goodbye to the Twinkie: "[Hostess cake company's] demise has been a long time coming. After all, we're not supposed to eat like this anymore [...] I swear that I have not tasted a Twinkie in years. I would not feed them to my kids."

When did it become acceptable to write and publish bad work? When did it become a worthwhile use of time to read this? I would not feed Christian Romance to my kids: would you?

Not everyone's going to be a Dostoevsky or even a Dorothy Baker. But it's not just about literacy, either. Stephen King, in a 2007 review of J.K. Rowling's magic, points to R.L. Stine (the Goosebumps guy!) as an important predecessor to Rowling-- because he got kids reading! Literacy is one of the most important skills we have today, and entertainment is a key path to enhancing this. It's critical to be entertained by reading-- how else do we hang on? But the writing's got to be good or our literacy serves us no purpose-- we learn nothing, are nourished not at all, by what we read.

Mmmmm, We Might Be Friends

Well, Istanbul,

It's taken four trips, but I finally found where I feel at home here.

Yenikapı ferry terminal. Give me seagulls and a body of water across which I can't completely see (no, Marmara's not the Puget Sound, but it'll do),

and I'm yours.

Merry Christmas from the Sharon and Len Salvadors!

Dear Family,

I'm writing this because it's nigh on 10:00pm here, and as we're getting up for the bus at 6:00am tomorrow, we may not get a chance to greet all of you properly. The bus ride from Cappadocia to Bolu is quite long.

You came through, and you sent pictures! This was the one gift Mom didn't hold back for later.  Friday was the first time I got to see the Alaska trip picture book! Our godmother even took the time to make me a family picture calendar for 2013. I can't tell you how marvelous it is to see pictures-- recent pictures (Aunt Nancy, is that your birthday party?!)-- of all of your smiles. I now have hold-able pictures of the extraordinary Norah K., as well. Thank you for letting me keep up with these times in your lives. I know I'm missing out, but the pictures help.

Mom also didn't hold out on the creme wafers. It's two hours to Christmas, and there's still one left. Mom, Dad, and Spencer are all convinced it will have gone stale, but I'm going to eat it. There's no way to be a snob about this cookie: it's going to fulfill all my Christmas hopes and dreams (especially if it magicks my boyfriend here!). At two-days-to-twenty-eight, I'm realizing even more emphatically that there's just some things about your mother's cooking that you never quite get over.

The following pictures are of the people who've known me longest and best. I'm not one to make outrageous claims, but I'll just say this: after sleeping in the same room with these people for the last three nights, I can say not only that I love them, but also that I like them. 

Truthfully, I've re-learned some weird things about them, and I've learned some new things about them.

My younger brother has an incredible nose. As in, he smells everything. This is great when good food is sitting in front of him, but it's a real curse in a lot of other, more malodorous situations. Also, he doesn't know how to eat a meal without meat.

My father loves a chocolate pick-me-up, a good joke about his 401K, and taking photographs when he's happy. Don't keep him from his coffee, either.

Things Mom has said:

Mom: "I do not talk long. Dad talks long."

Jessica: "Keep going."

Mom: "Well, we used to visit Dairy Queen together..."

At 2:30am Saturday: "If I have to be awake right now, so does everyone else!"

She and I ripped a book in half, and she's already through the first half. So I'm giving her the second half because her reading's far outstripped mine. The best part of her waking us up in the middle of the night is the little lisp she gets.

It was Blondie's idea to go hot air ballooning.

I still talk in my sleep, I still notice certain things (secret pockets in jackets, certain subtle designs on Coca-Cola cans) slowly enough that Spencer gets to laugh at me, and I'm still that girl who's so obviously a dork that-- get this-- our hot air balloon pilot, Mustafa, whose first language is not English, when he was giving us our "flight certificates" at the end of the balloon trip, said to me, "You can add this to your C.V." What? Am I that appallingly dorky to strangers?

We've had some incredible adventures together: Turkish taxis, ordering hamsi, jet lag, Turkish buses, sarma, churches with snakes, underground cities, apple tea, gnome homes, and hot air balloon rides. But I think the greatest adventures come when the four of us sit down across a table from each other. We wait for a meal. We say things to each other. Or we don't. Or we laugh. Usually Spencer and I are laughing at our parents.

Everyone deserves to be loved and well-considered. At this time of year, and especially you, our friends and family, you deserve our love and consideration. You are in our thoughts! So, in all, dear family and friends, the Salvadors-- LennyBaby and Blondie (Sherry or White L0@7z if you're really trouble), Bug and Gus-- send you Our Christmas Love!

My Best Friend and I

Je: Remember that Gus Van Sant movie you fell asleep in-- it was about those guys who got lost in the desert?

Michael: That's the worst Gus Van Sant movie ever.

Je: It's my favorite.

Truth, Like Love

I used to get confused when some voice-- that of a real person I knew, that of some academic I was reading, that of the Gospels, or that of my paintings talking back at me late nights in the studio-- would encourage me to follow my truth. That in so doing I would be creating and upholding a working ethical code.

What is this truth, and how do I find it? I was out to get summa that.

If I'd spent more time pondering Rilke, I might've felt less compulsion for a road map to truth: "don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer" (Letters to a Young Poet, edition and page currently unknown).

Living the questions does not mean waiting. It means creating discomfort in your life. It means taking risks. It means enjoying dynamism.

Truth is like love (and, I want to add, chance in backgammon) in that you are capable of dealing with it inasmuch as you are [self-caring and] open to it. It knocks at your gate.

I might've just figured this out today:

1. An idea takes hold of you.
2. It persists.
3. You pursue.

There's more: sometimes you have to be courageous to take up the truth because sometimes it cuts against the grain of your daily life, of your politics, of your religious upbringing, of your social networking. 

I imagine it's worse if you don't heed the truth, but I can't be sure. I imagine that polite knock at the gate eventually becomes a battering ram that can't be ignored. And suddenly, in denying truth, you create a terrifying thing in your relationship to truth. Maybe when the gates crash down around you, you feel like you've failed, but really, in the words of J.K. Rowling (Harvard commencement speech 2008), you've just "stripped away the inessential". I know a little about this.

When something persists in your life, don't try to run right away. Take a good, hard look at it. It might be your truth, and you may have to get in that.

Doctor's Orders: New Power Dynamics, Beautiful Women

I ate at Çorbacı Mülayim twice today: ezogelin çorbası for breakfast in Düzce and mercimek çorbası for dinner in Bolu. Either I’ve got the blues, or I’ve got a cold. Or both.

But some other things happened.

I spend a lot of time here bossing other people around: my students, people who enter my kitchen, travel partners, people with whom I go clothes shopping, and etcetera. It may be my age or my aura, but I end up making a lot of decisions and telling people what to do. This is good because I often get my way, but I begin to tire of the energy it takes to plan and make these kinds of decisions. I’d like to be back in the kitchen I share with Erich and just be his sous chef.

So, when I get the chance, I relax and let myself be bossed around here. I don’t want to be exploited: I just want to give consent for others to have their way with me. Neriman hanım, my cooking class instructor, loves this. I’ll get to class a couple minutes early and she’ll demand I bring tea to the table. Tonight it was even better: the guy who runs grocery errands for the cooking class (there’s like a bazillion people there—I can’t know his—everybody’s—name!) shared a look with Neriman hanım and then told me to get tea for everyone at the table. What?! Now I’m getting bossed around by him?!

I was more than happy to get everyone their tea.

I left class early tonight—there were too many hands to fold too few mantı, but I’ve got the general idea now. I ate dinner and caught the bus from Asmalı Café.

Then I had a truly unique experience.

If I’d been paying attention as I’d gotten on the bus, I probably would have anticipated a Forrest Gump-esque moment and bolted before sacrificing my fare. Thankfully, I was preoccupied with a text message and didn’t notice much until I got to my seat, which faced perpendicular to the rows of other seats on the bus.

I have never been on a bus so full of stereotypically beautiful women: it was incredible.

The bus was standing-room-only and maybe five passengers and the driver were the only males there. And they (driver excepted, of course) were all on their phones, texting and wearing very self-satisfied grins.

Decorating House

On Sunday I hosted a Christmas decorating party. Abdullah and Ayşe, the Engin family, and my neighbor Bekir all came over to help put ornaments on my tree and walls.

We had to borrow a hammer and nails from Bekir. 

What to do with this wreath? We saw a lot of green and purple today.

The tree, as yet unlit.

Partly lit tree, partly hung ornaments.

After decorating, we ate. I had prepared meatloaf and lots of dessert; Stephanie had brought beverages and bread, and she chopped the salad. It was a lot of food, and it was nice to have cooked an American meal for the friends who have made my life so good here.