other|matters

Average word count of top-ten songs during the 1960s: 176
Average in 2007: 436

Source: William Weir, “Words Words Words”, Slate, March 11, 2008

But because [Rudyard Kipling] identifies himself with the official class, he does possess one thing which “enlightened” people seldom or never possess, and that is a sense of responsibility. The middle-class Left hate him for this quite as much as for his cruelty and vulgarity. All left-wing parties in the highly industrialized countries are at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to fight against something which they do not really wish to destroy. They have internationalist aims, and at the same time they struggle to keep up a standard of life with which those aims are incompatible. We all live by robbing Asiatic coolies, and those of us who are “enlightened” all maintain that those coolies ought to be set free; but our standard of living, and hence our “enlightenment,” demands that the robbery shall continue. A humanitarian is always a hypocrite, and Kipling’s understanding of this is perhaps the central secret of his power to create telling phrases. It would be difficult to hit off the one-eyed pacifism of the English in fewer words than in the phrase, “making mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep.” It is true that Kipling does not understand the economic aspect of the relationship between the highbrow and the blimp. He does not see that the map is painted red chiefly in order that the coolie may be exploited. Instead of the coolie he sees the Indian Civil Servant; but even on that plane his grasp of function, of who protects whom, is very sound. He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.

George Orwell, “Rudyard Kipling,” 1942

Istanbul, July 20

Hazelnuts grow in twists of green from which they must be pried. To my left in the shade of the window frame, Hasibe’s fingers unwrap leaves. At her touch, they open; one by one, nuts are freed. Soon a handful roll on the white place mat. They are shaped like acorns and I wonder if they will be as bitter.

Cigdem, Serra, Zahra and I sit on mismatched chairs. It is Sunday, pajama day, and we are not dressed for going outside. Curls and freckles, nightgowns and slippers, we sit in our glasses, breakfasting. I have made an omelet for the girls, a puffy thing, encasing peppers and cheese. Sliced hot into wedges, it is inspected with wonder and eaten. “It is like a special pizza,” Serra is happy. “I have never seen such a thing.”

In an hour, we will scrub the apartment, in two hours, we will leave. One by one, with the coming ezan, we will disappear to pray. In three hours, Hasibe and I will pass, through Bogazici, down to the sea. Like green hazelnuts, we will be wrapped. We are better than hazelnuts, I decide, because we may cover, uncover, recover ourselves as we so please.

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We know the popular line stating that if you know yourself, then you can know God. Meaning, if you do not know yourself, there is no way you can know God.

Such is the plight of so many people today. Long before they run from God, they run from their own selves.

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1. Sanliurfa, July 14

He runs in front of me, dark-haired, wearing red. For half of a moment, I know him. My student, Muhammad, is here. To our right, the pool churns with bodies, wet and black. The ashes from Nimrod’s fire settled here, or so the Turks believe. Each flake became a fish; each fish is overfed. In groups of two they are beautiful. In tens, they are dense. In hundreds, grotesque. In front of the man selling pellets of food, I can no longer see water between the confusion of fins. They are like flies on a chicken bone, like snakes, spawning.

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