Tag Archives: humor

Apr 17 2012
31 Comments
Three minute read, Travelling

The Highlights of Istanbul, Now With Clever Wordplay

So pretty it’s disgusting. At Gulhane Park. 

You can do fun things to the word Istanbul, like turn it into Istanbrew, Gristanbul, Istangourd, Grumpstanbul, etc. This is the part of the story where I modify the word Istanbul and describe different aspects of my trip.

Istanbloom: I think I finally realized it was spring when I saw all those dang flowers peeping everywhere. I attempted to deal with the tulip madness by taking pictures. In fact, I took many boring flower pictures, all of which my family will be forced to view.

Sweetstanbul: Oh sweet tooth, how we tickled and fed and indulged you in this fair city. We sunk our fangs into the chewy but oh so delicious Turkish delight with wild flavors such as kiwi and pomegranate, accented with the most pistachio-y pistachios I had ever tasted. Do I even need to describe the baklava, whose layers were drenched in sin and delicious in every incarnation? Even the angels would have wanted and been denied a bite of my baklava.

Nutstanbul: The Turks like their nuts. Daily I thanked Jesus and the lucky stars that I am nut allergy free and was able to stuff my gob with every nutty creation imaginable.  If they could, I think the Turks would pave the streets with hazelnuts and pistachios and build their homes with walnuts.

Istanhill: Because it was hilly. Duh.

Istanbus: I was very impressed with Istanbul’s public transportation, which included busses, ferries, metros, and funiculars, all of which could be paid for easily with the Istanbulkart. Because waxing poetic about public transportation can get boring if not weird, I will quickly move on to my next topic. Just know that the busses had screens in them telling the passengers both the current and the upcoming stops. Okay, moving on.

Bluestanbul: The Bosporus and the Golden Horn were so blue! Blue blue blue! While sailing to the Black sea on a Bosporus cruise, I couldn’t stop thinking how jewel-like the water seemed as the light refracted through the waves and pierced into the deep. We could see jellyfish. They are my friends.

Istanpuff: The Ottoman sultans loved their puffy clothing. Based on the sheer size of the clothing on display at Topkapi palace, it was clear that the sultans’ bodies, when cocooned in their palace garb, bore only a passing resemblance to a human figure. Everything from their ridiculously huge turbans to their pointed shoes was an exercise in puffiness.

The Fortress of Rumeli is more like a big park. Great for kids and conquering Istanbul.

Histanbul: The place was disgustingly full of history. I couldn’t spit without desecrating a famous landmark that was named something ridiculous and looked like it came from a fantasy novel. Around every corner there was a mosque, church, church-mosque, or doner stand that seemed beautiful and worth visiting.

Blisstanbul: Because Istanbul restored my faith in cities. It had been so long since I’d enjoyed spending time outside in a metropolis and felt comfortable in my foreign woman skin. When I think of Istanbul I think of colors and peace and happy and days spent watching the waters and the people flow by. And the trees were good too.

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Apr 07 2012
36 Comments
Food, Travelling, Two minute read

Oh My God It’s Breakfast in Istanbul

I almost left my camera next to the plate on the right.

This is Istanbul, the city of beautiful street cats, the city coveted by empires over the centuries, the city of the Dardanelles, of eggplant, of sultans, of pretty silk scarves, of hills and bridges. This is the city of every kind of public transportation: ferries, trams, metro, trollies, busses, and funiculars. This is the city of roasted street chestnuts and bad haircuts.

I arrived yesterday at 2 am after our flight was delayed from Cairo. At one point, a voice had came over the loudspeakers and said, “The new time for the delayed flight to Istanbul will be announced….later.” It was never announced.

Nevertheless, we made it to our fun-sized hostel with fun-sized rooms and bathrooms, where your bum touches the door as you pull up your pants. And today, we ate breakfast. Oh the glory.

I believe in love, laughter, and breakfast. Sweet Lord in heaven is there anything better than getting up early in the morning bright, when mouth-breathing tourists like ourselves haven’t begun mobbing around the city? Is there anything fairer than  winding down and around the hilly alleys of Istanbul lined with Smartie colored houses, and entering an establishment with yellow walls and cozy tables ? Is there anything better than being hungry for breakfast, the meal that will determine the rest of your life?

And what a treat this was, selected with the aid of the gentlemanly restaurant manager himself. I had never seen so many tiny dishes at a breakfast before. We ate cheeses, jam, butter, nutella, peanut butter, honey and cream, omelette, olives, hard boiled eggs, yoghurt and cucumber, and pure joy.

Anything was possible with this breakfast. Butter and jam, cheese and jam, nutella and jam, peanut butter and jam. Cheese. Egg and cheese. Egg and cheese and salt. Egg and cheese and salt and tomato. Egg, cheese, salt, tomato, and nutella.  And so on. I could fulfill any dream I had, go past any horizon I saw. With regard to bread toppings, the sky was the limit, and I was in outer space, blowing moon bubbles with aliens.

After a while you stop trying to taste every possibility and instead just be with the breakfast and attempt to become one with the essence of the little dishes and the toppings. I failed, yet I shall try again. Mark my words, I shall try again.

And now, we’ll get a coffee and discuss what we want to eat for lunch. This is the nature of vacation.

For those who are curious, we ate at a place called Van Kahvaltia Evi in an area called Cihangir. See a review here (it’s the first place. And the website istanbuleats.com is awesome).

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Apr 05 2012
35 Comments
Humorous, Two minute read

The Greatest War on Earth

the loathsome slivers in all their glory

The war between us and our nails began long ago, even before our ancestors dragged their scaly bodies onto the face of the earth. They are our greatest foe, even when compared with Iran and McDonald’s, trespassing on the only thing we can really claim for our own, our bodies. We beat them back endlessly with crude weapons and still they thrust forth with new strength, feeding off our very meals.

Despicable, loathsome, and repulsive, they are a repository of filth of every kind and deep within them breeds the very scum of the earth. The sight of them can make grown men shriek and children weep. In the right circumstances, they induce nausea, fatigue, and premature labor.

And yet we tolerate them, watching as they creepily grow longer and longer until we can take it no more and destroy them, cutting them from our flesh after we have softened them with a warm shower. But they always return.

The pain of fingernails’ existence drives some to madness, weakening their mind until they bite and nip at their fingers until their very bodies bleed and they taste sweet iron on their tongues. Others try to disguise the nails with lacquered paints and frilly designs, even covering up the painful reality with plastic imitations–anything to hide their true nature.

Industries have grown up around them: their suppression and removal. They are a liability to their keeper, easily becoming a source of indescribable pain. The sounds they make– the clicking and the clacking, the gnawing and munching of their incapacitated victims– fill the air with the crazed din of an insane asylum.

For a time they are windows into the body itself, but grow disgusting all too soon—tainted with the everyday wear of life, collecting beneath them the salt of the earth and the stew of the lunch and the peel of the orange. Our fingernails and toenails are our most dedicated and successful foes. My entire life I’ve been fighting them, cutting them back, even down to the quick, feeling the sharp sting of pain until I cry out and I feel I’ve defeated them at long last. This time they will not grow back.

But they do, and I find myself in the same shameful position only two weeks later, if that. I have even slammed my finger in a car door, unconscious attempting to rid myself of the foul parasites once and for all. After weeks of hiding my mangled finger in a brace, I took it off only to see the nail growing back, ever persistent, its shape leering at me in a grotesque grin. I got on my knees and prayed to all that is holy to take this burden away from me. I only heard faint laughter from the other room, my sister watching Arrested Development.

Will I never be free?

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Apr 04 2012
37 Comments
Humorous, One minute read

Things that Fascinate that Weird Guy at Work

And he seemed so normal.

1. Watching sailboats on the Charles River, their white sails floating above the water as in a dream.

2. The way blood beads on clean incisions.

3. Recording human reactions to his animal noises.

4. The swift transition from joy to despair when he gives children candy and then wrenches it away.

5. Logs rotting.

6. The sheer mass of nails and hair that he’s accumulated over the years, the continual nature of his body’s shedding.

7. Slicing.

8. Yo Yo Ma.

9. The taste of tears, his and others’.

10. Yoghurt smeared over coarse surfaces.

11. Seasonal sweaters.

12. Deception.

13. Fire, its complete and utter destruction, embers glowing in the ash of a ruined life.

14. Jogging.

Photo credit: stockimages from freedigitalphotos.net

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Apr 03 2012
47 Comments
Serious-ish, Social Media, Three minute read

What if Facebook Told the Truth?

Social media is on everyone’s mind nowadays…bloggers, corporations, college students, retirees, mid-level dental practitioners, etc. We are all talking about it. For better or worse, we’re putting social media on our salads, marinating pork chops in it, and using it to style our hair.

Gah! I'm nameless!

Some see the advent of social media positively, as an exciting new frontier, the way of the future, and a symbol of human innovation. However, others fear the advent of social media signals our civilization’s decline, with meaningful relationships being transformed into an insipid system of likes and reblogs.

One criticism I hear consistently is that social media networks allow their users to construct false portraits of who they are. They can choose a flattering profile picture, carefully select their favorite movies, books, and music in order to put forth their best self, or at least the self they want to present to the world.

In theory, this might make it more difficult to tell if a person is a loser, but it seems the fools are still easy to spot. People shamelessly admit, with no hint of irony, that they love Jersey Shore and Gossip Girl, that they only read texts written in Ottoman Turkish, and that they prefer to listen to Disney classics covered by a famous jazz flutist you’ve never heard of.

Perhaps it’s most frightening to consider that our facebook profile is the most accurate portrayal available of our mind-self. Nevertheless, the information is still selected by the user, for the most part.

But what if facebook told the truth about us, all of it, in addition to the profile we create and the photos and posts we censor? What if, in addition to statuses filled with articles, Bible verses, smiley faces, and humorous thoughts, facebook also posted things like, “had black thoughts of hatred towards innocent person” or “took the last cookie out of spite” or “hurt someone on purpose without remorse?”

What if facebook recorded our interactions with others and organized it in a virtue and vice section, with characteristics such as selfishness, unfaithfulness, joy, and kindness. And what if it filled in the other categories too, revealing our guilty pleasures and secret loves, like country music and chick flicks and picking our toes?

If facebook reflected not only how we see ourselves, but how we interact with others and how others see us, what would that be like? Are these things already apparent? Would we be any better for knowing the truth? When we knew the dirt on everyone, would we lose all faith in humanity because of our iniquity and poor taste?

If it really showed everything, including our struggles, our darkest thoughts, and the sense of hopelessness we all sometimes share, I think in most cases we would see that we are more alike than different, even the people that like country music; the disclosures would reveal a common humanity that is not at all shameful and probably not even surprising.

Isn’t this precious? I’m imagining a reaffirmation of humanity through the use of an omniscient social network. Orwell, what are your thoughts?

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