Research, travel, procrastination-busting.

The NYT home page currently has a link to an article about live music venues in Istanbul that made me smile and reminisce.

My first taste of Istanbul night life was a concert by jazz trombonist Ray Anderson in 1999 at a club called Babylon, which is pictured in the article. I met a bartender there, Isin, who would become one of my dearest Turkish friends and who later arranged for me to stay in an artist’s studio (rent-free) across the street from Babylon when I moved back to Turkey in 2001. Over the next six months I could just pop downstairs and the friendly bouncers would let me slip into the shows, which was a good thing since I was too cheap to pay the cover. Some highlights were Stereolab, Mouse on Mars, and another great trombonist, Nils Wogram, who blew me away. Babylon is also memorable because it’s where I spent most of New Year’s Eve 1999.

While Babylon was always a bit pricey and interested in being Important, the first place mentioned in the NYT story, Badehane, was always homey and unassuming, so I was surprised to see it mentioned first off. I don’t hang out in that part of the city very much these days, but it’s become quite the hip area and it’s nice to see Badehane staying put and doing so well. The Wednesday night gypsy music really is amazing and definitely worth checking out.

I started off smiling, but now I realize it’s been ages since I’ve been to a show. Has anyone heard any good live music lately?

My weekly trip to Bursa has been preempted by the Queen of England. She’ll be visiting Bursa tomorrow, and as part of her trip she’ll visit the Green Mosque and listen to recitation of a sura from the Koran, which means the folks I usually observe at the mufti building will be up to their necks in protocol.

I hope to use my extra time to post a few updates on this blog - it’s been a while since I’ve written!

The ban on Wordpress blogs in Turkey is over. I realized this when I saw my feedreader automatically updating the Wordpress blogs I read. For the last seven months I’ve had to connect to Princeton servers first in order to get around the ban, all because the nutty creationist Adnan Oktar convinced a civil court to block access in Turkey to all sites hosted on Wordpress.com.

Now that the ban is over I hope to get plugged back into the blogging world, especially some of the great sociology sites that have taken off since the ban went into effect. Scatterplot is well-known by now and I’ve really been enjoying New Soc Prof’s Weblog. I’m sure there are many more I’ve missed, but thanks to Wicked Anomie and the socioblogopia search engine, it shouldn’t be hard to get caught up.

I don’t mean to engage in bus line one-upsmanship, but I’m coming back from another trip to Ankara with the same company as last week and this time the bus has two floors and there’s a “bistro” on the first floor! It seats about 20 and I’m in the corner where they have electrical outlets. They sell whisky, wine, beer and and non-alcoholic beverages as well as different kinds of snacks.

The only disappointment was when I tried to eat the sandwich they handed out upstairs and they said that this wasn’t allowed. Huh??? No food in the cafe? It’s not like I brought my own. Oh well, it’s still really comfy.

So, have I been away from the US long enough that this, too, is now commonplace?

On Friday, for the first time in my life, I bought a copy of an English-language daily called Today’s Zaman. What did I find on the back page? A story about a ghost hunt at a former asylum in my hometown! (Well, a cancelled ghost hunt anyway.)

Amazing coincidence.

The story was on the AP wire and likely filled a “news of the weird” spot in the paper — I don’t suppose I should expect future editions to tell me when the firefighters are going to hold their annual pancake breakfast.

Thanks to my sister Laura for sending me The Onion’s article about Mead’s new Grad-School-Ruled Notebook, an innovation that squeezes even more lines on the page.

On a more serious note (no pun intended): I really wish I had stuck with taking lecture and discussion notes using pen and paper rather than going digital (laptop, handheld) in my second year. I really buy the idea that taking notes by hand leads to better processing of information and, hence, better recall.

Does anyone else have an opinion on that?

I don’t remember where I saw it, but I recently read that any blogger who finds free Internet access at the airport just has to blog about it. Well, here’s a new take on that - I’m on a bus traveling to Ankara right now, checking my email, surfing the web, and writing this post.

I have a feeling this service won’t be available on Greyhound any time soon.

I’m riding Varan, which is supposed to be Turkey’s best bus company, and I can see why. Besides offering the standard coffee, tea, and cola that you get on all intercity buses, this one has complimentary pastries and newspapers (even English ones), and headphones for those who want to listen to CNNTurk, which is on the TV right now, or music.

This last part is amazing - I can’t tell you how many buses I’ve been on where I thought I was riding in a mobile dance club. If it’s not pop music, it’s the sound of bullets in a Turkish-dubbed Bruckheimer action flick. So this is nice.

Even better, the seat next to me is empty.