Blogs
On Istanbul
Whirling Dervish: The whirling dervishes belong to a sect of Islam that believe in loving everything I was inspired to write about JB Jackson's chapter in Istanbul, albeit a little late, to theorize about why he would write about Istanbul in the first place. I visited Istanbul when I was 13 and I shall always remember it as one of the greatest vacations I have ever taken. My family hired a young female guide to show us the city's mosques, palaces, museums etc and the "real" Istanbul. Our hotel was situated between the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque, walking distance from the Grand Bazaar. Though time has slightly softened and blurred my memories of the trip, certain things are as vivid to me today as they were when I experienced them. I can understand why JB Jackson loved and wrote about Istanbul. The city is a magical maze of scent and color, the people are alive with ambition and emotion - no one sleep walks on the city's streets. A whirling dervish performance that we were invited to was a perfect metaphor for the city itself. The dervishes twirled and danced until their movements created a perceptible humming in the air, the dim lights and the warm colors of their skirts had a dizzying effect on me, chaotic yet perfectly in control. JB Jackson writes that in many ways Istanbul ought to be a model for other cities. Some might scoff and ask why - Istanbul is notoriously dirty, its streets winding and complicated, the foundations of its buildings crumbling. It is because Istanbul has a spirit, Istanbul is a whirling dervish. How many other cities can be compared to such a marvelous thing? I think what JB Jackson's point is, and the way it ties into the rest of his writings, is that it is not the aesthetic and concrete foundations of a city that really matter. Cities don't have to calculated and planned by architects and urban planners, because this sort of design doesn't guarantee any life or spirit in the place. Istanbul may be fetishized by many as an exotic, eastern city of spices and veiled women (hardly!), but in essence it doesn't have to be any different from a small American town in Alabama. They may not look anything alike, but a small American town has the potential to be a whirling dervish.
Location
Istanbul
I think, metaphorically
I think, metaphorically speaking, the dirt is what makes Istanbul so appealing. For my midterm I'm writing about a place that is considered a very "ideal" place from a planning point of view, but what interested me was that there are tons of other towns planned like this one that aren't considered, "one of the best places to live." so i guess my thesis is that a sense of place can't just be the way that place is planned and built, but its history. i think the same is true of istanbul. it's the history (or the "dirt") that makes it so appealing. it takes years of human contact and interaction for a place to become old, or dirty, or what-have-you, and that denotes a continuous vibrancy throughout the place. i guess jackson is just letting us all know that we should learn to love the dirt because of what it means to the place and to our relationship with it.