Should´ve done this a week ago...

So it was very strange to be in Spain when the Virginia Tech shooting happened. Right off, let me say-- all the heart I can biologically afford to part with goes out to those families (all of the families, including the parents &c of the perp), and I was extremely relieved to hear three days afterward that my friend who goes to VT is fine.
Part of what´s strange about being out of the country for the event would I think have been the same for any real national trauma involving multiple senseless deaths. That is, the sickly feeling that always rides around in the space between my spine and stomach after something like that happens...well the feeling is still there, but it´s different. I remember walking around for a few days after the Columbine shootings, and for about three weeks after 9/11, moving along with my life but unable to shake that shapeless, bilious pathos from my gut during any waking moment. In the few days after the shootings at Tech I found myself strolling around happily, chatting with friends, taking pictures, generally living as I have for the past months in emotional as well as logistical terms. And then I would see a newstand, or catch a TV newscast, or do the rounds of the web news I like, and it would hit me and stay with me for an hour or so, and then be gone again. Somehow that´s a lot harder to deal with.
The other part of being here at this time is not strange, but infuckingfuriating. There appears to be an unwritten rule governing Spanish media demanding that a space of no more than 3 minutes (on TV/radio) or 3 column-widths (in print) shall exist between coverage of anything to do with that day´s violence and the same ´discussion´ of American gun policy. This same rule applies in a less formal way to conversations with Spaniards. I´m exhausted with trying to explain my perspective on gun control (short version: There´s a fuckload of guns in our country, and most of the weapons used to commit crimes are unlicensed anyway, and there´s no money for enforcement against those even if there were political will for stiffer gun control regs at even the state level let alone the federal level, so put down the dreampipe and recognize that guns will be prolific among american citizens for the duration of our existence as a nation, and cater your policy objectives to that reality; also, nobody needs an assault rifle, I don´t care what you´re hunting, and we CAN better enforce against illegal high-rate-of-fire weapons, so let´s do that-- oh wait, the assault weapons ban lapsed).

I´m not kidding, that´s the short version. So since I just ralphed a bit in my own mouth while having to type that out in short form, let me give you something which I think makes a HELL of a lot more sense with respect to the sub-phenomenon of school shootings, especially mass school shootings. It´s a transcription of part of Jon Stewart´s comedy performance at the Wang Center (he spends about 5 minutes having fun with the name) in Boston last fall. Mr. Stewart?

"How can you get solutions when the people that are solving the problems aren´t really interested in solving the problems, they´re interested in whatever their own superstitions are, and putting those across as ideology, and just that being it? Prime example, all these school shootings. We´ve been having ´em now for years and years and years, and every time we have them we have town meetings and people from all over and congressmen and senators and they gather together and they talk about America´s Values, and our values, and what´s gone wrong. And the solution, there´s two solutions they always come to.
One from the right: ´We must put God back in schools. We must post the ten commandments back in school!´ What the f- What will that do? Will someone will come to a school with an AK-47 and stop at the front office and go ´Oh thou shalt not kill. Well isn´t my face red...´ If you think posting the ten commandments is gonna stop school violence, then you think ´Employees must wash hands´ is keeping the piss out of your happy meal. It´s not. It´s a ridiculous idea that is a salve on a gunshot wound. And on the left, they have an equally brilliant idea. ´Remove guns! Because then human nature will flourish!´ But you know what they forget about?
Crazy. You can´t remove crazy, we need real solutions to help crazy. If you remove the guns, the only effect will be a ten-thousand-percent increase in bludgeonings. There are sick fuckin people out there, and it´s not the guns´ fault, and it´s not rock music´s fault, and it´s not rap music´s fault, and lack of God. It´s adolescence and perspective. And what we need to do is teach fifteen-year-olds that high school ENDS; and that whatever weakness they have now that makes them prey turns around and gives them uniqueness and success later in life. What they need to stop school violence are field trips, and not to planetariums and museums and bullshit like that. Take high school sophomores on field trips to 25-year high school reunions. Done.
Walk ´em around the room. Show ´em the whole thing turns around. ´See that fat, bald, sad, crying, pathetic fuck? Captain of the football team. The only place they call him captain now is Long John Silver´s, kind of a sad story.´ Done!" -js


Also, it´s worth noting that a day where only 30-odd people turned up dead in Iraq would probably be about average, and that even when FIVE TIMES as many people are killed in a single day of violence it is barely front-page news. Wildly different circumstances and situations and I do not intend to in any way minimize the horror, the tragedy, the utterly disgusting infliction of one man´s psychosis on dozens of innocent peers that took place last week in Blacksburg. I do think it´s worth noting that while our lives as American civilians are punctuated far, far too often with violence on small and large scales, generations of Americans have shaped a society in which that kind of violence has a place, like it or not. Unlike the Iraqi people, we have not had a state of not just civil war but civil war played by the rules of engagement of TERRORISTS (read: none) inflicted on us not intentionally through craft but unintentionally through incompetence, laziness and ideological purity.

Again...all the horror and sympathy and therapy I can manage is being broadcast by my brainwaves to the VT community; MK, I´m thrilled to know you´re ok, even if I haven´t heard it from your own voice.

Random updates & beach pictures

Hey all. Been a while again...apologies. In my defense, there´s not a whole lot to report. Not that´s it´s been a banal couple of weeks, mind you-- I´ve been having a great time. But there have been no grand voyages, no breathtaking daytrips, no borders crossed since the end of spring break. The few days of Semana Santa processions that I saw upon return from Istanbul were worthwhile, and I´ll put up some pictures of them as well. The only other trip I´ve made was to the beach at Nerja, about an hour and a half from Granada. It´s a beautiful strip of coast. Swathes of brown-grey beach dotted with umbrellas are broken into shortish chunks, partitioned from one another by hulked formations of rock. Despite their impressive silhouettes, most of these rocks seem ready to crumble underfoot-- they are composed primarily of small stones and shells sedimented together with sand by centuries of surf. It´s a nice town, more or less what I expected from a coastline that has been progressively built up over about a half-century. I´m looking forward to seeing some other beaches when Josh & Dad are here.

So that was two weekends ago. This past weekend Sebi was at a wedding, Eddie was with some friends at a rented mountain house, Bart was hanging out with his parents, and I was living the bachelor life in Granada. It was fun. I could have made more of it, certainly, but it was way relaxing to sprawl out on the couch & watch soccer (most of it bad soccer-- La Liga games are usually on premium cable channels). Think of it as an independence recharge-- there are a ton of things I love about Spain, several attitudes I prefer to their American counterparts, but I could never jamas get used to the invasive motherliness that seems to define generations and generations of Spanish women.

The weekend before Nerja was spent recovering from and longing for Istanbul. Megan and her boyfriend were in town after what sounds like a fascinating but stomach-churning week in Morocco. The three of us went up to the Puerta de la Justicia-- the main entrance to the Alhambra-- to see a procession leaving the fortress to make for the Cathedral.

These are from the Saturday Alhambra procession...cool stuff. They had to take the float apart to get it through the arch, and then reassemble it to carry it down a really long hill, march around the city for about 5 hours, and then carry it BACK UP THE HILL at about 1 am. Oh, and it´s solid silver. And it rests on the crown of the carriers´ heads. Good times.

It´s hard to get clear shots of the hoods at night. (these were from a different procession, the night before-- good friday. very sad. not supposed to clap when they pass). These guys look like ghosts, which is actually a good thing because if I´d gotten them in tight focus they´d look like Klansmen.

A lot of kids make balls out of the wax drippings from the thousands of candles that accompany these processions.

Fınally some pıctures

Moon rises over (I think) the Atik Ali mosque.
St. Anthony's church in Taksim, Istanbul-- a very hip district that's home to most of the theaters involved in the Istanbul International Film Festival, as well as several European embassies.
Gilded cage (actually, it's solid silver) from the Topkapi palace. Couldn't take pictures of the majority of the treasury exhibits, but the simplest things in the no camera zones make this look like a pile of poop.
Section of the old Roman aqueduct that runs through the city. I've got better pictures of it than this, you'll see them some other time.
This is the bellydancer who comes to the hostel twice weekly. Picture says a thousand words.

The main dome of the Suleymaniye Mosque, one of the places I stopped on my leisurely walk Sunday morning and afternoon. Beautiful. Stunning. I think I liked the interior here more than that of the Blue Mosque.

Not quite sure what's going on here, but it looks cool. Also from Sunday AM.

Some folks on the street in Istanbul make their food money by selling trays of birdseed to tourists, resulting in huge flocks of pigeons. Sometimes this works out awesomely for the rest of us. I'm pretty sure that this is Nuruosimaniye Mosque in the background.
This is taken in Asia, on a stop for lunch during our Bosphorus boat cruise aboard...

THE GOOD SHIP DOĞANYURT II, piloted by trusty (that is, licensed) Captain Omer. This was a lot of fun, and the weather was great until the last hour or so.

Rumelihisari Fortress, as seen from the Bosphorus. Actually built before the Ottoman's conquered Constantinople, and used to mount tower guns and control shipping through the Bosphorus. Probably not too long passed between completion of the fortress and the fall of Constantinople to Mehmed II. Industrial district, seen from the boat....

If Carmen Sandiego ever stole Istanbul, this is roughly what the heist would look like.
I was psyched about this picture even before I bought a postcard yesterday sporting the exact same composition in slightly different lighting. That's Sultanahmet, or the Blue Mosque, which lends its name to the entire historic district. Good times. Very rare for a mosque to have 6 minarets.
I took this from atop the Galata Tower, in a district across the Golden Horn from where I'm staying. I really like this picture.