In the current issue of the Newsweek magazine

f1 in disguise, in green, in taksim.

phil collins, the british artist (not the one who sings) will be participating in the ninth istanbul biennial with his “the smiths karaoke” project. as the fans sing songs from the album “the world won’t listen”, collins will film them and exhibit the product in the biennial. the location of the filming has been announced recently: those who would like to take part or watch the smiths lovers singing along and oscillating wildly may do so in trip v2.0@hera in kadikoy/kadife sok. tonight.

the turkish media has been busy with an underpants controversy for about two weeks. almost every columnist has written about it, some were pro, some others contra the whities forces, so let’s give a short summary of the situation:

in istanbul, where the sea water is really filthy (wih 3.874.129.687.244.113 -seriously, I counted them one by one- Escherichia coli per person), the municipality announced that the water is now clear (meaning 3.874.129.687 Escherichia coli per person) and that people can go swimming in the public beaches. then those who cannot afford to travel to the southern part of turkey rushed to the beaches of the city. The problem was that, most of these people went swimming with their underpants, although swimsuits for rent (for a fee of app. 1$) were supplied. to sum it up, the coastal line of istanbul resembles a nude camp, as the whities preferred by the swimmers are perfectly transparent when wet.

Then Selami Ozturk, the mayor of Kadik

sally potter’s latest movie “yes” is being screened at film festivals around the world since september 2004 and potter travels the world with her film, talking about it, checking out the reactions personally. the film was screened in the istanbul film festival in april 2005 and potter was also present. the film is now on release in turkey and a local paper reported today about the blog potter keeps as she travels. she has also written about her visit to turkey, “the first muslim country to buy the film” here.

A very strange and funny Mercedes is to be seen driving on the streets of Istanbul. Painted with various colors, it symbols Peace. With lots of peace emblems, the “no to war” slogan and figures of guns with flowers painted on it, the car aims to bring peace into daily life in istanbul. Have you ever noticed the similarity between the Mercedes logo and the peace emblem? We Istanbulers now have, thanks to the Peace Mercedes.

All things aside, I could not figure out what is meant with the figure of the rifle with a tap-shaped barrel. Maybe “no more bloodshed?