Showing posts with label Bekdil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bekdil. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Wanted! Good answers to good questions

No, there does not exist any contract or gentleman's agreement between Mr. Bekdil and me.

No, I am not sure Mr. Bekdil is in possession of the best solutions to everything and all.

Yes, I do appreciate the questions he is asking.

Yes, I should like to read somebody's answers to these questions.

No, not Mr. Akyol's answers. (They would - with respect - be of no relevance.)

But what's about both Mr. Akyol's and (sic) Mr. Bekdil's president and prime minister?

Your turn, Mr. Gül! Your turn, Mr. Erdoğan!

Yes?

Friday, August 31, 2007

Mr. Akyol 0 - Mr Bekdil 2

The inevitable happened.
As announced rather than prognosticated three days ago today the first Flann O'Brien Prize Winner, TDN's master equilibrist Burak Bekdil put his pen to paper (ah, what a picture in these times!) , in order to reply to Mr. Akyol's reply on his, Mr Bekdil's, innocent article.

Easy to cut it short, especially as my closest friend Tetrapilotomos is just reflecting about singularity: Again, Mr Bekdil won what TDN's chief editor David Judson would call a "sparring-match".

Game, set and match to Mr. Bekdil.

Reading his reply you will know - all right: at least be able to imagine, why.


Mr Akyol 0 - Mr Bekdil 2.


Postscriptum for all supporters of Mr Akyol: A first Huysman-Wilde-Prize-Winner would not throw in the turban (turban, no headscarf!) ... eh ... hm ... towel, of course.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Good night, Turkey, and good luck! III

There may be trouble ahead
But while there is moonlight, and music, and love, and romance
Let's face the music and dance.
Irving Berlin, 1936

He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news.
Bertold Brecht

Ah, if I were to live in Turkey, for sure I could not (easily) sleep tonight.

Therefore, for those visiting me a little more to read, maybe to think about and to reflect, perhaps even to laugh here and there.
Yes, those who have come to know me and my dearest friend - a writer who would not write for reasons I shall probably never understand -, a little better, and whose visits I do appreciate very much, will know that we do rather prefer to look on the bright side of life. And life is bright when we can celebrate our sense for humour, irony and well ... some sarcasm here and there.
Really happy Tetrapilotomos and I however are, when we can lean back.

Today could have become such a day. Burak Bekdil, this year's first Flann O'Brian Prize Winner, and Huysman-Wilde-Prize Winner Mustafa Akyol started a new competition.
The little difference: This time Mr. Bekdil started, Mr. Akyol replied; and, for sure, this time it will be Mr. Bekdil who will give a reply to this reply (if the circumstances will allow).

Allright, ladies and gentlemen, enjoy yourselves first here, then here.


* For those readers who unfortunately happened to miss the first competition it is highly recommended not to miss reading this and this.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Pestering Problem

Just to keep you informed about the most important problem keeping 70 million Turks on tenterhooks.

Having read this and this and this you might murmur like Tetrapilotomos:
"I did not see one single tiny hair, one could cut into four pieces."

Good to have somebody to cut the problem in pieces . . .

Friday, August 17, 2007

Güle gidin!

Being distracted from posting by my closest friend who unfortunately managed to implicate me in a discussion without any emotional blockade about prophets, quad negations, pleonasms and redudancy, I leave the field to the first Flann O'Brian Prize Winner.

Your turn, Mr. Bekdil!


And now
The Peace of the Night.

Güle gidin!

Saturday, August 04, 2007

It's as simple as that

Another nice little gem has been flowing into the feather of the champion first ever winning the Flann O'Brien Price.
It's somehow a pars pro toto for the daily secrets being published.

Ah, and - perhaps - it is about the time you are to be introduced to one of my closest friend's "ceterum censeos":

Banquo knew before

And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s
In deepest consequence.

In German it sounds even more impressive (and not only because "Death is a master from Germany")

Oft, uns in Elend zu verlocken
Erzählen Wahrheit uns des Dunkels Schergen,
Gewinnen uns durch ehrlich Spiel im Kleinen,
Um uns in größten Dingen zu verraten.

Shakespeare, McBeth 1.,3

Monday, July 23, 2007

In dubio pro Bekdil AND Akyol

As promised in the (hopefully not) last post, here is the jury's result:

The Flann O'Brien Prize Winner is ...

- Sean!?!
- Yes, Tetrapilotomos?
- Who do you think deserves the prize?
- Actually, I could not decide. Both, Mr. Akyol and Mr. Bekdil deserve it.
- I fear, Mr. Akyol would not appreciate to share the prize.
- Why shouldn't he?
- He is missionary, while deep in Mr. Bekdil's heart the serpent "Sarcasm" is darting. Mr. Akyol seriously believes in what he is writing, while Mr. Bekdil does not take himself too serious.
- Hm, Flann O'Brien is not missionary at all. Would you say, Mr. Akyol is not as amusing as Mr. Bekdil?
- I said Mr. Akyol would not be amused to share any prize.
- So, let's wait with the decision, until Mr. Bekdil offers his reply to Mr. Akyol's reply to his, Mr. Bekdil's, reply.
- There won't be a reply to Mr. Akyol's reply to Mr. Bekdil's reply.
- ?
- Mr. Bekdil knows very well that Mr. Akyol would let nobody have the last say, the more when this "Nobody" is an agnostic.
- But there were none of his 2.185 words indecent. And, missionary?! He seemed even glad and proud being able to tell that "the Diyanet, the offical religious body, announced last year that it would cleanse the hadith tradition (the reported sayings and deeds of the prophet) from remarks that humiliate women".
- In other words, Mr. Akyol accepts without protest that the reported sayings and deeds of the prophet would be censored. This is either blasphemy or ...
- Hold on, Tetrapilotomos! The prophet reportedly said this and did that. And you know as well as God and his wife would know that some reporters' skills are ... are ... let's call it suboptimal.
- Well, anyway, I should never write this, but I do hope there would no peaceloving colleague of the late
Ayatollah Lankarani come to know of this passage in Mr. Akyol's masterpiece. I mean, it would be blasphemy to think that the prophet did not instruct all good men to beat up their wives whenever they feel like, wouldn't it?
- Hm, what did the friendly looking old man say the other year when there was a two weeks or so campaign for not beating up one's wife in Turkish media: A man who does not beat his wife, is not a man.
- There you are, this humble man surely had studied and internalised the sura important for his character building. And now, suddenly and out of the blue should be wrong what has been right for the past 1387 years?! But we are slightly extravagating. Now, who deserves the prize?
- Be it: Burak Bekdil.
- Why? Because he wrote just one article containing 1.741 words, while Mr. Akyol cast 2.185 pearls for swine?
- No. Because Mr. Bekdil is a true humourist.
- Wrong. Mustafa Akyol is much funnier. And he is an intelligently designed primate.
- He did not explicitly say so. Besides, according to my daughter, who is presently writing her master thesis about Dandyism in the English and French literature of the late 19th century Mr. Akyol might be a fine specimen for Dandyism; by seemingly promoting the idea that there is or has been a potter who's first name is/has not been Harry who about 10.000 years ago took a clot of loam, designed a being, shortly afterwards took a rib of this being and formed him a female so that he would always have something to beat up, Mr. Akyol wins lots of plaudit and praise, while in fact by doing so he is covering his world weariness by making fun of all these poor stupid idiots in the classical sense.
- Mr. Akyol may have some dandyesk attitudes, but I do seriously think he believes what he is writing about intelligent design.
- Couldn't it be that he anticipates the change of wind and that soon there will be enforced intellgently designed biology curricula, and therefore is trimming his sails?
- Is there anything Mr. Yesbut would not anticipate? By the way, nobody, I repeat, nobody could yet thoroughly explain the difference between opportunism and pragmatism.
- Mr. Yesbut?
- Well, you would often if not mostly find Mr. Akyol initially praise any Mr. Siyahyol's opinion with oriental amplification, and after the comma there would follow a but.
-Who is Mr. Siyahyol, Tetrapilotomos?
- Everybody who is not Mr. Akyol.
- ?
- Akyol means White Path. And therefore all those not of Mr. Whitepath's opinion are walking on the black path.
- Doesn't siyah colloquially also mean the same as afyon?
- I don't like dilettantes secretly consulting dictionaries. Neither I know if Mr. Akyol ever got stoned by opium. Actually I think he’d prefer cannabis, but, of course, would probably not inhalate.
- Do you know Mr. Akyol?
- Only by his writing.
- And you think you are fair with what you are talking here?
- Unlike Mr. Akyol I know that I could err.
- Ah, Tetrapilotomos, before we are getting from Pontius to Pilade, let’s make a compromise.
- All right. So, let's award Burak Bekdil the Flann O’Brien Prize, and Mr. Akyol the Huysman & Wilde Prize.

Hurra, we got it!