i am breaking it. there were never any claims of being a good blog.
i owe you no duty, so sue someone else.
minor discovery: sometime in the late 90s, during undergrad, i had heard a song i really liked. but i never knew the name nor the band. i just remembered a random line like: "i wish i were an alien at home behind the sun". no one could help me (bastards). i searched and never found it. then randomly listening to the radio some 7 years later, i heard the song. it was pearl jam's wishlist (off the yield album). you do not understand what a relief this was to finally know the name of that song and all the lyrics. it was like having an annoying itch that you just couldn't get rid of. i know i am a loser. (how could i not have recognized eddie vedder?)
major discovery: my sis brought back tarkan's album, dudu, from turkey. it took a while to grow on me, but i love it. my fave is uzun ince bir yoldayim. she mentioned that this song was a traditional turkish folk song. i tried to bug her about the lyrics but she was not very helpful (what good is her knowledge of turkish if not to help me understand pop songs?). and thus my quest began...
Uzun ince bir yoldayım
Gidiyorum gündüz gece
Bilmiyorum ne haldeyim
Gidiyorum gündüz gece
Dünyaya geldiğim anda
Yürüdüm aynı zamanda
İki kapılı bir handa
Gidiyorum gündüz gece
Kırkdokuz yıl bu yollarda
Ovada dağlarda çöllerde
Düşmüşüm gurbet ellerde
Gidiyorum gündüz gece
Şaşar Veysel iş bu hale
Kah ağlaya kah güle
Yetişmek için MENZİLE
Gidiyorum gündüz gece
translation:
i'm on a long and narrow road
on my way morning and night
i don't know what state i'm in
i'm on my way morning and night
from the moment i came into this world
began walking at the same time
in a place with two doors
i'm on my way morning and night
if ever it is thought of in depth
it'll seem far away when it's seen
the path is worth one minute in quantity
i'm on my way morning and night
Veysel is confused at the state of this....
some laugh and some cry
to reach upto the place of object (the goal)
i'm on my way morning and night
in the traditional way, the maqta in the last stanza contains the poet's name. and so i was interested in asik veysel. from lala i got some vague troubadour stuff. there are tons of sites devoted to him on the web with some really trippy pictures (mostly in turkish and german). you can find out more on the wiki site for turkish music and there is one on tarkan. uzun ince bir yoldayim is sung by many, including latif bolat.
so who is asik veysel? Asik Veysel (1894-1973) was an influential Turkish folk musician. He is one of the most renowned representatives of the "asik" tradition in the 20th century, which dates back to the 15th century in Anatolia. The Asik (a kind of troubadour), singing poetry (mostly their own) and playing the saz, has become the voice of common people, expressing their relationship with their land; their loves, inner conflicts, and expectations--generally depicting all aspects of rural life. Veysel's poetry is metrical, using predominantly 8- and 11-syllable meters. much of asik music originates from northeast anatolia, with different variations ranging from political satire to religious devotion (especially around the city of kars). now i really want to go to turkey (lala, go there cuz i will be bunking at your place).
(wow this was an extremely good way to avoid studying. by the way check out the additions to my blogroll: barely legal, sepia mutiny, sunshiney kittens, mrs. b to the rescue, and ho'dizzle fo'shizzle.)
edit: due to mrs. b, i had to go find this out, another useless piece of knowledge to stop me from remembering important things. you ask what is a fartlek? (well you didn't, but anyway) fartlek, developed in the 1930's, comes from the Swedish for 'Speed Play' and combines continuous and interval training. fartlek allows the athlete to run whatever distance and speed they wish, varying the intensity, and occasionally running at high intensity levels. this type of training stresses both the aerobic and anaerobic energy pathways. and all along we thought they were making it up!
