VOIR DIRE

 

JURY SELECTION

juries 

judges

oracles

emperors

family members

colleagues

administrators and ministers

all opinionated sages

educated and ignorant

self educated and acolytic

in a periodic and geographic

quorum 

watching

missing

not perceiving

embroiled in theses

and apotheoses

natives of rostrums

benches

thrones 

their own royalty

do not let them rule 

lives 

futures

and pasts

while rivers flow

rains pour

and winds push

to and fro

on your revolving sphere

that will not budge

as you should not 

not choose to succomb

ahmet cafer celebiler

December 17, 2024

PERSONAL ANTHROPOCENE

 

Ignoring media

may not 

cause

or concern

blindness

be 

a member

of holocene

and the club of

useless change 

and

development

and

deprived evolution

until

the periodic

dues

the cost 

financial

and emotional

becomes too high

unsupportable

and

one shrinks 

in size

and in thought

and action

forgetting 

the medium

as the message

and yearns

for a touch

a loving touch

ahmet cafer celebiler

December 14, 2024

REGISTER LODGE AND DISPOSE

 

 RECORDINGS, ANNALS, CHRONICLES    

we

the aforesaid

testify herewith

that we are factual

and true

and fully registered

as we saw

and believed

their evil would have spread

in the atmosphere

in the seas

and among the unhappy

and among the 

inconsiderate

the ignorant

and the connived

So

we came up

with our real 

and pragmatic version

of values

events

and histories

reflecting 

the dull 

and duller

knife-edge approach

to 

reality

war

revolution

freedom

slavery

and such

wells and

ditches

abysses

as we saw fit

for the sheep

who could not look up at the sky

further than the lower branches of trees

and prefer the bushes

thorny

and brambly

AND

we looked

and were happy

and satisfied

until

another cosmic storm

or misguiding manipulator

of our making

came up 

with its own version

to engineer and 

and then register

our lot

Ahmet cafer Celebiler

Decenber 13 (Friday) 2024

COUNT THE TRUMPS

 

     

THERE ARE MORE THAN 13 TRUMPS

Finite games

that we play

that we watch

that rule lives

also have no beginnings

or ends

that one notices

until 

an unexpected trump 

trumps a certain trick

a winner

no longer an ace 

king 

or queen

lost to an insignificant trump

from a forgotten

or 

incalculable stack

lurking

always lurking

around a corner

behind a door

or

in hands

manicured and not

the element of surprise

in fiction

and non-fiction

in a dream

or vision

incidental 

seemingly

or 

coincidental

and 

peut etre

collateral

ahmet cafer celebiler

Desember 11, 2024

ANXIETY AND DREAMS

 

             it is only about survival

birth

death

and the distance

from 

       one

to the other

high strung 

synapse sprung

poised for neuroplasty

and

shame and regret 

and action

all in an ordained

context

 in and around

a lobe 

or two

consternation

and disquiet

in the night

and 

the rooster wakes 

to the morning sunlight

warm

and cold

and wet

all for survival

real and imaginary

ahmet cafer celebiler

December 3, 2024

ANOTHER OTHER CHELEBI TRAVELS

 

TRESPASSES AND OFFENCES

he went to the city when young

in body

and in mind

the city of fables and mysteries

histories and labels

to face 

himself and others

in streets narrow

and wide

and in eyes 

sunken 

and deep

uncaring

even like sheep.

wooled over

world apart

he saw brunets and blonds

who could speak to him

who should speak to him

and

was speechless

lest 

they did not see

did not appraise

did not 

he saw houses

with no owners visible

shops with nothing available

stone edifices

stone faces

fuming things

and fumbling humans

and learned loneliness

for himself 

and others

he came back

himself

and 

as another

to the same 

to do the same

to think

some more

to search some more

to plan to visit some more

ahmet cafer celebiler

december 2, 2024

INCIDENT

 

INCIDENT

incidents

occur

at railroad bridges

in law

in physics

and 

epidemics

but mostly 

as

significant 

but 

usually insignificant

events 

in a life

spanning creeks

creations

generations

also

magics

visible 

on some days.

ahmet cafer celebiler

10 November, 2024

"Remembering Ambrose Bierce and his 'Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'

MISS OR MISS

 

SHAMBOLIC FREEDOM

`randomness

dominates your life

even

when 

your life

resembles

my life

and that of all

a leaf is random

children's clothes

are tossed haphazardly

as waves that cover the seas

and weevils 

that devour 

rice

which deny chopsticks

and then

fly 

for new mysteries

and adventures

that may or may not include

procreation

An adventure

is random

to qualify as such

like the bol weevil 

which 

borrowed the 

prerequisite designation

to infest cotton

and not prefer rice

or flour

for cakes

and birthdays 

for the five hundred odd progeny

endlessly

slinking

crawling

and flying 

creatures of whim and dare

survivors 

symbiots

arbitrary as humans

and human doled

 law

and order

and freedom

 even compassion

comprehension

 and apprehension

dispensed and despised

for yesterday 

today

and days

of all morrows

ahmet cafer celebiler

November 7, 2024

A PRIORI

 

NON-ALGORITHMIC APRIORI

personal

and political

illogical

and philosophical

abstract

and hypothetical and practical

thought

and relationship

suffers from 

ancestral memory

neolithic practice 

based 

twentyfirst century knowledge

from

a very personal

and selfish perspective

rules the media

social

and otherwise

for the good

of sanity

and purity

of thought

and behavior 

as the base

a very strong

but still culpable base

of

faith and action

becomes cause

and effect

and authoritarian  asymmetry

denying

any touch

with reality

thought or seen

witnessed and presumed

sitting on a field of nettles

or on a wall

with other eggs

all brittle

and mortal

Ahmet cafer Celebiler

September 11, 2024

HUMILITY BECOMES HUBRIS

 

HUMILITY & HUBRIS

there is self pity in vainglory

as there is  a  mollusk 

in a crustacean

 species

in tendrils of  rumination

species with little empathy

but nostalgia 

borrowed

or drubbed

stories and creatures

collected monsters

endangered memories

ancient stones

shelved

with fog horns

forgotten towns

loves

desires

caves coves 

and hotels

 rummaged connections

disharmonious

with secret origins

forgotten resistances

and terminals

of

intermittent

repeating coda

diluted

or

erased by peace 

or violence

ahmet cafer celebiler

August 29, 2024

NOBODY WANTS TO STRETCH FOR THE TRUTH

 

the psyche or the soul or the mind and mosttly the body need nourishment.

food for thought

flavors for the heart

art for the psyche

certainty for survival

the unabated thirst for meaning

the importance of why

over what

when

where

how 

and who

that the owl knows 

older than writing 

and

branches of precious metal

talismans of branches 

woven as baskets of lore

saving 

and starving

and mouldering

and fogetting 

dust 

for 

all that arrives 

and will arrive

millenia hence

to ask again

to reason again

and to touch

and taste 

and make art

yet

never to evolve

for joy 

forever joy

ahmet cafer celebiler

August 17, 2024

ANOTHER LIFE

 

ANOTHER LIFE

Lives can be more than one story. Stories can have branches like trees and paths and alternate beginnings, chapters, and ends.

They can be simultaneous, consequitive or totally unrelated. 

My other story is in another blog, www.otherchelebistravels.com

It has travels and geographical, social, psychological perspectives, humour, selfishness, unspeculative views of places, history and people and much less perception. yet it is another or the same person in a different light or dark.

All sand in a desert may look the same so that the naked eye or mind may not discern their difference from one another. Some may fall through an hourglass quickly; others stick around the sides and rim and will obstinately cling to their personal reality. A few will have expansive ancestral memories and the desire to pass them on to their kin, neighbours and various other uninterested, uncaring, pawns of winds, sun, waters and other natural and unnatural forces which may be divine (according to some) or man made or real or  imaginary. 

So the story goes on, travels or not, perspectives or memorized realities (which may have roots in fairy tales, novels, autobiographies and similar narratives, all man-thought and not so divine) following kings, gods, misfits, serfs on mountain tops and anywhere under and above ground.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoy writing.

Ahmet cafer celebiler

(AKA Otherchelebi)

June 30, 2024

THE END OF THE STORY II

 

THE END OF MY STORY II

This has been my story 

most of the chapters

remembered

and 

pages

imagined

I wish i could have sung it

through my life

and to you

But I could never sing

except for a discordant lullaby

Ahmet Cafer Celebiler

January 12, 2024

GETTING THERE

 

AGING AS AGING 

At Almost Eighty

Recuperation, Declination, Deliberation and Respiration

Can i dare to place a limit

Is it an age?

or a state of mind?

Mine or just that of others?

Who decides, enough is enough?

spouse, children?

when intellect becomes insult

when perception is a nightmare

climate becomes only temperature

of feelings

and attitude

using heat and cold

mockery and demands

life remains short

nay, shorter

than a few days to visit a Spring house and 

cats and flowers 

and grass 

that smell like me after rain and mowing

but for so little

so memorable

a fortune 

to hope 

found too much for this age

that only real family deserves

and the age may not hope or enjoy

with so much joy in its past

none of which  carry forward 

below the TOTAL line

which has only numbers

undecipherable

even if its ink  

and meaning 

have not disappered

Ahmet C.Celebiler 

May 16, 2023

TALES OF CHICAGO

 

CHICAGO OF YOUNGER DAUGHTER 

AND MY PREHISTORIC LIVES

 

Something I wrote and posted in2017

 

  This time around, I will first post some of the photos before I get to the drivel, just for increased confusion.

Graduation Location in Millennium Park

Ceylan receives School of The Art Institute of Chicago diploma

Was she elected among classmates to waive something pink?

Unabashedly giving vent to feelings

I have been frequently visiting Chicago since 2001, not considering one visit in the depths of history, possibly in 1970 and another old one in 1986.

Many of those trips were before I earned my "Other"ness, but I have not let that prefix get to my head and can actually be quite truthful in reminiscing.

The first was because a friend was driving this way from Denver and I tagged along to experience his new Mazda with the rotary engine. However, he would not let me drive and also was adamantly against my eating anything in his new car. So I remember only the negative feelings of that trip and nothing of Chicago.

The second trip was as a friend and advisor to the GM of the national reinsurance company of Turkey, to help in negotiations with a liability reinsurance broker which had suffered and caused Milli Re to suffer due to the asbestosis catastrophe. We flew in, rented car, dove to the Drake to check in, climbed up Sears to see Chicago clouds and then drove to Evanston next day for our successful meeting to get out of the reinsurance treaty with an acceptable loss. I had a chance to show off my ability to sense places and directions by not once getting lost or missing our target even in Evanston in those pre-GPS ages.

The trip back could have been more pleasant if I had not taught a version of two handed bridge to my friend who proceeded to win $17.45 during the short flight to our stopover in London.

What does all this say about Chicago?

How do these two trips relate to the future ones?

Was that broker in Evanston acquired by a company I partnered with to open an office in Turkey, or was it acquired by another one which resulted in the forced sale of my shares in that company?

What caused me to find School of the Art Institute of Chicago as a possible university for my second daughter.

Come along, to discover Chicago, its people, architecture, life, food and universities from an alien perspective.

 

•  
• Report Abuse

  otherchelebi  on Jun 20, 17 at 9:33pm

  The fact that Chicago is one of the American cities with good architecture had nothing to do with my shortlisting SAIC as one of the schools DD2 would apply.
  3 schools of art and one good standard university with a well known architecture school was my solution to her desire to study in an artistic environment.
  
  We managed to visit SAIC and Baltimore School and MICA (Maryland Institute College of Arts) in her senior year on a three day weekend with one of her like minded classmate in tow. Savannah School of Design we had seen the previous year when we were visiting DD1 at Virginia Tech and an old friend at Atlanta.
  
  She was offered small scholarships from all three art schools and an acceptance from Syracuse. DD2 was adamant to spend her four years in a large city and Baltimore was definitely out of the question after I managed to lose my way the evening of our arrival, finding ourselves in the Baltimore zoo reading instructions for Penguin gate or orders to not feed the animals. I think a sign which said something about lions scared us enough to exit the zoo and find ourselves on Johns Hopkins University campus.
  
  My excuse is that I could not follow my well studied plan to drive to a Hilton Garden Inn in a park just outside Baltimore because of road works which led us to a number of diversions which would have fooled a foreign army. The hotel restaurant was closed, there was very little nearby and our visit to a MacD was a disaster when the two girls were introduced to loud applause by some of the other female customers who cheered them for some reason.
  
  The two uninterested Turkish students we were introduced added to DD's negative feelings which the great offer of the school in giving her six credits to start, couple of K per semester grant and the chance to force any class she wished could not alleviate despite the great crabs of different local species.
  
  We also had to have time to visit  Bloomingdales to pick graduation ball gowns for both girls in Chicago. They found their dresses and I found out that shopping with two females compounded the difficulty of shopping with one.
  
  Come August of 2003 we were at Hotel Burnham (currently The Alise) and the two girls at dorms on State Street just a block over.
  
  This was a great place because of the park in front which had a great weekly market, the monumental and mystifying department store Carson Pirie Scott which was the last large commercial building designed by Louis Sullivan, a Marshall fields and a Sears.
  
  Today, Sears is  Walgreens, Marshall fields is Macy's and Carson Pirie Scott is who knows what. The old ones did not grow or mature like DD but disappeared like people who have had their days. Rather sad but possibly with a moral that I cannot quite understand.
  
  The excitement of the girls was contagious enough that we had no river cruise, On-Off bus tour or long walks to places like the Navy Pier or even Millennium park. Neither were the Blues and Jazz scene in our agenda. It was a time of rushing to a Southern  Target store and the under construction Ikea and somehow putting together some furniture and things.
  
  Eser and I loved the feeling. It was totally different from doing similar things in Blacksburg, Virginia five years before. Chicago seemed warmer and friendlier although the school building where DD would have most of her classes resembled a run down official building of Ashkabad, Turkmenistan. The large imposing building, you see, was the museum of the school and not the school itself.

   

   

  Walking between Randolph and Monroe last week to remember the old days,
  I realised what a great loss was the park on Washington street, where some new high-rise buildings clutter up the already massive concrete and glass structures dwarfing the older and friendlier ones.
  
  I do not remember if the farmers market of over ten years ago at that space was as expensive as the Tuesday and Saturday farmers markets I visit these days in front of the Modern Art Museum and the children hospital where DD2 is employed as an assistant project manager and at Division and State just a couple of blocks from our condo.
  
  Were we afraid to leave our barely 18 year old in the city of Al Capone and the highest number of deaths by hand guns, interesting Democratic conventions of olden times, notorious mayors, ghost herds of cattle?
  
  No! We trusted the self-assurance, practicality and defence mechanisms of our DD2 to withstand the bohemian, mostly older, mostly semi-professional/part-time, different partner preference schoolmates she would meet. We were correct. She was among the 15% of her freshman class who graduated in June of her fourth year and went on for a graduate degree, thereby depleting most of our family nest-egg, but also finding happiness in marrying a young lawyer from Michigan and now giving birth to our grand daughter Arya.
  
  Abandoning her dorm in her sophomore year, she moved to a large four bedroom town house in the old town with three classmates. The fame of this party house may have crossed state lines not only because of the girls but also because of the pool table in the basement.
  
  We figured that if she could pass all her courses with the minimum B average required for her to keep the small scholarship that year, she could overcome any problems. And apparently it was so, because the next apartment, still in the old town, fully exposed to the EL and burgled twice stayed a favourite of hers, and would have graduated her if we had not flown in after the second burglary and forced both girls (the original two I had brought on the selection trip) to move to an apartment at Chestnut Place with its award winning lobby which fell victim to the greed of new owners last year.
  
  Other nice things about chestnut place were, the twenty-four hour open Tempo Cafe and Potash supermarket across, two pizza restaurants, one on each side, cleaners and car rental on premises, reasonably priced parking for visitors, not to mention a sex shop very close but absolutely ignored by all of us. One pizza restaurant and the cleaners are gone now as well as the reasonableness of the parking, but the others are staunchly in place, although the entrance is now on Chestnut rather than State and the lobby looks like any other.
  
  DD2 now lives in their own townhouse half a block away, enjoying her big city with all the conveniences of her location.
  
  I think we were there for all her moves as a student, but fortunately not the two after her marriage.
  
  We suffered Summer heat and Winter glaciers and even renting a U-Haul to move some of her stuff a few days before we drove to Cleveland for my cardio-thoracic surgery. We were gone less than two weeks, flying back on the seventh day after my double by-pass, to spend three weeks recuperating, walking a minimum of two miles a day, before I would fly back to Istanbul.