(Kein-)Kaffeepause #6
It is ramadan, folks - the month of fasting. With six days to go I have finally mastered the art of fasting from 3.30 am till 10 pm. I came to realize that meaty diners at night are counterproductive and soup with bread is the only way to go. From midnight till morning I stick to water now and try to avoid any ice cream outbreaks. As rules go, there are many exceptions to this diet. Especially when a friend is visiting & we spend the whole night sitting outside on the balcony talking & enjoying a warm summer night. During the week I spend iftar (meaning the time when the sun sets and fasting muslims are allowed to eat till sunrise) in my flat on my own (well technically...Terry Gross, Nerdist or Marc Maron accompany me). Once in while I go out to have a late dinner with friends at pamukkale or mr. kebab in Hamburg's hipster-y area Schanze. My weekends in my hometown Hanover are spend with friends & family. Ramadan is not only the month of fasting - showing dedication and discipline, thinking about god's love and showing gratitude, it is also the month where every iftar is spend with loved ones, friends or neighbors. It is a benevolent cycle of being invited and inviting the people in your community or outside of it. Some days are spend at the local mosque or at restaurants run by moslems which offer dining specials during ramadan (& include night shifts to their operating hours), but mostly we go have amazing dinners at friend's house. The food is prepared with the utmost care and love for hours. TV food shows change their screening time and have special menus prepared for iftar dinners (like Ardanin ramazan mutfagi by Arda Türkmen). The traditional Turkish cuisine offers a wide variety for a diverse 30-day run - repetitious meals are the exception.
Because of Ramadan there are no real coffee breaks during my day. But with 15 hours no food, no water, and consequently no exercise, I was in serious need of pop cultural entertainment to get me through the day. So this is what has kept me going:
Music
Best Coast stole my heart. I mean it. At this point it is impossible to spend a day with no humming of "...why would you live anywhere else... this is the only place...". To reach a high doses of best coast insulin every day I subscribed to the band's leads singer on instagram and watched music videos on YouTube. What a sufficient way to spend my time.
Another song on repeat is "feel it all around" by Washed Out, due to my Portlandia obsession and the opening credits on the show. Naturally I had to look for more Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein on the internet and found a marvelous podcast episode of All Songs Considered. They talked about their show, how they first meet (spoiler: Fred Armisen wore a button with her face on it when they saw each other for the first time at a SNL party) and bonded over the band Misfits. The best musical discovery for me was the song "this is not a song" by Islands, "girl you want" by Devo and "a chapter must be closed" by Holy Sons.
Movies & TV Shows
At the moment I am most excited to see some indie movies like Appropriate Behavior, While we're young, Man Up, Me and Earl and the dying girl, Liebe auf den ersten Schlag, Victoria and Love & Mercy. But also Ant-Man, Horns and Inside Out. Can it be August already please?
Videos
This ukulele pattern is a favorite. Easy but so smooth. Do you know about the Live Feed on Animal Planet's website? If so, have you seen THE SEA OTTERS????
This Amy Schumer video; this Key & Peele take on women's menstruation cycle (TED conference style) is hilarious. These answers to the question who should write the soundtrack to your life. This TED Ed video on how to use the semicolon. I would love to use more semicolons. I'm going to work on it more actively. Now I feel too subconscious to use them in this post.
Also, the TED video on how bilingual brains work gave me lots of new vocabulary: multilingual vs. monolingual, compound bilingual (having two linguistic codes), coordinate bilingual (working with two sets of concepts i.e. learning German at school but speaking Turkish at home), subordinate bilingual (filtering the secondary language by the first).
Books
Right now it is next to impossible to get through a book because sleep is the greatest enemy. So I eluded to short stories by Sam Shepard and comic books. I really enjoyed the Batman comics with stories written by Scott Snyder. I have to admit I only read Batman comics so my vision is quite narrow. So lets stick to my love for Sam Shepard:
Other internet-y thing
The app blinkist. Comic Con Snapchats. Instagram accounts of Fred Armisen, Kal Penn and Joel Kinnaman and instagram celebrity @carolinecalloway.
Because of Ramadan there are no real coffee breaks during my day. But with 15 hours no food, no water, and consequently no exercise, I was in serious need of pop cultural entertainment to get me through the day. So this is what has kept me going:
Music
Best Coast stole my heart. I mean it. At this point it is impossible to spend a day with no humming of "...why would you live anywhere else... this is the only place...". To reach a high doses of best coast insulin every day I subscribed to the band's leads singer on instagram and watched music videos on YouTube. What a sufficient way to spend my time.
Another song on repeat is "feel it all around" by Washed Out, due to my Portlandia obsession and the opening credits on the show. Naturally I had to look for more Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein on the internet and found a marvelous podcast episode of All Songs Considered. They talked about their show, how they first meet (spoiler: Fred Armisen wore a button with her face on it when they saw each other for the first time at a SNL party) and bonded over the band Misfits. The best musical discovery for me was the song "this is not a song" by Islands, "girl you want" by Devo and "a chapter must be closed" by Holy Sons.
Movies & TV Shows
At the moment I am most excited to see some indie movies like Appropriate Behavior, While we're young, Man Up, Me and Earl and the dying girl, Liebe auf den ersten Schlag, Victoria and Love & Mercy. But also Ant-Man, Horns and Inside Out. Can it be August already please?
Videos
This ukulele pattern is a favorite. Easy but so smooth. Do you know about the Live Feed on Animal Planet's website? If so, have you seen THE SEA OTTERS????
This Amy Schumer video; this Key & Peele take on women's menstruation cycle (TED conference style) is hilarious. These answers to the question who should write the soundtrack to your life. This TED Ed video on how to use the semicolon. I would love to use more semicolons. I'm going to work on it more actively. Now I feel too subconscious to use them in this post.
Also, the TED video on how bilingual brains work gave me lots of new vocabulary: multilingual vs. monolingual, compound bilingual (having two linguistic codes), coordinate bilingual (working with two sets of concepts i.e. learning German at school but speaking Turkish at home), subordinate bilingual (filtering the secondary language by the first).
Books
Right now it is next to impossible to get through a book because sleep is the greatest enemy. So I eluded to short stories by Sam Shepard and comic books. I really enjoyed the Batman comics with stories written by Scott Snyder. I have to admit I only read Batman comics so my vision is quite narrow. So lets stick to my love for Sam Shepard:
They say, these days, standing out on the rim of the Grand Canyon, the brightest lights in the night sky are not the stars in the heavens but the glow from casino neon in Las Vegas - one hundred and seventy-five miles away.
She turns west to face a sea of salt.If you are looking for more, look no further but his short story Thor's Day, or Costello. They are my favorite from the Day out of Days collection.
Other internet-y thing
The app blinkist. Comic Con Snapchats. Instagram accounts of Fred Armisen, Kal Penn and Joel Kinnaman and instagram celebrity @carolinecalloway.
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