{"id":54717,"date":"2023-01-09T14:57:02","date_gmt":"2023-01-09T19:57:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=54717"},"modified":"2023-01-17T12:58:21","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T17:58:21","slug":"a-record-of-the-unseen-and-unheard-in-istanbul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2023\/01\/a-record-of-the-unseen-and-unheard-in-istanbul.html","title":{"rendered":"‘Benevolent Loitering’<\/em><\/font>
‘Unheard and Unseen’ in Istanbul<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Having never been to Istanbul, I’ve done the next best thing \u2014 or so it feels upon reading The Pleasures of Empty Lots<\/a> <\/em>by Efe Murad, poet, translator, and scholar extraordinaire<\/a>. There’s no mention, unfortunately, of this remarkable booklet in the omnibus roundup Read Your Way Through Istanbul<\/a>, which appeared yesterday in The NY Times Book Review. (Perhaps it was too much to expect from a mainstream organ of received wisdom.) <\/p>\n\n\n

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The Pleasures of Empty Lots (Available for purchase<\/a>.)
Cover painting: Can Aytekin, from the movie ‘Time to Love’<\/a>
Published by Bored Wolves<\/a>, 2021 <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

After all, as Murad writes, “This humble chapbook is a record of the unheard and the unseen, which can only be experienced by those who find pleasure in ephemeral escapades. It is a longing for a clean slate, a tribute to benevolent loitering.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s also more than that. It is in the most vivid, personal terms a manifesto for artistic freedom and \u2014 necessarily \u2014 social and political liberty. The spirit of it makes me think of Bola\u00f1o.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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‘Contemporary Turkey is under the spell of a personality cult. Social conservatism is ascendent. Islamic discourse pervades every single aspect of daily life,
including the contretemps between poets.\u2019 <\/em><\/strong>\u2014 Efe Murad<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read two excerpts \u2014 ‘A Clean Slate<\/a><\/strong>‘<\/strong><\/a> and <\/strong>‘Blind Allegiance<\/a>‘ \u2014 and take a look at this
BBC documentary: Bosphorous Obsession<\/a>. The pleasures will be yours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Click for video. <\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Having never been to Istanbul, I\u2019ve done the next best thing \u2014 or so it feels upon reading ‘The Pleasures of Empty Lots’ by Efe Murad, poet, translator, and scholar extraordinaire. “This humble chapbook,” he writes, “is a record of the unheard and the unseen, which can only be experienced by those who find pleasure in ephemeral escapades. It is a longing for a clean slate, a tribute to benevolent loitering.” It is also more than that. It is in the most vivid, personal terms a manifesto for artistic freedom and \u2014 necessarily \u2014 social and political liberty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":54714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,26,18,4,20,23,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-54717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-art","8":"category-books","9":"category-literature","10":"category-main","11":"category-media","12":"category-news","13":"category-political-culture","14":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/empty-lots-murad-1cover-bdr-750enh.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-eex","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54717"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54887,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54717\/revisions\/54887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}