Sinanation

10 supermodels, a world famous lingerie company and a super popular music band got together one day and said “wow we are really really really good looking and successful. What else can we do to have a little more fun and promote our sexiness?”

On the 2nd year anniversary of “I am back in Istanbul and it sucks big time that I can no longer watch the Victoria’s Secret Show live on CBS” this is what they came up with. Victoria’a Secret angels lip sync “Moves like Jagger” by Maroon 5.

A chalet that was originally built in 1760! and renovated in 2007. It is located in Champery, a town 2 hours away from Geneva by car with 1,200 residents, overlooking the Dents du Midi Mountains. 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 2 fireplaces. The famous Champery – Planachaux cable-car is right at the town center to take skiers to Les Portes du Soleil, the largest international ski area in the world. Can’t get any better than this.

On sale for USD 4m.

First it was that great record company. Then it was that airline everyone couldn’t stop drooling about. Then there was the private island estate even the Hollywood stars craved to go. And this time Sir Richard Branson is back with a full-service private ski lodge in Verbier, Swtizerland. Here is the description from the website:

 The Lodge, Sir Richard Branson’s luxury chalet, can accommodate up to 18 adults in nine bedrooms and up to six children for a superb skiing holiday in Verbier, Switzerland. Rates during the winter season are quoted on seven nights’ exclusive hire for 18 guests, and are priced in British Pounds. You can reserve individual rooms during the winter ski season if the chalet has not been booked for exclusive use six weeks prior to the set arrival date. Rates during the summer season are quoted per room per night based on two adults sharing and priced in British Pounds. The Lodge can be hired exclusively during the summer season. The 13 friendly and experienced staff include a Necker Island trained General Manager, an activities co-ordinator, spa therapist, Raymond Blanc trained chef and Bam Bam – the chalet dog. Each one is dedicated to tailor-making each guest experience…. People may arrive as guests but often leave as friends. The Lodge is part of Virgin Limited Edition, Sir Richard Branson’s collection of unique retreats.

Guests will need to fly to Geneva and then, drive, take the train to Martigny or rent a helicopter to their comfy luxurious ski vacation. The average minimum rate per person for a night’s stay  (minimum stay is 3 nights) at The Lodge comes up to 500 Pounds including all the meals, drinks and the use of the facilities inside the ski in/out chalet. Yes, it is a little pricey but what else can you expect from one of the wealthiest men in the world?

Turkish painter, Leyla Gediz’s solo exhibition “Coming Soon” opened at the Rampa Gallery in Akaretler yesterday. I kept getting good remarks about the work of this figurative artist, so I had to go see her new pieces with my own eyes. The exhibition to me seemed more like a collection of unfinished works that once finished could be the one stop to a great composition.

The exhibition was a collection of portraits and still life. I didn’t like at all the big chunks of white space left on the portraits. The detailing on the hair of each figure was completely left out forcing the viewer to focus on the face, especially the eyes. Although the strategy is there, I wasn’t happy with the fact that the artist was so dominant in her motives. I wanted a little more room to move around the canvas and be stuck at a spot I was not forced upon, but I was left empty handed. The still life pieces, I think were the better thought out part of the exhibition. Yet I did not find their composition (such as fireworks and a film roll) interesting. This does not mean that Gediz did not put a successful show on display. She definitely had a strong persistance and unity through all the pieces she created for this exhibition, but I for a fact was expecting a little more challange, a little more “why” out of Coming Soon.

Coming Soon will be on display until January 7, 2012.

A much bigger flood of art comes through Istanbul as the influence of October’s artbeat is fading out. The location is again Lütfi Kırdar Convention Center. Hundreds of galleries (domestic and international) are displaying and of course selling their hand-picked precious works of art under the roof of Contemporary Istanbul. Large pieces dominate the collection and prices are a bit on the heavy side especially on the 1st floor. The opening night was on Wednesday, but the fair will go on until Sunday November 27. If you are a serious window shopper you certainly need more than one visit to get enough of this massive (in Istanbul terms) art carnival.

The ever-so diverse crowd of art lovers fills up the halls once again. There are the camera-lover nouveau riche running around with their mink coats and tight dresses, there are the sophisticated over-60 couples digesting the art with their reading glasses, there are the newly weds who didn’t know what to do with their little children and had to take them with for some amateur canvas shopping and finally there is the hipster cool youngsters mingling with friends and sucking in the best of the flourishing art in Istanbul.

Some of my favorite pieces from the event include works by the Saudi artist, Abdulnasser Gharem, the Turkish artist, Sabire Susuz and an Armenian artist (I couldn’t get the name of).

I remember Benetton from my childhood years: the bright colors, the legendary green and the huge unaltared portraits of people from all around the world. Benetton was one of the first brands that truly embraced globalization and  made us remember how connected we all are. I used it wear its clothing a lot back then, but through the years it somehow lost its popularity among my generation. We have viciously moved onto the more expensive brands and felt a little more “privileged” wearing their products. Even though the trade disappeared the identity stayed strong. So with the past in mind it wasn’t a surprise but an awe when I received news about Benetton’s newest campaign, UNHATE, generously promoted throughout the world with the ever so powerful politicians kissing one another on the lips. Only a handful of today’s brands can publicly picture Obama kissing Hu Jintao, the Paramount Leader of China or Sarkozy kissing Merkel. Benetton is certainly one of them.

You too can be a part of the cause with a kiss. Post your pics online on the UNHATE website. Though I recommend you to go for simpler compositions like kissing the vegetable you hate to avoid any more serious controversy/confusion.

Not much to say about this chalet-like calorie bomb factory. It might be a typical tourist attraction but still deserves a well planned Sunday brunch visit. Zip your mouths at breakfast and save all the room for this place. The pancakes are (unlike their American peers) much thinner but come as big as the size of a regular dinner plate covered generously in whatever topping you requested.

Simply yummy. The Pancake Bakery

110 karats. Sold for USD 11m. Excavated from African Mines in 2010. Don’t think it needs more introduction.

If you have been reading the news lately, you will notice the expanding crisis in Europe. It is so viral that it makes the turbulence in the Americas look like a scratch on your piggy bank and the social uprise around the middle east like a quarrel at a school recess. There is currently a delusive play of extraordinary amounts of money all around the world and I am at times scared to read them out loud. It is as if our governments went on a shopping spree for a few decades on borrowed money and have not looked back until they were kneeled down at gunpoint by their lenders. How did we get in so much shit without even smelling it?

Politicians have been assassinated. Governments have been fired. Unemployment rates have gone above 20%s. Hunger has never been as lethal. Ownership of money has never been as imbalanced since the time of the oligarchs. Debt rates have gone beyond 100% of GDPs. Natural disasters we thought we were immune to brought down yet again our most advanced civilizations. It seems that everything we have been critisizing about the past came back to hunt us down. We thought we were improving life, but we now realize that we have just been renaming, definitely not revising, the ancient systems. So we are back at where we started only with more advanced technology that still serves the same purpose it served centuries ago and causes even more pollution. The ships still sail, only faster. The cars still drive, only faster. The internet still mails, only faster. The oven still cooks, only faster. We have forced the whole world to run on a faster cycle and selfishly made an exception for our own kind. That is the core of the imbalance we now struggle to overcome.

The ground below us is shaking, making us the living witnesses of a great change. A change that will take chapters in history books of the future. America and Europe have been the sole bright stars of the past with their economic power and success in manipulation. Yet, as they loose the economic power and thus the political stability, they are no longer supine to their Asian competitors. The only question here is if politically and financially stronger Asia will now be able to influence and manipulate the rest of the world as well as America and/or Europe?

We are at the point of an unavoidable shift, but are not yet aware where it will come from. We all made it to the corner where we need to make the turn to a better world. Hybrid cars, solar energy, better irrigation systems, climate controls, the technology is there but it is not yet available to the general public.

We are in the eye of the storm hoping to finally make it to calm waters.

The final hit of the Transformers Saga: Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Can I please tell you how bad this movie is? A screenplay most probably written by the “bright kid” at a random kindergarden. A selection of actors and actresses who must be spending more time at the gym and nutritionists rather than attending courses that will somehow better their choking acting skills. A desperate attempt of camouflaging the whole unbelievably off and artificial substance in this failure movie with a bunch of sleek cars, tight dresses and sizzling models. Shia LaBoeuf I know you have been there all along so you had no other choice but take the role (hey money is money even if you are a rich hollywood teenage star). Patrick Dempsey what was your excuse? You were somewhat bearable at those chick flicks and the ladies were drooling over you, but even with the cool role of the “rich evil tycoon” your career shouldn’t have made it out alive from this set. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley please stay at the catwalks. You were sexy once with those perky lips and now you are struggling as that bimbo who had a role in that amazingly boring movie. And Francis McDormand; I remember you as that so fulfilling witty sister of Diane Keaton in Something’s Gotto Give. What the heck happened that you had to take this disaster role of a posh secret government agent who walks around with a crocodile bag and Nike sneakers?

I would have tried to tie myself to the sofa to make it to the ending if the movie wasn’t 154 minutes! Chinese torture would have been easier to handle. On top of all I now hate myself for paying for all this fiasco.

I was up for some purposeless sci-fi advanture, but I will never again be ready for Transfromers: Dark of the Moon. I hope it stays on the dark side of the moon forever.

What else could I have expected from a movie with such an opening scene?