20 Nisan 2014 Pazar

Tramvay Bekleyenler Derneği

Tramvay bekliyorum. İki insan var karşımda. Tam olarak ne konuştuklarını bilmiyorum. Bana göre solda olan adam ellilerinde, hafif kamburu çıkmış, alnından dökülen saçlarıyla oldukça kel birisi. Gören kel demez de, kel adama bak dersen ona bakarlar mesela. Elinde iki adet naylon torba var, değerli madde naylon torba. Kim bilir hangi mamutun ya da dinozorun kemiklerini taşıyor elinde. Tarihe dokunduğunun farkında bile olmadan ki olsa dahi herhangi bir market poşetine dönüşmüş tarihe artık ne kadar tarih diyebiliriz, azı dişinden gelen çürüğün kokusunu bana göre sağda duranın yüzüne, kahkahasıyla savurdu. Bana göre sağdaki adam soldakine göre daha genç duruyordu. Gerçi soldaki daha erken çökmüş de olabilirdi. Sağdakini genç gösteren kafasına taktığı eskimiş kepinden ziyade bacaklarının arasına sıkıştırdığı gitarıydı. Bir insan belli bir yaşın üstündeyse (bu yaşı belirleyen bir enstitü bilmiyorum. Herhangi bir yaşı belirleyen enstitüler de bilmiyorum. Benim bildiğim belli yaşlar 18 filan gibi beynelmilel yaşlar) ve enstrüman çalıyorsa, hangi enstrüman çaldığı fark etmeksizin etrafındakilerinin saygısını kazanıyor. Herkes bir enstrüman çalmaya bir şekilde başlar. Herkesin evinde bir gitar mutlaka vardır. Ama bunu yıllar yılı devam ettirebilmek başlı başına ayrı bir olay.

Sağdaki gitarlı adam, kıç cebinden paket içinde tütün çıkardı. Müthiş bir el çabukluğuyla bir tütün sardı. Ayakkabılarıma gözüm takıldı, sağdaki adam sardığı sigarayı soldakine verip yenisini sararken. Ben sırf ayakkabımı bağlama ve/veya çözme işini sağdakinin sigarayı sarma becerisinin yarısı kadar yapamadığımdan, bağlarını çözmeden giyer çıkarırım. Bu yüzden zaten ayakkabılarımın arkası hep erkenden gider. Ben bir de topuklarıma basarak yürürüm. O yüzden ilk topukları aşınıyor ayakkabının. Artık eskisi gibi de iyi ayakkabı yapmıyorlar zaten. 1 sene içerisinde bir ayakkabıyı çöpe atacak hale geliyorsun. Dedeme bakacak olursak biz malımıza değer vermiyoruz. Solcu amcama bakacak olursak kapitalizmin oyunu, bana kalırsa iki çift ayakkabın olursa daha uzun giyersin aslında.

Tramvay bir türlü gelmiyor. Sigarayı yakmaları beni heveslendirmedi değil. Zira ben ne zaman sigara yaksam tramvay ve/veya otobüs ve dahi metro geliverirdi. Şimdi onlar yaktılar, hem de iki kişi, şıp diye gelirdi. Soldaki adamın burun delikleri genişçe olduğundan, duman burnundan termik santral bacasından çıkarmışcasına bir ve kardeşçesine çıkıyor. Soldakinin de yeteneği bu idi. Bunun farkında olduğundan, sigarasından her bir fırt aldığında burnundan vererek sohbetine devam ediyor. O hafif kambur ve dumanlı burun, adeta bir şaman büyücüsü gibi atmosfere sahip oluyordu anında. Ve o şaman öyle inanarak çekiyor ki o büyülü nefeslerini, yak ulan bir tane daha deyip tribün oluşturasım geldi. Ben mi yaksam? Yakarsam gelir ama. Onlar yaktılar, tramvay onlara gelsin. Onlara gelsin ben sebepleneyim.
Soldaki adam torbasından bir kutu gibi bir şey çıkardı. Gittikçe enteresan oluyor bu Şaman Efendi. Şaman efendim, ayrılık ölümden beter, durunuz etmeyiniz dedimse de, kutuyu kocaman ve gevrek bir gülümsemeyle sağdakine gösterdi. Eski bir teknolojik alet. Diafona benziyor ama hoparlör bile olabilir. Hurdacılıkla uğraşıyor olsaydım bilirdim de bir sigara mı yaksak acaba?

Sağdakinin gitarı kılıfına koyma eylemi; oldukça büyük bir alanı işgal eden bir eylem. Sırtında asılı gitar kılıfının askısını sağ eliyle kavrayarak, solundan sağına doğru, vücuduna yakın, ufak bir kavis çizerken sol eliyle sapının tarafını tuttu önce. Sol elini sabitleyip, sağ eliyle fermuarını açtı şimdi de bu bez kılıfın. O arada sol eliyle hala kılıfı tutarken, sağ eliyle bacaklarının arasındaki gitarın sapından tutarak, adeta bir yılanı boğarcasına, kılıfı gitara sardı. Çabuk bir hareketle de fermuarını cıuuvvvvrrt şeklinde kapattı. İşte bu eylem, tramvay bekleyenlerde (benden başka kimse beklemiyordu) gözle görülür bir hareket yarattı. Adeta üyesi bulunduğum Tramvay Bekleyenler Derneği, bekledikleri beklemeyle ilgili bir yazı olduğunda referans verilmezse olmaz olan Godot’nun teşrifiyle sene sonu çayının hangi parkta yapılması gerektiğini tartışmaya başlamışlardı ki, hop nereye yahu? Adamlar tramvay beklemek şöyle dursun, iki sigara sarımlığı ve bir gitar koyumluğu zaman kadar orada beklemeye gelmişlerdi. Zira oranın müdavimiydiler. Ve her gün, öğleden sonra saat 3 gibi iki sigara sarımlığı ve bir gitar koyumluğu zaman beklermiş. Ben de daha sonradan öğrenecektim bu ayrıntıyı.


Bir sigara yakayım bari. Cebimden yarısını içip söndürdüğüm sigarayı çıkardım. Yaktım. Yakar yakmaz tramvay uzakta gözüktü. Yarım sigarayı söndürdüm, sadece Tramvay Bekleyenler Derneği’nin tecrübeli üyelerinin bilebileceği yarım sigarayı, bir sonraki bekleyiş için pakete koydum. Burnumdan nefesi vermeye çalıştım fakat, şaman efendim, olmadı ya.

10 Nisan 2014 Perşembe

La Maison de La Magie

La Maison de La Magie is in Blois which is a city & the capital of Loir-et-Cher department in central France, situated on the banks of the lower river Loire between Orléans and Tours*. I can say that, this city is medieval city which is surrounded by a river and city walls. 

Chateau de Blois
According to wikipedia; Chateau de Blois** is the residence of several French kings, it is also the place where Joan of Arc went in 1429 to be blessed by the Archbishop of Reims before departing with her army to drive the English from Orléans. La Masion de la Magie is the neighbour of this castle.

La Maison de La Magie is an ancient bourgeois house from 1856, in front of the castle. This house is inaugurated as museum in 1st June, 1998. Also, this museum is the only museum where magician equipements and a live show are exhibited in Europe***

After all those informations that you can easily google; I can start to tell my experience about La Maison de La Magie. Honestly, before visiting this place, I had no idea about it. Anyway, it was easy to find it. From the highway, you can see the signs of La Maison de La Magie. It is impossible not to find it. When I see the house, I was relaxed and.... OH NO!!! WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS!
  
Dragons

I saw the dragons -yes, dragons- on the windows of the house. At first sight, it was scary, I should admit it. After seeing my little friends' "normal reaction", as a 26-year-old boy, I realised that was not real. Every hour, these dragons making their shows to their audience. 

In front of the house, you can see a statue. Guess who? Ofcourse,it is Robert Houdin. On this statue, it writes that "On prestidigitation, there is before and after of Robert Houdin"

 The Statue of Robert Houdin and a bit of my finger (at down-right corner of picture).
Firstly, Robert Houdin was just an "everything man". He was scientist first of all. He had lots of scientific works on horography and optics. His prestidigitation fame comes from on these scientific works on optics. We will talk about it later. Let's get in to "La Maison".
Me and dragons 
 Entrance of the house

I bought my ticket for the house. You can also buy the tickets for a light show in the castle at night, but, I didn't. Because, I couldn't find a place to sleep in Blois. Anyway, I you visit, you can buy. =) 

I was there aroun 11 o'clock in the morning and I was lucky because the first live performance at th 11:15. Then I took my place in the "Grande Salle" with my friends who were from 6 to 15 years old.
Ticket and flyer

It was forbidden to take any pictures or videos, so you have to have confidence on me =) . This show's name is "Les Folies Meliès"; put on scene by François Normag and Patrice Vrain Perrault. As you know; Meliès is the one of the greatest artists in cinema and prestidigitation. He was a real illusionist at his time (1895-1938). Even if he shot over than 500 movies, we can find only around a hundred of them. And also, today's art of cinema is still using of his technics that he invented at very early ages of cinema. So, as we can understand by the show's name, it is a tribute to Meliès. There were two people on the stage, one is a man who disguised as Meliès, the other is a woman who represents today's generation.

The show was started by a classic, "Le voyage dans la lune" and then, it was a slide-show which was continued to today by mentioning all the classics like "Good, Bad and Ugly", "Disney Comics", "Star Wars" etc. Then the woman was bored because of "old fashion things" and she played a loud disco music with a stereo. It was the first "magic" when Meliès made the streo disappear. Of course, when the "magician" came up to scene, they showed us some hat tricks, such taking  out sticks from hat. But it was the first "magic" which attracted us. Briefly, I should admit that, this show was a bit light for todays generation, because, they can reach everything. They have lots of illusional things on their hands. That show couldn't surprise anyone unfortunately. However, it was really good to see what Meliès do at the early-cinema-era.

After the show whose duration around 40 minutes, I've started to visit the museum from the -1th floor. At that floor, the decoration was set up to tribute Meliès.



The most interesting thing in this section is that technic of ghost appearing. This was applicated to scenes by colaboration of Meliès and Houdin. By an optical illusion, spectator thinks that there is a ghost on scene (You can see this technic on "the Illusionist - Movie" of Neil Burger). That is the point that I can add on my art-knowledge and use in the future.


Ghost Appearing 

In this section, I also was that some make up technics in cinema.



Basically cinema is a flow of 24 frames of picture. If you can see that picture with the right rythme, you can realise the mouvements on the picture. So, of course, in this cinema section, there you can find the firs movie players.








They were real illusions for the era.The invention of first cinematographes, first movie generators and players was the "Rennaissance" of illusion. The illusion becomes more than juggling. 

On the ground floor, there are lots of optic illusion tools. I will show some of them.
You can see me as a prisoner in the castle chessman. There was a little gap which was covered a little glass.  When I looked into, I saw myself as a prisoner

 This is really hard to explain. This little passage was covered with mirrors and you feel like on the air or on tmiddle of a cliff.
As a classic: funny mirrors

In this section, there are also some perpective tricks on pictures.




On the last three photos, you can see three different perspectives of a wall. From every perspective, you can see different picture.



On the last two pictures, you should solve mind-trick puzzles. On first pictures, there are two different animals, on the last there are two different visages.


The real museum part starts with Houdin's office and flat. In this flat you can see the tools of Houdin. Such as, magical sticks, his show hat and gloves, old tickets, notebooks etc.







For me, the most impressing thing was about this section, it was his inventions. As I pointed out earlier; Houdin was a scientist. He worked on lots of things, especially on optic and on horography. With his optical inventions, he tried to heal cataract problem.



As a magician, Houdin was also "horloger". For me, the concept of time is very special. I believe that everyone has a mainspring wounded up in themselves. Everyone lives their lives as single seconds. We can not live hours or years. We can only live in actual second. For me, the illusion is a second which is long lasting. Houdin invented some magical clocks. All the dimensions are tranparents, but, you can see the time pasts. It excites me.
Magical Clock**** 


In the last flat of La Maison de La Magie, there is a room which is called; Hallucinoscope. This section is invented by Gérard Majax. Basicly; you have a mirror-glass on your nose and it reflects the objects which are hanged up. So, it makes you feel that all these objects are on the floor. I was trying to make a video but it is not really clear. However, it can give you opinion.
This is the mirror glasses that you should keep on your nose. It doesn't cover your eyes.It is like blinkers. It doesn't allow you to see the floor. So, you can be "hallusinated"



Hallucinoscope*****
It was the best experience in this house for me. Even if I could understand easily how it works, I was really hallusinated. On every obscatle, I hesitated to step forward. It was really impressive.

To summarise up my visit in La Maison de La Magie, I can say that, it was a bit light. With the other words, I can say that it wasn't such impressive that I expected. However, on a poster that I saw at the end, really inspired me. There were some words of Houdin; "Then, I entered the scene. I was with spectator-friends. To extend these emotions, I close my eyes and mentally transport myself to top of my theater. But why, this fiction, I would not do a reality? I could not, every night, guided by faithful memories, continue in another form the course of my representations of the past?". These words really hit me. On the stage, we, actors, lie. And the spectators come to believe us. Same in an magician's show. Everyone knows, the magician cannot cut off a person, or he/she cannot fly. However, they really would like to believe our lies. Spectators and actors are really close friends because of this effect of illusion. They keep a common secret. Even if it is a fiction, everything on the scene is real. You feel an extended emotions from your past to your future. Whatever you see on the stage, Romeo & Julliet or a magician, they make you share same secret; the illusion of playing. 

Thanks to Houdin; I will always remember the illusion of playing on the stage, as a kid does. You should know it is a show, but you have to believe its reality. Then, share with your friends, I mean, with your spectators.

  
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blois
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Blois
***http://www.maisondelamagie.fr/1059-presentation.htm 
****You can check more clocks on http://horlocentrale.com/?p=4660 
***** To see a cleaner version on youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlNHFMAlxzY&noredirect=1

You can support on  me http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/oytun-at-lecoq/x/6395262