JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

They must have one of these in Tardis: The Timechart History of the World. 6,000 years of world history in convenient chart form, so that on your next excursion through the timestream you land in a fun, friendly era (There aren’t that many of those) and not one of the many bloodbaths.

Based on the Victorian wallchart at the British Library, the timechart is a single sheet of paper about 16 feet long, folded into pages for easy reading.

Ignore the 4004 B.C. date of “creation” and go straight to the “post-deluge” era. Ooh, Sumer! The invention of the balista! Ancient Chaldaea!

The Timechart History of the World, fourth edition, is published by Third Millennium Press Limited and available at National Bookstores, Php845.

For as mammoth a role it plays in our history, there haven’t been that many movies about slavery in the United States. For as many movies as there are about gladiators and Israelites and subjects as dark and difficult as the Holocaust, the subject has been explored rarely (Amistad, Django Unchained), and often somewhat indirectly (Glory, Beloved), and what movies we have gotten have often focused on white saviors (this category also includes Lincoln, and even to some extent Django). Notably, just about every last one of them has also been directed by a white man—Steven Spielberg, Edward Zwick, Quentin Tarantino, or Jonathan Demme. Watching these, I tend to agree with Roger Ebert, who in 1990 wrote of Glory, “I consider this primarily a story about a black experience and do not know why it has to be seen largely through white eyes.”

Read Trailer Critic in Slate.

Von Braun, the Nazi who built the space program, with US President John F. Kennedy. Photo from space.com.

On Thursday, September 20, 1945, Wernher von Braun arrived at Fort Strong. The small military site on the northern tip of Boston Harbour’s Long Island was the processing point for Project Paperclip, the government programme under which hundreds of German scientists were brought into America. Von Braun filled out his paperwork that day as the inventor of the Nazi V-2 rocket, a member of the Nazi party, and a member of the SS who could be linked to the deaths of thousands of concentration camp prisoners. Two and a half decades later on Wednesday, July 16, 1969, von Braun stood in the firing room at Kennedy Spaceflight Centre and watched another of his rockets, the Saturn V, take the Apollo 11 crew to the Moon.

That he was responsible for both the deadly Nazi V-2 and NASA’s majestic Saturn V makes Wernher von Braun a controversial historical figure. Some hold that his participation in the Nazi war effort necessitates classifying him as a villain. But while his actions during the Second World War were monstrous, he wasn’t motivated by some inherent evil or personal belief in Nazi ideology. Von Braun was motivated by his childhood obsession with spaceflight, a somewhat uncritical patriotism, and a naive grasp of the ramifications of his actions in creating one of the War’s deadliest weapons. How can we treat someone who brought technological triumph to two nations, in one case as a purveyor of death and destruction and in the other a bringer of wonder and inspiration?

Read Wernher von Braun: History’s most controversial figure? by Amy Shira Teitel.

Why am I posting pictures of breakfast? Because in regular life I don’t have breakfast; I wake up just before lunch. On this trip I need fuel. Right after breakfast I’m getting in the van with my luggage to visit three sites, then have lunch, then go to the airport to catch the 1500 flight to Izmir.

The new hotels in Istanbul are close to an old, run-down area of town which is undergoing redevelopment. Apparently rich people are buying up the land and constructing commercial complexes. Check back in in a few years.

En route to the Blue Mosque we passed the Pera Palace hotel, a regular stop for passengers of the old Orient Express. Agatha Christie stayed here and imagined bloody murders.

When I see people leaning over a bridge looking at the water, I automatically think a corpse has floated up. This is a much more pleasant scene: People fishing on a Sunday morning. They catch bonito, tuna, mackerel, bluefish and other migratory species. When the fish from the Black Sea migrate to the warmer Aegean, they have to crowd into the Bosphorus strait, where anglers are waiting.

First stop: the Blue Mosque, known to locals as the Sultanahmet. Tourists refer to it by the beautiful blue tiles inside the building. Built in the 17th century, the mosque is still in use; tourists are allowed when there are no services. Note the people massing in the courtyard and the cat strolling past them as if he owns the place.

Shoes are not allowed inside the mosque: you have to take them off at the threshold and carry them. I have to find a place to sit and unzip my snug, heavy boots then stuff them into a tiny plastic bag.

So I trudge inside in my socks, and this is what I see. My grumbling ceases immediately. From looking up at the walls and ceiling I develop a crick in my neck.

It’s like vertigo, except that you’re looking up. If I recall Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red correctly, figurative representation is not allowed; instead they have exquisite miniatures, mosaics, calligraphy.

In the spring the garden is resplendent with tulips. We think of tulips as Dutch, but they were first cultivated in Turkey during the Ottoman Empire. The bulbs arrived in Holland during the 16th century and tulip mania exploded.

Outside, my tour guide to the Hippodrome was waiting.

The Grand Bazaar, construction of which began in the 15th century, is vast and labyrinthine.

You’re looking at bracelets made of glass “evil eyes” to ward off bad luck, you step away for a moment to look at tiny boxes handmade from bone, when a man asks very politely what you’re looking for. You say, Nothing really, he produces these silver earrings and when he sees the gleam of covetousness in your eyes he says, Follow me, I know a store with beautiful earrings.

Your curiosity overrides your experiential knowledge that you have no internal GPS. You follow the seller—who looks like an extra from Argo where this bazaar stood in for the one in Tehran—leaving memory bread crumbs along your route.

You arrive at the vaunted store and make for the earrings, and the seller rolls down the metal awning, looking vaguely offended at your expression of alarm. He suspects you have seen Taken 2 and and says it’s for your convenience, so you can shop in peace. Which you proceed to do. A half hour later, with your bag heavier despite the new lightness of your wallet, you retrace your steps to the entrance, only to find that the bread crumbs of memory have vanished. Everything seems familiar, but isn’t.

The tiles of the Grand Bazaar are grouted with the desiccated bones of shoppers who never found their way out.

That’s what might have happened if the tour guide didn’t warn us that this could happen, and allow us just 30 minutes for browsing.

Restaurant cat.

Turkey itinerary, click to enlarge

Fulya the tour guide from Orion collected the tour group from Istanbul airport at 0530 and delivered us to our hotel in Taxim Square. En route she pointed out places of interest—a Roman aqueduct from the 4th century, the Sea of Marmara beyond those buildings, the wall of Constantinople, the Bosphorus strait, the Golden Horn—casually rattling off names from Byzantine and Ottoman history as if they were the people next door. Because they are the people next door.

In Turkey history isn’t dry textbook material; it’s a living presence. For instance they’re building a metro line under the Bosphorus, the strait that separates Asia from Europe. Fulya explained that 97 percent of Turkey is in Asia and 3 percent in Europe; the people who live on the Asian side take the very efficient ferry across the Bosphorus to go to work in the European part. So a metro line was designed. But while they were digging underwater, they discovered the remains of an ancient Roman harbor with 35 well-preserved shipwrecks, a major archaeological find. So construction of the metro was halted while archaeologists went through the site.

By 0615 I was in my room at Best Western Eresin Hotel in Taksim Square. It’s newly-renovated, efficient, rather narrow beds but comfortable, popular with tour groups.

By 0800 I was having second breakfast (the first had been served inflight at 3:30 in the morning) at the Terrace: coffee, borek, sausage, yogurt with honey and I don’t know what its Turkish name is, but in Indian restaurants it’s called gulab jamun.

By 0830 we were on the bus to Topkapi Palace, seat of the Ottoman Empire.

I’m about to pass out so I’ll explain these photos when I’m online next.