LIGHT TRAFFIC

One thing that always struck me about Turkey, besides its boundless striking contrasts, was its profusion of things capable of inspiring intense love-hate relationships. In Turkey, I often felt as though my previously held notions of “good” and “bad” had been rendered obsolete. All of a sudden, I was drinking Coca Cola like there was no tomorrow and actively craving grilled lambies. In stores, I looked at turquoise stilettos and red leather jackets. “Good taste” had become somewhat of a fleeting notion.

Much of that was due, I think, to the fact many things one encounters in Turkey have a tendency to be so bad they’re good (Maltepe cigarettes, Turkish disco bars, entire music genres, etc.), or so good they’re bad (lokoum, baklava, hamman scrub-downs so vigorous you worry your hypodermis is starting to show, etc.)

Turkish superstar Ibrahim Tatlises, nationally known as Ibo, clearly falls into the first category. His music is so melodramatic and over-the-top, chock-a-block with heart-wrenching violins and clarinets that you eventually, against your better judgment, start humming along, making delightfully pained facial expressions.

From what I was able to determine, Ibo’s appeal – in the so bad it’s good department – reaches even those hip young Turkish expats who live in cold, damp European countries and  listen to iPodfuls of down-tempo house music on their commute to work. Back in the mother land, for two weeks in the summer, they rush to Assos or some similar idyllic location; eat grilled fish and mezzes till the middle of the night, sitting with a handful of their closest friends around a table set out on a dock jutting into the Aegean Sea, and crank the Ibo soundtrack so loud it almost echoes against the island of Lesbos shimmering in the distance.

I guess you could always blame it on the raki, but my guess is that all this ironic loving is based in at least some true, if taboo, appreciation. Just don’t tell them I told you.