an ode

Beloved for its complex, layered past, Istanbul, where East meets West, may also offer a vision of what’s to come. I don’t think I’d ever stepped inside a cinema restroom to see little video screens along the wall projecting fashion runway footage until I went to Istanbul a few months ago. But then—my life is so sheltered!—I’d never seen mini-screens lining an elevator on the way to the movies, either. The hit song from Slumdog Millionaire, “Jai Ho,” was pulsing through every floor of City’s Mall in Istanbul’s Nisantasi district when I visited, and the restrooms next to the cinema lobby were marked by life-size cutouts of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie

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