notes and comments

[arabaliozian]

Van Gogh

ON VAN GOGH
*****************************
When he was alive they were unanimous
in considering him a failure.
He is now thought of as one of the greatest.
So much for unanimity, majority rule and democracy.
*
ON ZARIAN
***********************
According to his contemporaries
he was rude, egocentric and arrogant.
How humble, selfless, and considerate were we
when at the turn of the last century
we rose against the Ottoman Empire?
*
Ignorance and stupidity
have played a central role
in our collective misfortunes.
We forget this obvious fact
at our own peril.
*
People from the Middle East
are notorious infighters.
In the eyes of the world
we have two major liabilities:
(i) we are from the Middle East and
(ii) we produce large quantities of stone
but not a single drop of oil.
*
GUILTY AS CHARGED
*********************************
As an Armenian writers
I can truly brag about the fact that
I have done my utmost to insult and alienate
all my possible sources of income.
#

[londontsi]

Re: Van Gogh

ON VAN GOGH
*****************************
When he was alive they were unanimous
in considering him a failure.
He is now thought of as one of the greatest.
So much for unanimity, majority rule and democracy.
*

When Elvis priestly died his record sales shot even higher.

I recall all commentators were saying it was a good carrier move !!!!!!!


.

[arabaliozian]

literature

ON LITERATURE
***************************
Writers writing about other writers:
that’s not literature.
Literature is either about you
or it’s about nothing.
*
ODARS
*********************
More often than not
their interest in us
begins and ends with our cuisine
which may or may not be ours.
*
PLEADING IGNORANCE
********************************
To say we had no way of knowing
they would react by committing genocide
is to ignore the fact that at one point
we were so sure of our final victory
that we went as far as challenging them
to massacre us.
*
SOCIOLOGY
*************************
The more underdeveloped the nation
the greater the role of myths, propaganda, and lies.
*
ON THE POSITIVE SIDE
***************************************
We have fallen so low that the only way is up.
And if you say I have an “attitude problem”
may I remind you that the problems I am outlining
existed long before I was born.
#

[arabaliozian]

comments & observations

IF I HAVE SAID THIS BEFORE…
***********************************************
My guess is, a deeply religious person
finds it extremely difficult, not to say impossible, to believe
that the Good Lord may have as much interest in him
as in a nameless peasant ten thousand miles away.
*
Our knowledge is limited,
our ignorance without beginning and end,
and our willingness to admit this on-existent.
*
After delivering a mildly critical lecture
at an Armenian community center,
an internationally respected writer once told ne,
he noticed that some members of the audience
went out of their way to ignore him
and instead made a beeline for the local benefactor.
If I have said this before, it bears repeating.
#

[arabaliozian]

sins

ORIGINAL SINS
****************************
If man is guilty of committing one original sin,
God is guilty of three:
(i) when He planted the apple tree;
(ii) when He created the woman; and
(iii) when He issued instructions to the serpent.
*
Victory can be a dead end
and defeat a new beginning.
*
If you love too much
you will be disappointed on the wedding night.
*
I am too busy identifying and counting my enemies
to love them.
#

[arabaliozian]

comments & observations

NOTES / COMMENTS
*************************************
The central concern of Turkish propaganda today
is to convince Turks they have not been bastardized
by their enemies – among others Kurds and Armenians.
*
To believe is a perpetual effort to suppress doubt.
*
Whoever said “God is dead” should have added
“But He continues to rule.”
*
On the day after I discover the meaning of life
I will have an experience that will contradict it.
*
Love is not the answer;
love is the problem.
*
I have committed so many blunders
that I am beginning to view death as a correction.
#

[arabaliozian]

words

WORDS
*************************
No one would lift a finger let alone die
in the name of the Invisible, the Incomprehensible
and the Unknowable, but call it God
and behold the rivers of blood.
It is as if the word God
brought out the Devil in man.
*
I write in search of the right word
which I may never find.
*
No territory was ever occupied peacefully
except perhaps the Garden of Eden.
Once upon a time every piece of real estate
belonged to someone else.
To speak of homeland is to utter nonsense.
*
Finish this sentence:
“Scratch an Armenian and behold…”
#

[arabaliozian]

religion

RELIGION
************************
Somewhere along the line –
I am now talking about ancient history –
the 1% realized that
what the 99% needed was a drug like opium
that when consumed
will make them accept their degradation
as an inevitable fact of life.
*
As a Catholic I was brought up to believe
it is a mortal sin to criticize men of God,
unless of course they belonged to a rival gang,
like, say, Protestants who worshipped not God
but the Devil.
*
If you want to know more about human institutions
and collective enterprises in general,
read a book on the history of the Mafia.
#

[arabaliozian]

Sisyphus

JE SUIS SISYPHUS
************************************
At one point in their history
the French decided the only good king
is a headless king.
*
History must be a nightmare to the 1%.
*
In one of his poems Basho says
time has weight and when the weight
becomes unbearable, it crushes you.
*
At the end of his life
Tolstoy ran away not from home
or his wife but his past.
*
How to reconcile the poetry of Saroyan's prose
with the unpleasant prose of his life?
*
My memory isn’t what it used to be
but when it comes to nightmares
it’s 20/20.
*
The cookie I dip in my cup of tea
is full of arsenic.
#

[arabaliozian]

perseverance

ON PERSEVERANCE
******************************
It’s a good thing only
if you are on the right path.
On the wrong path it might as well be
the death of a thousand self-inflicted cuts
or a bad marriage.
*
ON THE 73 VIRGINS
**************************
What if they are old hags
with bad breath?
*
ON WASTE
**********************
If Planet Earth is the only one with life,
God must love waste.
*
POLITICS
**********************
If I live in peace with my neighbors
it’s probably because none of them is in politics.
*
ON PRIDE
*********************
As a boy I was so hungry for pride
that I even bragged about Akim Tamirof.
*
THAT WHICH WE SHARE
******************************************
Both Armenians and Turks share one thing in common:
bad management.
*
Q/A
***************
If you want to know more about the Vatican,
don’t ask the Pope and his small army of cardinals and bishops;
ask Galileo.
#