this/that

[arabaliozian]

THIS & THAT
*******************************
Gore Vidal on Truman Capote:
“We had something in common.
Our mothers were drunks.”
*
On Venice: “For the Venetians,
‘the evil empire’ was Turkey.”
*
Leonard Bernstein on Brahms:
“The least appreciated
of the major composers.”
*
Jay Parini on Vidal: “Gore just adds a vowel
to English words and thinks it’s Italian.”
*
I have been quoting from Jay Perini’s
A LIFE OF GORE VIDAL.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: this/that

NOTES / COMMENTS
*********************************
There are as many honest multimillionaires
as there are vegetarian vultures.
*
When I was brainwashed
it never even occurred to me to suspect
a brain could be washed.
*
About those I criticize:
I have every reason to suspect
in their place I would have done the same thing.

*
The well of wisdom is deep
but the desires to drink from it non-existent.
*
Knowledge has played an important role
in the history of mankind;
a role rivaled only by ignorance.
*
Speaking about our Soviet phase:
there are two things we can brag about:
both Stalin and Beria Georgian.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: this/that

MORE ON THE 1%
***********************************
“Tiberius, grim, paranoid, with a taste
for having his testicles licked…
Nero, kicking his pregnant wife to death.”
For more details see two recent works
on the Roman Empire:
SPQR: A HISTORY OF ANCIENT ROME
by Mary Beard, and
DYNASTY: THE RISE AND FALL
OF THE HOUSE OF CAESAR
by Tom Holland.

ON DENIALISM
******************************
A political system that legitimizes
the indiscriminate massacre of defenseless civilians
will legitimize lies.
*
ON COLLECTIVE IQ
**********************************
What matters is not how smart you are
but how useful you can be.
Turks are useful to America;
Armenians are useless even to themselves.
To our political parties, an Armenian pays his dues
is useful; an Armenian who questions
the honesty and competence of the leadership
is not just useless but also dangerous
and should be labeled a madman
(which is what happened to Zarian in America).
*
ON NABOKOV
***************************
Nina Berberova: “A great Russian writer
like a Phoenix was born from the fire and ashes
of revolution and exile.”
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: this/that

GUILTY AS CHARGED
************************************
If you don’t recognize yourself in what I write
it may be because I am a failure as a writer.
Either that or our 1% know how to cover
their collective ass.
*
LOYALTY
*********************
According to Stalin’s daughter,
deep down her daddy was a good man;
it was all Beria’s fault – Beria, “a monster,” ‘utterly degenerate,” “the embodiment of Oriental perfidy,
flattery and hypocrisy, “a born spy and provocateur”
and even more revealing:
“in the service of Armenian nationalists.”
For more details, see
20 LETTERS TO A FRIEND”
by Svetlana Alliluyeva.
*
BENEFACTORS
****************************
Like all men who have accumulated
vast amounts of wealth
by exploiting the poor,
they prefer to be identified
not as bloodsuckers
but as admirable specimens of humanity.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: this/that

NOTES / COMMENTS
****************************
Fanatics have fragile egos.
*
Some of my gentle readers feel
so threatened by what I write that
I am beginning to suspect
there must be some truth in the old
absurd saying
“The pen is mightier than the sword.”
*
My ideas are common currency
in our literature from Khorenatsi
to Raffi, Baronian, Odian, Massikian,
and Zarian among many others.
Only readers who know nothing
and care even less about our literature
pretend to be outraged.
*
Our academics are compensated
for keeping their mouths shut.
*
As for our writers:
the first question that comes to mind is:
Do they exist?
*