Writers

[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

Only idiots assess themselves as smart.
I speak from experience.

[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

Am I critical of the people? Yes, but only of the fraction that has been brainwashed and sees nothing wrong in it. Consider the case of Charents who allowed himself to be brainwashed by the Kremlin. When somewhere along the line he realized what had been done to him, he wrote to his muse:

“You were like a sister to me,
Truthful, pure and bright;
But I spat on your face.
I betrayed you one night
With a cold mistress,
Who sang to me dreams of iron,
And took me into a world without love.”
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[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

Bakounts went further and compared ideologies and regimes to temporary ailments, here today, gone tomorrow; and I quote: “They are just passing phenomena, a period when history is suffering from the flu, so to speak, a temporary ailment, after which, all the dead cities will rise again from the ashes, as long as there are still people in this world like Hovnatan March [the central character of his story], who will burst into tears whenever they hear the word Armenia, and who embrace this ideal as an alcoholic would grab his last bottle of brandy.”
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[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

“YOU KNOW NOTHING…”
******************************
“You know nothing about politics.
Stick to literature!”
a gentle reader informs me; and I suspect
by literature he means mental masturbation.
*
“Stick to literature!”
I have heard that line before,
more than once;
and I can’t help wondering,
why is it that with so many political pundits
our political life is such a mess?
*
What do I know about politics?
Not much except perhaps two things:
(a) when power is on your side,
you don’t need to be right; and
(b) when the majority subscribes to a Big Lie
they call it religion or ideology.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

when asked why i write for armenians, my favorite answer is:"Because Zarian did."

[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

The challenge is to speak of serious things without taking oneself seriously; to be critical of others & even more critical of ourselves.

[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

A gentle reader once described me as "vicious."
If true, this must be the first time
in the history of the animal kingdom
that a member of a vegetarian species
has been vicious to predatory carnivores ten times his size.

[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

Everyone has a book in him, we are told.
What we are not told is that
most books remain unpublished,
and if published unread,
and if read forgotten.
*

[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

COMMENTS
*******************************
In his memoirs Mahari speaks of our endless battle
against “the inner and outer Turk.”
*
I have reason to suspect
my life may not have been a total waste
because I may have inflicted some damage
on the opposition.
*
We have survived only in the sense that
the dead cannot be killed.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

NOTES / COMMENTS
*************************************
From an anthology of children’s poetry:
“There is some xxxx / I will not eat.”
*
When it comes to reading the Writing on the Wall
we are functional illiterates.
*
We have an overabundance of
editors, printers, publishers, writers and poets
but not a single literary agent.
*
We are perennial victims and losers
because we don’t understand the logic of events.
*
Telling writers what not to write is fascist.
*
If religions and ideologies survive
on a steady and monotonous diet of repletion,
they must know something…
*
If I repeat myself,
why do you expose yourself to my palaver?
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