notes and comments

[arabaliozian]

armenians

Wednesday, April 01, 2015
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ARMENIANS ON ARMENIANS
********************************************
“What do you think of Armenians?”
When directed to an Armenian,
this question might as well be
an invitation to insanity.
*
Some Armenians make a career
out of saying the opposite of what you say.
This is as much an objective observation
as a confession.
*
Nothing and no one can be as absurd
as an Armenian on Armenians.
*
I don’t remember to have ever met
an Armenian who thought of his fellow countrymen
as ordinary human being
with their share of assets and liabilities.
*
Every Armenian considers himself
an authority on the subject.
*
What do you think of Armenians?
No matter what the answer
there will be some truth in it.
One safe answer: “Shish kebab and pilaf
are to Armenians what spaghetti is to Italians,
meat and potatoes to Yanks,
noodles to the Japanese,
and human flesh to cannibals.
*
Very much like Greeks
and the rest of mankind,
Armenians think of their homeland
as the cradle of civilization,
even when the evidence may suggest
it is closer to being its coffin.
*
Armenians are smart?
Judging by their history,
they may be closer to being
not just dumb
but just about the dumbest people on earth.
#

[arabaliozian]

comments & observations

NOTES / COMMENTS
*********************************
When we want something badly
we expect the universe to rearrange itself for us
and we are disappointed when it fails to do so.
*
Some people study the rules of the game
so that they can break them more wisely.
*
Shakespeare never wrote a book
on the art of writing
because he was too busy writing,
and had he written such a book
we would have fewer writers today
because they would realize
they didn’t have what it takes.
*
Love our enemies?
Don’t make me laugh!
We can't even stop hating one another.
#

[arabaliozian]

enjoy

ENJOY!
****************************
Some of the most important decisions in our lives –
such as the time and place of our birth and death,
whether we live in time of war or peace –
are not made by us but by conditions beyond our control
and by individuals who know nothing
and care even less about us.
*
As for freedom:
our options are so limited that
we might as well be ants in a labyrinth:
we may have the freedom to turn left or right
at the next corner, but beyond that
we might as well be slaves.
*
Some writers share their wisdom.
I share my misery.
I believe in the old saying:
“You want to make your friend happy?
Speak to him of your problems.”
#

[arabaliozian]

history

A STUDY OF HISTORY
**************************************
Imagine a political candidate who says to the people:
“You are smart,” and another who says “You are idiots.”
Can you guess which candidate
will have a better chance to be elected?
*
Now imagine a writer who says to the ruling classes:
“You are statesmen of vision,
the people owe their survival and prosperity to you.
If they never had it so good it’s because of your wisdom.”
And another writer who says:
“You are the scum of the earth.”
Can you guess which writer
will have a better chance to enjoy the support
of the establishment?
*
Moral I: Flattery works because it is
to human relations what oil is to machinery.
*
Moral II: In politics as in life,
lies are more useful than truth.
*
Moral III: The function of the 1%
is to moronize the 99%
and the function of the 99%
is to drop their pants and bend over.
*
Moral IV: Both the 1% and the 99% agree
that lies make more sense than truth.
*
Moral V: There is nothing in wrong
in speaking in the name of God
and doing the Devil’s work
because everybody does it.
#

[lampron]

Re: wolves

Monday, March 23, 2015
***************************************
Once when I said Baronian had been betrayed
to the Ottoman police by some of his readers,

#

It is said that Baronian found Ottoman police to be less judgemental than Armenian community and church leaders!

[arabaliozian]

them & us

US & THEM
******************************
In their own eyes and in the eyes of most men,
Turks are not bloodthirsty savages
but men like all other men,
and like all other men
they can be ruthless
in defense of their own narrow interests.
*
You want to know more
about this human peculiarity?
Ask Algerians about the French,
natives about Yanks,
dissidents about Russians,
Hindus about Muslims,
Untouchables about Hindus,
Protestants about Catholics,
and last but far from least,
Armenian writers about Armenians;
and when I speak of Armenian writers
I don’t mean Arlen and Saroyan,
who wrote fiction even when
they wrote non-fiction.
*
And speaking of Armenian writers:
Two questions that I ask myself again and again are:
Why was I born an Armenian
and why did I compound the felony
by being an Armenian writer?
#

[arabaliozian]

idiots

IDIOTS
*************************
Memo to a new FB friend:
“Dear friend:
It is obvious to me that you and I
share absolutely nothing in common.
It follows, we can learn a great deal
from each other.”
*
A man without contradictions
is a dead end.
*
Two world wars:
What did they accomplish? –
except to show that stupidity has been
and continues to be the mightiest force in history.
And when I speak of stupidity
I mean not the stupidity of the masses
and the unwashed but the stupidity
of the smartest, the ruling classes,
the most sophisticated,
and the most highly educated.
*
When they condemned two harmless
as well as innocent men
(Socrates and Jesus) to death,
did any one of them say,
“What the f*** are we doing? "
*
Cherchez la femme?
Wrong!
Cherchez les idiots!
That’s different.
#

[arabaliozian]

comments

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
****************************************
To keep us stupid
they tell us we are not just smart
but just about the smartest people on earth.
*
One way to describe Soviet-Armenian architecture
is to say it was cunningly designed
to kill the maximum number of people
in earthquakes.
*
There is a difference between patriotism
and patriotic propaganda:
the first is a sentiment;
the second an instrument of deception.
*
To contradict someone who lives in harmony
with his own misconceptions, prejudices and fallacies
is like interrupting a honeymoon.
*
The true atheists are not those
who identify themselves as non-believers
but bishops, imams, and rabbis.
*
To those who say writing for Armenians
is a waste of time, I say:
“I write to provide a footnote to Zarian.”
#

[arabaliozian]

never

WE NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD
****************************************
Wrong life, wrong time and place,
under wrong people with wrong ideas:
nothing about us is right.
Nothing!
Our present situation is not just xxxxuation
but a nightmare, or as the French say,
“un enfer de merde,” from which
we refuse to wake up.
*
What we need is not just a statesman of vision
who will guide us out of our labyrinth
but a messiah, who --
if we adopt history as our guide –
will share the fate of the other one,
thus condemning us to another
two millennia of nightmares.
*
We never had it so good!
#

[arabaliozian]

manifesto

MANIFESTO
******************************
The function of literature is to understand reality.
The function of criticism is to expose contradictions.
The function of politics is to do what must be done.
The function of a reader is that of a consumer,
and as a consumer his most important priority
is not to be taken in by advertisements and
propaganda. When readers fail
and behave like dupes the result will be
not Bach and Mozart but Elvis and the Beatles;
and I for one cannot imagine a worst nightmare.
#