notes and comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

OBSERVATIONS
*************************
Loyalty or subservience to the leadership
is not a definition of patriotism but of fascism.
*
The only good thing about life is that
it is above ground.
*
Sometimes we forget that Assad sits
on a “throne of blood,” like Macbeth,
and reality is catching up with him
as it tends todo sooner or later with all of us.
*
If someone whose judgment I don't trust
were to agree with me,
I would disagree with myself.
*
Andrea De Carlo: "He tells me to follow my instinct.
But what if I have two of them?"
#
PROVERBS
***************************
If you like proverbs you will love
THE DICTIONARY OF MODERN PROVERBS
Compiled by C, Doyle, W. Mieder & F.R. Shapiro
(London: Yale University Press, 2012).
Some samples follow:
*
“The best man for the job
may be a woman.”
*
“If you aren’t the lead dog,
the scenery never changes.”
*
“Life is a **** sandwich:
the more bread you have,
the less **** you eat.”
#
SPEAKING OF OBAMA
**********************************
Next time you speak of Obama, ask yourself:
Would Romney have been a better choice?
*
To brainwash children means to train them
to say “Yes, sir!” instead of “Hell, no!”
*
Cherish your enemies,
you may learn more from them
than from your friends.
*
Our most dangerous enemy is not the Turk
but the Turk within us.
*
I find it very difficult to love my fellow men
after reading my morning paper.
#
NOBODY’S PERFECT
********************************
Whenever I am told “Nobody’s perfect”
(meaning “Shut the f*ck up!”) I say:
“Dzour nesdink, shidag khossink.”
In other words: our own imperfections
should not prevent us from discussing
our own motherf*ckers.
*
My contempt for loud-mouth Armenians from the Levant
is not mine but that of a Levantine elder statesmen
who once told me:
“They walk past an elementary school
and brag about their university degrees.”
*
Neither is my antipathy for Islam mine
but that of Sunnis and Shias
for one another.
*
You cannot deceive God,
not even a non-existent God
because God is another word for Reality.
*
The right word at the right time
can be as effective as a hammer-blow to the head.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

CONFESSION (XXII)

*************************

Since I have no political ambitions

I don’t mind admitting that

I have been wrong most of my life

and I am probably wrong today.

If to be right means to kill someone

I’d much rather be wrong.

*

My favorite illusion:

As human being most people are equipped

to see the light of reason.

*

Addicts of the blame-game

refuse to believe that we have played a key role

in our history and we continue to do so today.

*

Anonymous: “History does not repeat itself,

but it rhymes.”

#

WORSE THAN A CRIME

*************************************

A friend of mine once wrote a book

titled AS OTHERS SEE US

but was careful to quote and discuss

mostly friendly witnesses.

*

I committed a worse blunder:

I wrote a book on Armenian history

from which I excluded anything

that may be remotely classified as negative;

and what’s even more repellent to me now,

I never thought of what I was writing

as propaganda. Like all idiots and dupes

I believed it was my patriotic duty

to treat my readers as idiots and dupes.

*

Assad’s crime we are told is using poison gas

to kill his own people.

What we are not told is that

his blunder consisted in having made no effort

to reconcile and unite his fragmented nation.

*

I think it was Talleyrand who once said to Napoleon:

“It was worse than a crime, Sire, it was a blunder.”

#

ON TEXTBOOKS

*********************************

There is one past but there are

ten thousand historians.

*

ON THE STUDY OF HISTORY

*********************************

There are two basic approaches to the study of history:

objective and hysterical.

*

FROM AN OBJECTIVE STUDY

OF ARMENIAN HISTORY

***********************************

We were divided by Turks;

we were divided by Bolsheviks;

and we are now being divided by our own

Ottomanized, Stalinized, and moronized bureaucraps (sic).

*

FROM A TEXTBOOK

ON POLITICAL SCIENCE AND DIPLOMACY

**************************************************

Never fight your enemies if you can divide them.

Remember the Armenians.

*

FROM A TEXTBOOK

ON BRAINWASHING

*******************************

After you moronize them

you can even convince them to be

just about the smartest people on earth.

#

DISAGREEMENTS

*********************************

Many readers disagree with me.

That does not surprise me in the least.

In human affairs disagreement is the rule

rather than the exception.

*

Lawyers and politicians disagree all the time;

so do bishops and imams; and in our case

bishops (Etchmiadznagan) and bishops (Anteliassagan).

*

More often than not however,

disagreements are rooted not in ideas

but in sources of income, or power and prestige.

We live in a world where ideas have become

as relevant as the song of a non-existent bird

in an imaginary forest.

*

Speaking of our ruling classes,

and more specifically our neo-commissars

and crypto-Panchoonies: they have discovered

a new way of dealing with their critics:

they refuse to acknowledge their existence;

and it seems to work provided of course

you ignore the high assimilation rate in the Diaspora

and the exodus in the Homeland.

Criticizing them might as well be an exercise in futility;

and exposing their would be like trying to kill a man

who is committing suicide.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

ORSON WELLES SPEAKS

************************************

He hated the Irish, beginning with Spencer Tracy.

In his recently published CONVERSATIONS he explains:

“Seven hundred years of bitter oppression

changed their character, gave them

that passive meanness and cunning.”

*

By contrast, he loved Hungarians:

“I love Hungarians to the point of sex!

I almost get a hard-on when I hear a Hungarian accent;

I am so crazy about them.”

*

On Israelis: “The only time they make good music

is when Zubin Mehta, a Hindu, comes to conduct.”

*

On Coppola: “THE GODFATHER is the glorification

of a bunch of bums who never existed.”

*

More to follow….

#

ORSON WELLES SPEAKS (II)

******************************************

On intellectuals:

“They are the biggest pushovers.

They love power.

They cluster around whatever golden boy,

or man, is in power and begin to justify it.”

*

On writers:

“I don’t like Dostoevsky.

Tolstoy is my writer.

Gogol is my writer.

I’m not a Joyce guy…”

*

On women:

“They are another race.

You can’t tell them the truth.

You have to lie.”

*

On Russians:

“They have terrible taste.

They are a people of genius;

and they are very literal.

They are ‘machine-made.’

Poor people.”

*

On American journalists: ‘

“xxxxsuckers with typewriters.”

*

On Laurence Olivier:

“He was so in love with his own image

it was terribly hard for him

to resist going down on himself.”

#

ONCE BRAINWASHED

ALWAYS BRAINWASHED

*********************************************

That’s the only way to explain why so far

Christians have failed to convert Muslims

and vice versa.

*

Both bishops and imams agree that

when it comes to brainwashing

children are more receptive candidates;

and what’s even more outrageous,

they call it education.

*

The overwhelming majority of people

are born, live, and die as dupes.

*

I judge the importance of a book

by the number of prejudices and preconceptions

it exposes and shatters beyond repair.

*

An honest Christian will be honest

only in the eyes of his co-religionists.

An honest infidel or hetanos is an oxymoron.

*

An Armenian has no use for writers.

He is a man of action who understands everything

and knows nothing – or is it the other way around?

#

[lampron]

Re: elegy

I
EMPTY BOAST
********************
“No one understands Turks as well as we do!”
Oshagan once bragged. My question is:
What did we do with our superior brand
of knowledge and understanding except
wait until it was too late?
#

And what did "we" know? It is the opposite

The Turks knew Armenians better than Armenians knew (and still know) about themselves!

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

ON SERMONIZERS
******************************
Where preaching to the converted
has become a profitable enterprise,
exposing lies will be seen as a criminal offence.
*
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
***********************************
I thank my fellow Armenians
for allowing me to live.
*
AMERICAN SAYING
*****************************
“It is not enough for a gardener to love flowers;
he must hate weeds.”
*
HEROES
******************
Nations that are perennial losers
brag about their many heroes.
*
ORSON WELLES SPEAKS (III)
***********************************
On Kissinger:
“A selfish, self-serving ****.”
*
On the Cannes Film Festival
********************************
“Anybody connected with it is a crook.”
*
On himself
*******************
“I am a hypocrite. A sellout.”
#
WHAT IS LITERATURE
********************************
There are benefits to being a minor writer:
you write with greater freedom
because you are not yet slave to your reputation.
Saroyan failed because of his early success.
*
When I write I don’t think of readers.
I don’t allow them to dictate the direction of my thoughts.
As for those who disagree with me:
I will be more than happy to listen to them
provided they identify themselves as investigative reporters.
*
I am as capable of recycling propaganda or chauvinist crap
as the best of them. You want proof?
Read my first dozen books.
*
A famous French writer once said
literature consists in making **** look like rose jam.
*
He who speaks of gods speaks of false gods;
and he who speaks of false gods, speaks of thirsty gods –
thirsty for blood.
Who said that?
I don’t know.
I am not here to assert originality of thought
but to make sense; and if a sentence makes sense
it must have been said before.
*
It has also been said that man cannot create
a single worm but he has created ten thousand gods.
Now, replace the word “gods” with reality,
or even better, Reality, and I dare anyone to say
his Reality is more real than my Reality.
#
CONSIDER THE SYRIANS
********************************
Old age is not always synonymous with wisdom.
Syrians are much older than Americans.
If they go on killing one another it may be because
they know something Americans don’t know –
a knowledge that so far they have failed to share
with the rest of mankind.
They only say the rebels are terrorists.
Who is a terrorist?
Anyone who is willing to kill innocent civilians,
including women and children,
for a self-assessed “noble” cause.
Nothing further, your Honor!
*
ON CHAUVINISM
**************************
Write a short story about an Armenian so patriotic that
he believes the real inventor of the Molotov xxxxtail
was Mikoyan.
*
ON MODERN ART
**************************
Is modern art a gigantic hoax?
Some art critics think so.
One of them has even written a book
titled TO HELL WITH PICASSO.
And now consider Leonardo, Michelangelo,
and Piero della Francesca:
Has anyone ever dared to question their integrity?
*
CRITICS
******************
To those of my readers who classify me
as a “self-hating Armenian,” I say,
I am more than willing to concede that
I see nothing questionable in loathing anyone
– including myself – who rejects all ideas
that may question his status as a lovable human being.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

INSPIRATION
**********
The eternal snow of Mt. Ararat .
Nightingales serenading the moon.
I leave these things to our versifiers.
The written word is my main source of inspiration.
When I agree with something,
I compose a variation.
When I disagree,
I improvise a contradiction.
When I read an irresistible passage,
I quote it.
I love to quote.
i love to read books of quotations.
So much so that I have myself compiled two of them:
one published (A DICITIONARY OF ARMENIAN QUOTATIONS),
the other (much more extensive) in manuscript form.
*
As for originality:
How much of Plato is Socrates?
How much Socrates owes to the pre-Socratics
most of whose works have survived, if at all, in fragments.
*
It was Hemingway who once said:
“Minor writers plagiarize. Major writers steal.”
And sure enough, at one time or another all major writers
have been accused of being plagiarists –
Sartre, Garcia Marquez, Toynbee, Zarian...
*
Toynbee once described himself as someone
who moves old furniture around.
Garcia Marquez’s style has been traced back
to the 1001 ARABIAN NIGHTS and Faulkner.
An American academic, Stern by name
(that’s the only thing I remember about him)
once wrote a book in which he traced all of Sartre’s ideas
to predecessors.
It was Oshagan who accused Zarian.
Need i say more?....
#
TWO GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS
**********
On Nietzsche:
When asked what he thought of Nietzsche,
Jules Renard is said to have replied:
"There are too many useless letters in his name."
*
On Heidegger:
The son-of-a-xxxxx was a Nazi
who fell in love with one of his students
who happened to be a xxxess.
*
LOATHSOME IMBECILES
**********
In his THE ITALIANS, Luigi Barzini writes:
"There comes a day in every man's life
when he realizes his leaders are loathsome imbeciles."
*
COUNTER-PROPAGANDA
**********
I repeat myself because I write counter-propaganda.
If propaganda repeats itself, what choice do I have?
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

FREEDOM
*************************
Everyone speaks of freedom of religion
as if it were a good thing,
a mark of progress and civilization.
What if what will civilize the world
is not freedom of religion
but freedom of dissent and heresy?
But as long as rabbis, bishops and imams
are allowed the freedom
to poison the minds of children
we will have wars and massacres.
*
Why is this so difficult to understand?
Empires decline and fall
not when its prostitutes, pimps,
thieves and degenerates prosper
but when its spiritually superior individuals
(self-assessed of course) assume leadership positions.
*
Moral I: Freedom of religion is freedom to enslave.
*
Moral II: Freedom to brainwash children
is a crime against humanity.
#
JAGADAKIR
**************************************
We have a school of thought that says
Christianity was a bad choice for us.
We should have converted to Islam.
The unmistakable implication being,
since we cannot change the past,
we cannot change our present and future.
What’s done is done and it cannot be undone.
It is our jagadakir (destiny) therefore
to remain perennial losers.
Let us therefore, in legal parlance,
drop our pants and bend over to whoever is on top –
be he a shah, pasha, padishah, sultan or commissar.
*
But I maintain our problem is not our choice of religion.
Our problem is ignorance of the world,
divisiveness, corruption, incompetence, treason,
and intolerance of any idea
that may shatter our image as la crčme de la crčme
and expose us as la crčme de la scum.
#
IN BRIEF
************************
On our present situation:
Losers at the mercy of other losers.
*
SWINE
******************
The 1% are cold-blooded swine
who think they will not burn in hell
because hell is their own invention.
*
KNOWN UNKNOWNS
************************************
We know that Sultan Abdulhamid II’s mother
was Armenian. We also know that Talaat himself
was probably part-Armenian.
What we don’t know is
how many of our own present leaders are Turks.
*
INTERNET
***************************
Is the Internet making us smarter or dumber?
I don’t know. All I know is that
if an ape uses it he will not be born-again
as a human being.
*
ON ASSAD
**********************
Tina Brown on Bashar-al-Assad:
“A creepy, lisping, giraffe-necked liar.”
*
LOLITA
**********************
I don’t read and reread LOLITA
to be enlightened or instructed.
I read it because it is compulsively readable –
from the first (“fire of my loins”)
to the last sentence.
#
NOTES & COMMENTS
**************************************
There is a general in every solider
(according to Napoleon),
a pope in every seminarian,
a master in every slave,
a capitalist in every proletarian,
and (according to a schoolteacher)
a Turk in every Armenian.

*
Nothing disarms a man
with a highly developed spirit of contradiction
than agreement.
*
We read so many obituaries
and hear of so many deaths when we are alive
that we end up thinking of ourselves
almost as immortal.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Today at 7:49 AM









THE STORY OF MY LIFE



**********************************************



One way to get acquainted with life



and with one’s fellow men is to work



for minimum wage under individuals



you would do your utmost to avoid



if given the choice.



*



WE ARE TOLD



******************************



There will come a time



when the lion will lie down with the lamb



and the Armenian with the Armenian,



but I doubt if I will live long enough to see it.



*



We are also told our political parties



play an essential role



in the preservation of our identity



as Armenians in the Diaspora;



the implication being our partisans



are dedicated and selfless servants



of the community



and men of honor.



*



“MEN OF HONOR”



*******************************



That’s how members of the mafia identify themselves,



as “men of honor.”



What did you expect them to say? –



that they are a gang of blackmailers, thieves, and murderers?



#



ON SUBSERVIENCE



********************************



It is said of Goethe and Beethoven that



they were once taking a walk in a park



when they ran into a family of aristocrats.



Whereas Goethe bowed down deeply



as a sign of respect, Beethoven plowed on



with the comment:



“There are so many of them, and so few of us!”



*



My question:



If subservience can penetrate the mighty brain



of an intellectual giant like Goethe,



what chance do the rest of us have



after long centuries of systematic indoctrination,



and brutal intimidation by the likes of Sultans and Stalin?



#



HABEMUS PAPAM!



***********************************



“Everything you have been saying about Armenians is wrong,”



a reader tells me, and goes onto inform me



he has discovered the root of all our problems.



*



OBSERVATION



****************************



Our bosses, bishops and benefactors tend to behave as though they were not part of history, they live outside space and time, the law of gravity does not apply to them, and their actions don’t have consequences; and armed with that conviction they continue to bankrupt the nation with a clear conscience.



*



COMMENT



******************



You can’t adopt a propaganda line and pretend to be an honest man.



*



REFLECTION



*************************



If only I could solve my own problems as easily as I solve the world’s problems!



#








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Today at 7:49 AM









THE STORY OF MY LIFE



**********************************************



One way to get acquainted with life



and with one’s fellow men is to work



for minimum wage under individuals



you would do your utmost to avoid



if given the choice.



*



WE ARE TOLD



******************************



There will come a time



when the lion will lie down with the lamb



and the Armenian with the Armenian,



but I doubt if I will live long enough to see it.



*



We are also told our political parties



play an essential role



in the preservation of our identity



as Armenians in the Diaspora;



the implication being our partisans



are dedicated and selfless servants



of the community



and men of honor.



*



“MEN OF HONOR”



*******************************



That’s how members of the mafia identify themselves,



as “men of honor.”



What did you expect them to say? –



that they are a gang of blackmailers, thieves, and murderers?



#



ON SUBSERVIENCE



********************************



It is said of Goethe and Beethoven that



they were once taking a walk in a park



when they ran into a family of aristocrats.



Whereas Goethe bowed down deeply



as a sign of respect, Beethoven plowed on



with the comment:



“There are so many of them, and so few of us!”



*



My question:



If subservience can penetrate the mighty brain



of an intellectual giant like Goethe,



what chance do the rest of us have



after long centuries of systematic indoctrination,



and brutal intimidation by the likes of Sultans and Stalin?



#



HABEMUS PAPAM!



***********************************



“Everything you have been saying about Armenians is wrong,”



a reader tells me, and goes onto inform me



he has discovered the root of all our problems.



*



OBSERVATION



****************************



Our bosses, bishops and benefactors tend to behave as though they were not part of history, they live outside space and time, the law of gravity does not apply to them, and their actions don’t have consequences; and armed with that conviction they continue to bankrupt the nation with a clear conscience.



*



COMMENT



******************



You can’t adopt a propaganda line and pretend to be an honest man.



*



REFLECTION



*************************



If only I could solve my own problems as easily as I solve the world’s problems!



#








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[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

THE STORY OF MY LIFE



**********************************************



One way to get acquainted with life



and with one’s fellow men is to work



for minimum wage under individuals



you would do your utmost to avoid



if given the choice.



*



WE ARE TOLD



******************************



There will come a time



when the lion will lie down with the lamb



and the Armenian with the Armenian,



but I doubt if I will live long enough to see it.



*



We are also told our political parties



play an essential role



in the preservation of our identity



as Armenians in the Diaspora;



the implication being our partisans



are dedicated and selfless servants



of the community



and men of honor.



*



“MEN OF HONOR”



*******************************



That’s how members of the mafia identify themselves,



as “men of honor.”



What did you expect them to say? –



that they are a gang of blackmailers, thieves, and murderers?



#



ON SUBSERVIENCE



********************************



It is said of Goethe and Beethoven that



they were once taking a walk in a park



when they ran into a family of aristocrats.



Whereas Goethe bowed down deeply



as a sign of respect, Beethoven plowed on



with the comment:



“There are so many of them, and so few of us!”



*



My question:



If subservience can penetrate the mighty brain



of an intellectual giant like Goethe,



what chance do the rest of us have



after long centuries of systematic indoctrination,



and brutal intimidation by the likes of Sultans and Stalin?



#



HABEMUS PAPAM!



***********************************



“Everything you have been saying about Armenians is wrong,”



a reader tells me, and goes onto inform me



he has discovered the root of all our problems.



*



OBSERVATION



****************************



Our bosses, bishops and benefactors tend to behave as though they were not part of history, they live outside space and time, the law of gravity does not apply to them, and their actions don’t have consequences; and armed with that conviction they continue to bankrupt the nation with a clear conscience.



*



COMMENT



******************



You can’t adopt a propaganda line and pretend to be an honest man.



*



REFLECTION



*************************



If only I could solve my own problems as easily as I solve the world’s problems!



#








Reply, Reply All or Forward | More









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Light Purple



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





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







































Today at 7:49 AM









THE STORY OF MY LIFE



**********************************************



One way to get acquainted with life



and with one’s fellow men is to work



for minimum wage under individuals



you would do your utmost to avoid



if given the choice.



*



WE ARE TOLD



******************************



There will come a time



when the lion will lie down with the lamb



and the Armenian with the Armenian,



but I doubt if I will live long enough to see it.



*



We are also told our political parties



play an essential role



in the preservation of our identity



as Armenians in the Diaspora;



the implication being our partisans



are dedicated and selfless servants



of the community



and men of honor.



*



“MEN OF HONOR”



*******************************



That’s how members of the mafia identify themselves,



as “men of honor.”



What did you expect them to say? –



that they are a gang of blackmailers, thieves, and murderers?



#



ON SUBSERVIENCE



********************************



It is said of Goethe and Beethoven that



they were once taking a walk in a park



when they ran into a family of aristocrats.



Whereas Goethe bowed down deeply



as a sign of respect, Beethoven plowed on



with the comment:



“There are so many of them, and so few of us!”



*



My question:



If subservience can penetrate the mighty brain



of an intellectual giant like Goethe,



what chance do the rest of us have



after long centuries of systematic indoctrination,



and brutal intimidation by the likes of Sultans and Stalin?



#



HABEMUS PAPAM!



***********************************



“Everything you have been saying about Armenians is wrong,”



a reader tells me, and goes onto inform me



he has discovered the root of all our problems.



*



OBSERVATION



****************************



Our bosses, bishops and benefactors tend to behave as though they were not part of history, they live outside space and time, the law of gravity does not apply to them, and their actions don’t have consequences; and armed with that conviction they continue to bankrupt the nation with a clear conscience.



*



COMMENT



******************



You can’t adopt a propaganda line and pretend to be an honest man.



*



REFLECTION



*************************



If only I could solve my own problems as easily as I solve the world’s problems!



#

[bell-the-cat]

Re: elegy

ON ASSAD
**********************
Tina Brown on Bashar-al-Assad:
“A creepy, lisping, giraffe-necked liar.”

And as a response someone tweeted:

"Creepy, lisping, giraffe-necked liar" -- sounds like what Tina Brown's former staffers call her!

Tina Brown on Ara Baliozian:
"Who?"

One of Brown’s most engaging talents is her absolute commitment to that antijournalistic device, the ad hominem attack
http://www.newstatesman.com/media/20...s-battle-beast

She'd do well on Hyeclub! On Hyeclub an ad hominem attack is the standard response to any unassailable argument or uncontestable fact.