notes and comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

ON POWER
**************************************
Men in a position of power need flattery
as much as a starving man needs bread.
Their intolerance and hatred of dissent
is rooted in vanity and not
in some kind of ideological opposition.
They don’t give a damn about ideas and ideologies
which they consider a waste of time.
To them intellectuals are no better than children
and ideas their invisible toys or
verbal hallucinations or ghosts
and they don’t believe in ghosts.
Words are good only when they glorify
and flatter their egos.
In their own eyes power is a blessing from God.
It follows, whatever they do
bears God’s seal of approval.
Hence degenerate rulers
and moronic multimillionaires
operating on the assumption
they are the uncrowned kings of the community.
*
History is clear on this point.
Power drives men mad.
Power is not a blessing but a curse.
At the turn of the last century
in the Ottoman Empire the sultan
had a thousand concubines
and as many versifiers,
among them Armenians,
singing his praises.
*
Talaat was more enlightened.
He counted among his friends
several intellectuals
among them our own Zohrab.
But as soon as he acquired power
he had Zohrab assassinated.
Napoleon put it best when he said
“A man with an idea is my enemy.”
#
MORE ON TURCOCENTRISM
*********************************************
Turcocentrism may also be defined
as an ideology that says
we are not the architects of our destiny.
It follows, the only logical explanation
of our misfortunes is: “xxxx happens.”
*
Consider earthquakes as a case in point.
What we are not told is that
according to experts
“Earthquakes don’t kill people; buildings do.”
*
Nothing comes more naturally
to a compulsive and habitual liar than
to cover up and to lie.
*
The priority of all businessmen is profit.
The more profit the better.
Likewise, the priority of all politicians
regardless of race, color and creed is power –
the more power the merrier,
even if it means the destruction of the nation.
*
Our dealers in chauvinist crapola
expect us to believe
what applies to all politicians
does not apply to our own
who rule and divide by the grace of God.
#
FOREIGNER
***********************
To me, the ultimate odar (foreigner)
is the Ottomanized and Sovietized Armenian.
*
ON SURVIVAL
********************
We have survived – no one denies that –
but survived as what?
*
PARADOX
*************************
Armenians who classify themselves as the best,
sooner or later expose themselves as the worst.
#
“We are a people like any other people.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
#
ZOHRAB & CHARENTS
**********************************
“We are a people like any other people.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.
Even our greatest intellectuals and poets,
like Zohrab and Charents, were dupes
of enemy propaganda.”
“What would you have done in their place?”
“Probably what they did and having done so
I would deserve universal ridicule and contempt.”
*
SAROYAN
*********************
I will never forget the angry letter
one of our elder statesmen sent me
after reading one of my anti-Soviet tirades:
“Saroyan loves the regime.
You think you are smarter than Saroyan?”
*
GUILTY AS CHARGED
*****************************
You say I simplify complexities?
What does propaganda do?
What is propaganda if not the mother tongue
of self-satisfied idiots and their dupes?
*
GUILTY AS CHARGED II
*************************************
“You repeat yourself.”
“Not as often as our propagandists.”
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

WHO IS A GOOD ARMENIAN?
*******************************************
Sartre: “It is the rich man who is virtuous
and wants everyone else to be.
His values are a defense if the status quo.”
*
Everyone is against dividers,
but everyone seems to be for the status quo,
especially if he belongs to the privileged classes –
namely bosses, bishops, benefactors and their assorted hirelings and dupes.
*
Who is a good Armenian?
“An Armenian who has Mt. Ararat in his heart,”
-- whatever the hell that means.
*
I am not a Biblical scholar
but the scholars I have consulted inform me
the Bible does not mention “Mt. Ararat.”
It says “mountains of Urartu,”
of which there are about a thousand
and most of them are not in Armenia.
#
CAREER MOVES
*******************************
For a good number of years
my sole ambition in life
was to be a brown-nosier.
It took me quite a few years
to realize it was a bad choice –
and bad not on moral grounds
but bad because
the competition was too stiff.
*
MEMO
TO MY PATRIOTIC READERS
*********************************************
The difference between you and me
is that you like to brag
and I don’t.
#
OUR LORDS AND MASTERS
**************************************
Some readers,
among them former friends,
disagree with me for an
understandably compelling reason:
they are financially dependent
on the charity of swine.
They may preach freedom
but they are afraid
not only of free speech
but also of fellow Armenians
who engage in it.
*
Our political and religious leaders
are neither God’s nor people’s servants;
they are our Lords and Masters.
Deviate an inch
and you are shish-kebab!
#

[lampron]

Re: elegy

Who is a good Armenian?
“An Armenian who has Mt. Ararat in his heart,”
-- whatever the hell that means.
*

the majority in Armenia and Karabakh are too busy struggling to make a living to have time to think about Ararat!

[londontsi]

Re: elegy

the majority in Armenia and Karabakh are too busy struggling to make a living to have time to think about Ararat!

(true) Armenians think of Ararat like their mother, father or child.
Nothing to do whether rich or poor hungry or not.

In the same way, immidiately after the earthquake, when Soviet grandee arrive to the earthquake zone the people's slogan was Karabagh is Armenian.

You have very short memory.

Truth can never be selective.

.

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

A SKETCH OF MY LIFE
*************************************
In my formative years
I was carefully brought up to be a garbage can
Of prejudices, lies, and propaganda.
If I understand my fellow Armenians today
it may be because once upon a time
I was one of them
and I refuse to pretend otherwise.
*
It was very late in life
that I realized deep inside somewhere
I harbored a human being.
*
I wasted most of my life
trying to please individuals
whom I now classify as somewhere between
moral riffraff and the scum of the earth.
*
When I say I loathe dupes
what I really mean is that
I loathe the dupe in me.
The only thing I am willing to brag about
is the fact that in my childhood
I experienced homelessness, destitution,
war, and discrimination in an alien environment.
*
Did I survive?
Who can really tell?
I feel more like that English soldier
on the battlefield who,
when informed by his king that he was wounded,
replied: “Nay, Sire, I am dead.”
#
RECYCLING
**************************
To live in oppression means to believe in things
that you don’t and to trust the judgment of individuals
with the morality of pimps.
As a nation we have lived in oppression
for so many centuries that
we are no longer in a position to tell
the difference between
freedom and oppression.
Hence the saying:
“Once upon a time we were slaves;
we are now slaves of former slaves.”
Progress is our least important product.
*
One of the most useful tools
in criminal investigations is to ask:
“Who benefits?”
Who benefits from our divisions?
*
“A bourgeois is a bourgeois
regardless of nationality,” Lenin said.
So is a divider, a charlatan, and a deceiver.
*
“You repeat yourself.”
So do our dealers in chauvinist crapola.
*
I don’t write to achieve fame, fortune,
and immortality.
I write to share my understanding.
#
WHAT I BELIEVE
***********************************
I believe in the Incomprehensible,
the Unknowable and in the commandment
“Thou shalt not bear false witness.
As for “Thou shalt not kill”:
I believe a system that has legitimized
the burning of heretics and more recently
war and massacre is an invention of the Devil.
The rest is metaphysics, mumbo jumbo,
propaganda, and taxation without representation.
*
My aim in life is not to achieve
fame, fortune, and greatness
but to be less dishonest.
*
As the offspring of perennial losers,
I have a soft spot for all losers
even when they are identified as the enemy.
#
TRASHLAND
**********************
If Gogol and Kafka were to come back to life and collaborate on a book about reality in present-day Armenia, the result would be Denis Donikian’s VIDURES or AGHPASTAN, in Ruzanna Vartanian’s excellent Armenian translation (403 pages, Yerevan, 2013).
Aghpastan, literally Trashland, is a biting satire and a horror story written with withering wit that utilizes many genres and styles reminiscent of James Joyce.
*
During a walk two friends discover the corpse of a woman in a garbage dump, an obvious victim of foul play.
“I know who she is,” one of them says. “I recognize her by her hair and the undamaged side of her face. We should go to the cops.”
The other is outraged.
“The cops! The cops? Can you picture me walking into a police station? Walking in is easy. The trick is coming out. And sometimes you never come out.”
“But it is against the law not to report a murder. If we ignore this murder and another murder next day, what happens if you or I are the next victims? If you and I and everybody else ignores a murder we become a nation of amnesiacs at the mercy of others.”
“Maybe so -- but what happens if we are detained by the police? And when I say detained I don’t mean for an hour or a day but for months. Think of my piglets: what happens to them?”
The conclusion is obvious: “Aghpastan” has become a country that swims in crime, criminals, executioners, and their victims.
*
The book begins and ends with the same two words: “Der Voghormia” (Lord have mercy).
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

REFLECTIONS
**********************************
A single priest may brainwash
as many as a thousand children,
but a thousand bishops cannot convert
a single imam.
All victimizers are experts at least in one field:
in their choice of victims.
*
If you are an adult,
you know something about history,
and you are a nationalist,
you may safely declare yourself
a public nuisance and a retard.
*
If we were to judge a religion by its history,
who would dare to brag about
being a religious person?
*
I have never said none of our
bosses, bishops, and benefactors is an honest man.
What I have said is that
I never had the pleasure of meeting one.
#
MASTERS & SLAVES
********************************
As the offspring of perennial losers,
I tend to divide my fellow men
into masters and slaves,
or top dogs and underdogs.
*
I fear and respect top dogs
and I have as much respect for underdogs
as I have for myself, which is none.
That’s why my respect
for our bosses, bishops, and benefactors
knows no bound.
Sometimes I even go as far as classifying them
as architects of our collective destiny,
when in fact they have as much power
as a sardine in a pool of sharks;
and when speechify and sermonize
in the name of God and Country
what they really mean is
the KGB and the CIA.
*
HOW TO RECOGNIZE
A RIGGED ELECTION
**************************************
If the winner is an enemy agent,
he has the charisma of a robot
and the eyes of a reptile, it’s rigged.
#
JUNKIES
****************************
Notwithstanding the fact that
our writers have been consistently misunderstood,
rejected, starved, even betrayed
and murdered in cold blood,
there are boys and girls today
whose ambition is to be a writer.
There is a reasonable explanation
for this strange phenomenon:
ignorance of history.
*
The official version of our past
has been bowdlerized so drastically that
if reality and our school texts ever met
they wouldn’t recognize each other.
*
We have this in common with Turks:
we are junkies of state propaganda.
There are well-established academics today
(not all of them Turks)
who believe Talaat was a great statesman.
*
Talaat’s arrogance was such that
he dared to parade in the streets of Berlin
as if he were a universally respected royalty in exile.
Until reality caught up with him,
as it caught up with us
in successive waves of massacres
whose message we
(or rather our leadership)
chose to ignore.
*
The problem with compulsive and habitual liars is that
they end up believing in their lies.
#
MEMO TO A CRITIC
**********************************
My aim in life is to understand reality.
Your aim, if I understand it correctly,
is to assert some kind of superiority
motivated by patriotism,
which is also the aim
of all speechifiers, sermonizers,
and propagandists, who at
least get paid for their work,
*
You may have noticed by now
that I have a handful of favorite themes
on which I compose endless variations.
To those who accuse me of repeating myself
I plead guilty as charged.
My aim is not to achieve immortality
or even earn minimum wage,
but to speak of reality as I see it
and not as I am told to see it
by someone who may or may not be
a compulsive liar, a child molester,
or an inbred moron.
*
The trouble with Christianity
as an organized religion is that
99% of Christians were brainwashed as children.
The same applies to all organized religions:
they are organized to lie, deceive
and when necessary to kill and die
in defense of a god who has no need
of their protection.
*
We need to talk!
#

[lampron]

Re: elegy

The only thing I am willing to brag about
is the fact that in my childhood
I experienced homelessness, destitution,
war, and discrimination in an alien environment.
*
Did I survive?
Who can really tell?
I feel more like that English soldier
on the battlefield who,
when informed by his king that he was wounded,
replied: “Nay, Sire, I am dead.”
#
#

there are those (especially those who live comfortably)
who are interested in your survival because that reinforces their own self-importance
"I am a survivor", meaning "I'm special"
but they are not interested in your suffering or of others through the centuries

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

RANDOM THOUGHTS

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

After moronizing its own people America

is now engaged in moronizing the world.

*

Describe someone objectively

and deep inside somewhere

one of his defensive walls is bound to collapse.

*

Most of my critics are not idiots

but they appear to enjoy acting the part.

*

More often than not

when I try to solve a problem

I succeed only in compounding it.

*

My piano teacher taught me

the only way to learn a piece marked presto

is by playing it lento.

*

One way to be brilliant is

by writing a hundred different versions

of the same line and choosing the best.

#

MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE CONCEPTS

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

A wolf and a vegetarian diet.

A closed mind and dialogue.

An Armenian and a Turk.

An Armenian and an Armenian.

*

What I write is free –

like cheese in a mousetrap.

*

American saying: “90% of everything is crap.”

Armenian translation: “99%.”

#

NOTES & COMMENTS

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

If the world were a room,

the U.S. would be the elephant in it.

*

If you assume to be right

you are automatically disqualified to engage in dialogue.

*

A liar’s best friend is another liar.

*

A snake’s ideal food is another snake.

*

Thirst for knowledge and thirst for blood

are mutually exclusive concepts.

*

A dupe cannot have an open mind.

*

When the Nazis said “Gott mit uns”

they meant of course the Devil.

*

I repeat myself?

What about our sermonizers, speechifiers,

and Turcocentric fanatics?

*

All corrupt regimes need enemies.

Hatred is a glue and all politicians need scapegoats.

#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

ON POPULARITY
******************************
Popularity is overrated.
Neither Socrates nor Jesus was popular.
Bach was neglected for a hundred years.
Kafka was known only to a handful
of close friends.
Hegel’s last famous words:
“No one understood me except one,
and even he didn’t understand me.”
My guess is Elvis and the Beatles
made more money in a year than
Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms combined
throughout their lifetime.
*
Have I said this before?
No matter.
Some things are worth repeating.
#
HOW TO BE OBJETIVE
***********************************
The only way to be objective
is to see oneself through alien eyes.
The alternative is to view Catholics
through the eyes of the Pope,
the Soviets through the eyes of Stalin,
and the Chinese through the eye of Mao
on the grounds that these gentlemen know better.
*
One of the most important rules in dialogue:
neither side is allowed to say “Yes, sir!”
*
Ideas like “All men are created equal,”
should be judged by their history
and not by their intentions.
*
Archie Bunker is dead,
long live the Tea Party!
#

ON LAWYERS
& RELATED ATROCITIES
************************************
Where lawyers prosper, justice suffers.
The function of a jury, it has been said,
is to decide which side had the more competent
legal representation.
*
Where advertisers prosper,
the line that separates fact from illusion
will be blurred.
*
Where there is great wealth,
there will also be crooks.
Plato’s explanation for this phenomenon:
unlike honest men who will employ only honest means,
crooks will employ honest as well as dishonest means.
*
We live in a land of bankers, investment brokers,
public relations men, advertisers and lawyers.
It follows, we are in deep sh*t.
#
BOOK REVIEW
***********************
130 TALISMANS. By Kardash Onnig.
Foreword by Alexander Boccialini Shundi.
Illustrated. 2013. Published by Baraka
(P.O. Box 145, Stanfordville, NY 12581).
**************************************
Are talismans, also known as “charms,” objects with mystical powers over evil or mumbo jumbo? My reason tells me they belong to the mumbo jumbo department of life, but my subconscious sings a different tune.
After a black cat crosses my path, I feel better if I find a penny on the sidewalk. Accuse me of being superstitious and I will deny it. Figure that one out if you can.
This illustrated booklet of 130 talismans is the latest opus by our Renaissance man of arts and letters, Onnig Kardash. Each talisman costs $400.00. If they weren’t beyond my income bracket I would love to buy a dozen of them (one for each room in the house) and forever after feel less vulnerable.
(For more information write to Transformer @gmail.com).
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

DECEPTION (I)
***************************
Everything that needs to be said has been said. The role of our propaganda today is to deceive us into thinking everything that needs to be done is being done when in fact nothing is being done.
*
DECEPTION (II)
In our official version of the story the Genocide was inevitable. Which raises the question: if our leaders cannot foresee the inevitable, what are they good for besides raising funds?
*
OVERHEARD
***********************
“Make friends when you don’t need them.”
*
“You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince.”
#
TWO OBSERVATIONS
********************************
If a closed mind makes you happy, by all means, follow your bliss. Only be warned. A fool’s happiness is a house without foundations.
*
In the eyes of some I am a self-hating Armenian because I refuse to rely on the support of men who could be useful to me –bosses, bishops, benefactors, their hirelings, hangers on and dupes. They fail to see the obvious: if I am against these gentlemen it is out of self-respect, and I suggest self-respect and self-hatred are mutually exclusive concepts.
#
ON THE ORIGINS
OF PATRIOTISM
*********************************
If I had a choice between visiting Venice or Paris and the ugly little Greek slum where I was born and raised, I would choose the slum but I can’t because it’s no longer there – it was reduced to rubble by the Germans during World War II.
*
My doubts outnumber my certainties a thousand to one. I am one of those who feel guilty even when they say the right thing and do what must be done.
*
Judge an underdog by what he would do if he were a top dog.
#