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Re: elegy
Sunday, July 5, 2009
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JACKASSES
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I learned to read in time of war when books were luxuries beyond our means. We had only one in the house – a dilapidated elementary school anthology with black and white drawings. The story on page one was not so much a story as an exchange of insults:
A street urchin to a donkey driver:
“Good morning, mother of jackasses.”
“Good morning, my son.”
*
An exile is someone who lives in an alien country.
A double exile is an exile whose homeland is ruled by aliens,
and no one can be as alien as one's fellow countrymen.
*
You cannot speak of freedom to a slave
who cannot see or feel the weights of his chains.
*
A fool who fools another fool
thinks of himself as smart.
*
Don't think of me as a writer or as an Armenian.
Think of me as a fellow human being
who writes not for readers
but for his younger self
when he was brainwashed, manipulated, and abused.
*
A few years ago I wrote a series of short stories whose central character was named Jack S. Avanakian – an Armenian-American variation on Odian's Panchoonie.
Once when asked by an interviewer what I was working on, I replied I was planning to write an autobiography titled “The Swan-Song of a Jackass.”
“Why a jackass?”
“Because only an obstinate jackass would go on writing for thirty years hoping against all hope to make a difference.”
#
Sunday, July 5, 2009
*****************************************
JACKASSES
************************************************** ****
I learned to read in time of war when books were luxuries beyond our means. We had only one in the house – a dilapidated elementary school anthology with black and white drawings. The story on page one was not so much a story as an exchange of insults:
A street urchin to a donkey driver:
“Good morning, mother of jackasses.”
“Good morning, my son.”
*
An exile is someone who lives in an alien country.
A double exile is an exile whose homeland is ruled by aliens,
and no one can be as alien as one's fellow countrymen.
*
You cannot speak of freedom to a slave
who cannot see or feel the weights of his chains.
*
A fool who fools another fool
thinks of himself as smart.
*
Don't think of me as a writer or as an Armenian.
Think of me as a fellow human being
who writes not for readers
but for his younger self
when he was brainwashed, manipulated, and abused.
*
A few years ago I wrote a series of short stories whose central character was named Jack S. Avanakian – an Armenian-American variation on Odian's Panchoonie.
Once when asked by an interviewer what I was working on, I replied I was planning to write an autobiography titled “The Swan-Song of a Jackass.”
“Why a jackass?”
“Because only an obstinate jackass would go on writing for thirty years hoping against all hope to make a difference.”
#
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