notes and comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Thursday, May 23, 2013
**************************************
CHEKHOV
*********************
In one of his short stories Chekhov writes
(I quote/paraphrase from memory):
“You are saying man is the architect of his own happiness
and I am saying if you had a toothache
and a shrew as a mother-in-law
you would sing a different tune.”
*
DANTE AND SHAKESPEARE
*****************************************
There is a type of writer whose every statement
needs a footnote
whose every footnote needs a commentary,
and whose every commentary
needs an explanation.
And then there is a type of writer
whose statements mean what they say
preferably in monosyllables,
like “To be or not to be.”
*
WHAT IS LITERATURE
********************************
The function of a writer, I was brought up to believe,
is to make the reader feel good and proud of his identity.
I know now that a writer is neither a comedian
nor an entertainer.
*
KURDISTAN
*****************************
The projected map of a future Kurdistan
looks surprisingly like Armenia
only twice as big.
*
OPTIONS
*********************
Between a past we cannot change
and a present we can change,
we have allowed our Turcocentric ghazetajis
and genocide academics to turn us into pillars of salt.
#
THE WRONG MAN
******************************
If I can explain one little thing
that you didn’t understand before,
I have done my part.
If you read me with the hope to be enlightened,
you’ve got the wrong man for the job.
The world, the people in it,
God above and the Devil below
are a mystery to me too.
*
And speaking of people:
A hundred years ago they were in the business
of slaughtering innocent civilians
and creating refugees by the million.
They are now busy welcoming them from Syria.
Times change, people change, conditions change
and charity is thrust on some
as greatness is on others.
#
THE GOOD AND THE BAD
************************************
Good Turks and Armenians exist
but they are outnumbered by the brainwashed.
*
All wars and massacres begin
in the classrooms of the nation.
*
They teach intolerance, hatred, and murder
and call it education and patriotism.
And because I say these things
I am thought of as an enemy.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Sunday, May 19, 2013
************************************
HAVE A NICE DAY
*************************** *********
As a child I was taught there are
two kinds of “nahadags” or martyrs:
regular nahadags and “esh (jackass) nahadags.”
A regular nahadag is one who dies
in the name of a cause he believes in.
A jackass nahadag, by contrast,
dies in the name of a lie someone else pretends to believe in;
or, in Sartre’s words, someone
who “believes that he believes but he doesn’t.”
*
There is no such thing as an undeserved defeat
or a moral victory. Both are fabrications of propagandists.
Only the thoroughly and systematically moronized
believe what their politicians tell them.
*
Patriotism is not an ideology
but an intellectual disease or mass moronism.
*
Example of Turkish moronism:
After engaging in the wholesale massacres of civilians,
they plead self-defense.
*
Example of Armenian moronism:
After dividing the nation
or digging its grave
they preach self-sacrifice, heroism, and martyrdom;
and they are believed by systematically moronized dupes
who have been brainwashed to believe they are smart.
*
Have a nice day.
#
BALONEY ARTISTS
***********************************
Whenever I say our history has been
a succession of blunders and catastrophes
and we have been and continue to be
at the mercy of traitors and collaborators with the enemy,
I am asked: “What would you have done in their place?”
My standard answer to that question is:
“Very probably what they are did
and having done so
I would live in shame and degradation forever after.
I wouldn’t parade as a role model to future generations
I wouldn’t adopt a holier-than-thou stance;
I wouldn’t delivery lectures and speeches
on patriotism, dedication to ideals and principles,
self-sacrifice and heroism;
and I wouldn’t attack insult those
who dare to speak the truth.
*
One of our academics once said to me:
“I agree with everything you say
and I promise I too will speak the truth after I retire.”
This happened about thirty years ago
when he was in his sixties.
But as far as I know he has at no time
published a single word of dissent,
and I doubt if he ever will.
That’s because when you work
for an Armenian political party, organization or bureaucracy
you sign an oath of confidentiality or secrecy.
In effect you promise not to divulge inside information.
Break your promise and you get no more retirement money.
It’s all legal and above board.
Our buggers sure know how to cover their ass.
#
CELEBRITIES
******************
Richard Burton on John (MALTESE FALCON) Huston:
“Huston is a simpleton. But believes himself to be a genius.
And a self-aggrandizing liar. Cunning at it.”
A “cunning” “simpleton?”
*
One reason I enjoy reading books by celebrities is that
every other celebrity is treated like xxxx.
*
If you like malicious gossip I recommend
CONVERSATIONS WITH TRUMAN CAPOTE.
I forget the writer’s name – he has also written
CONVERSATIONS WITH MARLON BRANDO.
*
Speaking of Capote and Brando:
the best thing I remember to have read about Brando is Capote’s
“The Duke in His Domain.”
After reading it Brando wanted to kill him.
#
AS I SEE IT
***************************
QUESTION: What kind of revolutionaries
rely on foreign support?
ANSWER: Armenian revolutionaries.
*
A question we avoid asking:
What possessed us to trust Turks, Russians,
and today our own bosses, bishops, and benefactors?
*
I believe in god
but not in the god of
rabbis, imams, and bishops
Where their god enters
propaganda is sure to follow;
and where propaganda enters
can a big lie be far behind?
*
Throughout our history,
god (or our faith in him)
has been the least reliable source
of strength and support.
*
When it comes to god
what matters is not how we define him
but how our enemies define him –
especially if they have bigger battalions.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Saturday, May 18, 2013
*************************************
AS I SEE IT
************************
The average Turk is totally unaware of the fact that
Talaat and Kemal were fascists;
and the average Armenian has nothing but contempt
for “bourgeois democracy” – in case you thought
Armenians are smarter.
*
In our circles, as in all autocratic circles,
refusing to kiss ass is thought of as a serious offense.
*
The only way to understand Armenians
(or anyone else for that matter) is to work for them
or to be dependent on their goodwill.
*
I have dealt with too many crooks
who pretended to be honest men
to be taken in by cheap rhetoric.
I am anti-Armenian only in the sense that
I am anti -myself, which I believe to be
a more useful stance that being pro-myself.
#
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*******************************
Once upon a time I had all the answers.
That’s when I was a dupe.
*
To speak of an honest politician
is like praising a vegetarian cannibal.
*
Some Armenians owe their life to Turks
and some Armenian writers owe their death to Armenians.
My ambition in life:
to write a cheerful book about death.
#
IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO
*********************************
They behaved like bloodthirsty savages
and we behaved like illiterate idiots
who could not decipher the writing on the wall.
*
If our leaders emphasize the first (savages)
and cover up the second (idiots)
it’s because this cunning maneuver allows them
to preside over another genocide (sbidak chart)
and put the blame on economic, political,
social, and cultural forces beyond their control.
*
But competent leadership consists
in confronting and overcomin invisible historic forces
that when left unchallenged
can destroy not only tribes and nations
but also empires as surely as
bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians on the warpath.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Sunday, May 12, 2013
*************************************
CONFESSIONS
**************************
At the beginning was the Word
and the Word was a Big Lie.
*
God created heaven and earth.
It was Man who created Hell.
*
I am an atheist only in the sense that
I don’t believe in the God of
rabbis, imams, and bishops.
*
The dead are replaced by the living
and worlds are replaced by other worlds.
What if, even as I write these lines,
in another world Cain is murdering Abel
and Nietzsche is announcing the death of God?
*
I am not an atheist.
For thirty-five years I was a church organist,
my favorite composer is J.S. Bach,
and my favorite quotation is
by Santa Teresa of Avila:
“Never submit your intelligence to someone
who doesn’t have enough of it himself.”
*
The Catholic priest who hired me as his organist
(may the Good Lord have mercy on his soul)
once said to him: “Organ music makes people feel holier.”
When informed I was an atheist, he said:
“God is in everything that is beautiful
and you love music…”
#
WHAT IF…
*****************************
What if I am not consistently wrong
and you are not consistently right?
What if once or twice a year
I may be right and you may be wrong?
What makes you think you are better
than the fellow in the Vatican
who thought he was doing God’s work
even when he authorized the torture of heretics?
*
In the eyes of our Turcocentric ghazetajis, academics,
and dealers in chauvinist crapola
I am only an Armenian Turks love to quote.
*
Fanatics may be defined as individuals
who place prejudice and hatred above understanding.
*
A tolerant and balanced view is one
in which assertions are modified by their contradictions.
*
It is safe to assume that our enemies
may not always be wrong
because our friends may not always be right.
*
The God of fanatics is the Devil.
*
To say we have the leadership we deserve
is like saying countless innocent civilians
deserved to be slaughtered
when it was only their leaders
who should have been hanged
(I am now paraphrasing General Antranik
as quoted by Mahari in his autobiography).
*
If the Sultan was replaced by Talaat,
the Czar by Lenin and Stalin,
The German Monarch by Hitler,
the Spanish King by Franco,
(I could go on)
what makes you think our own revolutionaries
were men of integrity and statesmen of vision?
I am not making assertions
or casting aspersions,
just asking a question.
#
ELEMENTARY
*****************************
After saying “We all make mistakes,”
we should ask:
“How many of them were avoidable?”
*
After saying “There are divisions everywhere,”
we should ask:
“How many of them are necessary or justifiable?”
*
After saying “Armenians are smart,”
we should ask:
“Why is it that we have been
consistently victimized by
Mongoloid barbarians,
inbred morons,
and bloodthirsty savages?”
*
After bragging about our celebrities,
we should ask: “How many of them
ever bragged about their Armenian identity?
Mamoulian? Gulbenkian? Mikoyan? Jack S. Avanakian?”
*
You can’t pretend to seek solutions
if you don’t acknowledge the existence of the problem.
Neither can you have the right answer
if you don’t even bother to ask the right question.
#
SWINE
*************************
From IT HAPPENED IN NAPLES, an old Italian film:
SOPHIA LOREN (angry): You are not a lawyer. You are a pig!
VITTORIO DE SICA (with disbelief): But a man can be a lawyer and a pig at the same time.
*
You can tell right from wrong?
That means you have discovered the recipe for an unhappy life.
*
I am all for forgiving my enemies,
but only after they die.
*
Everything I write has autobiographical roots.
*
I have behaved like a pig
and I have behaved like a human being:
I can tell the difference.
*
All power structures, belief systems, and regimes
depend on a class of highly paid individuals
who specialize in deception or the invention of big lies.
In other words, people not only need to be deceived
but also want to be deceived,
so much so that they are more than willing
to pay good money to their deceivers.
*
I have behaved like a deceiver
and I have behaved like a dupe.
I can tell the difference.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Thursday, May 09, 2013
***************************************
MEMO TO MY CRITICS
***************************
If what you say is right,
obviously I can’t be worth reading
and you would be more justified in criticizing yourself
for wasting your valuable time on me.
*
You want to know the difference
between an honest and a dishonest writer?
Easy!
A dishonest writer flatters.
An honest one is a thorn in the flesh.
*
Of how many potential dissidents we could say
because they were bullied by idiots,
they fell silent.
*
I understand my critics.
Thirty ears ago I was one of them.
*
National historians:
the intellectual equivalents of empty suits.
*
What makes our ruling classes so arrogantly
and ruthlessly stupid?
The answer must be:
experience, reality, history, or the fact that
they have been fooling us for centuries
and no one ever said
off with their heads.
#
THE WRITING LIFE
******************************
Literature:
I leave that to our creative writers, scholars, and academics.
*
Love stories: I stopped writing them on the day I realized
their true aim is to entertain the bourgeoisie.
I now write to expose deceivers.
*
When in a letter to the editor many years ago
a reader said he felt terrorized by my words,
I was flattered rather than offended.
*
We are tired of being sheep in a world of wolves.
That’s why an Armenian is another Armenian’s wolf.
He has to start somewhere.
*
In the words of an American comedian:
“I take my lion to church every Sunday.
He has to eat.”
*
If you are not thirsty it makes no difference
if the glass is half-empty or half-full.
*
Silence has no need for translators.
# MEMOS
TO MY TURKISH READERS
***************************************
Do you want to understand Armenians?
Think of them as a people that for 600 years
had Turks as their role models.
*
There are no Armenians
and there are no Turks:
only people who speak Armenian and Turkish.
*
MEMOS
TO MY FELLOW ARMENIANS
*******************************************
To confuse patriotism with loyalty or subservience
to liars and crooks: I can’t imagine
anything more cowardly and idiotic.
*
Divisions are popular with us
because we are not popular with one another.
*
We are not a work in progress;
we are a dead end.
*
A common Armenian allergy:
other Armenians.
*
Hatred of Turks is our opium.
*
A nation that hates together
stays together.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Wednesday, May 08, 2013
*******************************
READING
********************
There is a new book out on bankers and politicians titled
xxxxxxxS: A THEORY. If it is as good as its title
will be a best-seller.
*
After having sex with his wife, Tolstoy wrote in his diary:
“It was so disgusting; I felt I had committed a crime.”
*
Gorky on Tolstoy and God:
“They sometimes remind me of two bears in a den.”
Thomas Mann is right: Gorky’s REMINISCENCES OF TOLSTOY
is the best thing he ever wrote.
*
Chekhov and Zarian agreed on one thing about writing:
Leave something to the imagination.
No need to explain and describe everything.
Delete the first and last paragraphs.
*
In Saul Steinberg’s biography. I note so many parallels:
childhood in the Balkans (Romania for him, Greece for me)
education in Italy (Milan/Venice),
life in the New World (U.S./Canada),
favorite contemporary writers (Nabokov, Bellow).
*
Elia Kazan believed his “method” created Brando.
In his DIARY Richard Burton asserts
Brando was ruined by Kazan.
At one point he identifies him as the British Brando.
Burton hated acting.
His ambition was to be a writer.
To the end he remained a voracious reader.
#
ON PATRIOTISM (VII)
*********************************
To say or imply or suggest that Armenian patriotism
is better than Turkish, American or
any other kind of patriotism is like saying
cancer in one nation is better cancer in another.
*
I would like to meet an Armenian
whose speech is not contaminated by patriotism,
whose understanding of our past
has not been shaped by our own historians,
and whose values are not tribal or parochial but universal.
*
Patriotism may be defined as collective narcissism.
But whereas individual narcissism is treated
as a psychological aberration,
collective narcissism is thought of
as a sacred civic duty.
And why?
Because the ruling classes everywhere need individuals
willing to kill and die in defense of their powers and privileges.
*
To say we live in a world where wars are inevitable
amounts to saying all human disagreements and conflicts
must end with murder or suicide.
*
If most individual conflicts are resolved
without the death of either or both parties,
why not collective conflicts?
#
READING
RICHARD BURTON’S DIARY
**************************************
On Reagan:
“--dangerously stupid.”
*
On Nixon:
“I dislike drunkards and he was drunk as the devil
the last time I saw him.”
*
On film directors:
“I don’t remember anything they said except idiocies
which I ignored.”
*
On Laurence Olivier:
“…he really is a shallow little man
with a very mediocre intelligence.”
*
On Mussolini:
“Fundamentally he was a weak but decent man.”
*
He rates Spengler above Toynbee because he hates the English –
totally unaware of the fact that Toynbee hated the English
more than he did.
#
THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT
OF REALITY
********************************************
It is not history or
social, economic, cultural and geographic conditions
beyond our control that have divided us
and keep us divided today;
rather, it is the gradual and cold-blooded development
of a system – a system of cunningly formulated
prejudices, dogmas, and lies – that favors
the dividers among us and penalizes the proponents
of solidarity and unity.
In short: our problems are ours;
they are not enemy action,
and if they are, the enemy is within.
*
Speaking the truth is easy;
what’s hard is to make it
palatable, comprehensible, and bearable.
*
Perennial victims are not and cannot be
morally superior.
*
I agree with those who assert
we are the real Chosen People – chosen to be
the targets of bloodthirsty barbarians,
both foreign and domestic.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Thursday, May 02, 2013
*********************************
AS I SEE IT (XXXIII)
*****************************
Things are looking up.
At this rate our dissidents will outnumber our dupes.
*
Has any one of our vodanavorjis ever written a sonnet titled
“Yes im anoush commissarneri”?
*
Some of our Diasporan leaders
are Turks who speak Armenian fluently,
I was informed once by one of our elder statesmen.
What about our oligarchs in the Homeland?
Are they human beings?
*
The secret ambition of all ass-kissers
is to be ass-kickers.
*
To cover up blunders is
to promote and legitimize future disasters.
The blame-game is a dead end and
our role models are the scum of the earth.
#
PERVERSIONS
****************************
Some people agree with one another
because they place the strength of unity and consensus
above the weakness of discord.
We are different.
First and foremost we are men of principle
and the principle we believe in and practice
more than any other is self-destruction.
*
If you are judged by your inferiors
you will be found guilty on grounds of superiority.
*
The greater the incompetence of a regime,
the greater the number of its victims.
#
ZERO
********************
The greater the distance between
what you think of yourself
and what others think of you,
the greater the number of conflicts
between you and the world.
*
Paraphrasing Gandhi,
if you reduce yourself to zero
your conflicts will be zero.
*
If you think of yourself as the center of the universe,
you will be wrong even when you are right.
*
If you think God is on your side,
both God and the Devil will conspire against you.
*
And if you think you belong to a nation
that is God’s chosen,
you will be torn to shreds by the scum of the earth.
This is neither theory nor speculation,
neither prediction nor metaphysics,
but historic reality.
#

[jgk3]

Re: elegy

After I make an assertion
I am haunted by its contradiction.
*
To be a writer means
to be a re-writer.
#

Oh god, I can relate.

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Thursday, April 25, 2013
*************************************
VARIATIONS ON A FAMILIAR THEME
************************************************
After behaving like swine
they assert moral superiority.
This is as true of nations and tribes
as it is of empires;
as true of the Ottoman Empire
as it is of our own political parties and mafias.
*
When a fanatic says “God is on my side,”
you can be sure of one thing:
he can’t tell the difference
between God and the Devil.
*
All belief systems are perversions.
*
Not to expose lies means
being subservient to liars.
#
ONLY IN AMERICA
****************************
In America if you fail as a writer
you can make a comfortable living
as a teacher of creative writing.
*
I don’t know what they do in Armenia
but in the Diaspora you make yourself
as invisible as possible – not to be the bud of jokes
as a vodanavorji or a medavoragan
(freely translated as versifier and assh*le).
*
ONLY IN ARMENIA
************************
Where idiots are in charge,
the smart will be persecuted.
*
Ours is a nation whose lunatic fringe
is the dominant minority.
*
Literature is to the mind as water is to the thirsty
and bread to the hungry.
But some people experience neither thirst nor hunger
because they are walking cadavers.
*
Politicians create enemies to cover up the fact that
they are the real enemies.
#
ON EVIL
& RELATED ATROCITIES
*******************
The only way to understand evil
is to recognize it within us.
Which is why the judgment of the self-righteous
cannot be trusted – and who could be
more self-righteous
than bishops, imams, and rabbis
who speak in the name of god?
*
One man’s god
may be another’s devil.
*
To be diplomatic, tolerant, and civilized means
to say the opposite of what you think and feel.
*
After I make an assertion
I am haunted by its contradiction.
*
To be a writer means
to be a re-writer.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Saturday, April 20, 2013
******************************************
BROTHERS
**************************
If you go against the dominant mindset of your time,
you can’t go wrong.
You may be a perennial reject
but the chances are you will be closer to the truth
than the crowd.
*
At the turn of the last century
Turks thought the fewer Armenians the better.
During World War II Germans had a similar disposition
towards xxxs.
Remember the American slogan:
“The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
*
One reason Americans did not exterminate Negroes is that
Negroes played a key role in their economy.
Closer to home: our own attitude
towards our critics and dissidents:
the fewer the better but none is best.
(I speak from experience.)
*
All genocides begin in the hearts of men
and we are no exception.
Now then, go right ahead and assert moral superiority.
#
NOTES & COMMENTS
*******************************
Using profanities in an argument
is like raising your voice to strengthen your position.
It works only if your adversary is intimidated by noise.
*
I no longer search for the company of good men.
If I can recognize and avoid the proximity of cold-blooded killers
I am satisfied.
*
To those who accuse me of seeing only the dark side of our reality,
I say: We have a long-standing literary tradition
that prefers fiction to fact.
Mine is a balancing act.
*
To lose a false friend is like defeating a dangerous enemy.
*
In the world of scholarship as in life
the most valuable asset is a readiness
to renounce a cherished idea.
#
NOTES / COMMENTS
************************************
Individuals may admit their failings
but nations never!
All nations are habitual and compulsive liars.
This is as true of Americans as it is of Russians;
as true of Turks as it is of Armenians.
*
We like to say we had a Golden Age
when the West was wallowing in its Dark Ages.
The question we avoid asking is:
Who is responsible for frittering away our heritage?
*
A new revolution or regime opens the path
to a new class of mediocrities, opportunists,
and bureaucrats – sharks for short.
More often than not the difference
between the old and the new is in name only.
Scratch the label and expose the scum of the earth.
#