notes and comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

May 11, 2010
************************************************** *
COMMISSARS
************************************************
To how many of my critics and detractors I could say, some day if I ever write an essay titled “Portrait of a commissar,” I will use you as a source of inspiration. Like all commissars, you are better at shooting writers than understanding them. I wonder why. Is it because it is easier to shoot them in the neck than trying to understand them?
*
Like all skinheads and fanatics, all commissars are wrong if only because they assert infallibility, which amounts to a bordello madam asserting virginity.
*
It is much easier to say “It was God's will,” rather than, “It was our fault.”
*
In all anti-democratic environments, the people are brainwashed to support and believe in liars and starve those who expose them.
*
Why should God interfere when men adopt the Devil as their role model?
After giving us what we need to survive and shape our destiny, God tells us, “It's up to you to decide if you want to live like free men or die like slaves.”
You may now guess what has been our choice.
*
“Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds,” Homer says of Odysseus. We too have seen many cities and a large variety of men, but what have we learned? -- except perhaps to brag about how smart we are and blame others for our misfortunes.
*
You want solutions?
Read the Bible.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
“Where there is no vision the people perish.”
And the people perish because
“When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”
*
Unlike Protestants, Catholics are not encouraged to read the Bible. Neither, it seems, are Armenians – judging by the number of readers who demand solutions from me, as if I were a better writer than the Holy Ghost.
*
Even so, I thank my detractors, for they are my most faithful readers.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

May 12, 2010
************************************************** *
MY AIM IN LIFE
************************************************
To make the incomprehensible comprehensible.
Also to convince the brainwashed
that they have been brainwashed.
Not an easy task, especially if the brainwashed
have also been brainwashed to believe they are smart.
I maintain our history,
or what they call nowadays, our narrative,
proves that some of us may indeed be smart in the marketplace,
but most of us are dumb in politics.
What if I am wrong and my critics right?
That's always a possibility of course,
but a very remote one, if my critics believe
what I believed thirty years ago.
As for those of my critics who think
they have all the answers:
No one but the Good Lord has all the answers --
I use the Good Lord as a point of reference.
I don't assert His existence.
I assume it.
There is a difference.
As for our genocide:
I believe the narrative of our nationalist historians
and Turcocentric ghazetajis to be wrong
in so far as it stresses Turkish responsibility
and covers up the incompetence of our leadership.
Lamentation is important.
But learning from our blunders is even more so.
Turkish responsibility does not justify
our own past and present irresponsibility.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

May 14, 2010
************************************************** *
FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
************************************************
I find the venom of my enemies more stimulating than the honey of my friends, in the same way that our Turcocentric ghazetajis find the lies of Turkish bureaucrats more stimulating than the truths of our writers – judging by the lies they quote and the truths they ignore.
And why?
Because asserting moral superiority is more flattering to their ego than examining their conscience.
But that's not the worst part of it.
The most dangerous misconception our Turcocentric ghazetajis spread is the notion that our genocide is history (in the sense that it belongs to the irrevocable past) rather than a self-inflicted ongoing operation. That is also why they are very eager to name the perpetrators of the first “red” genocide, but not of the second “white” one.
*
The trouble with asserting moral superiority is that it doesn't end there. Sooner or later and gradually it degenerates to dogmatism and ultimately infallibility; and we all know what happens to charlatans who assert infallibility: they end up victimizing innocent and defenseless civilians – from burning heretics at the stake to sexually assaulting children.
*
You want to know what is the difference between propaganda and literature?
Our propaganda says, we have enemies and we have friends.
Our literature says, the enemy is us.
*
Were the Great Powers of the West our enemies or friends?
If they were our friends, where were they when we needed them most?
*
In his JOURNALS Kierkegaard writes: “One man alone cannot help or save the age in which he lives, he can only express the fact that it will perish.”
To save the age?
If our Lord perished while trying, what chance to we miserable mortals have?
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

May 15, 2010
************************************************** *
WHAT IS PROPAGANDA?
************************************************
The difference between a lie and propaganda is that a lie may be exposed but propaganda, even when exposed, continues to be believed.
*
All power structures (be they political parties, organized religion, or business corporations) engage in propaganda. That's because their number one concern is their own legitimacy rather than the truth.
*
All power that is not selfless service is illegitimate.
*
To believe and to recycle propaganda is infinitely more dangerous than to lie.
*
Propaganda is at the root of all intolerance, persecution, wars, and massacres.
*
Only dupes who cannot think for themselves believe in propaganda.
*
The world is a dangerous place and life a risky business because those who cannot think for themselves have always outnumbered those who can.
*
Millions of innocent civilians have died because their killers were brainwashed to believe their God was the only true God, and their race was God's chosen.
*
For every propaganda line there will be another that contradicts it.
*
All claims of superiority are false because no one has ever admitted to belong to an inferior race, nation, or tribe.
*
Moses was wrong if only because he failed to add the most important commandment of all, namely: “Thou shalt not believe in men who speak in the name of God for they engage in propaganda.”
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

May 16, 2010
************************************************** *
REPLIES
************************************************
FROM AN INTERVIEW
WITH BETTY MIDLER
****************************
Q: What is the quality you most like in a man?
A: Guts.
Q: What is the quality you most like in a woman?
A: Balls.
*
FROM AN INTERVIEW
WITH BRIGITTE BARDOT
************************************************** ***
Q: If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
A: Nothing about me. Everything about others.
*
FROM AN INTERVIEW
WITH SALMAN RUSHDIE
************************************************** ***
Q: What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
A: Faith.
Q: What is your greatest fear?
A: Irrelevance.
*
See VANITY FAIR'S PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE (New York, 2009)
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

May 17, 2010
************************************************** *
MORE REPLIES TO
THE PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE
************************************************
MAUREEN DOWD
*************************************
Q: How would you like to die?
A: After my enemies.
*
DUSTIN HOFFMAN
********************************
Q: On what occasion do you lie?
A: When people ask , “How are you?” The real answer I save for my therapist.
Q: Who are your favorite writers?
A: Nineteenth-century Russians.
*
WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY
****************************************
Q: What or who is the greatest love of your life?
A: J.S. Bach.
*
SIDNEY POITIER
****************************
Q: Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
A: Jason Bourne.
*
WALTER MATTHAU
*******************************
Q: Which historical figure do you most identify with?
A: Jack the Ripper.
Q: What is your motto?
A: “F*ck you.”
*

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

May 18, 2010
************************************************** *
MY ANSWERS TO
THE PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE
************************************************
Q: What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A: Playing Bach on the organ in an empty church.
Q: What is that you most dislike in others?
A: Intolerance.
Q: What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
A: Charm and a perfect set of white gleaming teeth.
Q: What do you consider your greatest achievement?
A: The fact that I have been writing for thirty-five years and I am still alive. Very few Armenian writers can say as much.
Q: Your favorite word?
A: Compassion.
Q: Your favorite writers?
A: Plato, Chekhov, Toynbee, Sartre, Zarian, Koestler, Simenon, Chandler, Lesley Blanch...among many others.
Q: Who are your heroes in real life?
A: Socrates, Diogenes, Gandhi.
Q: Your favorite heroes of fiction?
A: Jack Bower, Jason Bourne, Bugs Bunny, and Walker in POINT BLANK.
Q: Your happiest experience?
A: Receiving a letter from Saroyan saying he reads everything I write.
Q: Who is the greatest love of your life?
A: J.S. Bach.
Q: Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
A: “If you know what I am saying,” when I don't know what I am saying.
Q: On what occasion do you lie?
A: When asked by a writer to assess his work.
Q: How would you like to die?
A: Suddenly, in my sleep.
Q: Which talent would you most like to have?
A: The ability to sing Neapolitan serenades.
Q: What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
A: Self-doubt.
Q: What is the trait you most deplore in others?
A: Subservience.
Q: What is your most marked characteristic?
A: Timidity.
Q: Which living person do you most despise?
A: Flunkies, hirelings, and brown-nosers.
Q: What is your favorite journey?
A: Greek islands, Italian cities, South-American jungles, and Caucasian mountains.
Q: If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
A: A concert pianist.
Q: What do you regard as the lowest of misery?
A: To be a homeless refugee in a poor country under an authoritarian regime in time of war.
Q: If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
A: To be more diplomatic in my dealings with my fellow men.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

May 19, 2010
************************************************** *
MORE ANSWERS TO
THE PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE
************************************************
Q: Your favorite occupation?
A: Reading.
Q: Your greatest fear?
A: Losing my eyesight.
Q: Where would you like to live?
A: Since I can no longer live in the Armenian ghetto in Athens where I spent my early years – because it was torn down – in Venice.
Q: Your most treasured possession?
A: The complete organ and piano works of J.S. Bach.
Q: Your favorite saying?
A: “When the house is finished, death enters.”
*
DAVID STEINBERG
********************************
Q: If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?
A: Frank Sinatra's xxxx-- the early years.
*
ON THE RADIO
****************************
“They don't eat bagels in Israel.”
*
SHRINKS
**************************
I am told I hate myself. If I do, it may be because I can't imagine anything more repulsive than being infatuated with oneself.
*
Everything I say about Armenians has been said before, and if not said, felt.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

May 20, 2010
************************************************** *
ON LEVANTINE CUNNING
***************************************
After informing me that translating Zarian was a waste of time because he was a loud-mouth nonentity, a third-rate vodanavorji and a fourth-rate intellect went to suggest that I translate his poetry instead, and he made it sound as if translating him were a rare honor he was bestowing on me in an unprecedented burst of generosity for which I should be eternally grateful to him.
*
We are told God created men in His own image. Good men, maybe. As for bad men: I like to believe they were created by the Devil. To say otherwise would be to blaspheme.
*
Every policy has a stated as well as a hidden motive. Two cases in point:
Speaking about Canadian multiculturalism, I once heard a pundit on the radio define it as, “Let them dance.”
Our Turcocentrism may also be summed up thus: “If they think about Turks and massacres all the time, they will have little time to think about our shenanigans.”
*
We don't understand everything. Therefore there must be Someone who does. What could be more unbearable than a mystery without a solution? God must exist!
*
We see the Genocide as a tragedy; but it is also a defeat and a victory -- a Turkish victory not only over Greeks, Kurds, and Armenians, but also Russia, the Great Powers of the West, and their Allies.
*
H.G. Wells: "The Athenian democracy suffered much from that narrowness of patriotism which is the ruin of all nations."
*
It is a well-known fact that in America when the cavalry won it was a victory, but when the Indians won it was a massacre.
*
It has been said that nothing divides the Arab nations more than talk of Arab unity. Something similar could be said about us. Because I have been critical of our dividers, I too have been accused of being one.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

May 21, 2010
************************************************** *
NOTES AND COMMENTS
***************************************
At one time or another all nations have conducted wars of conquest. Why is it that when it comes to xxxs, this is seen as a crime against humanity?
*
Judging by the number of times I have been called a fool by fools, I am not the only one who thinks Armenians are not as smart as they think they are.
*
There is a natural tendency in all fools to conspire with other fools and call themselves smart.
*
No book can be as unreadable as an established masterpiece.
*
About Americans and genocide recognition: it would be useful to remind ourselves once in a while that what we are dealing with here are men who at one time or another in the past, and to some extent even today, have justified such aberrations as slavery, racism, revolution, wars of conquest (including civil war), and the
massacre of civilians.
*
And speaking of Indians: nowadays, even they speak with a forked tongue.
*
When you don't know, you have no choice but to trust the judgment of those who pretend to know.
*
There is no accounting for tastes. Some scholars are Turcophiles, some are Armenophiles, some women fall in love with serial killers.
*
Yugoslav proverb: "Man is harder than rock and more fragile than eggs." If we view Turks as hard as rocks and ourselves as fragile as eggs, it may be because, by uniting them, their leaders made them stronger; and by dividing us, our leaders made us weaker and more vulnerable. If you think I am the first to say this, read Yeghishé (410-470 AD): "If a nation is ruled by two kings, both the kings and their subjects will perish."
*
To ignore our prophets is bad enough; to cover up their prophecies is to pretend that history fell on us without warning, like a thief in the night.
#